Glenn K. Beaton is a writer and columnist living in Colorado. He has been a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, RealClearPolitics, Powerline, Instapundit, Citizen Free Press, American Thinker, Fox News, The Federalist, and numerous other print, radio and television outlets. His most recent book is "High Attitude — How Woke Liberals Ruined Aspen"
In what is already being called “The 12-Day War,” the bad guys have surrendered.
It took a bit longer than its namesake, The Six-Day War, but it was every bit as heroic. Israel beat an opponent that outnumbered it nine to one. An opponent that was on the verge of nuclear weapons to make good on its decades-old threat to obliterate Israel from the River to the Sea. An opponent that has fomented terrorism throughout the Mideast. An opponent that militarily, financially and logistically supported the horrible October 7 pogrom, a slaughter of unspeakable cruelty.
This time, Israel got some help in the end. Only one country on earth is willing to publicly ally itself with the Land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Fortunately for Israel and the world, that country is the United States of America, a country still armed with the most powerful military in history – a country that is still the arsenal of democracy.
Israel pilots (the second best in the world), Israeli intel, and Israeli stones did the dirty work of neutralizing the Iranian air defenses.
Then, it was the U.S. of A. that destroyed the Iranian nuke sites with stealth bombers that Iran never saw coming and couldn’t have intercepted if they had, carrying bunker-buster bombs that went half way to China. (Are you listening, China?)
In a face-saving move of retaliation, Iran then lobbed a few missiles toward an American air base. Although there was no danger of them hitting their target, Iran made sure by phoning in an advance warning.
The Democrats and the Never-Trumpers have been waiting and praying for a catastrophe for 12 days now. Sadly for them but happily for the world, it seems there won’t be one. But they will continue to hope.
OK, it’s not technically a surrender by Iran. It’s merely a permanent cease fire. Technically, it’s possible that Iran could restart hostilities if they decide they’d like another dose.
I’m betting against that.
I’m also betting that Slo Joe and Kamala-lala would not have had the stones or the brains to pull this off. For that matter, I’m not sure George W. Bush or Richard Nixon would have.
President Trump did.
I admit that I’ve had my issues with Donald Trump. In fact, I recently expressed doubt that he would follow through on Iran. I’ve had other issues with him, as well.
But on balance I’ll take him over any of the alternatives. That – and this – is why I voted for him three times. God bless him.
You’ll recall that a federal judge in California ruled against Trump in the dispute over his use of the National Guard to protect federal buildings in Los Angeles from rioters who demand a permanent open border.
That judge happened to be the 83-year-old semi-retired little brother of 86-year-old liberal retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
Big Brother must have been so proud.
First, a word about federal judges that most people are not aware of. Federal judges can go on “Senior Status” as they get old. That means they get full pay and benefits including perks such as secretaries, beautiful offices, and young and attractive law school graduates to do their research and listen to their genuflections.
Oh, and a palatial courtroom for their exclusive use (though it sits empty 90% of the time), a fancy black robe, and a guy to shout “ALL RISE” when they walk in. (You’re supposed to remain standing until the judge mutters, “Be seated.” That’s one of many, many things they don’t teach in law school, but you quickly learn it on the job.)
These Senior Status judges are expected to do a bit of work. But only as much work as they feel like doing. They can work 35 hours a week, or 15. Unlike ordinary judges, they can turn down any case. The cases they turn down go back into the hopper to be assigned randomly to another judge.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that most federal cases are very boring matters. Senior Status judges turn them down left and right.
Did I mention that they get full pay, benefits and perks fit for a king including a guy to shout “ALL RISE”?
It’s a good gig. So much so that in the federal district covering Colorado, for example, 9 of the 17 judges have elected “Senior Status.” In other words, over half of the federal District Court judges in Colorado are part-time but receiving full pay, benefits and perks.
There was a day when federal District Court judges didn’t exploit Senior Status. After all, they had to share the elevator and lunchroom with full-time colleagues who were tasked with the boring cases that the Seniors had turned down. And they were cognizant of the financial burden they and their entourage and appurtenances imposed on taxpayers.
That day seems to have passed.
