Columnist.
In times gone by, people, especially those in small towns, would say about those in their midst who were best described as arrogant and narcissistic that they were riding for a fall. The local citizenry would long for the day the spoiled brats would get their comeuppance. Although the term has gone out of favor, the feeling remains. But because the targets of this natural resentment often had great wealth, status or power, their victims usually had to accept that these good-for-nothings would continue to skate obliviously through life until God at last had His chance to deliver the appropriate judgment.
Sometimes people are surprised to learn that my favorite books are mysteries, many of which are written by Brits. I particularly enjoy those that are leavened with humor, but those are extremely rare. The reason I like the genre is because mysteries tend to be logical and they invariably end well with justice being meted out to the guilty -- unlike real life. I also prefer mystery novels because, unlike most non-fiction, which is either ghost-written if it has a politician's name on the cover or is the work of an historian or an academic, mysteries are written by actual writers with an eye to style, not by those whose long suit is research.
As I have written on other similar occasions, it's a protest when you toss the tea into the harbor; when you grab the tea or, rather, the TV sets, liquor and sports equipment and take it home, it's a riot and those who take part are not patriots, they're thugs. As I watched what was taking place in Ferguson after the Grand Jury returned its rational verdict, the thing that surprised me was that after Gov. Jay Nixon had announced he was calling in the Missouri National Guard as a backup to the St. Louis and Ferguson police departments, the only people I saw on the streets were black punks smashing windows, burning down businesses and carting off stolen loot.
(Mike Rogers, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Mike Morell, the Supreme Court, Glenn Beck)
Recently I announced that my dream ticket for the 2016 presidential election would be the governors of Wisconsin and New Mexico. I explained that Scott Walker and Susana Martinez represented a nice geographical balance, representing the upper Midwest and the Southwest. In addition, both are proven winners. In Walker's case, in spite of the unions squandering millions of dollars of their members' dues to defeat him in two regular elections and a recall, he has won three times in four years. For her part, Governor Martinez is both Hispanic and female, and could be counted on to draw a great deal of support from both voting blocs.
Taxes have always been something that normal people resented. It's not simply because the money raised is often wasted by those in power, whether those people happen to be kings, czars or congressmen, but because, as individuals, we resent many of the things our money goes to support. But something else that everyone should resent is the use of taxes as a means by which those in power can punish others without having to involve judges and juries. For instance, cigarettes, which used to cost 25 cents a pack or $2.50 a carton now sell for $7.50 a pack or $75 a carton. It's not because the price of tobacco, paper, plastic or cardboard, have increased by 3000%, but because the elitists wish to punish those who smoke. In the same way, they want to punish those who use fossil fuel, so they gouge you at the gas pump every time you fill up.
There is a very good reason why liberals rarely become cops or join the military. It's because they could get hurt. They will lie and pretend that it's because they're so very smart and prefer careers that call for them to use their brains. But I'm Jewish, so I know a great many liberals first hand. In addition, I live in California where you can't swing a cat without hitting a bunch of them, which explains why I carry a couple of cats every time I leave the house. I first became aware of this during the Vietnam War when just about every guy I knew at UCLA suddenly became a devout pacifist. Some of them even preferred falsely identifying themselves as homosexuals -- getting left-wing psychiatrists to confirm their lie -- as an easy way out. Anything was better than having army sergeants shout at them or having the Vietcong shoot at them.
Although England has its own problems, there are things about their political system that I'd like us to adopt. First of all, I wish we, too, had a clear delineation between the royal family and the world of politics. In the U.S., we have combined the two so that the President and his family live like royalty while the President simultaneously serves as the Commander-in-chief and the very partisan head of his Party. It's simply too much to expect of any one man. Another aspect of the English system that I prefer is that when the Prime Minister's policies seem unpopular and he wants to guarantee that he is still leading the nation in the direction it wishes to be led, they conduct a vote of confidence. If the opposition then wins a majority of the seats in Parliament, that party selects a new Prime Minister. After the midterm election results, if we had a similar system in place, there is no way that Obama would remain in power for an additional two years.
Some people collect stamps, others collect sea shells, and I collect notions. Unfortunately, unlike those others, I can't just stick mine in albums or glass jars. I have to stick them in my articles. First up is illegal immigration. Before Obama or Congress gets around to pulling any stunts, they should enforce the laws already on the books. Nobody is entitled to sneak into our country any more than they have the right to sneak into your house. Anyone caught sneaking in should only be deported after serving a six month stretch in one of those Tent City prisons overseen by Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
We all know that Obama's federal government wants to control us from the cradle to the early grave mandated by the Affordable Care Act, but they wouldn't have nearly so easy a time of it if it weren't for the complicit media. As I have said in the past, if I could control the media, I'd be willing to let the Democrats control the House. I mean, look at the fawning way the media continues to treat Hillary Clinton even after she first boasted about how impoverished she and Bill were in 2001, at least for the first two seconds after leaving the White House before $20 million in book advances took effect, and then stated that "businesses and corporations don't create jobs." If a potential Republican presidential candidate had tried to get away with such unmitigated nonsense, the media would turn him or her into a laughingstock. They managed to do it with Sarah Palin, even though the line about being able to see Russia from her front porch was delivered by Tina Fey during a "Saturday Night Live" sketch and never by Mrs. Palin.
