Muslims are the least of Europe’s problems

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Europe has problems. The economy is moribund. Taxes are high but insufficient to pay for an addictive and ever-growing welfare state which leaves defense budgets so underfunded and reliant on America that Europe is vulnerable to a military invasion.

Europe’s infrastructure is crumbling. They lag America and East Asia in critical technology, especially computer and AI tech. They made a bad bet on alternative energy. Their birthrate is far below the replacement rate.

Rather than confronting these problems directly, the Europeans blame others, specifically the Muslim immigrants from Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon and Jordan.

The invasion to worry about, goes the typical European narrative, is not from the east, but from the south. It’s not Russian or Chinese armies of millions they should fear, says the narrative, but Muslim families of six.

It’s understandable that the non-Muslim 94% of Europe blames the Muslim 6%. It’s always tempting to blame another person for your problems, especially if that person has another skin color, another religion, another language, and another mode of attire. It’s human nature.

Before they had the Muslims, the Germans blamed the French, the French blamed the English, the English blamed the Scots, the Catholic Irish blamed the Protestant Irish, the Basques blamed the Spanish, Denmark blamed Sweden, and everybody blamed the Jews.

Americans have joined in this anti-Muslim crusade. After all, Europeans are the ancestors of most Americans and look like most Americans. Muslims aren’t and don’t.

Besides, if Americans were to blame Europeans for their self-inflicted problems, that hits too close to home – especially when America itself seems to be on the same road with regard to problems such as the welfare state. It’s easier for Americans to blame Somalian fraud for the malignant welfare budget of America – and Europe – than to blame America itself, even if the actual Somalian fraud is only a tiny fraction of the overall welfare budget.

(By the way, give the Somalians some credit for entrepreneurialism. Can anyone doubt that the Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants would have done the same thing in their time if given the chance by idiots like Minnesota’s Governor Walz?)

Ah, you say, with an attempt to change the subject, Islam is a religion of war and Judeo-Christianity are religions of peace. Therefore, Europe should be reserved for peaceful Europeans and America should be reserved for peaceful Americans (but not native ones). In other words, America and Europe should be reserved for Christians and a few Jews.

To that I say: Have you read the Old Testament lately to see what this so-called religion of peace says about war? They seemed to be engaged in war all the time.

Indeed, this Judeo-Christian “religion of peace” produced two millennia of war within itself over the narcissism of small differences like whether we should eat meat on Fridays.

War is not a religious thing. It’s a species thing. Humans do it, and always have. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and before that pagans and earth worshipers, commit war. You name it, we’ve fought over it. Don’t tell me that Islam uniquely is a religion of war.

Nor are Muslims less law-abiding than other immigrant groups. The first generation of Muslim immigrants – the immigrants themselves – tend to be very law-abiding, more so than native-born Americans. In part, this is because they fear being deported upon conviction of a crime.

The law-abiding status of Muslims declines in the second generation after immigration. They tend to be much more criminal. It’s theorized that this is because they are as American as you or I, insofar as citizenship goes. Thus, they can be punished for a crime, but the punishment cannot include being deported. Once the deterrent of deportation is removed, they’re more criminal.

In addition, they are ostracized and discriminated against, and therefore live in poor immigrant communities with limited upward mobility. Frustration brews in them in a way that didn’t in their parents, who were just happy to be here, wanted to fit in, and were afraid of being deported.

I was skeptical about this rationale for second-generation crime among immigrants until I read the studies.  It turns out that this was the pattern of the Germans who immigrated to the Midwest in the 19th century. It was the pattern of the Scandinavians who immigrated to the upper Midwest and the pattern of the Irish who immigrated to New England later in that century. It was the pattern of the Italians who came to New York City early in the 20th century and started Little Italy. It was even the pattern of the Jews. In each case, the initial immigrants were very law-abiding, and their children were not.

The only exception was among the East Asians who came in the late 20th century. They tended to be law-abiding in both the first and second generations, due, apparently, to strong community and cultural connections.

By the time of the third generation, all groups of immigrants are essentially assimilated and match the crime rate of Americans at large (except the Asians, who continue to lag in criminality).

Muslims follow the same pattern; the criminality of third-generation Muslims matches the criminality of third-generation Irish, fifth-generation Italians, fourth-generation Greeks, and so on. By the time they reach the third generation, they all cheat, lie and steal, and occasionally rape, assault and murder, to pretty much the same degree as the rest of us.

(Although off the subject a bit, it bears mentioning that the pattern is the same among Latin Americans. The first generation is very law-abiding, the second generation is much less so, and the third generation matches that of the rest of us.)

