Trump wants to quit taxing Social Security benefits: Does anybody have a problem with that?

 I shop regularly at Trader Joe's and often see older people stocking the grocery shelves or managing the cash registers. They look old enough to be drawing Social Security checks. I often wonder whether these people work because they enjoy working or because their Social Security income is inadequate and they need the money.

Social Security income isn't taxed if the recipient has no other income. However, single people with income exceeding $25,000 (or $32,000 if married and filing jointly) must pay taxes on their Social Security benefits.

President Trump proposes to make Social Security income nontaxable, which would be a significant economic boost for older Americans who are drawing their Social Security and working at low-wage jobs in the service industry. 

Many policy wonks oppose Trump's plan because they say affluent retirees would benefit the most. 

To which I say so what? Low-income wage earners don't care how much wealthy Americans pay in taxes as long as their own tax burden decreases. Moreover, Trump's proposal to stop collecting taxes on Social Security can include a phase-out provision that excludes high-income retirees from receiving the tax break.

Other critics say Trump's proposal will hasten the day when the Social Security Trust Funds become insolvent. Most of these doomsday prophets had nothing to say about the money wasted on the Ukraine war or the USAID's fraud and abuse. No, they only worry about the government's solvency when a plan is proposed to give some tax relief to American seniors forced by inflation to cancel their retirement by taking low-wage service jobs.

About 67 million people receive Social Security benefits based on age. Most recipients receive modest Social Security checks; the average monthly benefit is only $1976. In these inflationary times, few can survive if their sole income is their Social Security check. 

Nevertheless, 25 percent of American seniors get 90 percent of their income from Social Security. No wonder many elderly Americans have been forced back into the workforce.

As I have said, Trump's proposal to stop taxing Social Security benefits will be good for older Americans who are working low-wage jobs to supplement their Social Security income. I'm in favor of it.

If the federal government needs to replace the lost revenues that result from Trump's tax relief scheme, it can start taxing the rich at a higher rate. Or maybe the Feds can shrink the federal budget by stopping the Ukraine war and the fraud and abuse in several federal agencies--most notably USAID.

Photo credit: Justin Sulivan/Getty Images

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help: A flawed scheme to save an island community from the rising sea

 Anyone exploring Louisiana's coastline knows climate change and rising sea levels are real. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Pelican State has lost 1,900 square miles of coastland since 1932. It continues to lose the equivalent of a football field every 100 minutes.

Thousands of Louisianians are being forced from their homes due to rising ocean water and skyrocketing property insurance rates. The federal government has offered various kinds of assistance to these beleaguered people, including Flood Mitigation Assistance grants to enable some homeowners to elevate their houses above the ever-encroaching water.

Unfortunately, the feds can't fix all our climate problems, as a recent story in the Baton Rouge Advocate illustrates. 

Advocate reporter Alex Lubben recently wrote an informative story about Isle de Jean Charles, an island community off the Louisiana coast. A casualty of the rising sea level, the island shrank from 35 square miles to a single square mile in recent years. 

Most of the Jean Charles population are members of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation, and many moved to the newly created community of New Isle, located forty miles inland. A $48 million grant enabled 37 new homes to be built at New Isle for these "climate refugees,"  and the grant also paid for the New Isle dwellers' homeowners insurance for five years.

A happy ending, right?

 Unfortunately, many of the grant beneficiaries are unable to pay their property taxes and insurance. One New Isle resident said he planned to sell his truck to pay $4,000 in back taxes on his new home.

Let's do the math on this federal do-good project. Grant administrators spent $46,600,000 to build 37 homes--more than a million dollars per home. The Jean Charles islanders got the homes for free but many can't afford to maintain them. 

It would have been cheaper for the federal government to have given every Jean Charles household a million dollars and let them build or buy their own homes. But that model won't work either.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, 330,000 Louisiana homes will be at risk of chronic flooding by 2045 (as reported in the Advocate story). That's a fifth of all Louisiana households. Will the feds give all these homeowners a million bucks each to obtain new lodging? Not likely.

Disaster looms for thousands of Louisiana homeowners who live on the Gulf Coast, and the cost to move all these people inland is prohibitive. This a problem that the federal government can't fix.

One thing seems clear. In the coming years, only rich people will be able to live on the Gulf Coast, people rich enough to pay skyrocketing property insurance. If you're not rich, don't move there.

Photo credit: Times-Picayune and Ted Jackson

Ottawa promotes a silly scheme for fighting climate change: Don't warm up your car on frigid days!

 I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, when I was a young lawyer. After experiencing a couple of Alaska winters, I thought I knew all about cold winter weather.

Then, I flew to Fairbanks for a one-day business trip in February. That's when I learned that winter in Anchorage is like a summer vacation in Florida compared to winter in the Alaska interior.