Back to California. The Little Brother who ruled against Trump in the federal District Court there has been on “Senior Status” for the last 14 years. As a Senior Status judge, Little Brother could have turned down this case. He didn’t. He took it, heard it, and issued a decision against Trump.
Ah, but not all is lost. Even this case is not lost. The Trump administration appealed Little Brother’s order. Unfortunately, the appeals court covering Little Brother’s district court is the liberal Ninth Circuit. But fortunately, the liberal Ninth Circuit overturned Little Brother’s order. Trump won his appeal.
Appeals are heard by a three-judge panel of appellate judges selected at random from the sitting judges of that circuit. Trump was very lucky in that two of the three were Trump appointees. Before you conclude that the fix was in for Trump, be aware that the third was a Biden appointee and he, too, ruled in favor of Trump.
The decision was not a close call. The appellate judges noted that the President does not have wholly unfettered authority to call out the National Guard – there are statutes limiting that – but in general the President is entitled to some deference.
In this particular case, there was rioting in the streets. That’s enough.
The case now could be re-heard by the Ninth Circuit in an “en banc” hearing of 11 appellate judges randomly selected from the 29 active appellate judges in the Circuit.
Then, or even before then, the losing party can appeal to the Supreme Court where six of the nine Justices are Republican appointees. It’s likely that Trump will win there.
Apart from the merits or demerits of this particular case, here’s the point I want to make. The American federal judiciary still works.
It’s true that some of the judges don’t work as well, or as hard, as they could, or they should, but as a general rule they do indeed work in every sense of the word. Virtually all of them are very bright men and women with outstanding credentials, though some are too old for the job.
One more related point. The inflammatory allegation that federal court judges are “bought off” or otherwise corrupt is utterly unsubstantiated and, in my personal experience, unfounded. Despite the abuse of Senior Status, and despite the age-related limitations of some judges, never once in my career did I see the slightest evidence of corruption in any of them.
Justice Breyer’s Little Brother may be an ideologue, and that’s bad, but there’s no evidence that he’s corrupt. There’s a remedy when a judge is an ideologue. It’s called an appeal. It works.
Glenn Beaton practiced law in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.
This war has been distinctly one-sided so far. It’s been all Israel and no Iran.
But we won’t know for days or weeks how successful the Israeli Defense Forces were in their main objective of disabling Iran’s nuclear weapon program.
Israel says it intends to pound Iran for two weeks. If that pounding entails anything like the strikes yesterday which involved about 200 aircraft, and if Iran’s air defenses don’t improve (in fact, they are apt to deteriorate even more from the bombings) then Iran could be crippled for decades.
I’m all for it. But here are some known unknowns:
First, Iran might already have nukes. We think that’s not the case, but, as everyone now knows, that thought is only as good as our intel on the matter. When it comes to intel, remember Russiagate? Remember Hunter’s laptop? I’m betting that the Mossad has better intel operations than we do, but that bet is no sure thing.
Let’s assume the intel on Iran’s development of nukes is accurate – that they’re still weeks away from enriching uranium to bomb-level enrichment concentrations.
That doesn’t mean Iran doesn’t have a bomb. There are thousands of nukes in the world, held by bad guys that are friendly to Iran because Iran is hostile to the west. That includes North Korea, Russia, China, Pakistan and India on some days. Nothing would stop one or more of those bad guys from simply flying or trucking a nuke over to Tehran, especially if Iran paid them some real money to do so.
The explosion from a nuclear bomb is all out of proportion to its size. A bomb that fits in an ordinary truck – not even a semi – could easily take out Tel Aviv.
Ah, you say, but Iran lacks the hardware to mount this bomb-in-a-truck onto one of their thousands of ballistic missiles. So how would they deliver their bomb-in-a-truck to Tel Aviv?
In the truck.
The Ukrainians delivered truckloads of drones thousands of miles across Russia. Surely a single truck could be smuggled into Israel and parked in a storage unit in Tel Aviv.
Nukes are most destructive if they are detonated a few hundred feet above the ground. So, this bomb-in-a-truck detonated in a storage facility in Tel Aviv would be only, say, 30% as destructive as it could have been if detonated a few hundred feet in the air.
It could still easily take out Tel Aviv.