None of this is intended to suggest that Europe has no Muslim problem. It does. So does America. A good case can be made that in both continents the immigration by Muslims has been too many and too fast. The same is true of Latin Americans.

But the Muslim problem of both continents is typical of the problem of assimilating an immigrant group, and it is likely to resolve over time. As in America many times in the past, the immigrants – this time Muslim – may ultimately be our salvation and resurrection. 

In the meantime, blaming Muslims for the self-inflicted problems of Europe and America has the effect of ignoring the real source of those problems.

The real source of those problems is that the European descendants of the greatest civilization in history, the Roman Empire, now piss on the ruins. Europeans and, increasingly, Americans have been taken in by populist socialism. We need to reject the promises of freebies, and make good on the promises of merit and investment.

Since we’re talking about Muslims, and economics, it’s worth considering what the great religions have to say on the subject of socialism. While casual feel-gooders might have you believe that spirituality is at war with economics, it was David who said, “When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.”

Jesus proclaimed, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”

Muhammed said, “No one ever ate a meal better than that which he earned with his own hands.”

The Buddha praised, “by energetic striving, gathered by the strength of their arm, earned by the sweat of their brow, a righteous wealth righteously gained.”

Milton Freidman couldn’t have said it better.

Democrats crying “affordability” is like an arsonist calling the fire department

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The party of compassion and intellectualism, according to them, is selling two things this election season. One, they hate Trump, and they want you to.

Forget that Trump stopped illegal immigration and deported millions of Biden’s illegals.

Forget that Trump emasculated Iran and re-masculated America’s would-be trannies.

Forget that Trump called out overpriced woke colleges for their hiring, admissions, grading and testing on the basis of skin color.

Forget all that. Just remember that Trump’s hair, adjectives and vanity make you feel . . . well, deranged. Your derangement is his fault.

Remember only that. And to vote early and often.

The second thing the Democrats are selling is “affordability.” If you vote for them, they tell you, they’ll make stuff more affordable.

The Democrats are light on the details here, for good reason.

For example, the Democrats could, but don’t, say that they’ll lower the price of gasoline.

The Democrats don’t say that because, for two generations now, they’ve argued that the price of gas in the U.S. is already too low (and indeed it’s still lower than anywhere else in the developed world). If gasoline cost more, they argue, we’d use less of it and – voila! – the climate would be Goldilocks. Never too hot, never too cold.

Forget that the Democratic Republic of California enjoys extremely high gasoline prices, and we nonetheless have cold winters and hot summers the way we always have. Maybe the climate Giai hasn’t gotten the memo. And neither have carbon-spewing China or India.

Forget, too, that the average price of gasoline during the Trump administration is less than the average price of gasoline during the Biden administration. As for Jimmy Carter’s administration, let’s not even go there.

In talking about this “affordability” issue, Democrats could also say, but don’t, that they’ll lower the cost of housing.

The Democrats don’t say that because for many years, they’ve enacted rules and regulations to do the opposite. They favor unionized contractors, even – or especially – when the housing is government-subsidized “affordable” housing. They favor burdensome building codes that display omnipotence more than making buildings safe.

The Democrats also don’t say that because they don’t like the outcome of their own experiment. They know that the cost of building a house in their stronghold of California with its crushing land-use regulations and unionized workforce is almost triple the cost of building the same house in free-market – and Republican – Texas.

In California, it seems that a construction worker is required to be either a member of a union or a citizen of somewhere in Latin America.

How about the affordability of college? Under Democrat administrations, the tuition at the nation’s universities has skyrocketed, due largely to the availability of government student loans which the Democrats turn into gifts.

These universities are mostly controlled by a bunch of group-think Democrats who seem to delight in free-speech inquiry if, and only if, they agree with it, and delight in free market economics if, and only if, it benefits them. 

Maybe the Democrats would address the unaffordability of college in the same way they always have. They’d make more student loans-cum-gifts. The outcome of that approach would be the same as always. Their collaborative Democrats at the universities would be grateful, because they could thereby raise tuition some more.

Except they’d still give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

Many Democrats think socialism leads to affordability. The elders of Eastern Europe would beg to differ. What socialism leads to is not affordability, but scarcity. Meat in Soviet-occupied Poland cost pennies a pound, but you literally had to wait in line for hours to get it. Talk to a person who lived through socialism in Poland (which, significantly, is now booming under a free market economy).

How about the cost of electricity? Democrats have long proposed to make electricity cheap by simply mandating that.

