Tag Archives: politics

Maybe we should pay bad parents money to be sterilized

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A good part of a person’s success in the game of life is a product of nature and nurture – his genes and the parenting he received. People who were unlucky enough to receive bad genes, or bad parenting, or both, tend to be unsuccessful.

Tragically for America, these people who are unsuccessful at life are the very people who are disproportionately successful at having babies. Those babies tend to inherit their parents’ bad genes and learn their bad parenting.

When those babies grow up (or, often, just partially grow up) they, like their parents, are unsuccessful at life but disproportionately successful at having babies. Those babies, in turn, wind up short-changed by both nature and nurturing.

What I’ve just described already takes us through three generations. In the end, there’s no end. We’ve set up a vicious and expanding cascade of poverty and failure.

The effect is a policy of survival – and propagation – of the un-fittest. Charles Darwin would predict adverse consequences for our species.

Before you take offense, I hasten to add that general rules often are riddled with exceptions. I grew up in in a family of six with modest means. We all turned out OK. But the fact that it sometimes rains in the desert doesn’t disprove the general rule that deserts are dry.

The welfare state makes it all the worse. This was recognized as early as 1965 by intellectuals such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the future Democrat Senator from New York back when the Democratic Party sometimes produced rigorous thinking rather than identity politics. Moynihan’s work focused on poor Black families but it’s not a Black issue per se; it’s a poverty issue.

Moynihan criticized social welfare policies where we pay unsuccessful people to have unsuccessful babies to propagate their failure at life, thereby amplifying this vicious cascade of poverty.

The more babies they have, the more money we pay them. Then their babies have babies, and we’re off to the races.

Perhaps our policy should be exactly the opposite. Perhaps we should discourage unsuccessful people from having unsuccessful babies.

A smart start to getting out of this hole would be to stop digging. We should stop paying unsuccessful people to propagate. To that end, eliminate the $3,000 child tax credit.

Then go a step further. Pay people not to have babies. A simple way to accomplish that would be to pay them to undergo sterilization.

That sounds cruel, but is it really? If “my body my choice” justifies people aborting unborn babies because they’re inconvenient, then surely it justifies people accepting money to prevent the babies’ conception. For gosh sakes, the manufacturers of condoms accept money to prevent the conception of babies.

Moreover, many if not most of the babies these people have are utterly unplanned. If it’s cruel to prevent unwanted pregnancies, then why haven’t we outlawed those condoms – along with birth control pills, the rhythm method, premature withdrawal, abstinence and chastity?

I recognize that courts are wary of government measures that produce sterilization. Courts might view a system where the government pays people taxpayer money conditioned on them being sterilized as tantamount to the government sterilizing them involuntarily.

So don’t do it through the government. Let foundations and philanthropists administer the system with private funds. A foundation or a rich guy (Elon, do you hear me?) could say, “Here’s $3,000 for anyone under 50 who wants to get sterilized. And we’ll pay the medical bills, too.”

The people that we want not to have babies would find that offer tempting, because $3,000 is a lot of money to those people. But the people we want to have babies would not find that offer tempting, because that’s not a lot of money to them.

Over time, we just might reduce the population of undesirables (not to be confused with deplorables).

You might ask, what about America’s fertility crisis? Yes, it’s a fact that American (and European) birthrates are less than what’s required to maintain the current populations. And so, the argument goes, we should provide incentives for people to procreate.

That argument is premised on the notion that when it comes to people, the more the better. I question that notion, especially when I’m forced to endure crowded freeways, crowded hiking trails, and crowded crowds.

We have eight billion of us. Is that not enough? I don’t know about you, but I rarely think, “Gee, I wish there were more people here.”

From a pure financial perspective, it’s true that an ever-increasing population is necessary to continue our Ponzi scheme called Social Security, where we need more and more workers to support more and more retirees who live longer and longer (though the effects of rationed medical care – which seems inevitable and already encroaching upon us – will partially solve that problem).

I submit that the way to fix the Ponzi scheme of Social Security is not to produce infinitely expanded pools of young suckers to support it, but to phase out the scheme. Like all Ponzi schemes, it’s unsustainable. We cannot increase our population forever to produce an ever-increasing pool of hard-working suckers to support an ever-increasing number of long-lived retirees. At some point, we run out of space, resources and suckers.

Even if the number of suckers we breed to support the burgeoning population of retirees is sufficient in quantity, they are apt to be insufficient in quality. How many generations of bad nature and nurture can a society withstand?

Minnesota Vikings are not changing their name to the Minnesota Somali Pirates – yet

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The Babylon Bee – America’s unofficial newspaper of record – said they are indeed, but it turns out to be satire.

I think.

The Bee’s piece was in the heavy wake of a story that Somalis in Minnesota bilked the government out of something like a billion dollars. I say “billion” not in the way I say “gazillion.” The figure is actually, literally – and by “literally” I don’t mean figuratively – something like . . . a billion dollars.