I rented a car from Hertz, and a Hertz agent drove me to my assigned vehicle, where my car's engine was already running. The agent advised me not to turn the engine off for any length of time but to keep the vehicle running for the whole day.

I drove into downtown Fairbanks and saw all the cars parked along the street had exhaust fumes spewing out the tailpipes. Nobody turned their car engines off! 

Why? Because the odds are good that a car won't start if left in the open for a couple of hours when the temperature is minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

I hear it gets cold in Ottawa, Canada, in winter, cold enough for wise motorists to let their cars warm up for a few minutes before venturing out on the roads. Nevertheless, the practice of warming a vehicle adds a bit to pollution.

The City of Ottawa recently passed an ordinance making it unlawful for the town's motorists to pre-start their cars for more than sixty seconds to cut down on carbon pollution.

I confidently assert that the citizens of Ottowa will ignore this law until hell freezes over. I also predict that deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning will increase as winter drivers surreptitiously warm their cars in closed garages.

Almost everyone accepts that our climate is warming and that industrialized societies should take prudent steps to reduce pollution. But let's be sensible. 

Billions of dollars have been invested in electric cars, yet these vehicles have downsides. One commentator noted that if an electric vehicle is fueled by electricity generated at a coal-fired power plant,  "it could be worse for the climate than a modern hybrid that still uses [a combustible engine]."

If we want to reduce our nation's carbon footprint, why don't we do the simple things first? Let's eliminate the drive-through windows at fast food restaurants rather than allow motorists to idle their cars for 20 minutes while waiting for their orders. Let's make overweight Americans park their gas-guzzling SUVs and waddle inside the local McDonald's for their Big Mac and fries.

As for Ottawa's ban on warming up cars in winter, I wish the city good luck. I wouldn't comply if I lived in Ottawa. I don't think many Americans living in the Frost Belt would comply, either.

Perhaps Canadians are more law-abiding and compliant by nature than Americans and will consent to drive to work on frigid winter mornings in coffin-cold cars. But I doubt it.

Fairbanks in winter. Photo credit: Andrew Dier.

What's in a name? President Trump should not have renamed Mount Denali

I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, as a young man. On clear days, I would see Mount Denali, North America's highest peak, rising to the north more than 100 miles away. 

Almost no one in Alaska refers to this majestic summit as Mount McKinley, although that was its official name for nearly a hundred years. Why would they? Denali is an Athabaskan word meaning the Great One, and President William McKinley had nothing to do with the mountain or with Alaska, for that matter.

In an act of bureaucratic hubris, the federal government renamed Denali to commemorate President McKinley in 1917, but Alaskans never got on board. In 1975, Governor Jay Hammond formally requested the  U.S. Department of the Interior to reinstate the mountain's name as Denali.

Unfortunately for the Alaskans, President McKinley hailed from Ohio, and an Ohio congressman opposed the change. Then, in 2015, 40 years after the feds received Governor Hammond's request, Sally Jewell, President Barack Obama's Secretary of the Interior, did the right thing and changed the mighty mountain's name back to Denali.

Then, in January 2025, President Trump was sworn into office as our nation's 47th president and changed Denali's name back to Mount McKinley. 

That was a mistake.

Alaskans are not happy about President Trump's preemptive decision, and they've raised many arguments in protest. I believe, however, that Hudson Stuck, who, with three other men, was the first to reach Denali's summit, articulated the best reason for reclaiming the mountain's Athabaskan name.

In The Ascent of Denali, Stuck's account of his historic climb in 1913, Stuck wrote this:

[L]et at least the native names of these great mountains remain to show that there once dwelt in the land a simple, hardy race who braved successfully the rigors of its climate and the inhospitality of their environment and flourished . . . .

Indeed, for our nation to recognize North America's highest peak as Denali is to do no more than acknowledge what is right.  Alaska Natives lived and thrived in a harsh land for millennia before the Europeans showed up. The Native name of Denali is the mountain's proper name.

Note. I omitted an offensive Eurocentric phrase from my quotation of Hudson Stuck. 

Mount Denali: The Great One

Maine Governor Janet Mills defies Trump's ban on transgender high school sports: Is this the hill you choose to die on?

Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order making clear that schools and colleges that allow biological males to compete in women's and girls' varsity sports violate Title IX. Education institutions that continue this practice, Trump's order declared, would be denied federal funding.

Most Americans welcomed an end to a bizarre policy adopted by various varsity sports associations that allowed biological men to compete against women and girls in such varied sports as shot put competition, swimming, and pole vaulting. In essence, Trump's order announced that the emperor wore no clothes, and people who believe that only girls should be allowed to compete with other girls in school sports no longer need fear being branded as transphobic.