Ever since I was an aerospace engineer for Boeing, I’ve been puzzled by the inordinate interest in bomb delivery vehicles. Cruise missiles can deliver a warhead across a thousand miles of complicated terrain by flying a few feet off the ground – under radar detection. That’s marvelous, I thought, but why don’t we just rent a U-Haul?
I assume (though I was never privy to such information even when I had a security clearance from Boeing) that we did indeed rent U-Hauls, and so did the Soviets. I assume that we had nukes tucked into strategic locations across the Soviet Union, and they similarly had nukes tucked into strategic locations across the U.S. I assume that Russia took over control of those nukes when the Soviet Union fell, as they took over the rest of the Soviet Union’s nukes. I assume that China, similarly, has nukes residing in the U.S.
It would be military malpractice not to. I’m afraid that the answer to the question I asked myself at Boeing – why don’t we just rent a U-Haul? – is, “Because Boeing doesn’t make U-Hauls.”
The million-dollar question is, does Iran have a nuke – or access to the detonator of a nuke – in Tel Aviv? We’ll probably know one way or another within days.
In a life prior to law school, Glenn Beaton was an aerospace engineer for Boeing.
President Trump enjoys campaigning. The first campaign was in 2016 when he criticized the ill-advised deal that Obama had struck with Iran the year before.
Under that deal, Iran promised not to develop nukes – but only for a few years. Moreover, the inspection requirements were toothless, and Iran began violating them immediately by continuing its nuke program.
Trump rightly called that deal “a disaster” and “the worst deal ever” (which is saying quite a lot when it comes to deals made by Obama). After he was elected in 2016, Trump cancelled the deal.
And Iran continued its nuke program.
Trump’s second campaign was in 2020 when he promised that “as long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Trump lost the election.
And Iran continued its nuke program.
Trump’s third campaign was in 2024 when he declared that if elected, he would exert “massive, maximum pressure” on Iran to end its nuclear program. He won that election.
And Iran continues its nuke program.
Trump’s “massive, maximum pressure” has not included new sanctions on Iran, even while the United States Senate is considering bipartisan bills to impose those sanctions whether Trump likes it or not.
Trump’s fourth campaign is ongoing as you read this. He seems unconcerned that there’s no election going on; campaigning is what he does. Tweets, anyone?
When it comes to Iran, his campaigning substitutes for governing. Tough talk substitutes for tough action – or even moderate action.
Even the tough talk gets watered down. A couple of weeks ago, Trump announced that he was “very close” to a new deal with Iran, as if he could close the gap with wishes and charm.
On Wall Street, stock traders evaluating the tariffs have an acronym. It’s “TACO,” which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out. In the face of a stock market rout, the tariffs Trump announced in April have quietly been withdrawn or at least re-drawn.
Note that Wall Street doesn’t say “TACO” as a political attack. They’re in the business of making money, not the business of politics. They say “TACO” in the same way they say, “Buy low, sell high.” It’s a truism.
Wall Street’s smart money has probably judged Trump correctly; being correct is why they’re on Wall Street while you and I are just on Main Street.
And so, we should expect a similar chickening out by Trump with respect to the Iranians. The Iranians themselves certainly do.
There will be a deal, alright. Trump will compromise to the point that it will be much the same as the 2015 deal that Obama struck. There will be promises by the Iranians, again, but no real teeth in the deal to enforce those promises, again. And there will be a zillion-dollar payment to the Iranians, again, which they’ll use to fund worldwide terrorism, again.
In short, the Iranians will get their nukes, and we’ll give them money to fund terror – and Trump will campaign on his success in striking a fake deal for them not to get their nukes.
Just like Obama.
In the big picture, western leaders have resigned themselves to a nuclear Iran. The fake deals are merely to mollify the masses. The leaders know that Iran will break the deals and get its nukes, and are already planning to say, “I’m shocked! They broke the deal!”
I’m not surprised that the Europeans act out this dishonest dance. Nor am I surprised that the Obama/Hillary/Biden crowd join in. But I expected something different from Trump – because he promised something different.
Ah, but there’s a wild card in this charade. It’s the Israelis. If the Ukrainians can take out a third of the strategic bomber fleet of Russia, imagine what the Israelis can do to the nuke program of Iran.