Their scheme was to send bills to the Minnesota state government for providing various forms of welfare relief to the public. It took off during Covid when the government all but legalized fraud because the best way to defeat a pandemic is to close the schools, print money, and drop it from helicopters.

Somali groups would set up phony organizations pretending to provide whatnot, from affordable housing to food for children, and send the government fake invoices for it.

Which the government happily paid.

There were lots of clues for a long time that the whole thing was a scam. The Wall Street Journal reports “The massive fraud was an open secret. Merrick Garland, who served as U.S. attorney general under Joe Biden, called it the largest pandemic-relief hustle in the nation” (emphasis added).

But this was Minnesota, full of “nice” Minnesotans and especially full of a governor who was very full of himself and fulsome aspirations. His name was Tim Walz, aka the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate.

Rather than pursuing the abundant clues and whispers – nay, the smoking guns and shouts – of fraud, Walz waltzed on, out of deference to a key Democrat constituency – Somalis.  

Today’s Somalis in America, you see, are the descendants of Somalians who were enslaved in America three hundred years ago and discriminated against ever since and so they deserve special favors like legalized fraud.

Well, no, that’s not quite right. Today’s Somalis in America arrived in just the last decade or two. They fled a bloody war-torn Somalia to come to American in order to earn a piece of the American Dream.

Well, no, that’s not quite right either. They fled a bloody war-torn Somalia, alright, but they came to America to be beneficiaries of the modern American welfare state which flowers in nice Minnesota.

Well, no, even that’s not quite right. They fled a bloody war-torn Somalia and came to America to rip us off – while accusing us of racism all the while.

Two lessons can be learned from this. The obvious one is that the modern welfare state is out of control. It all but begs to be ripped off. The people paying for the rip-off are you and me, and it’s not pennies – it’s billions.

The second lesson is more controversial. Here’s a good summary of it:

[R]adical Islam has shown that their desire is not simply to occupy one part of the world and be happy with their own little caliphate; they want to expand.  It is a – it’s revolutionary in its nature.  It seeks to expand and control more territories and more people. 

And radical Islam has designs, openly, on the West – on the United States, on Europe.  We’ve seen that progress there as well.  And they are prepared to conduct acts of terrorism – in the case of Iran, nation-state actions, assassinations, murders, you name it.  Whatever it takes for them to gain their influence and ultimately their domination of different cultures and societies. 

That’s a clear and imminent threat to the world and to the broader West, but especially to the United States, who they identify as the chief source of evil on the planet.  

That statement was by Secretary of State Marco Rubio (whose parents were legal Cuban immigrants) in a recent interview.

Americans like to think that their diversity is a strength, and, up to a point, it is. But that strong diversity consists of groups such as Protestants from England, Catholics from Italy, Huguenots from France, Amish from Switzerland, and Jews from Poland. It even consists of Buddhists from China and Hindus from India.

Something that all those groups have in common is tolerance for other religions and, mostly, tolerance for other cultures. The concept of “infidel” is foreign to these groups.

Muslims are often different. The concept of “infidel” is alive and strong in Islam. They’ve sought to conquer Europe since the seventh century, and nearly succeeded several times. Even now – maybe especially now – many publicly name-call America “the Great Satan.”

Even Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, the Soviet Union and today’s communist China never called us “the Great Satan.” We Americans are semi-amused by that moniker, but the Muslims flinging it are dead serious.

They see the indigenous religions and culture of their adopted nation as evil. That’s a clever feat since, after all, their culture and religion failed in the place they fled, they came here voluntarily, and we welcomed them – complete with their religion and culture that looks down on us. But that’s how they see our cultures, our religions, and us.

Maybe part of the reason for their contempt for us is that they see us as suckers.

Muslims therefore tend not to seek assimilation into American culture, a culture they despise. They seek, more than the Irish, more than the Asians, more than the Jews, to maintain their particular identity and distinct culture.

And to impose it on us.

We’ve already seen what happens when Islam reaches a critical mass in a Western nation, as it has in France and is nearing in England. Within our lifetimes, it is likely that the Notre Dame and St. Paul’s will be converted into mosques.

You think that’s ridiculous? Bear in mind that the first great Christian cathedral was in Constantinople – the incredible Hagia Sophia. When Constantinople fell to the Muslims, they eventually changed the name of the city to Istanbul but they immediately mutilated the Hagia Sophia into a mosque by ripping out the altar and burning the Christian crosses and all other Christian symbols and art. The Hagia Sophia remains a mosque to this day. (BTW, where’s the Pope on this?)

Muslims conquer and they convert, at the point of a sword if necessary, and sometimes even if not.

Like most Americans, it goes against my grain to think we should discriminate against a particular religion and particular regions of the world in deciding who can immigrate into our nation. But this is an exception, and a very important one.

Rubio is right. We ignore him at our peril.