But price controls don’t work because they destroy incentives for production. What they could do instead is increase the production of electricity by means of nuclear energy. But “nuclear” is still a dirty word in much of Democrat-land. Better to put windmills in the DC mall and solar panels on the Washington Monument.

The only energy source the Democrats like is the scarce kind, which serves their plan to return us to the utopia of the Stone Age.

With no real plan to lower costs in order to increase affordability, Democrats advocate what they’ve always advocated – higher wages. They propose to double the federal minimum wage, for example.

Why not triple it? Why not increase it to $100,000 an hour? If the Democrats seriously think that higher wage costs can be imposed without producing higher prices, then let’s go whole hog!

Why not hand out free money, the way they did in Covid times?

Ah, the organizations that used to be called the “news media” tell us to forget all that and forget the consequences of all that. Let’s not be too specific. Let’s not be specific at all – what is this, a racist merit-based test or something?

Instead, remember only the bad hair, bad adjectives and bad vanity of the guy – that guy! – who is not on the ballot.

Why did Democrats open the border?

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Until President(ish) Joe Biden assumed office, the Democrat Presidential policy on illegal immigration was the same as the policy of all earlier Presidents of the United States. Their policy as leaders of the Executive Branch was to enforce the law. The law was to prevent people from entering the country illegally.

This non-partisan national policy was founded on the idea that what we have in America is special, and we don’t intend to just give it away to anyone willing to swim illegally across the Rio Grande. Or the Volga, Rhine, Congo or Danube.

Moreover, allowing immigration that was illegal, as opposed to legal, would give us the worst of the pool of immigrants – the ones willing to violate the sanctity of our laws, often because they’d already violated the sanctity of the laws of the place they came from. Lawbreakers break the law.

In other words, illegal immigration by definition is mass immigration by criminals. Despite what the liberal media tells you, it’s a crime to enter the country illegally. (It’s not a crime to overstay a visa but illegal immigrants are not usually mere visa-overstayers.)

We knew that if criminal immigration reached the millions, it would disrupt our social fabric by burdening schools, emergency rooms, highways and welfare systems.

And if the criminal immigration were by criminals unable (or unwilling) to speak our language, we risked becoming a different society altogether. There’s a reason that immigrants who achieve the privileged status of U.S. citizens are required to pass a test – in English. It’s not racist to believe America should be an English-speaking country of non-criminals where everyone can speak with everyone, preferably without pressing “2” for Spanish or talking through the translation app on your phone.

This was the policy of even the most-recent Democrats to precede Biden, namely Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. They stated that people cannot enter the country illegally or stay in the country illegally, and their policies mostly were in accord with those statements.

So, what happened under Biden? Why did he fling the border wide open, even as he denied doing so?

In fairness to Biden, he knew not what he’d done. He was a very old man with very metastasized cancer. Even in his younger days, he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and in his later days he was nothing but a tooth-capped scalp-plugged cutout taking instructions from others.  

The shots were being called by whoever was the boldest shot-caller. All of them in the Biden White House were very hard-left, including – or perhaps particularly – his wife, “doctor” Jill.

The question remains, why did somebody or somebodies who were calling the shots under the Biden administration open the border, and why did the other Democrats allow it? There must be a strong reason, because it arguably cost them the 2024 election.

This is an interesting question because the answer tells a lot about the modern Democratic Party.

The most generous reason is that they wanted to do the humanitarian thing. People in Haiti and Guatemala and even Mexico have suffered horribly. Enough is enough. I have some sympathy for that sentiment.

But that sympathy goes only so far. Are we supposed to allow all of Haiti and Guatemala and Mexico to immigrate to the United States?

Moreover, such a sentiment disregards our system of government. If we want to allow more immigration from troubled parts of the world, then the way to achieve it is to pass legislation to allow it and regulate it, not to wantonly violate the legislation that is already on the books.

The Biden administration didn’t pass new legislation. They didn’t even try very hard (at that or anything else). Instead, they said in effect, “We don’t like the law, so we’ll simply violate it.”

That’s anarchy. Or, to use the phrase du jour, it’s a threat to democracy. In the context of the Executive Branch collaborating with an illegal invasion of our country by millions of criminals, it’s arguably a high crime or misdemeanor.

The Democrats indeed seem not to like the laws of our country, at least when it comes to immigration, but I’m afraid it goes deeper than that. They don’t like the country itself.

This is factual. Polls consistently show that Democrats are much less likely than Republicans to express a love for America. They’re a bit embarrassed by America. They want a very different America, one that is more socialistic. Merit is bad, because the people who have it tend not to be the “right” people.