When it comes to the Jews saving the world, you know, there’s a precedent.
At the outset, let me state my bona fides. I voted for Trump three times. I publicly supported his candidacy back when the media deemed him and his supporters like me stupid racists.
That was back when “Trump is literally Hitler” was the meme of the moment amongst the kind of people who don’t know the meaning of Hitler and don’t know the meaning of “literally.” Which is to say, most of the current mainstream media.
For the record, Trump is not Hitler, not literally or metaphorically, nor is he a fascist.
Contrary to popular belief engendered by the lamestream media, the word “fascist” does not mean “Republican.” Nor does it mean “very conservative.” In fact, Republicans and other politically conservative people are nothing like fascists at all.
He’s missing the race component. Indeed, many of his political appointments have been racial or ethnic minorities.
Some people would say, “Oh, but those minorities don’t count because they’re conservatives.” To those people, I have a question: So, who’s the bigot here when you’re the one willing to deny the color of a person’s skin because he lacks the “correct” viewpoints?
The nationalistic component is a closer call. Trump shows little interest in invading Poland or France, but does seem to hanker for a little elbow room up north in Greenland and Canada. Still, forcible conquest doesn’t appear to be on his radar. (But what exactly is the purpose of his conquistador callings?)
As for a belief in a natural social hierarchy . . . gimme a break, the guy’s a real estate developer. If there were a natural social hierarchy, real estate developers would be at the bottom.
Here’s the component that worries me: He doesn’t suffer disagreement lightly.
It would be one thing if Trump shot down disagreement with brilliant argument and nuanced analysis. In doing that, my favorite commentator on the conservative side – or any side, for that matter – was William F. Buckley. He won arguments in such eloquent, understated style that the people he persuaded to his side left thinking they had agreed with him all along.
Trump, not so much. If you agree with him at the outset, he’ll draw cheers from you. But that’s not a persuader; that’s a cheerleader.
As for those who disagree with him, he quickly escalates – or, rather, gutter-stoops – to name-calling, arm-twisting and outright bullying.
There’s a place for that tactic, to be sure. Army boot camp comes to mind.
In politics and people, however, such an approach tends to backfire. You can bully people only so far, and you can’t bully strong people at all.
Moreover, the bullying itself can backfire. For example, how is Vladimir Putin supposed to back down once Trump tells him to? Even the girly-men at Harvard have stood their ground (sort of) once Trump publicly told them to take a knee. The first rule of effective bullying is to do it in private where the object of your bullying doesn’t need to save face.
But this self-pleasing bullying, this autocratic nature, is in Donald Trump’s DNA. Recall that this man took time away from making billions in order to be on a stupid TV reality show where he gloried in screaming “You’re fired!”
The most recent “You’re fired” moment came this week when Trump lashed out at some judges – one of which he appointed – for striking down his tariff program as non-enabled by the laws he’s citing. The judges may or may not be right, but it’s a matter that will be decided by the Supreme Court on appeal, as it should be, not by playground bullies. Meanwhile, calling the judge names is not an effective strategy for a litigant.
The judges that disagree with him are reinforced in their disagreement when he tries to bully them. They have lifetime tenure and no fear of Trump. And the judges who agree with him, give pause. What self-respecting judge (and judges have a lot of self-respect) wants to be known as a Trump toady?
Oh yeah, the Supreme Court. He lashes out at them, too, though he appointed three of the nine. And he lashes out at the conservative Federalist Society for helping him choose the judges he lashes out at. I’m sure he’s just one lash away from lashing out at the people who helped him choose the Federalist Society to help him choose the judges.
Maybe all this plays well with a certain component of the base, and so it’s all clever triangulation by Trump. More likely, it seems to me, he just has the nature of an authoritarian bully.
It’s his greatest weakness. And I will not be voting for him a fourth time.
Harvard deserves punishment. For years, they boasted in their published materials that they had a policy to favor certain ethnic groups.
Accordingly, they favored a Native American with the improbable name of Elizabeth Warren to fill a law professor position. When called out for their discrimination, they said that – in violation of their stated policy – they had not favored her.
Comically, it turned out Warren wasn’t Native American anyway. And so, in her case, Harvard failed at racial discrimination despite their best efforts. Usually, however, they’ve succeeded.