Trump was right not to want a second strike

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The facts are still emerging through the fog of war (or is it the fog of law enforcement, or the fog of antiterrorism?). Sometimes people (including myself) draw conclusions on the basis of incomplete information, so let’s start with what’s really known.

Our military launched another missile attack on a drug-smuggling fast boat. The boat burst into flames and was dead in the water but did not immediately sink. On-scene surveillance showed that not all of the 11 crew members were killed. One or two men were seen moving in the water.

Unlike the footage of other fast boats being attacked by missiles, this footage has not been publicly released, but the facts in the preceding paragraph are undisputed.

A second missile strike was then ordered. It obliterated the wreckage of the boat and killed the two remaining survivors. That, too, is undisputed.

The mission was observed in real time by the Admiral in charge as well as his boss, the Secretary of War, in a room at the Pentagon. Both men saw the first missile strike.

The Secretary of War reports that he then left the room to attend another meeting. The second strike was then ordered by the Admiral who evidently believed he had authority from the Secretary of War.

Here’s where it gets foggy. One report says that the Secretary of War instructed the military in advance to “kill them all.” He denies saying that.

He did say afterward that he supports the Admiral’s ordering of the second strike, and went on to proclaim “the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”

What’s the President say? When asked about the appropriateness of the second strike, he said:

“[The Secretary of War] said he didn’t do it, so I don’t have to make that decision.”

In the hurley-burley of the impromptu press conference aboard Air Force One, it’s not clear what, exactly, the Secretary told the President he “didn’t do.” It can’t be that he told the President they “didn’t do” a second strike, because they clearly did. Maybe what the Secretary said he “didn’t do” was to be the one who ordered it, since he was no longer in the room, or maybe what he told the President he “didn’t do” was to order the military to “kill them all.”

Apart from that ambiguity – something to be hashed out between the Secretary and the President – the most important words from the President about the second strike were the following:

“I wouldn’t have wanted that – a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine.”

Personally, I’ve defended the policy of bombing the drug smuggling fast boats. It’s a close call, legally, but the drug problem in America is very serious.

In the legal profession, there’s an expression: Hard facts make for hard law. America’s drug problem is a hard fact, and dealing with it requires some hard laws.

For that reason, I reluctantly support bombing fast boats loaded with lethal drugs in order to stop the drugs from entering America. I admit, it seems they could instead be simply followed and apprehended when they reach our shores, but Presidents get a lot of latitude in these matters of foreign affairs. I’ll give him that latitude in view of the seriousness of our drug problems.

But launching a second missile after the first missile wrecked and incinerated the boat, just for the purpose of killing the helpless survivors of the first missile, is a quite different thing.

Suppose the military had boarded the boat and found the two wounded survivors, rather than firing a second missile. Does anyone seriously contend they would be justified in executing them on the spot with a gun to their heads? If not, then why are they justified in executing them with a second missile launched from a different spot?

I think the President was right. The first strike was enough to stop the boat. There was no need to launch a second missile to kill the two wounded survivors in the water. Those killings were not necessary to the mission.

There’s a word for unnecessary killings. It’s on the tip of my tongue . . .

Like the President, I have little sympathy for drug runners, and if they die in the course of their criminality we shed no tears. But the President also knows that to murder them as they flail wounded in the water, well, that would make him worse than them. No thanks.

Bombing defenseless civilians clinging to a blown-up boat is murder

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Credible reports are emerging on the latest shoot-fish-in-a-barrel episode in the Caribbean, where the force of the U.S. military is brought to bear on “fast boat” drug runners. For the record, I’ve supported these operations in the past.

A whistle-blower connected to the mission revealed that in this particular episode the boat and crew weren’t immediately vaporized. The initial missile strike destroyed the boat and killed nine on board, but the boat didn’t immediately sink. Two people were still alive in the water, wounded. The American military evidently saw from the air that the two men were alive.

The threat posed by this boat to American shores and American people was never imminent but was certainly real. Drugs kill, and they’ve recently killed more people than we’ve lost in highway deaths and gun shootings combined.

But the threat posed by this particular fast boat had ended. The boat was going nowhere.

The military had several options at that point. They could have simply went away. The effect would be to let the wounded go down with the boat or die of their wounds.

They could have rescued the wounded men and put them on trial for drug smuggling. Sure, the men were probably armed, and might have fought their rescuers – an apparent surrender can be an ambush. But that’s always a risk when taking a person prisoner. It’s one of the many risks that servicemen and women sign up for.

The mission leaders chose a third option. They conducted a “second strike” missile attack where they obliterated the already-disabled boat and killed the two wounded men who had survived the first strike.

That second strike was in direct violation of written Pentagon policy prohibiting attacks on shipwrecks where combatants on board are unable to fight.

I’ve defended these shooting-fish-in-a-barrel missions on the grounds that the law affords the President wide latitude in matters of foreign affairs. President Obama ordered lethal drone attacks on terrorists on foreign soil – including some who were American citizens, and I supported that as well. 