“Fundamentally transforming America” is the phrase Obama repeatedly used as a euphemism for correcting this perceived defect. Obama may indeed have enforced the immigration laws, as I mentioned, but he was hell-bent on making the nation different in values and composition. Maybe he didn’t intend to make America into Haiti (and maybe he did) but “fundamentally transforming America” became a cool thing to advocate.

Obama’s followers in the Democratic Party took that phrase and ran with it. And they ran by any means necessary, including willful evasion of the immigration laws.

That leads to yet a deeper question. What’s so bad about America? This country has given the most prosperity to the most people in the history of the world. Our poor people are rich by the standards of nearly all of history. Our foreign aid to other countries far surpasses anyone else in history.

I laugh at youngsters who display their ignorance by complaining that the price of their iPhone is too high. I grew up in a family of six in a 1200-square-foot house. We had no air conditioning, no color TV, no microwave, and no second car until my father bought an old junker for $110. I started working when I was 15, and washed pots and pans through college. And we were considered upper middle class.

I’ll reserve for another column this question as to why young Americans seem not to love this country that loves them. But here’s a hint. It’s not despite America’s prosperity, but because of it. It’s not because things are too hard, but because things are too easy.

The next President will be a white male Democrat

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This isn’t real

Conventional wisdom is that J.D. Vance will be elected President in 2028. I think not.

Vance has a lot going for him – he’s smart, accomplished, well-educated, in the public eye, and will be heir to MAGA.

That last point, however, is two-edged. Yes, he will be associated with Trump. But yes, he will be associated with Trump. There’s a lot of Trump fatigue out there even among people who voted for him three times, as I did. 

The last time a sitting Vice President was elected to the Presidency was when we elected George H.W. Bush. But that was when Ronald Reagan was a very successful and popular President. When it comes to popularity, Mr. Vance, your boss is no Ronald Reagan.

Vance seems unwilling or unable to apply any balm to soothe this Trump fatigue, much less the strong topical anesthesia that is indicated. He always seems angry and a little xenophobic. I won’t go so far as to say he’s racist – after all, he’s married to an Indian (whom he publicly says he wants to convert to Christianity) – but . . .   

Speaking of xenophobia, what’s with the beard? My phone tells me at a glance which century it is. You’d think Vance could get a Russian oligarch to buy him a phone.

Vance will get some competition from my favorite, Marco Rubio, but Rubio will bow out well before the Republican convention.

The reason Rubio will lose is that he’s Hispanic. On the Republican side, sadly, there are enough voters who simply will not vote for a non-white candidate, even if he’s a dedicated anti-communist, anti-Castro, Republican son of legal Cuban immigrants.

The media won’t help Rubio, even though – or perhaps because – he’s Hispanic. The media will acknowledge that he’s Hispanic, but not a “real” Hispanic since he’s Cuban and since he’s a Republican. They’ll paint him as a betrayer of his race, since in their racist view all minorities are required to be Democrats rather than independent thinkers. They will see him much the way they see Justice Clarence Thomas – as an Uncle Tom.

Ironically, Rubio’s odds would be much better as a Democrat because then he wouldn’t be painted as an Uncle Tom. But then, of course, he’d have to be a Democrat and that’s much worse.

Vance will also get a little competition from Nikki Haley, another candidate I like. But hop in your pickup and drive the backroads of Texas to see how enthusiastic they are about electing a woman as President whose parents are Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhaw from Punjab, India.

Or just take it from me: they aren’t.

So, Vance will be the Republican nominee. Who will be the Democrat nominee?

It won’t be Kamala. Even though she seems to be leading in the Democrat polls, a good part of her lead is her name recognition. She did run for President last time and received some 75 million votes. She is also the only credible Black(-ish) candidate, which ensures a few million votes.

But she’s a two-time loser. And both times, she ran a poor campaign. Her support is probably about as high as it will ever be, and that’s not very high.

Moreover, there’s an element of Kamala fatigue – by Kamala. I think she doesn’t want the job badly enough to put in the work that’s necessary to be hired.

That leaves some Democrat white guys. It won’t be Buttigieg. Even the Democrats aren’t ready for a gay man. Besides, being gay is no longer fashionable. To the average American, it’s a little like being trans – it’s sooo 2024.

That leaves the governors. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is disqualified because he doesn’t hate Jews enough. In fact, he is one!!! (Do the Democrats know?)

The women governors are pretty much all women, and the Democrats have already done that twice. Can they really say with their self-congratulatory zeal, “Third woman Presidential candidate! This is another first – the first time that there’s been a third!”

