MTG belongs on MTV

There are some things to admire about firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, sometimes dubbed “MTG.” After earning a Business degree from the University of Georgia, she and her then-husband took over her father’s contracting business. She quit in a few years and began serious CrossFit training and co-founded a CrossFit gym. After becoming interested in politics, she won a seat in the House of Representatives.

It goes downhill from there. She ran for Congress as a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, and won, but he didn’t return the favor; he did not endorse her.

Along the way, she has falsely claimed that AOC is not a legitimate Representative because she was sworn in on the Quran; she took a couple hundred thousand dollars in COVID money for her little contractor company; she says the Jan. 6 rioters were actually Antifa agents in disguise – even as she expressed support for them.

She has questioned whether school shootings were staged; she refers to her critics as “Pharisees”; she said “I don’t believe in evolution, I believe in God” as if people who believe in one cannot believe in the other.

She suggested that the California wildfires may have been caused by “what looked like lasers or beams of blue light” that were delivered by “solar space generators” involving a conspiracy of Jewish companies. She thinks mass immigration to Europe from Muslim countries is being orchestrated by “Zionists” to undermine Western culture.

In amusing malapropisms, she has referred to Capitol policemen as the “Gazpacho”, and referred to a petri dish as a “peach tree dish.”

She was censured by her own party for calling fellow conservative Representative Lauren Boebert “a little bitch.” (Her evolution-denying “God” could not be reached for comment on that tidbit.)

It’s not just her assault on decorum and language.

It’s that her histrionics get in the way of her job. That job is to govern. She’s the antithesis of governance. She is unable to govern even herself or her mouth.

She was instrumental is forcing out House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for daring to get real legislation accomplished by – shudder! – making political compromises with the other side. This is in the House where Republicans hold a majority of only a few seats. Then she was a ring leader in the ensuing circus to replace him.

Now she has made a motion to oust McCarthy’s replacement for the same sin of compromising with the Democrats to get things done that need to get done. She does these things not quietly behind closed doors where she might find common ground with those she disagrees with, but in front of cameras and bright lights.

The latest is her loud opposition to foreign aid bills for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. She insists that any aid be tied to money to secure the southern border.

To be sure, aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan are debatable policies. I personally favor all three, but I tend to come from the peace-through-strength camp and not the isolationist camp. But the isolationist camp has a legitimate case. That’s why we debate such things.

And I certainly favor securing the border. Illegal immigration is inhuman to the immigrants and destructive to America.

But tying money for securing the border, to foreign aid, is wrong for at least two reasons.

First, they have very little to do with one another. The people who seek to tie them together say “we should secure our own border before helping other countries secure theirs.” That’s catchy but they might just as well say, “We should secure the border before we send out Social Security checks” or “We should secure the border before we spend another dime on soldier salaries.

We can do all those things. It’s not one or the other. Holding one hostage to another is not constructive. It simply thwarts both – we wind up with an unsecure border and betraying our allies.

It’s like saying “I’ll hold my breath and shut down government unless I get my way 100%. It’s government by temper tantrum.

The second reason that tying foreign aid to securing the border is foolish is that the unsecure border has little to do with Congressional funding and everything to do with Joe Biden and the Democrat-controlled immigration apparatus. Congress could appropriate a trillion dollars to secure the border, but nothing will change until we have a president who will take the necessary actions – most of which would not cost money, but save money.   

OK, let’s stipulate that today’s Congress is not known for its eloquence or erudition. For example, there’s the guy (who, like MTV, is from Georgia) who expressed concern in testimony by a Navy admiral that American buildups at a military base on Guam might tip the island over.

(The Admiral refrained from laughing out loud. He instead paused and replied dryly “We don’t anticipate that.” Such self-control is why he’s an Admiral and his questioner was just a Congressman.)

Then there’s the Senator who challenged a person testifying at hearing to “stand your butt up” for the purpose of, apparently, a fistfight (or maybe to dance The Bump).

MTG falls closer to the Guam-tipper and the stand-your-butt-up Bump guy than to that Admiral. In fact, I’ll bet she dances a mean Bump.

Since this story has now taken us to the dance floor, I suggest that it’s time for yet another career change. MTG should go to MTV. She could call herself MTG/V and make music videos. Her career change might get her the attention she craves, and might get us a replacement representative to work on the governing we need.

Iran humiliates itself

After months of saber-rattling, the “death-to-Israel” crowd in Tehran (an affiliate of the “death-to-America” crowd in Dearborn) finally made good on their threat to attack Israel.