A President does not need a Declaration of War from Congress to take action to defend American interests. The last time Congress issued a Declaration of War was 1942. (Both wars against Iraq were approved by Congressional “resolutions” that fell short of a Declaration of War.)

So, the absence of express Congressional approval for these actions does not especially bother me. What bothers me is the circumstances of this particular episode.

Put aside the fact that there’s been no judicial adjudication that these drug runners are, in fact, drug runners. Threats to American shores do not always lend themselves to due process determinations by old judges in walnut paneled courtrooms a thousand miles away.

And put aside the fact that these drug runners who are being bombed seldom get to America – they go to intermediate points such as Mexico or Caribbean islands where their drug cargo is transferred to some other drug runner.

And put side the fact that while these drug runners are certainly wrongdoers who deserve punishment, they are hardly drug kingpins like El Chapo with nine-figure bank accounts. They’re typically impoverished fishermen or peasants looking for a five-figure payday. 

And put aside the fact that none of these fast boats has put up a fight. The crew are undoubtedly armed, but their arms are in the form of handguns, not surface-to-air missiles to deal with an F-16.

Put all that aside. It’s a close call, but I’m still willing to support the President in blowing up the drug runner boats. That’s not because I dismiss the gravity of doing so; in fact, it’s a matter of great gravity. Rather, it’s because I weigh that against the gravity of America’s drug problem.

Constitutional scholars are mixed on the legality of these fast-boat bombings.

But whatever the legality of a fast-boat bombing, making a second strike to kill the helpless wounded survivors – flailing in the water as they cling to their sinking boat – crosses a line. It’s in violation of Pentagon written policy, it’s a violation of the rules of war, it’s barbaric, it’s murder.

The President was understandably not aware of the situation in real time – he has other things on his agenda – but he said afterward that he would not have ordered the second strike.

The second strike was evidently on the direct orders of either the Secretary of War or an admiral in charge of the mission. Both were reportedly watching the mission live. The Secretary of War says the second strike was with his authority but he was out of the room when the order was given.

Either the admiral or the Secretary of War, or both, should resign or, in the case of the admiral, be court martialed. This cannot stand. It’s wrong.

Sadly, Republicans will be slaughtered in the 2026 midterms

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As a three-time Trump voter with no regrets, I don’t like this message any more than most of you. So don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger.

The message is the Republicans in next fall’s midterm elections will lose the House, bigly, and probably the Senate.

If politics is indeed “war by other means,” expect the political war next fall to be bloody. Think Battle of the Little Bighorn. Think Stalingrad. Think Pickett’s Charge. Think the Battle of Midway. Think Waterloo. It will be one-sided.

Oh, I know the President has done some terrific things – at great personal risk to himself, by the way – even if they were sometimes done unartfully.

Stopping illegal immigration is near the top of the list. His crude methods were probably by design but might have been by fortuitous accident. Either way, he sent a message that transcended language barriers: The United States of America doesn’t welcome illegal immigrants anymore, and illegals who come anyway may find themselves on a one-way flight to West Africa. Due process? Mayyyybe . . . .

As a result, illegal immigration is at the lowest point in decades. The southern border in particular is more like, well, a nation’s border. All this has produced some human pain. Fixing big problems that politicians tolerated and sometimes encouraged often has that effect.

In the Middle East, the President let the Israelis beat and batter the barbarians of Hamas and then brokered a quasi-peace between the two. Even better, he prevented a nuclear Iran/Israel war by handing the Persians their biggest defeat since the Battle of Marathon two and a half millennia ago.

On tariffs, however, the President got out of his depth. His tariffs were defensible as an economic matter, maybe, but not as a legal matter. He will lose when the Supreme Court issues its decision next Spring – perhaps in a 9-0 decision – and the Court signaled as much in oral arguments a couple of weeks ago. At best, the decision will be 7-2 against the President.

The unravelling of those tariffs, which will have been in effect illegally for as much as a year, will be messy and embarrassing for the administration.

Intangibles are the most notable things on the score card for this administration. On the plus side, the President has made “woke” a four-letter word. That’s more than a stylistic change. Wokeness and all that it entails – abolition of merit, obsession with skin color and sexual preferences, the euphemizing of language, ubiquitous victimization – was highly destructive to America and the world.

On the minus side, the President has shown a tendency to say or tweet what he thinks in a way that often and needlessly offends. The most recent example was when a reporter persisted in asking yet another follow-up question during a press conference. Most reporters are loathsome creatures, but they paid to ask – nay, shout – questions in that manner.

The President could have ignored the reporter, or rebuked her with something like “let’s move on.”

Instead, he barked “Quiet, piggy!”

That may not bother you but it does bother millions of Americans, particularly women. Such people vote.

Right now, approval surveys suggest that many of them are sufficiently turned off by these sorts of crude insults that their vote will be against the GOP next fall. The outcome of the special elections around the country a few weeks ago supports that conclusion.