There’s the governor in Illinois who has lost 80 pounds by taking the new fat pills. That’s nice, but does he still have an appetite for the job?

The only one left is Gavin Newsom, complete with his cursed hair issues and cursed State of California. He’s reasonably bright, good-looking, and well-known.

Newsom says he’s dyslexic, which is a good excuse for any gaffes and might even get him some sympathy votes. It’s only right that we elect a President with disabilities. We already had one who was comatose. (Someday we’ll signal our virtue by electing one who is autistic.)

Think how edgy the Dems will feel in nominating a sentient white guy. They haven’t done that in over 20 years. And Dems are nothing if not edgy.

And so, the race will be Vance vs. Newsom or, if you prefer, J.D. vs. Gavin (sounds like an election for frat president).

I’ll be voting for Vance, but the winner will be Newsom. For Vance, the MAGA baggage is a lift too heavy and a bridge too far. It worked for Trump, but Trump is sui generis. I’m glad. 

Liberals rage at Sidney Sweeney for debasing sports intended for trannies

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Sidney Sweeney, best I can figure it, is an heir to Paris Hilton, Brooke Shields and the Kardashian Klan. She has a new ad out. She “dresses” in sports balls, like footballs, basketballs, baseballs, and so on. Nothing comes between Sidney and her balls. My favorite is the golf balls, and I don’t even golf.

Liberals hate the ad because, well, you know why. It’s because they don’t like young attractive women acting like young attractive women. Liberal women think women should be as old and fat as they are.

As for liberal men, they think women should have a penis. After all, someone has to.

Sidney’s ad revealed enough for me to conclude that she is not old, she is not fat, and she does not have a penis. (I watched the ad 16 times to confirm that. Investigative journalism lives!)

But of course, the liberals aren’t honest about their reasons for hating Sidney’s new ad. They instead have a rationale. They say it debases women athletes because it implies that they’re really hot.

Why doesn’t anyone debase me that way? That former Patriots quarterback with the model girlfriend, he gets debased. He gets debased right and left. He gets debased all the time.

But me? Noooooooo. Nevahhh. It’s not fair.

The debasement thing is a problem in women’s sports, according to liberals. The God-given destiny of woman’s sports is to be the domain of . . . (you know what’s coming) . . . men.

It’s not just any men, mind you. It’s the men who act like women, which is approximately 100% of liberal men. And so, Sidney’s debasement of women’s sports is wrong, wrong, wrong because it debases liberal men.

It might even be unconstitutional, according to the new 13-Justice Supreme Court we’ll soon enjoy.

Sorry Sid. Let me know if you need a shoulder to cry on, or if you want to debase me. I’m here for you.

Gas prices are the least of our problems

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It’s fashionable this election season to complain that gas prices are high.

Cry me a river.

I can remember when we had to wait in line for 20-30 minutes – or even for hours – for 5 gallons of gas. The price of gas was about what it is now, in inflation-adjusted dollars, but the mileage of ordinary American vehicles was only one-third of today’s mileage. The result was that the effective price of driving your car was triple what it is now – if you could stay in line long enough to get gas for it.

And then, this car unsafe at any speed could kill you or kill itself, but that’s a different story.

The gas crunch of the 1970s produced two dramatic effects. One, people started shopping for smaller cars that got better gas mileage. Two, people started driving less.

Today, I see evidence of neither. I’ll start to worry about gas prices when Joe Sixpack trades in his People Rammer 450, or whatever they’re called.

Meanwhile, maybe it will help you to know we have bigger problems than gas prices. Here’s an incomplete listing:

Iran might get The Bomb. In our obsession to get gas prices down, we might choose to end the Iran task prematurely. That may well get the price of gas down from $4.46 a gallon to $3.89 a gallon – Halleluiah! – but at the cost of nuking Atlanta, NYC, DC, San Francisco, Jerusalem, Paris and London.  

AI is getting too smart. While ignorant fad-meisters complain that data centers in the middle of nowhere might produce a noise nobody is there to hear, we continue at breakneck, break-civilization speed to advance an intelligence that we’ve dubbed “artificial.” If only this artificial intelligence had an artificial heart and an artificial conscience, too.

It doesn’t.

So, let’s hope that people who are real smart are in charge.

They’re not.

The solution, of course, is not to abandon AI technology. If we don’t adopt this technology, then someone else will – who will use it to own us, like the Chinese. The solution instead is to somehow, in some way, do it right. But we have a bleak history lately of doing things right.