The Mullah Maniacs launched something over 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles toward Tel Avi. (Notably, none of these aircraft were piloted – even the Iranians are not that stupid.)

The Israelis along with Americans, Brits and other allies shot down 99% of them. The other 1% caused hardly any damage. No deaths or even injuries were reported.

It turns out the Iranian war machine is at about the level of . . .  those sabers they were rattling. Which are notoriously ineffective from a thousand miles away.

Like the dismembered knight in the Monty Python skit, the Iranians tried to spin the failure into a great success. It was “beyond expectations,” they crowed.

They may not be able to wage war, but they sure can manage their expectations.

As a strategic and public opinion matter, the Iranian air farce was indeed beyond expectations. They could not have expected their attack to be wholly thwarted by the Israelis. They could not have expected their attack to be such a moral booster to the Israeli military and citizenry.

They could not have expected their attack to consolidate public opinion in favor of Israel in civilized societies around the world. They could not have expected their attack to prompt some of those societies – and not just America – to join Israel in defeating the attacks.

They could not have expected their attack to reveal to the rest of the Middle East the pathetic inferiority of the Iranian war machine. If you’re Saudi Arabia or Egypt, which side do you want to be on?

The barbarians of the Middle East are tough in a surprise massacre of unarmed children and elderly women. Against the Israeli Defense Forces, not so much.

Biden’s pandering to a few terrorist sympathizers drives away millions of other voters

In 2020, about five and a half million people voted in Michigan. Biden won by about 155,000 votes.

Of those five and a half million who voted in Michigan, about 145,000 were Muslim. About 100,000 of them voted for Biden.

Those 100,000 Michigan Muslims are now making a stink. They’re unhappy that Biden is permitting Israel to finish the war that Palestinian terrorists started on October 7. They demand that Biden pressure Israel into a cease fire that would leave the terrorists free to murder, rape, behead, burn alive, and terrorize another day – and another year and another decade.

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Excusing atrocities by Palestinians because they have dark skin is wrong and racist

Everyone has read the reports by now. On Oct. 7, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza called Hamas launched a surprise invasion of Israel. They shot, tortured, raped, beheaded and abducted every Jew they could find. Most were women, children and babies.

Over 1,200 Jews died, and countless more were injured. It was a Jewish pogrom, right out of the Middle Ages. The perpetrators filmed their gruesome bloodbath and gleefully posted it on the internet.

Hamas also took about 200 hostages back to the underground tunnels of Gaza, where they’ve been using them as human shields, trading them for Hamas terrorists captured by Israel, and torturing them to death.

Outrage is the world’s rightful response to this sick and sadistic massacre.

But not everyone feels that way. Ordinary Palestinians don’t feel that way at all. Polls show that 70-80% of the Palestinians in Gaza support the massacre.

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This Halloween, ask yourself “What am I celebrating?”

It’s all fun and games till they start beheading babies

I liked Halloween as a boy because, even then, I was a cheapskate. I loved getting candy, and I loved even more getting it for free.

When I was about 11, my three siblings came down with the flu. Oddly, I didn’t. I went out trick-or-treating alone till about 10:30, way past my bedtime, while my sister and brothers languished at home praying to the porcelain god.

I took in quite a haul. Two full bags. Probably today’s equivalent of a couple hundred dollars’ worth of candy. 

I was afraid that night. Not of goblins or ghosts. No, I was afraid that my sibs would steal some of my hard-earned free candy. I ate as much as I possibly could, and then some more, but there was still an overflowing bag of the sugary crap. To guard it from my ill siblings, I put it right next to my bed.

That night, the flu, the candy, and the fates, caught up with me. I turned on my side and projectile-puked right off the bed into – you already guessed it – the candy bag.

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The Western Wall

DSC01970Muslims have the Taj Mahal and Mecca. Catholics have St. Peter’s Basilical and the Vatican.

Jews have a wall.

The Western Wall is a stack of massive stone blocks a few dozen feet high and a couple of hundred feet long. It’s all that’s left of Jerusalem’s second Jewish temple, a structure that astonished even the Romans. The Romans destroyed it to punish the Jews for their Great Revolt in 70 A.D.

That wasn’t the first time. It’s called the “second” temple because it replaced Solomon’s temple, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians six centuries earlier.

For millennia, this fragment of the second temple has been sacred to Jews, reminding them of their culture, their religion, their diaspora, their return and their faith that someday there will be a third temple.

I visited the Western Wall a few Fridays ago, just in time for Continue reading