If you've been watching Fox recently, you would think Prof. Jonathan Gruber had been given his own show. He's been on more often than Juan Williams. While normally that would be a good thing, Gruber is no improvement over Obama's house black. In case you only watch the major networks, you wouldn't even know that Gruber existed, let alone that, after helping to create the Affordable Care Act, he spent years bragging about how he helped the Democrats peddle chicken poop to the American people by calling it chicken fricassee.
Anyone who believes that the GOP will have a newly chastened Obama to deal with in 2015 must be living in one of those states where marijuana was recently legalized. After all, the same guy who referred to the 2010 midterms as a shellacking for the Democrats dismissed the even more impressive 2014 drubbing with a shrug and "The Republicans had a good night." As for the two-thirds of registered who didn't bother voting, Obama said, "I hear you." At first, that struck me as truly bizarre. The schmuck hears what people who aren't talking are saying? But then I took a look at those ears of his and decided that, like our dog Angel, who apparently has the ability to hear the mailman even when he's three houses away, Obama's jug handles aren't merely decorative.
With the next presidential election less than two years away, it's not too soon to get a few things straight. Although Reince Priebus has already mentioned some worthwhile changes in the way we end up with a nominee, including a shorter campaign season, an earlier convention and a ban on liberals moderating the debates, there are a few more items I would suggest. First of all, before allowing any of the GOP hopefuls to take the stage, I would insist they sign a contract vowing to actively support the eventual nominee. Next, I would insist they all honor Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment, not to speak ill of a fellow Republican. After all, when it comes to insulting politicians, none of them do it as well as I, and they should leave it to the professionals.
During the silent movie era, every villain eventually tied every heroine to the railroad tracks. Just in the nick of time, the hero would gallop up on horseback and free her just before the 4:20 out of Joplin came barreling through. Once in a while, it would be Rin Tin Tin who untied the knots with his teeth, a trick not even Tom Mix ever mastered. These days, the progressives have hogtied America and it grows increasingly unlikely that either man or beast would be able to rescue her.
When the Titanic sent out its SOS, it was the Carpathia that responded. Those who survived the disaster owed their lives to Captain Arthur Rostron who risked his ship, along with his own life and the lives of his crew, dodging icebergs for four long hours in order to rescue 705 people, too late to save the other 1,523. What puts me in mind of the gallant captain and his brave crew is that America is currently in icy and dangerous waters, thanks in good part to the man currently at America's helm. But one shouldn't give a pass to the millions of Americans who are only too happy to sit in the ship's lounge, oblivious to the danger, noshing on the hors d'oeuvres and listening to the band play "Nearer My God to Thee" while the sea water laps at their knees.
In New York City, yet another black convert to the Religion of Peace named Zale Thompson went after a few cops with an axe, which mirrors the way Mohammad, himself, went about converting infidels. It also suggests that Mr. Thompson might have misunderstood those two cheerleaders for Islam, George Bush and Barack Obama, and thought he was converting to the Religion of Pieces. No doubt Obama will label the event workplace violence rather than Islamic terrorism because it was, one, violent and, two, the cops were working. It should remind us that while Obama may not be a Muslim, as some people insist, he certainly has a soft spot in his heart and his head for those who are.
In the words of an old tune introduced by Doris Day in "The Man Who Knew Too Much," what will be, will be. I am writing this three days before the mid-term elections. The polls suggest that the GOP will wrest control of the Senate from Harry Reid's sweaty grasp, but they also indicate that in several races, the Democrat is running 10-15% ahead of Obama's approval numbers. If you were ever in doubt, this alone should convince you that millions of our fellow citizens are fatheads. I mean, when Obama's approval numbers range between 30 and 40%, when 60% of the nation believe America is going to hell in a hand basket, and, yet, those who have voted for Obama's policies 97% of the time still have a good chance of being re-elected, contagion by Ebola is the least of our problems.
Perhaps because I define myself as a optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist, I was blindsided by the election results. As much time as I devoted to poring over the Senate races, I just couldn't see how the GOP could wind up with more than 51. Perhaps, best of all, the liberals can't carry off their narrative, which was that they lost the Senate only because of the map. Anticipating defeat, they wanted to pretend it was simply because they happened to have so many Senate seats at risk in certain Republican-leaning states. But, thanks to God and in good part to Barack Obama, who has done so very much to destroy the Democratic brand, we even won gubernatorial races in Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts.
Because it is once again election season, I am hearing from a great many people who sincerely believe RINO is the vilest of all four-letter words. The weird thing is that although I am about as conservative as a person can be, I wind up spending an inordinate amount of time defending them. I understand that people who take their conservative politics and values seriously wish every Republican did the same, and resent those who don't. But we are Republicans and therefore, unlike liberals, we are not all the end result of the cookie cutter. It is easy for Democrats to line up in a very neat row because they all subscribe to the same talking points. For instance, they believe that a massive federal government collecting a massive amount of tax dollars, running up a massive debt and controlling everything from the economy to education, from health care to the climate, is the answer to every problem.
When the Beatles were at the height of their popularity, John Lennon said that they were more famous than Jesus. It infuriated a great many Christians, but I just thought it was simply the latest in a series of inane and egomaniacal statements he delighted in making. He was, after all, a liberal zealot, and I have noted through the years that the richer these people are, the more strident they are in their opposition to capitalism and the more separated they are from reality. In much the same way the more power that politicians have over the people who elect them, the more they pretend to be populists. Which is why anytime I hear a wealthy politician of either party brag about his humble beginnings, the less likely I am to ever vote for the schmuck.