Forget about peace in the Middle East, the solving of the immigration debacle, and the mixed outcome on tariffs. Because the people will forget about those things.

What many of them will remember is that they dislike the President on a personal level. People vote against people they dislike. Right now, a large and growing number of people dislike the President.

That’s a fundamental flaw in representative democracy, but it’s an unavoidable aspect of human nature. We’ll see the results next fall.

Now, before you bark “Quiet, piggy!” at me, remember: I’m just the messenger and just doing my job. (And in case you think it’s relevant, I’m 6’ tall and weigh 160 pounds.)

Democracy destroyed America

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“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule”
-Thomas Jefferson

The other Founders were similarly scornful of pure democracies. John Adams proclaimed:

“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy.

James Madison said:

“Pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention.”

Alexander Hamilton warned:

“Pure democracy is as much a fallacy as the idea of eternal vows and permanent alliances.”

Ah, you might say, but what about the democracy of ancient Athens?

I’m glad you brought that up. Athens was indeed a pure democracy in the sense that the people voted directly on matters of governance. But not all the people.

There was no vote for slaves, women, foreigners (meaning foreign to Athens), or people who had even one parent who was a foreigner. After all the winnowing down, only about 10-20% of adult Athenians had the right to vote.

Even that limited democracy of Athens was problematic. No less than Plato complained that “Democracy . . . is continually subject to the influence of demagogues and the passions of the multitude.”

Rome was more pragmatic in governance, as in everything else, and more successful. While Athens was never more than a city-state that faded in a couple hundred years, Rome expanded its empire to embrace about 60 million people – about a third of the population of the entire ancient world – and lasted nearly a thousand years.

It’s no coincidence that Rome was never a pure democracy, but was initially a quasi-republic. The people did not vote directly on matters of governance, but instead voted (sometimes) for representatives who made those decisions.

Rome eventually morphed from a republic into an empire ruled by an emperor, a transition precipitated by Julius Caesar. After conquering Gaul, he led his army east and then south, crossing the Rubicon River to invade Italy from the north – in defiance of the Senate – and journeying on to Rome to declare himself dictator. In Rome, there was enough popular adulation for the conquering hero that he got away with his coup for a while. His great nephew Augustus cemented the role of emperor, and Rome became greater than ever.

Eventually, nearly all of Europe became Roman, and also a good part of northern Africa and England. We still see the remnants of their incredible buildings and culture. Latin is the world’s biggest unspoken language and is the root of French, Spanish, Italian and a good part of English.

Fast forward a few empires, to the American one.  Benjamin Franklin was asked in the course of the Constitutional Convention what kind of government they were establishing. He famously answered, “A democracy, of course!”

Just kidding. His real answer was, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

They would be appalled by Americans today who pride themselves on tossing that republic into the ash bin of history. The people brag of being exactly what the founders feared – a “democracy.”

The Founders consciously sought to avoid that outcome by incorporating several basic buffers from the mob.

For one, the American mob doesn’t generally decide matters of governance. Rather, as in a republic, they vote for representatives who make those decisions. The thinking of the Founders was that informed gentlemen are more apt to make good decisions than passionate, uniformed mobs.

The Electoral College is another example of a buffer from the mob. Today, the Electoral College is a mere formality. In each state, they all vote for the presidential candidate that won the most votes in that state. But originally, the Electoral College was free to vote contrary to the majority of the state they represented, and they sometimes did. Again, the intent was to put a layer of sanity between the hoi polloi and the decisions of government.

Another buffer between informed decision-making and uninformed mob rule took the form of voting restrictions. As in Athens, women and slaves were not permitted to vote in early America. In the pre-Civil War south, that literally excluded a majority of the adults.

The Civil War of course abolished slavery and finally enfranchised former slaves and their descendants. But in the Jim Crow South, literacy tests were used to bar many Blacks from voting on the rationale that illiterate people lacked the necessary sophistication to vote.

In many states in early America, voting was prohibited unless the voter owned real property, the thinking being, again, that persons without property lacked the sophistication necessary to choose good representatives. Those prohibitions continued for about half a century.

Women were not enfranchised until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.

I personally am glad that we now allow voting by women, minorities and renters, though I’m not fond of renters.

But we’ve gone well beyond that. The Founders would be mortified to see the current trend toward what we champion as “democracy” and what those Founders would decry as mob rule.

For example, people are allowed to vote without presenting simple proof that they’re who they say they are.

They’re allowed to vote in many states even though they’re not citizens.

They’re often allowed to vote even though they’re dead.

They can vote multiple times – one time from their main residence, another time from their vacation home in a different state, and another time by mail.

They’re allowed to fill out ballots for their elderly grandmother, sign her name to it, and drop it off or mail it in. They can do that for as many grandmothers as ballots they can get their hands on.

This loosening of voting requirements coincides with a dumbing down of the voters. People are allowed to vote even though they graduated from public high schools in Democrat-controlled cities where they didn’t learn anything. In fact, they’re allowed to vote even though they graduated from no high school at all.