The NCAA immediately jumped on board, announcing  it would comply with Trump's executive order.  Henceforth, the NCAA announced, only athletes who were assigned female at birth could compete in collegiate women's sports. 

However, the reaction to Trump's order was mixed at the high school level. Some high school sports associations revised their policies about transgender sports competition to comply with the Trump directive. Others vowed to continue allowing biological males who identify as female to compete with real girls in varsity sports.

 

For example, the Maine Principals Association declined to comply with President Trump's executive order, and a biological male who identified as female was recently named the state champion in the girls' pole vaulting event. Laural Libby, a Maine State legislator, revealed that this transgender athlete had competed as a male in a previous year and had only tied for fifth place.

President Trump, aware of Maine's defiance, confronted Maine Governor Janet Mills at a governors' conference in Washington and warned her that Maine would lose federal funding if it refused to comply with his executive order. Ms. Mills did not back down. "See you in court," was her response.

Here are my thoughts. Banning biological males from competing against girls in varsity sports is a simple matter of fairness.  Congress adopted Title IX in 1972 to ensure fairness toward women and girls in school sports, and politicians and educators who interpret Title IX as permitting transgender participation in girls' sports are engaging in sophistry.

Moreover, states choosing to litigate the transgender sports issue in court are wasting their money on lawyers. Who believes biological males will be allowed to compete in women's sports when this litigation is concluded? Trump's executive order will ultimately prevail in the courts, and this controversy will die away.

So why is Governor Janet Mills defying President Trump's executive order? In my view, Mills is engaged in expensive virtue signaling-- willing to risk the loss of federal education funding for her state to publicize her opposition to Donald Trump. 

If so, Mills should pick another issue to fight about other than transgender sports competition. I strongly suspect that the majority of her constituents are opposed to biological boys competing against girls on Maine's athletic fields. In fact, I'm sure they think it's nuts.

Governor Mills has chosen the wrong hill to die on. She may not care about her political future since she is 77 years old, in her second term as governor, and prohibited by the Maine Constitution from running for a third consecutive term. 

However, her foolish stance on transgender participation in girls' sports will be remembered by the voters as a crackpot notion of the Democratic party, which could turn Maine into a swing state or even a red state in the coming years.

My feeble Catholic testament against the death penalty. Capital punishment coarsens us all.

Ten years ago, Pope Francis spoke out against the death penalty. Addressing a delegation from the International Association of Penal Law, the Pope said this: "All Christians and men of good faith are therefore called upon today to fight . . . for the abolition of the death penalty--whether it is legal or illegal, and in all its forms . . . ."

In speaking out against capital punishment, Pope  Francis followed the example of Pope John Paul II, who condemned the death penalty as "both cruel and unnecessary." 

In 2018, Pope Francis revised the Catholic Catechism to make clear that the death penalty is "inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person." Therefore, the Catechism instructed, the Catholic Church would work "with determination to its abolition worldwide."

Catholics confront the reality of capital punishment every time they attend a Mass or contemplate the crucifixes that many Catholics display in their homes. Christ died a horrible, gruesome death--hung naked on a tree and forced to lift his nail-implanted feet just to breathe until he finally died of blood loss and asphyxiation. 

Surely, as Catholics, we are called upon to oppose any kind of execution by the instruments of government, whether by hanging, firing squad, electrocution, or lethal injection. In the way that he died, our Savior calls on us to respect the dignity of life--every life, even the life of the most hardened criminal. After all, Christ reassured St. Dismas on the cross that he would join Christ in paradise on the day of his death.

Catholic opposition to capital punishment is also a way of honoring all our saints and martyrs who died horrible deaths for their faith. Indeed, some of them died deaths by methods even more cruel than the cross.  During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Catholics were publicly hanged, drawn, and quartered, which meant that they were first hanged by the neck, taken down while still conscious, and then eviscerated and sometimes even castrated while still alive.  Their bodies were then pulled apart (quartered) to the delight of watching crowds. St. Edward Campion was executed in just this way.

Capital punishment, whether in its most benign or most malevolent form, degrades the societies that practice it, including the United States.  Our detractors point out that Catholics are far more vociferous when opposing abortion than we are when speaking out against capital punishment. Unfortunately, they are right.

Those of us who are Catholic should follow the examples of Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II and speak out publicly against the death penalty. Let us be guided by  Catechism, which clarifies that capital punishment is contrary to our Catholic faith.

Pope Francis opposes the death penalty.

 

I don't need y'all treating me this way: Tom Hanks insults the Heartland on SNL anniversary special

I've been to Georgia on a fast train, honey.
I wa'n't born no yesterday.
I got a good Christian raisin' and an eighth-grade education.
Ain't no need in y'all a treatin' me this way.