While AI is getting too smart, our children are getting too stupid. Objective data in the form of test scores show they never recovered from Covid. In our zeal to protect them from a disease to which they were nearly immune, we destroyed the educational system.

Our solution to these declining test scores, comically, is to make the tests easier.

But the teachers’ unions did fine and the woke professors did fine. Maybe it was a success, after all!

Our $40 trillion deficit. It’s easy to think deficits are a way of life for America. They’re not. As recently as the turn of the century, Bill Clinton was running a federal surplus and we were on our way to eliminating the federal deficit.

It didn’t happen. And it evidently won’t, until it’s too late.

Socialism. Our increasing population of stupid people with declining test scores are again finding the opiate of stupid masses – socialism. The totalitarian economic policies of Lenin, Chavez, Mao and Pol Pot are once again all the rage. Maybe those policies will be tossed on the ash heap of fashion (again) before they murder a hundred million people (again). Or maybe this time it will require a full billion.

We are not reproducing. Given that one of my earlier compaints was that our children are too stupid, this sounds like the old complaint about a restaurant: “The food was terrible and the portions were too small.” But yes, given the millions or billions that will die of socialism, we should be having more children. We aren’t. Globally, our rate of reproduction is barely at replacement level. In our most advanced cultures, it’s far below that.

At this rate, Europe, Asia and America north of the Rio Grande will become near-extinct in a time frame when your descendants will still know who you were (not that they will care). Long before that, your vaunted Western Civilization will be a dot in the rear-view mirror of your descendants’ horse and buggy.

Yet, here we are with elections approaching and our number one worry is that the price of gas went up a buck a gallon.

I have only one conclusion: We deserve what we get.

Trump offers to pay the taxpayers with money from the taxpayers

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The unique “Midterm Convention” by the Republicans in Dallas this week featured the faithful filling an arena (mostly, but there were quite a few empty seats) to hear the faith (mostly, but a Democrat Senator, too, spoke by video).

I’ve voted Republican since Ronald Reagan, including three times for Donald Trump. I didn’t think I would learn anything by watching the spectacle, and I didn’t think it would be amusing entertainment, so I didn’t watch.

But I did hear that President Trump promised to pay each adult citizen $5,000 if the Republicans hold both houses of Congress in November. I have two thoughts on this.

First, the odds that he’ll ever pay the $5,000 are approximately zero. The Republicans are sure to lose the House, and stand a good chance of losing the Senate as well. Even on the slim chance that they hold both, the $5,000 payments would require an act of Congress. The odds that Congress would go along are approximately, well, zero.

The odds that the Republicans will hold both houses of Congress, and Congress will go along with the $5,000 payments, are, if my math still serves, approximately zero times approximately zero, which is well nigh . . . zero.

So, don’t spend the money yet.

My second thought is that this money amounting to something over $1,000,000,000 has to come from somewhere. Oh, you say, it just gets printed.

But didn’t we learn for the umpteenth time during the Biden administration that money that “just gets printed” still comes from somewhere? Didn’t we learn that it comes from us, through inflated prices?

If that were not the case, then why make the payments only $5,000? Couldn’t we all be rich by letting the government simply print and mail to each of us $5,000,000?

Heck, why stop there? Let’s all be as rich as Elon Musk by having the government print and mail to each of us, say, a trillion dollars.

Okay, I said I have two thoughts on the matter, but actually I have three. Trump thinks we’re stupid.

Why do Democrat Jews vote for Democrat Jew-haters?

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It’s a puzzle. It’s a conundrum. To use Winston Churchill’s quote about the WWII Soviets, it’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Why do Jews vote for Democrats?

Okay, I can understand why they vote against certain Republicans. For example, notwithstanding his defense of Israel, Donald Trump sometimes comes across as . . . well, let’s just say he does not come across as Albert Einstein.

A culture such as the Jews might find Trump’s social media postings and his in-person “weave” a bit off-putting. This off-putting is apparently not offset in their minds by his support for Israel.

But Trump is not the only Republican rejected by the Jews. The Jews as a group have never voted for any Republican Presidential candidate.

Never.

Was Eisenhower too dumb? This was the general in charge of Allied Forces in Europe, the bold genius who helped mastermind D-Day, and the good soldier who opened the concentration camps.

What about Richard Nixon? A man is not called “tricky” because he’s stupid. Nixon was clearly smarter than LBJ or Harry Truman.

How about Ronald Reagan? All he did was win the Cold War.

Reagan’s vice president who succeeded him, George H.W. Bush, was one of the most accomplished men in DC at that time.

The son of Bush senior, namely George W, was at least as smart as the men he ran against, Al Gore and John Kerry.