And even the ones who graduated from high school lack a basic education. A recent survey at the University of California at San Diego (ranked one of the leading universities in America) found that 25% of incoming freshmen cannot solve for X in the equation:

7 + 2 = X + 6

I wonder if they could solve for X in the equation:

7 + 2 = X + 2

Or the equation:

7 + 2 = X

Or the equation:

7 = X

These freshmen have no idea how many students make up 25% of the incoming class of 4,000. But I suspect they do know to label me a misogynist for using the term “freshmen.”

We can and should re-establish literacy tests for voting. They were outlawed generations ago on the grounds that they discriminated against illiterate Blacks, but today that objection is gone – we’re all illiterates now!

Is it any wonder that the state of the union is bad? We have a polarized government of mean girls (most of whom have penises) who don’t even try to solve problems. They just play to the mob that elects and reelects them.

And so, the minority party shuts down the government unless they get to act like they’re the majority party. They don’t really expect that to happen, but it’s great theater for a while for the mob in the nickel seats.

And there’s Epstein 24/7, as if anyone really needs to see the emails to know that Donald Trump’s relationship with a creep who exploited teenage girls might have been worth a whole chapter in The Art of the Deal.

And there’s a kooky Jew-hater who’s never had a job getting elected in a place that a kooky Black man once dubbed “Hymie-town” on a platform of arresting the Prime Minister of Israel and giving everyone free stuff paid for by the Jewish billionaires he’ll fleece on their way out of town.

And there’s a governor in California running for President on the platform “OMG, get a look at my hair!”

And 70% of the younger generation approve of socialism, while 45% disapprove and 17% aren’t listening to the survey question and 81% pick the New England Patriots by 7.

What’s the fate of our once-great republic now that it’s descended into mob rule?

History offers some lessons. Witness the mob of the French Revolution and the mob of the Weimar Republic. The path out of mob rule typically goes through despotism, and a lot of people get hurt.

Schumer failed, so his fascist comrades hung him from a lamp post

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The fascist who gave fascism its name came to an ugly end. Benito Mussolini was impaled on a meat hook and hung upside-down from a lamppost. Fascists don’t tolerate failure.

Democrat leader Charles Schumer is someone I don’t like, and I felt a certain schadenfreude when his Democrat “friends” blamed him for their caving on what has come to be called the “Schumer Shutdown” or, more accurately, the “Schumer Sh*tshow.”

But there’s something disquieting about the barrage of criticism from the left.

The gist of the criticism is that Schumer failed to keep all the Democrat Senators “in line.” In other words, he failed to coerce every Democrat to vote the way he told them to, despite his best efforts at coercion. At coercion, he failed.

Criticizing Schumer for failing at coercion says a lot about the criticizers. It says that they think other Democrats are Schumer’s subordinates, and he is supposed to be able to control their votes.

That sounds vaguely dictatorial to me.

It would come as news to the people of New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Illinois who elected these particular Democrats that the Senators they elected are required to vote not their conscience, and vote not for the interests of the people who elected them, but vote the way an old guy in New York tells them to.

It seems the left wing of the Democrat Party believes that the only acceptable vote for the rank and file is a vote for insanity and radicalism. When the Democrat leader tells his “subordinates” to vote for insanity and radicalism, then, by golly, that’s what they’re required to do, their conscience and their constituents be damned.

The predicament of the Democrat leader is even more precarious. It’s not enough for him to vote insanely and radically. He’s also supposed to succeed in coercing every other Dem into voting insanely and radically. Any failures in his coercion earn him a meat hook and a hanging.

Regardless of what it says on paper, regardless of Senate rules, regardless of the will of the people, the leftists in the Democrat Party have a tyrannical and bloodthirsty grip on the party.

Dems denuded without even a fig leaf

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We went to bed on Sunday and there was vague talk of a shutdown workaround. We wake up on Monday, and the Democrats have caved.

Analogies, anyone? If this were a boxing match, the Democrats didn’t come out of their corner for the 8th round. If it were a softball game, the ten-run rule got applied. If it were a war, they flew the white flag and laid down their arms. If it were wrestling, they tapped out.

If it were poker, they folded, though the time to fold ‘em was a month ago. They didn’t know when to walk away, and so now they have to run.

Feel free to add your own analogies. That’s what the comment section is for!

This all transpired because Democrats are the minority party in Congress at the moment. They consequently got outvoted on the tax bill last winter. Getting outvoted often happens to the minority party.

The Democrats’ solution to being outvoted as the minority party was to demand to be treated like the majority party, else they would shut down the government. They demanded a re-do of the tax bill, specifically the part that let expire the Obamacare insurance subsidies enacted as a temporary measure during COVID.

The Republicans’ reaction was, “Huh? Do you think that Democrats get to act like the majority party when they are, and also get to act like the majority party when they aren’t?”

It wasn’t hard for the Republicans to call that bluff.