One egregious area where they’ve succeeded is in discriminating against Jews and Asians. For Asians, their SAT scores had to be substantially higher than for whites and about 400 points higher than for Blacks.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court outlawed this discrimination against Asians in a decision two years ago. The suspicion is that Harvard has not stopped doing it, however, but has merely stopped advertising it.
Harvard’s discrimination against Jews is worse, if that’s possible. Harvard encourages Jew-hate. It’s probably not a coincidence that many of these antisemites are foreign students that pay full tuition.
But that’s not the only reason. The Jew-haters are egged on by many faculty members.
But at least Harvard has not promised to nuke the Jews. They may chant for the eradication of Israel (as in “From the River to the Sea”) but at least they are not advocating the eradication of Judaism, for the most part.
President Trump has rightly declared war on Harvard. He has cut off federal money until they comply with the Supreme Court rulings on racial discrimination, and protect Jewish students and other racial and ethnic groups.
Harvard has vowed to fight for their “right” to discriminate, and their “right” not to protect Jewish students, and their “right” to hate or love in admissions and hiring on the basis of skin color.
Naturally, they express this neo-Nazi skinhead language in more flowery terms – it’s all about academic freedom, they preen. To preserve their academic freedom to hate, they’ve filed lawsuits in their backyard of Boston in front of Democrat-appointed judges who are predictably disposed favorably to their position.
But it will go to the Supreme Court, and there will be supreme judgments, and Harvard will lose supremely.
Then there’s Iran.
Iran’s formal policy is not to fail to protect the Jews. It’s to kill them. For many years, they’ve armed proxies in the Middle East to do precisely that. Hezbollah, ISIS, Hamas . . . you name it. The Iranians see no group as too violent, too cruel, or too barbaric. The more violent, the more cruel, and the more barbaric, the better.
And so, on that horrific October 7, there were babies beheaded, grandmothers burned alive, young women raped in front of their husbands, and hostages taken, tortured and killed.
At Harvard, they cheered, and that was very bad. But in Gaza, it was even worse.
So, President Trump, will your punishment of the Iranians be at least as severe as your punishment of Harvard? Will you impose sanctions to cut off their funding, as you have with Harvard?
Moreover, will you put an end to Iran’s decades-long quest for a nuclear weapon to carry out their promise to destroy Israel?
Or is all your talk just . . . big talk? Is it something like the tariff talk – a negotiation posture that you’ll climb down from and compromise on when the going gets rough?
It’s one thing to declare war on Harvard, but it takes some guts to declare war on Iran. The world is watching.
James Comey has a book coming out, so he’s looking for attention. He got it.
He posted on Instagram a photo of shells on the beach arranged in the numbers “86 47,” the last two numbers being a little separate and bigger than the first two so as to differentiate them. His accompanying comment was:
“Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
In case you were born yesterday, the number “86” is slang for terminating a person or thing. If a gangster talks about “86’ing” you, you’re toast. The number “47” of course corresponds to President Trump as the 47th President.
Comey got the attention he sought, and then some. Then he deleted the Instagram post, and put up a new post “explaining” that:
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
Wait a minute. In his first post, Comey pretends that the numbers were merely a “cool shell formation” while they were obviously much more than that; they were the numbers “86” and “47.”
So why did he pretend they were just a shell formation in the first post?
In his second message, he contradicts his first in admitting that he was aware it was a “political message” but contends he was not aware that it was a violent one. Really? This is the former Director of the FBI.
Then what did he think it meant? He never says.
The Secret Service charged with protecting the President takes seriously threats to his safety. The latest reports are that they’ve interviewed Comey.
That presents a problem for Comey. It appears likely that Comey himself arranged the shells on the beach. If he maintained his story that he simply stumbled across them, he was probably lying.
Such a lie could be uncovered by the contents of his phone. Multiple pictures of his “shell formation” could be on his phone showing various iterations until he settled on the one he liked.
Such a lie to the Secret Service investigators would constitute perjury, as Comey well knows – since he put people in jail for that.
On the other hand, if he told the truth to investigators, he revealed himself for what he apparently is: A former Director of the FBI who is willing to encourage harm to the President in order to sell books.