Georgia on a Fast Train

Billy Shaver, songwriter

Sung by Johnny Cash

Tom Hanks gratuitously insulted white Americans in SNL's televised 50th-anniversary celebration a few days ago. In a sketch titled Black Jeopardy, Hanks played a Forrest Gump-style white guy with a hick accent and MAGA hat. To drive home the point that MAGA Republicans are racists, Hanks's character pointedly refused to shake hands with a black man.

Perhaps Hanks sensed folks living in Flyover Country have stopped attending Hollywood movies and figured it was safe to make fun of the rubes. If so, he's right. I'll never watch another Tom Hanks film.

Hanks is clueless about a significant cultural shift across America. He probably thought he was ridiculing a marginal group when, in fact, it is Hanks and the coastal elites who are marginalized.

Hanks, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and a host of wealthy celebrities and media luminaries were just fine with a nation headed by Joe Biden,  a demented crook, and his giggling idiot sidekick, Kamala Harris. After all, the elites are wealthy; the system works just fine for them.

The rest of us, however, are concerned about fentanyl flowing across the southern border, Social Security checks going out to dead centenarians, and the senseless war in Ukraine. People who buy their own groceries are alarmed by the spike in food prices.

Millions of Americans are waking up to the fact that Anthony Fauci hoodwinked us with the COVID vaccines. No wonder Fauci thinks he needs Uncle Sam's security protection.

It's time for people in Flyover Country to boycott the vacuous cultural garbage being spewed out by people who hate their audiences. The richness and vitality of American culture is in the Heartland, not Manhattan or Hollywood.

To put it another way, "Stupid is as stupid does," and the coastal elites are stupid to disdain the people who made them successful. And that, as Forrest Gump might say, is all I have to say about that.

Kiss my ass, Tom Hanks

Why would anyone oppose Trump's efforts to end the Ukraine war?

We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.

Attributed to Benjamin Franklin 

President Trump is trying to end the Ukraine war, which has brought incalculable misery to both the Ukrainians and the Russians.

I say incalculable because the war's advocates are not telling the truth about military and civilian casualty rates. Nor have they acknowledged the enormous environmental harms caused by the war.

Trump's Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, rattled Ukrainian President Vladimir  Zelensky by observing that Ukraine will probably need to cede some territory to get a peace deal. However, Hegseth was only stating the obvious. 

No credible authority believes Russia will consent to relinquish Crimea. Nor will Vladimir Putin give up the predominately Russian-speaking districts of the Donbas--where fighting has gone on for ten years.

Hegseth also made waves when he said that talking about NATO membership for Ukraine is unrealistic. Again, Hegseth was only stating the obvious. It would be insane to make Ukraine a NATO member now. Indeed, no NATO country is strongly pushing for immediate Ukraine membership. 

Every American should be grateful for Trump's energetic efforts to bring the stupid Ukraine war to a speedy conclusion. Yet, Democratic politicians are spewing vicious vitriol at the President while having no plan of their own to end this disastrous conflict.

Senator Richard Blumenthal's criticisms were particularly odious. He objected to Trump's characterization of Zelensky as a dictator who was doing a "terrible job" of running the war.

"What world is he living in?" Blumenthal asked. 

[Trump's remarks were] not only contrary to the facts and the truth but utterly despicable, a disgusting betrayal of a country that has bled and fought and died for freedom. The president's surrender is pathetic and weak.

Perhaps it was therapeutic for Senator Blumenthal to insult the President, and I'm sure his hissy fit played well with progressive Democrats in New Haven. Nevertheless, what's the Connecticut Senator's plan for ending the slaughter in Ukraine?

Does Blumenthal want the U.S. to follow President Biden's strategy, which was to ship money and weapons to Zelensky in perpetuity?

Will Zelensky's corrupt and venal regime prevail if we keep sending cluster bombs, uranium-enriched artillery shells, antipersonnel mines, Abrams tanks, and F-16s to Ukraine? Or will we eventually stumble into a nuclear war?

I favor putting the Democratic Party's deranged attacks against President Trump aside for a while and supporting his efforts to stop the Ukraine war. There will be plenty of time to slander him as a Nazi after the killing stops.

Senator Blumenthal and cronies

Shut Down the U.S. Department of Education: Why the Hell Not?

 When Kinky Friedman ran for Texas governor in 2006, he had a compelling bumper-sticker slogan. "Kinky Friedman for Governor. Why the Hell Not?"

I found Kinky's message persuasive and voted for him in the Texa primary.

I feel the same about President Trump's campaign promise to shut down the U.S. Department of Education. Why the hell not?

Critics warn that closing DOE would mean the elimination of the Department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which investigates discrimination claims against colleges and schools. Without OCR, they warn, we're likely to see an uptick in race and sex discrimination and the harassment of gay and transgender students on college campuses.

I reject that argument. 