After the biblical 40 days and 40 nights, give or take, and over a dozen votes blocked by the Democrats, eight of the 43 Democrat Senators finally broke ranks Sunday evening and voted to re-open the government.

The stock market cheered. Food stamp recipients rejoiced. Federal workers felt relieved. Holiday travelers were glad.

Democrats fumed.

Now there’s a civil war in the Democratic party. By the media reports, it sounds like the biggest one since Democrats quit America a century and a half ago to continue holding in chains some of the men God created equal.

In the resolution to both civil wars, the Democrats got hardly anything in the bargain.

At least this time, Atlanta didn’t get torched.

But Chuck Schumer did. Imagine Schumer stark naked with only a fig leaf, surrounded by ravenous dog-like Democrats looking for someone to blame. Now take away the fig leaf and let loose the dogs.

That’s the Democrat Party right now. It ain’t pretty.

Democrats’ naïve view of Islamists: “They’re just like me! They hate America!”

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Democrats have gone full Islam. On the surface, that’s a bit peculiar. When you dig deeper, it’s downright weird. But as always, there’s a cause for this particular effect.

Let’s start with the peculiar part. Islamists tend to be religious, much as Christians, Buddhists and Hindus (and, for that matter, atheists, who often disbelieve with a blind religious fervor). 

In contrast, Democrats tend not to be religious. They’re simple vanilla agnostics. Go down to Starbucks. Ask one whether he believes in God. His response would be along the lines of, “Umm, I’m kinda in-between . . . it all depends . . . what I do know is I don’t believe in America . . .” And then he’d drift back to his double latte sprinkled with fresh pumpkin seeds.

Now, try to imagine that wishy-washy but unwashed and wish-less agnosticating procrastinating prognosticator with the man-bun sipping a double latte sprinkled with pumpkin seeds . . . embracing Islam.

Well, not exactly embracing Islam, with which there’s not necessarily anything wrong, but embracing Islamists, with whom there is.

You see, I distinguish between Islam and Islamists. About Islam, I know very little. I do know that, like most religions, it was invented by barbarians and so there’s undoubtedly some rough spots in its scriptures. I’m sure there’s eye-for-an-eye stuff, animal sacrifice rituals, and cruel tests of torment.

In most religions, the barbaric stuff got watered down over time. As people advanced, the believers shifted their focus toward the kinder, gentler aspects of their religion. They shifted toward loving thy neighbor, and away from goat sacrifices.

That could have been the path of Islam, if only we’d had different Islamists. The Islamists we do have seem stuck in the 9th century – which was not a particularly enlightened time.

That brings us to the weird part. The beliefs of these Islamists stuck in the 9th century are, by today’s mostly-civilized standards, downright weird.

They believe shoplifters should have their hands cut off. They believe adulterous women should be stoned to death. They believe gays should be thrown off rooftops. They believe infidels (meaning non-Muslims) should be beheaded, raped, tortured, burned alive, murdered and taken hostage to use as currency to free terrorists.  

They believe it is right, joyful and heroic to fly airplanes into tall buildings.

I know Democrats have fallen far in the last generation but they still didn’t have those things in their party platform, even in 2024 when they ran a half-baked, half-assed, half-wit.

That’s why it’s downright weird that the Democrats have embraced not Islam, about which they know nothing, but Islamists, about which they know quite a lot – and none of it is good.

But it all makes sense. Despite the peculiarity and weirdness of this outcome, it all makes sense in a perverted sort of way.

Democrats perceive, correctly, that Islamists see America as their enemy. Indeed, Islamists see all of Western culture as their enemy.

And so do Democrats.

If America is the enemy of Islamists, and is also the enemy of Democrats, that makes Islamists the friends of Democrats – or at least the allies.

Of course, Islamists and Democrats hate America for entirely different reasons. Islamists hate America because it’s not an Islamist theocracy, while Democrats hate America because it’s not a communist dictatorship.

But that’s just a detail, say the Democrats. They’ll figure out how to share the spoils of this war against America once they win it.

That’s the part where Democrats might not have thought things through. Islamists will be in no mood for sharing.

Democrats will end the filibuster when they’re back in power, so Republicans should end it now

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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY)

The Senate filibuster is an odd rule. It says 60 votes out of the 100 Senators are necessary to end debate on a piece of proposed legislation.

Absent those 60 votes, the legislation never gets put to a vote. The effect is that it takes not just a majority of the Senate – 51 votes out of 100 – to pass legislation. It takes a supra-majority of 60.

The filibuster rule is not in the Constitution. In fact, it’s not even in a statute. It’s simply a rule dreamed up by the Senate. In various forms, it goes back to the 19th century, and has been tweaked many times since then.

The original idea behind the filibuster was this: If Senators want to keep debating some proposed legislation, then – politicians being politicians – they should. Talk is not just cheap, but good, and so more talk is better.