In today’s sordid world, it will probably indeed work to sell books. Fellow travelers on the left will buy his book with no intention of reading it, just to support his advocacy of violence. After all, they’ve normalized calls for political assassination, as we saw when they lionized a maniac who murdered a health insurance CEO on the street.
And it may work to accomplish more, too. It may work to achieve its stated goal of 86’ing the President. These are dangerous times, and this sick former FBI Director isn’t helping matters.
The Democrat who goes by the initials AOC is the hottest Democrat in Congress. I know that’s a low bar, but still.
It’s the main reason Democrats like her. Be honest: Who would you like to share a voting booth with – AOC or Nancy Pelosi? And then there’s also the possibility of voting from home . . . .
I’ll admit it’s a bit creepy to see Her Hotness and 163-year-old Bernie Sanders together on a stage performing Dem-porn acts such as “the rich don’t pay taxes” and “Republicans are a threat to Democracy” before at least one of them gets driven to one of Bernie’s mansions.
But in creepy cradle-robbing and grave-robbing stunts, they have nothing on the Republicans. Have you seen Bill Belichick’s new 24-year-old girlfriend? (I thought the guy was just a great football coach. Turns out, he’s a god!)
And then there’s a new kid on the block named David Hogg. He’s a hero because he was at school one day when a nutcase went ballistic with a gun.
Hogg saved several students. Well, no, he didn’t.
Hogg disarmed the gunman. Well, no he didn’t.
Hogg went to confront the gunman. Well, no he didn’t.
Hogg hid in a closet. Yes, he did.
Hogg has made a living selling the day he hid in a closet. His pitch is that we should ban guns. Forget about police protection in the schools. Forget about mental health issues. Forget about arming the teachers. No, we should ban guns.
Because then, the gunmen couldn’t get a gun legally at a gun store, and they’d have to get them illegally instead. They’d have to get one or more of the 400 million that are in circulation in America.
Democrats love this pitch. Not because it would reduce gun violence – remember the 400 million guns already out there?
No, Dems love the pitch for two reasons. One, it punishes gun owners, and they hate gun owners. Or at least they think they do. They forget that most gun owners are not pickup-drivin’ beer-drinkin’ tobacky-chewin’ GOP-votin’ rednecks. Most don’t drop their drawers or even their g’s. Most are people like you and me. Well, at least me.
Two, banning guns makes Dems feel virtuous. It means they’re doing something and, more importantly, it means they can say they’re doing something. In the world of Democrats, it doesn’t matter if what you do is effective. It only matters that you do it and talk about doing it.
Hogg rode this pitch all the way to the Democrat National Committee Vice Chairmanship. (I won’t make a comment about the Chairman of Vice, not with Belichick on the page.) Hogg became a male AOC. White smoke rose from the DNC office, and it wasn’t because they were burning emails. They all but christened him “His Hotness.”
Then he started saying some things apart from his DNC-approved gun-taking pitch. He suggested that the old Democrats should retire to make way for young ones. He himself, coincidentally, happens to be a young one.
But not all old Democrats should retire, he said. Only the powerless ones he thought he could risk offending. That wouldn’t include 85-year-old Nancy. She’s fine, he assured us. Really not even old!
He miscalculated. Turns out, the old powerless ones he said should retire do, in fact, have some power.
Hogg is now being ousted from his Chairman of Vice position. He’s cooked. He’s fried. He’s bacon.
But he’s still got his gun-taking schtick. Expect more books and speeches.
On those rare occasions when I’m in need of an emetic, I’d rather have a finger stuck down my throat than have the image of Joe Biden stuck through my retina.
But he’s baaaaaack anyway. Democrats hate that he’s back.
What my enemy hates, I should like. And so, I do. Even though it hurts my eyes and turns my stomach.
Democrats hate it for the same reasons that I like it. Every Joe sighting reminds people of why they voted against him. He demonstrates that he’s a creaky, corrupt, cardboard cutout that is incapable of thought and practically incapable of reading a teleprompter containing the thoughts of people who do his thinking for him.