OCR's investigatory and enforcement authority has long been a threat hanging over U.S. higher education. Still, it hasn't prevented the emergence of racism and antisemitism at the universities --particularly elite institutions like Harvard and Columbia. In fact, colleges are displaying more bigotry than at any time since the McCarthy era.

DOE's defenders also point out that the Department needs to administer the federal student loan program and distribute college loans.

I reject that argument as well. 

DOE has done a terrible job overseeing the student loan program. The higher education community has complained for over a decade that the federal student aid application form (commonly called the FAFSA) was unduly cumbersome and complicated for students and their parents to fill out. In 2020, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act, directing DOE to create a simpler financial aid form.

DOE tackled the issue but didn't release the newly designed form until December 30, 2023, three months after students needed it. Consequently, the college admission process was delayed all over the U.S., with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finding that:

Delays, glitches, and other issues led to a 9% decline in submitted FAFSA applications among first-time applicants and an overall decline of about 432,000 applications as of the end of August [2024].

Of course one mistake, even a massive screwup like the FAFSA debacle, is not a justification by itself for closing a federal agency. Nevertheless, over the years, DOE has shown itself unable to properly monitor the venal for-profit college industry or to rein in college costs, which have gone up year after year partly due to massive infusions of federal cash.

I agree with the Trump administration that education is a state responsibility that should not be overregulated or controlled by the federal government.

If Trump manages to close down DOE, I don't think its disappearance will adversely affect American education. Freed from onerous federal regulations, the colleges might even cut the cost of tuition. 

Now, that would be a miracle.

Andy's Custard is Dead to Me: Reflections on the Decline of the American Work Culture

 My hometown had an old-fashioned Dairy Queen when I was a kid, one of those vintage establishments that required customers to stand on the sidewalk and direct their food orders to a soda jerk through an open window.

Anadarko's Dairy Queen sold "soft serve," not real ice cream, but delicious nevertheless.  A small soft-serve cone only cost a nickel, which fit my childhood budget. If I was broke, I could always find at least three empty soda bottles I could redeem for two cents at the grocery store. And voila! I had the scratch to get a soft-serve cone.

My local Dairy Queen only sold two food items: a chili dog, which cost fifteen cents, and a footlong chili dog, which cost a quarter. The footlong came encased in a paper wrapper with a printed ruler attesting that the footlong chili dog was indeed twelve inches long. Truth in advertising!

My favorite food item at the Anadarko DQ was the soft-serve chocolate malt. A chocolate milkshake cost twenty-five cents during my childhood years, but the malt was pricey--thirty cents!

The extra nickel was worth it, however, because the tablespoon of powdered malt transformed an ordinary milkshake into the nectar of the gods.

Growing up, I consumed a couple hundred soft-serve chocolate malts, and I don't recall the soda jerk ever getting my order wrong. The powdered malt and chocolate syrup were always in the drink I ordered.

Now, chocolate malts cost a lot more than thirty cents. Andy's Custard, which I once patronized, charged me $6.95 (including sales tax) for a malt about the same size as the malts I slurped at the Anadarko Dairy Queen a half-century ago. 

I didn't begrudge the cost because Andy's custard is premium quality. Nevertheless, I insist that my seven-dollar malt includes malt flavoring.

The server at Andy's gets my order right about 60 percent of the time. Other times, however, I get a chocolate milkshake, not a chocolate malt.

This is unacceptable to me. When I pay seven dollars for a chocolate malt, I want a chocolate malt.

I do not mean to single out Andy's Custard. My experience there is similar to my experience in all kinds of fast-food establishments. Too often, the person who takes my order has a faraway look, and I know he or she is not listening to me. I'm distracting my server from TikTok or a text message conversation about last night's keg party.

Same phenomenon in the grocery store. I was in Albertson's a while back, and the cashier was having a personal conversation on his hands-free cell phone. He never acknowledged my presence or paused his phone chatter. I was a distraction from his social life.

COVID wrecked the American work ethic. When the federal government began paying people more not to work than to show up and do something useful, people asked themselves why they should exert themselves just to have money in their pockets. Just send me a check!

This new attitude hurts our whole society. When I order a chocolate malt, it's no big deal if the Andy's Custard worker gives me a milkshake. It's more serious, however, when the Social Security Administration tells the American people it can't say for sure when it will implement the directives of the Social Security Fairness Act.

Weaponizing free speech: Nonsense and blather from the unhinged left

 I have long believed no one should graduate college without reading William Shirer's magisterial book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. 

Shirer, a journalist who witnessed Germany's descent into terror, was a journalist, not an academic. Perhaps for that reason, his account of Hitler's rise to the German chancellor's office through parliamentary means and his use of assassination and concentration camps to secure total power has never been seriously challenged.