But – politicians being politicians again – they soon abused their right to talk. Filibusters became not a way to keep talking about legislation, but a way to kill it. Legislation supported by 59 Senators, which typically meant Senators from both parties, could be killed by just 41 senators opposing it.

The result has been the occasional paralysis of the Senate. Controversial legislation cannot get passed unless it falls within one of the limited exceptions to the filibuster rule.

This outcome frustrated Democrats a few years ago, because it enabled the Republicans to stop the confirmation of a few of the controversial federal judges nominated by Barack Obama. Republicans didn’t stop all confirmations, mind you, but only the ones they especially disliked. Obama still got  the great majority of his judges confirmed, and we still see them in action.

This filibustering of judicial nominations did not start with the Republicans, of course. Democrats were at least as adept at the practice and, arguably, were the ones to start the practice.  

For example, a brilliant and highly qualified nominee by George W. Bush name Miguel Estrada was filibuster by the Democrats. And then again. And again, and again. And again, and again. and again.  

Seven times, the Democrats filibustered Miguel Estrada.

When the Republicans repaid the filibustering favor, it didn’t sit well with the Democrats. The Democrat Senate leader was a sleazy old battle ax named Harry Reid who served in, or at least enjoyed, the Senate for 30 years and mysteriously amassed a fortune doing so. He threatened to, and did, abolish the filibuster for ordinary judicial nominations. From that time forward, it took only 51 Senators to break a filibuster on ordinary judicial nominations.

You might reasonably ask how he got the 60 votes to abolish the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

Here’s where it gets curious. It takes 60 Senators to overcome a filibuster on proposed legislation, but it takes only 51 to change the Senate rules allowing for filibusters. And so, with a simple majority, Senator Reid jammed through his change to the rule requiring a supra-majority to confirm a judicial nominee, to require only a simple majority.

The Republicans warned Senator Reid and his Democrat colleagues that they would regret abolishing the filibuster. They warned that someday the tables would be turned, and it would be the Republicans who would take advantage of the power to confirm judicial nominations with a bare majority of 51 Senators, rather than the traditional 60 Senators.

That’s what happened, in spades. Senator Reid abolished the filibuster for judicial nominations with the exception of Supreme Court nominations. In 2017, the Republicans saw his bid and raised him.

President Trump had the opportunity to nominate three Supreme Court Justices in his first term to replace conservative and liberal Justices who died in office, and a moderate Justice who retired.

Unsurprisingly, President Trump nominated three conservatives. Unsurprisingly, the Democrats went ballistic and promised to filibuster. Unsurprisingly, the Republicans took the natural step of abolishing the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, just as the Democrats had for lower court nominations. Unsurprisingly, all three were confirmed by Republican Senate majorities (even though the Democrats shamelessly defamed Justice Kavanaugh).

Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court is now 6-3 conservative, and will remain conservative for the foreseeable future.

This 6-3 conservative Supreme Court has been a key component to President Trump’s power. On political cases, the outcome is generally (not always) five or six conservatives to four or three liberals.

Which brings us to the government “shutdown.” Of course, the government is not shut down, but the word “shutdown” generates clicks for click-baiting whores that comprise today’s media, and so that’s the term they use – together with the suggestion that it’s all the fault of the Republicans because they refuse to un-do the tax bill that was passed last spring.

But that’s just an excuse. The real reason for the “shutdown” is that the Democrat leader, Now York’s Charles Schumer, is panicking that a loony Democrat woman with initials for a name will challenge him in a primary and defeat his ambition to stay in the Senate well into his 80s. He’s in need of loony lib cred in a state that prizes such stuff. (See, e.g. Zohran Mamdani.)

And so, the Democrats have filibustered the legislation to keep the government open a dozen times.

In ordinary times, the rank-and-file Democrats would go along with Schumer’s selfish shutdown scheme, for about as long as they can say those four words fast.

But in today’s political climate, even rank-and-file Democrats oppose practically everything Trump proposes, just because it’s Trump who proposes it. When the leftist base of the Democrats demand brave “resistance” to Trump, the rest of the Democrats willing grovel in compliance to show their bravery.

The Republicans could thwart the Democrats and end the shutdown in hours by taking a simple majority vote, a la Harry Reid, to suspend the filibuster. They wouldn’t even have to abolish it. They could do a one-time suspension of it. With 53 of the 100 Senators being Republican, that one-time suspension should pass.

By the way, if the Republicans were to abolish the filibuster for everything, not just as a one-time exercise, then they could run roughshod over the Democrats for at least the next year until the 2026 mid-term elections.

I like the idea of running roughshod over Democrats who are “bravely” groveling to their crazy leftist base.

Ah, you say, but then the Democrats would turn the tables against the Republicans next time the Democrats have a majority of the Senate.

Yes, they will.

But they will do that whether the Republicans suspend the filibuster now or not. These are Democrats, by golly. Do you expect them to abide by the filibuster later just because the Republicans do now? Do you expect them to play fair?