Every appearance reminds people that the Democrats lied that he was “sharp as a tack” right up to the minute that he proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was dull as a dullard, at which time they dumped him like a stained, plaid Laz-Z-Boy from the 70s and declared that their hand-picked replacement (why bother with primaries to ascertain the people’s preference when you have Nancy, Chuck and Barack?) was
. . . wait for it . . .
. . . “sharp as a tack.”
And joyous, to boot. And no known hair plugs, capped teeth, or criminal family.
I almost feel bad for Joe that the Democrats are not even pretending to welcome him. Almost.
“Joe, please go” Is their typical greeting. Guffaws are their typical reaction to his tiresome contention that he would have won the election (if only he’d had the courage not to quit). Yawns are elicited by his warnings that the Republicans want to end Social Security, end motherhood, and end the world.
Rage is the emotion generated by him reminding Democrats of his truculent, selfish refusal to quit when the quitting was good – back when the primaries were playing out and a competent new candidate could be chosen in the way they’re supposed to be. Embarrassment is what they feel when they see him stumbling, bumbling, humbling and crumbling on a stage.
Mind you, I don’t blame Joe for being semi-senile. Lots of people wind up there. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her final years comes to mind.
Ginsburg is another person whom I adore because she screwed the Democrats by quitting long after the quitting was good. Ginsburg’s encroaching senility so clouded her judgment that she could not see it encroaching, and so she failed to quit in time for Barack Obama to name her replacement.
She died at age 87 while still on the bench (when she was not in the hospital). After decades of reliably liberal votes, the legacy she left is that her replacement is Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by Republican President Trump and confirmed by a Republican Senate.
Back to Joe being back. Surely, he can still distinguish between friends and enemies. Given that his friends wish he’d go away for good, and his enemies are happy he doesn’t, one might ask, why doesn’t he go away?
This might shock you, but politicians have big egos. They crave attention. It’s not exactly a monastic profession.
I don’t hold that against them. The need for attention is fundamental to mankind (and, to a slightly lesser extent, womenkind). Some people achieve it by being loved, others achieve it by being hated, and still others achieve it by writing stupid blogs where they weave themselves into the narrative.
What I hold against Joe is not his basic need for attention. What I hold against him is his terrible policies, his family corruption, his gross incompetence, and his shameless lies.
I’m glad he’s back to remind Americans of those things. As he continues to decline, I hope he sticks around. Cement that legacy, Joe.
To everyone’s surprise, the new Pope is an American. Like almost everyone else in the world, I’d never heard of him before yesterday. But he looks like a straight shooter and a stand-up guy. And, as popes go, he looks pretty healthy.
For readers in my tribe who are dismayed that he once expressed some passing criticism of President Trump’s summary deportation of illegal aliens, I ask you: What’s a clergyman supposed to say – kick the SOBs out?
I did not expect to see this – an American Pope – now or ever. Reports are that the smoke-watchers crowding the Vatican grounds didn’t either, and were a bit disappointed.
That’s not because Europeans hate or even dislike Americans. The practice of scorning American tourists ended at least a generation ago. The days of ugly Americans are now replaced by the days of rich Americans – and everyone likes customers who are rich. (That said, it doesn’t hurt to greet people in their language when you’re in their country. “Buenos dias” and “bonjour” fetch a lot more smiles than “Hey, howya doin?”)
So don’t be fooled by Americans who sanctimoniously advertise to fellow Americans that they identify themselves as Canadians, not Americans, when they go to Europe, ostensibly to trick the Europeans into liking them. Those Americans are revealing a dislike for Americans alright – by themselves. Those Americans hate America, and they project that hatred onto the world.
Although Europeans don’t hate Americans the way some Americans hate Americans, I still wouldn’t expect the sun-drunk, ecstasy-filled citizens of Rome milling about St. Peter’s Square this week to be whispering, “Let’s pray they elect an Americano!”
And they weren’t. So why did the Cardinals elect an Americano?
Here’s a relevant factoid: The Vatican has deep financial problems.
Here’s another relevant factoid: When the Notre Dame burned a few years ago, guess who donated the greatest amount for the rebuilding, apart from the French themselves (several of whom were extraordinarily generous). It was the Americanos.
Connect the dots.
I hope the strategy pans out. We need the Catholic Church more than ever before – and I say that as a Protestant.
the Aspen beat 