Margaret Brennan, CBS host of Face the Nation, obviously never read Shirer's masterpiece.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have made the inane comment that the Nazis weaponized free speech when she interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

Rubio, who has a firmer grasp on history than Brennan, set her straight. The Nazis didn't weaponize free speech, he tutored her; they abolished it.

Brennan's weaponizing free speech comment did not come out of thin air. Brennan probably read Adam Litvak's story in the New York Times titled "How Conservatives Weaponized Free Speech," in which Litvak quoted Associate Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote in a dissenting judicial opinion that conservatives were "weaponizing the First Amendment."

Indeed, the bizarre assertion that free speech can be weaponized has entered the mainstream of legal scholarship. Catharine MacKinnon, a law professor and feminist legal scholar, published an article in the Virginia Law Review that made this astounding claim:

Once a defense of the powerless, the First Amendment over the last hundred years has mainly become a weapon of the powerful. Starting toward the beginning of the twentieth century, a protection that was once persuasively conceived by dissenters as a shield for radicals, artists and activists, socialists and pacifists, the excluded and the dispossessed, has become a sword for authoritarians, racists and misogynists, Nazis and Klansmen, pornographers, and corporations buying elections in the dark.

My guess, then, is that Brennan's addled notion that the Nazis weaponized free speech can be traced back to balderdash disseminated by Justice Kagan, Professor MacKinnon, and the New York Times.

With due respect to these august authorities, I believe the assertion that the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis, and pornographers weaponized the First Amendment is fruitcake logic--the very kind of blather we've come to expect to come from academia and the legacy media.

However, I'm just a guy who lives off a gravel road in Flyover Country, so what do I know? 

Professor Catharine MacKinnon, Fruitcake Extraordinaire

Take this job and shove it! Elon Musk tries to prune the federal bureaucracy

 Take this job and shove it

I ain't working here no more.

Sung by Johnny Paycheck

America's budget deficit is on track to hit $1.9 trillion, which will be added to the nation's accumulated national debt of $36 trillion. 

Elon Musk, chief of President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is moving savagely to prune the federal workforce, which he urgently needs to do.  

He began by offering buyouts to entice federal employees to resign--a classic corporate tactic to trim payroll costs. So far, roughly 75,000 people have accepted the offer, a tiny percentage of the nation's 2.3 million federal workers.

Unfortunately, the employees who accepted the offer include some of the nation's most efficient bureaucrats. That's because the people who left federal service have job skills that can transfer to the private sector.

Most civil servants are hanging on to their federal jobs despite a pointed invitation to leave.  These include those who don't have the skills or experience to find employment outside the DC swamp. They will dig in at least long enough to reach retirement age.

DOGE will be forced to fire thousands of government workers to trim the workforce. Many will file lawsuits challenging DOGE's authority to make the government more efficient. They'll also avail themselves of the elaborate civil service regulations that protect their constitutional right to due process.

In short, it will be months or even years before the federal workforce shrinks. Meanwhile, the primary beneficiaries of the DOGE initiative will be lawyers--lots and lots of lawyers.

In the near future, we are likely to see the passive-aggressive nature of the federal civil service rear its ugly head as the apparatchiks of the DC swamp begin a work slowdown. We can't fulfill our duties, the bureaucrats will moan, because the workforce has been slashed by a "Nazi nepo baby."

Indeed, we are already seeing worksite sabotage in the Social Security Administration. Senior SSA administrators say it will be more than a year before they implement the directives of the Social Security Fairness Act, which is intended to benefit retirees who have been unfairly penalized. 

Why? They're understaffed.

Take number. A federal bureaucrat will assist you sometime in the next century.

SNL's 50th Anniversary Show: Bingo Night at the Nursing Home

 I watched Saturday Night Live's  50th Anniversary Show last night on NBC, one of the Deep State's propaganda networks. Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Andy Hoglund described the program as "the ultimate victory lap--a night packed with nostalgia, humor, and some surprise moments."

Hoglund and I live on different planets. I found the show tedious, self-congratulatory, and distinctly unfunny.

In the "Scared Straight" sketch," Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy, playing incarcerated criminals, repeatedly made jokes about anal rape in prison. Who found that funny?

A satire on the Lawrence Welk Show portrayed a disfigured thalidomide victim dancing provocatively. I didn't laugh.

Robert De Niro showed up for a cameo appearance--the avuncular De Niro, not the Trump-hating angry grandpa. Someone needs to tell SNL that inserting a faded celebrity in a sketch doesn't make it funny.

And then there was Lil Wayne's rap performance, which Hoglund described as "the superior musical medley of the night."  

That was a musical medley? Thanks for enlightening me. I thought it was an atonal, incoherent rant. I guess you've got to be a coastal elite to appreciate Lil Wayne's charms.