Was Mitt Romney who made zillions on Wall Street dumb? I should be so dumb.

Even Donald Trump was clearly smarter than his opponent the last two times.

The Jews voted against all of them, and every other Republican Presidential candidate. Why?

I have a theory.

Jews coming to America were much different than the ones here today. Jewish immigrants were more like the Irish or the Italian immigrants. They suffered discrimination for their ethnicity and religion (Catholicism in the case of the Italians and most of the Irish). All had heavy foreign accents that served to identify them, and the first language of the Italians and Jews was not even English.

They naturally voted for the political party that held itself out as just like them – working-class folk. The Democrats were the party that did not control the country clubs that refused to admit them.

The Irish and Italian immigrants assimilated within two generations, as most immigrants do. For example, I say I’m Scottish but the truth is that I have just one grandparent from Scotland. The rest came from here and there. Likewise, most of the Irish and Italian immigrants married outside their ethnicity and even their faith.

Today, there is no Irish vote or Italian vote, because there’s no longer a discrete Irish culture or Italian culture in America. Getting drunk on St Patrick’s Day doesn’t count, and Columbus Day has been cancelled.

But there’s still a Jewish vote, because there’s still a discrete Jewish culture. That culture is the reason that the Jews survived for thousands of years as a minority ethnic group with a distinctive non-Christian religion despite enormous pressures.

The Jews’ survival skills were forged in the furnace of Europe and, before that, the Middle East. There, they learned not to blend in because they weren’t allowed to.  They learned not to marry outside their faith because nobody outside their faith would marry them.

The Jews made a virtue of this terrible discrimination and periodic pogroms. Being ostracized from mainstream culture drove them into an observance and even obsession over their own distinctive culture, religion and traditions.

You have your Christmas, they said, but we have our Hannukah.  You have your New Year, but we have our Rosh Hashanah. You have your Easter, but we have our Passover.

And you have your Republicans, but we have our Democrats. In short, Jews vote for Democrats because it’s tradition.

Most traditions are good. There’s a Darwinian aspect to them; bad habits die out and never rise to the level of a tradition. In the context of Jewish culture and religion, tradition has been a very good thing, a sine qua non of these extraordinary and vulnerable people who comprise only 0.2% of the world’s population.

But I submit that the Jewish tradition of voting for Democrats is now unhealthy for them and us.

The Torah is full of traditions that may have been right for their time but are not right for the present. No longer is it appropriate for Jews to push goats off cliffs, decapitate calves, or light bonfires on mountain peaks.

Or vote blindly for barbarians who seek to destroy them. Even Tevye compromised tradition to save his people.

Gutters are for needles

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A municipality in California (of course) recently ticketed some parents for collecting the needles left in the gutter by addicts. The parents thought that needles containing heroin residue and whatnot were dangerous to their children.

The municipality didn’t disagree, but stated that the parents’ collection and disposal methods might not be in accordance with regulations. Apparently, it was better to leave the needles in the gutter for collection and disposal by the children.

So here we are in the year of our Lord 2026. Gutters are for needles.

This episode suggests that some many of our rules are outdated – like collecting heroin needles from the gutter so that children don’t. We need a revised rulebook to live by.

Here goes.

*Sidewalks are for pooping and tenting.  While we’re on the subject of gutters that are used for the disposal of needles, note this tragedy. The persons disposing of the needles in the gutter tend not to have bathroom facilities. Sure, they could go to the local homeless shelter, but they don’t allow needles there, and that’s unfair, uncivilized and unconstitutional. So where are vagrants supposed to poop?

On the sidewalk, that’s where. Sidewalks are for pooping.

Still on the subject . . .  where are they supposed to sleep?

In their tent, that’s where. Where’s the tent supposed to be? On the sidewalk near their bathroom, of course.

*Clinics are for masturbation. Our blue “cities” are setting up sexual relief clinics where vagrants can go to “hygienically and privately” masturbate. Pooping in public in the bathroom/gutter is one thing, but you don’t expect them to do private things in the public bathroom/gutter, do you? Eww.

*No hiking on the hiking trails. I recently went for a little hike on a trail near my house in the Colorado Rockies. I accessed it indirectly from the campus of one of the branches of Colorado Mountain College, that college-y thing in Colorado that teaches kids how to be, I dunno, a road construction flagman, in exchange for about $100,000 in student loans that the kid will surely pay back once he “graduates” and gets that coveted flagman job.

The trail was a bit odd with banked curves and lots of bicycle tire tracks. It was often braided as if a bicycle had veered off and then back onto the trail. Litter was strewn about.  