Finally, I found Tom Hanks's "In Memoriam" intro mildly offensive. Before showing a montage of sketches featuring racial and ethnic stereotypes, Hank suggested that the audience should be canceled for laughing.

The audience for last night's SNL homage didn't include representatives of the show's millions of fans. No, the auditorium was packed with celebrities from days gone by: Cher, Keith Richards, Al Sharpton, Alec Baldwin, etc. 

Hoglund called the production "the ultimate victory lap."  I would describe it as Bingo Night at the Nursing Home.

There was a time when SNL entertained Flyover Country and made the yokels laugh. Now, the glitterati of Manhattan only entertain each other and laugh at the rest of us.

Thalidomide isn't funny

 

White Dudes For Kamala: Aren't You Ashamed of Yourselves?

In her interview on 60 Minutes, Kamala Harris, the Democrats' presidential candidate, said this: 

Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. 

As Americans later learned, CBS doctored the transcript to make Harris sound less incoherent, and Donald Trump sued the network for biased reporting. 

Harris's 60 Minutes babble was just one example of her inability to speak clearly and forthrightly. Nevertheless, more than 70 million people voted for Harris to be the next leader of the Free World.

Presumably, this number includes all those male Democratic sycophants who showed up (via "live video call") for a "White Dudes for Kamala" rally last July.

According to the New York Times, 60,000 men attended this video event, which was headlined by Jeff Bridges:

Kicking off the White Dudes call was, of course, the Dude, the actor Jeff Bridges, abiding in a comfortable-looking chair. He had seen a link for the “White Dudes for Harris” trucker hat and wanted one. “I qualify!” he said. “I am white. I am a dude. And I love Harris!”

As reported by the media, the White Dudes rally was a stunning success and raised $4 million for the Harris campaign--enough to cover the fees the Harris team paid to production companies owned by Ophrah and Beyonce for their efforts on Kamala's behalf.

We know how that turned out. On election day, Donald Trump soundly defeated Harris. Indeed, he made gains in key demographic groups compared to previous Republican performances, including white, black, and Hispanic men. 

Is anyone embarrassed?

Why did so many celebrities publicly support Harris for president when she was clearly a dud? I think the glitterati were just lazy.

Like the cinematic Big Lebowski, who was described in Sam Elliott's voiceover as "the laziest man in Los Angeles," the coastal elites always support the most liberal and progressive candidates for any public office. It's easier than thinking for themselves.

Fortunately, millions of white dudes did their own thinking and voted for Trump. Can you imagine where the country would be right now if Harris and Tim Walz were running the country?

The laziest man in Los Angeles.

 

 

 

Please, President Trump, get the U.S. the hell out of Ukraine

 "Ignorance of history," Robert Conquest wrote, "is one of the most negative attributes of modern man."

Indeed, among our woke politicians and pseudo-intellectual academics, it is fashionable to sneer at anyone who makes a historical reference.

Everything that occurred before the election of Barack Obama, our chattering class believes, is nothing more than the machinations and exploitations of racist, homophobic, and misogynistic white men. The past is irrelevant, and seeking wisdom from history is offensive to the uber-sensitive.

Ask AOC to state the dates of the Civil War and hear what she says. You'll probably get a sneer and no answer.

Ask Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren to define Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Britain,  and the years they occurred. I'll bet she doesn't know.

Now, our nation's policy wonks and military bureaucrats, apparently ignorant of history, are stoking the war in Ukraine.

As President Trump has said, it's a stupid war,  senseless and tragic.  The American public doesn't know how many people have died in the conflict because everyone is lying about the casualties. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that half a million people have been killed, and hundreds of thousands more have been maimed. Cities have been leveled, and millions of Ukrainian refugees have been driven out of their native country.

For what? To prop up the Ukrainian government, a corrupt and venal crime gang. Isn't anyone aware of Russia's long dominance in Crimea or the millions of Russian speakers in the Donbas?

Barack Obama's State Department and his CIA destabilized Ukraine in 2014 and pushed Russia toward war. Hunter Biden enriched himself in Ukraine, and then Joe Biden, morally bankrupt and cognitively ravaged, shipped billions of dollars in weapons to prop up Zelensky's corrupt regime.

And Americans don't care. Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, bleats about transgender children who supposedly fear for their lives, but she doesn't give a fuck about the Ukrainians, or at least not enough to mention it in her lecture to the President.

 And neither do the folks in the legacy media. Do you think Whoopi Goldberg could find Ukraine on a map?

Please, President Trump, stop the war in Ukraine. If you do that, you should get the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee might give you Barack Obama's. He never used it.

I Go Full Keto (Or Maybe Half Keto): Reflections on My Post-Stroke Lifestyle

I had a stroke a couple of years ago, which impaired my left side. I walk with a cane now, which is no fun, and my semi-functional left side prevents me from participating in a host of enjoyable activities.