Finally, I was at the trailhead, which I had dodged at the outset of my hike by accessing the trail in that odd way through the “college” campus. The trailhead sign informed me that hikers were prohibited on the hiking trail. It was for bicycles only, including e-bikes.

I spent the rest of the day imaging John Denver humming Rocky Mountain High as he kicked up dust atop an e-bike and cursed at me for hiking.

*Semi-trailers are for illegals. In California (again?) they give commercial drivers’ licenses – truck drivers’ licenses – to illegals whose driving skills are commensurate with their English skills. We don’t verify that they can tell a STOP sign from a YIELD sign because it would be racist to ask them.

*Assassination is for cheering. Assassination is cheered by an entire demographic that is subset of an entire political party. The victim can be a health care executive, a political figure or even three young children. The point is that the victim was misbehaving and so they deserved assassination.  (How many times did I tell you not to play with your food? BANG!)

But the death penalty for murderers is still verboten. Murderers – that word is so pejorative! – instead get celebrated.

*Terrorism is to be celebrated. This is really an extension of the prior rule. If murderers get celebrated, then mass murderers get mass celebrated.

And so, the barbarians who invaded Israel to butcher, rape, murder, burn, and hostage-take the men, women, boys, girls, wives, mothers, husbands, fathers and sons of Israel . . . well, they’re freedom-fighters. They’re heroes. They’re today’s climate activists, today’s trans advocates, today’s DEI enforcers.

Dare I say it? They’re today’s Woke, Version 2.

Wealthy people are for taxing and hating. Under the old rules, we admired people who earned a lot of money for their cleverness and hard work, not to mention their job-creation and philanthropy.

That’s passé now. Today, we know they’re greedy. To treat their greed affliction, we generously offer to relieve them of some of their money. Taking their money entails a significant risk that we ourselves will contract their greed affliction, but we do it anyway because that’s the kind of person we are.

And then we hate them. Because that, too, is the kind of person we are.

Merit is not for measuring. In the old unenlightened days, we made a fetish of merit. Better people produced better results, we thought. And so, we measured which people were better.

Now we know better. Er, differently. We know that we’re all better. Except people with dark skin who are more better. Er, betterer.

There you have it. These are today’s rules to live by. Feel free to add others.

Will the Heavenly Hosts hang with Steinem or Parton?

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It’s been a good week for dying. People we’ve lost and who’ve lost us include Dolly Parton and, now, Gloria Steinem. Only in America would we get these two. Talk about diversity!

Their strategies for succeeding were different, though equally effective. Gloria presented herself as a good-looking, engaging, ambitious, smart woman. Dolly presented herself as a good-looking, engaging, ambitious, dumb woman – who was actually very smart.

Both were personable. Dolly was personable because you don’t get ahead in show biz without it. Gloria was personable because, at the time, you didn’t get ahead in politics without it. (Today, we’ve devolved into a political world with alternative ways to get ahead.)

There’s no word on whether Dolly and Gloria were friends, but I’ll bet they weren’t. It’s likely that their first meeting will be at the Pearly Gates. Gloria will probably negotiate her way through, and Dolly will probably bust her way through. Neither will be turned away.

So, which one will their Heavenly Hosts hang with?

To be candid, I don’t really know. I’ve never been up to The Place. I have few connections to The Place. As a former lawyer, I may never get to The Place, and I have to admit that everything I know about The Place is inadmissible double or triple hearsay.

Between Dolly and Gloria, I do have my personal favorite. I really want to say that it’s Dolly. I suspect that she shares my conservative leanings; I like women who are not vertically taller than I am; she was famously generous; and it’s good that she will allllllllwaaays love me since I’m not always very lovable.

But, no, my favorite is Gloria. I know, we will argue politics a lot. She’s threateningly tall at 5’9” in case I were the type of man who feels threatened by that. She said she had an abortion. She helped women for a while but her dogmatism ultimately hurt them. Her hair was always parted down the middle, which was okay for a 34-year-old looker but a little stale for a 90-year-old.

But she had a certain moxie that said, “I live by my own rules, not yours. No gimmicks, no artifice.”

I like that in a woman, even though – or perhaps because – the resulting friction produces some heat. Maybe that attitude is the most important thing she taught women. Do your own thinking and act like who you are. Women are not here to be a man without a penis. Be a woman, not a possession. Woman up.  

Some of today’s men could use the same lesson. We’re here to do our own thinking and to act like who we are. We’re not here to be a woman with a penis (or without). Be a man, not a possession. Man up.