Consequently, I've gained some weight. A couple of weeks ago, I determined to go on a formal, serious diet--the first in my life.

I was attracted to the carnivore diet that would allow me to eat nothing but meat. Consuming a lot of ribeye steaks, pork chops, and bacon--how hard could that be?

I did some Google research, however, and learned about some downsides. Joe Rogan, the famous podcaster, tried the carnivore website and reported that it gave him diarrhea.

Pretty severe diarrhea. As Joe described it:

It’s a different thing, and with regular diarrhea, I would compare it to a fire you see coming a block or two away, and you have the time to make an escape, whereas this carnivore diet is like out of nowhere, the fire is coming through the cracks, your doorknob is red hot, and all hope is lost.

Other people warn that a meat-only diet is exceptionally dull. Eating a ribeye steak every day loses its appeal over time, the carnivores say, although I'm skeptical.

I finally settled on the Keto diet--which is a "high-fat, low carbohydrate diet that aims to put the body into a state called ketosis" (whatever the hell that means).

I've been on the Keto diet for about two weeks and haven't lost a significant amount of weight. I feel better, however, as a result of giving up processed bread and sweets

I've also given up alcohol. which was difficult. I'm drinking nonalcoholic beer now, which is pretty good. Heineken's zero beer, in particular, is delicious and tastes like real beer.

Nevertheless, I've already found myself making compromises. It was impossible for me to get through the Superbowl last Sunday without a couple of brewskis.

I also found I can go only so long without a cheeseburger, and my religion requires that I quaff a Shiner when I eat that holy meal.

I decided I would enjoy a total of two alcoholic drinks on weekends and allow myself a weekly high-carb meal (cheeseburger, mothership pizza, enchilada plate, etc.)

Thus, I have not gone full Keto; I've gone half Keto. I'll let you know how it works out.

Of course, the other half of a weight-loss regime is exercise. I've resolved to walk a half mile four times a week, which I think will help me lose weight.

It is no fun living with the damage from a stroke. My duck hunting days are over, and I'll never crank another fishing reel.

There are compensations, however. With the help of my brother-in-law and a patient guide, I shot a deer last month in Alabama, and I'm feasting on low-carb venison meat.

To paraphrase William Wordsworth, nothing can bring back the splendor in the grass, but I'll find strength in what remains. Besides, the grass was not that splendid when I was growing up in western Oklahoma.

And Keto or no Keto, I'm gonna have a Shiner now and then.

Trump Should Allow Distressed Student Debtors File for Bankruptcy, and Proggressive Democrats Should Get Onboard

Progressive Dems protest every move President Trump makes, and then they file lawsuits with judges who were appointed by Obama and Biden. It will take months or even years to resolve this litigation, which is the whole point.

Is there anything Trump and the Democrats can agree on? 

How about this? The Democrats and Republicans can join hands and amend the Bankruptcy Code to allow overburdened student debtors to discharge their college loans in bankruptcy like any other nonsecured student debt.

Under current law, students cannot escape their education loans in bankruptcy unless they prove that the debt creates an "undue hardship" for them. The Department of Education and the federal courts have interpreted "undue hardship" very harshly, making it virtually impossible for most student borrowers to free themselves from crushing college loans.

How can that problem be fixed?

Easy peasy. All Congress needs to do is remove two words from the Bankruptcy Code: undue hardship. It's that simple.

Surely, the aged and bleating bulls in the Democratic Party--Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, etc--can get behind this reform and get this simple change through Congress.

If not, President Trump can get the same result with a one-page executive order. Henceforth, the order would read, undue hardship is presumed when an insolvent student debtor files for bankruptcy. Thus, the burden of proving no undue hardship will fall on the US Department of Education and its debt collectors.

Of course, the Bankruptcy Code should include some safeguards to prevent scofflaws from getting a lucrative degree and immediately flushing their student loans away in the nearest bankruptcy court. College borrowers should be required to wait five or even seven years after completing their studies before accessing the bankruptcy remedy.

Progressives might argue that this sensible reform would undermine the student loan program as millions and even billions of dollars in student debt get wiped off the books. But hey--no one paid down their student debt for three years during the COVID crisis, and the progressives expressed no worries.

And let's remember that President Biden's revisions to the income-based repayment formula are so generous that most student loans will never be paid back anyway.

I predict that college leaders will oppose bankruptcy reform if it gets introduced. They like the status quo--an unending flow of federal student-aid dollars and no accountability for results.

And progressive Democrats will probably oppose it, too. They will suddenly develop a keen appreciation for financial discipline. They don't want anything good to happen for which Trump would get credit.

That's okay. President Trump can open the bankruptcy courts to financially strapped student debtors with a stroke of his pen. All he needs is a Sharpie.

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