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.

Image credit: Getty Images

Where Can We Find American Culture: The Super Bowl or the Streets of Bakersfield?

Hey, you don't know me, but you don't like me,
Say you care less how I feel.
But how many of you that sit and judged me
Ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

The Streets of Bakersfield

Homer Joy

Sung by Buck Owens

Kendrick Lamar performed at the Super Bowl last night, spewing rap lyrics I couldn't understand. Kendrick's performance was backed by a platoon of well-choreographed dancers--as disciplined as a Russian military unit.

What did Lamar's Super Bowl presentation mean, if anything?

Jon Caramonica, writing for the New York Times, treated Lamar's presentation as if it were as important as a Nobel Prize-winning novel, writing:

But what will always be remembered from this performance is not the musical choices Lamar made, or the aesthetics of his choreography, or the silhouettes of his outfit. What will remain is his grin when he finally begins rapping that song. It was wide, persistent, almost cartoonish in shape. 

The grin of a man having the time of his life at the expense of an enemy.

Caramonica clued me into the meaning of some of Lamar's lyrics; he was cryptically taunting another rapper! Gee, I'm glad I wasted a few minutes of my life watching that drivel.

Was Kendrick Lamar's performance a cultural event? Were there elements of his lyrics and the backup dancers' gyrations that were expressions of American culture? I don't think so.

I know what you're probably thinking. Who cares what some old Mississippi wheezer thinks about rap music? How could a retrograde fossil who lives on a gravel road in the goddamn middle of nowhere understand the profound meaning of Kendrick Lamar's lyrics?

If that's what you're thinking, it's a fair point. People living in Flyover Country have been left behind as mainstream American culture grows more youth-oriented, cynical, urbane, and dismissive of anything that happened last week.

Nevertheless, there are neglected currents of American culture that will endure long after Kendrick Lamar's music and his feud with another rapper are forgotten.

For example, most Americans are unaware of the Okie refugees who fled the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and settled in California. These people brought a music tradition that blossomed in the Bakersfield region. 

Merle Haggard was the son of Okies; his parents were from Checota, Oklahoma. He became the greatest singer and composer of country music to ever live--greater than Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams.

Buck Owens was born in Sherman, Texas, during the Great Depression and eventually moved to Bakersfield, where he and Haggard created what became known as the Bakersfield Sound.

Other Dust Bowl refugees contributed to the Bakersfield Sound: Tommy Collins, Wynn Stewart, and the great Wanda Jackson--the Queen of Rockabilly.

Americans enthralled by rap music have probably never heard of the Bakersfield Sound and may despise the people who listen to it as just a bunch of hicks from Flyover Country.

Nevertheless, 50 or 100 years from now, Americans will be listening to the Bakersfield Sound when Kendrick Lamar is just a footnote in the obscure history of rap.

"You don't know me, but you don't like me."
Image credit: WPA

 

What the hell was Nancy Pelosi doing in Belgium anyway?

The will to power came to take the place of the will to justice, pretending at first to be identified with it and then relegating it to a place somewhere at the end of history.

Albert Camus

Last December, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi suffered a severe injury while traveling in Europe. She fell in her high-heel shoes and underwent hip replacement surgery in Luxembourg.

What the hell was Nancy Pelosi, a wobbly octogenarian, doing in Europe anyway? According to a press release from her office, Pelosi traveled to Belgium and Luxembourg as a member of a bipartisan congressional delegation to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.

Really? Does anyone think Nancy's junket benefited her California constituency in any way? And how did she get to Belgium? It's safe to assume she didn't fly coach.

Nancy went to Belgium five years ago to attend the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Isn't one European holiday enough for Nancy to celebrate the Second World War?

Americans will remember that the Democrats were predicting the end of democracy last fall if Trump were elected President. They were calling him a fascist and a Nazi. Given the perilous state of the Republic, why did Pelosi think it was a good idea to put on high-heeled shoes and go to Belgium?

Our so-called progressive politicians pretend to be fierce advocates for social justice, but all they really want is power and the perks that go with it. Karen Bass, mayor of the nation's second-largest city, was in Africa as a presidential delegate when the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out. Is running Los Angeles a part-time job?

Our national debt tops $36 trillion and grows bigger every day, and yet President Biden, far gone in senile dementia, jets off to Angola. Meanwhile, federal bureaucrats don't even show up for work.

America's house is on fire, and Donald Trump showed up to douse the flames. Unfortunately, he may have arrived too late to save us.

Thank you for your service!
Photo credit: MEGA

Americans who help foreign criminals evade the police should do a little jail time: Governor Phil Murphy take note

 In Rules For Radicals, Saul Alinsky observed that it's okay to go to jail but not to stay too long.

Over the years, radical activists have adopted Alinsky's disruptive tactics again and again to paralyze local government, and many are quite willing to do some jail time. Al Shanker, head of the American Federation of Teachers, made his career by being jailed for promoting New York City's illegal teachers' strike in 1968. Incarceration converts irritating protesters into martyrs.

Today, some Americans oppose President Trump's efforts to stop illegal immigration. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy seemed to be flirting with martyrdom when he vowed that the Garden State would "fight to the death" to oppose Trump's effort to deport foreign criminals.

A few deportation opponents have gone so far as to aid immigrant felons in evading the police, which is a federal crime. Perhaps they believe they can thwart law enforcement officers with impunity.

These folks should go to jail, and they need to stay in jail long enough to dissolve any delusion that they're martyrs.

I'm not arguing for long prison sentences. Indeed, they shouldn't be imprisoned for as long as the nonviolent January 6th protesters. Nevertheless, they should sit in the cooler long enough to dissolve any romantic notion that they are the spiritual kin of Mahatma Gandhi.

And they should do their time with the general jail population and suffer the same daily indignities. Pro-life activists who went to prison for protesting at abortion clinics report that they were deprived of toilet paper when they were in the slammer. 

Governor Murphy, take note. If your opposition to Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration goes beyond bombastic rhetoric and you actually help felons evade the police, you should spend some time behind bars. Should this occur, remember to bring your toothbrush and some toilet paper.

Governor Murphy, don't forget to bring some Charmin!

USAID funded transgender opera in Columbia: The Deep State Hates Flyover Country

 Elon Musk, newly selected as the Deep State's chief villain, has discovered shocking cases of waste and abuse at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Among the agency's insane expenditures was money spent to fund a "transgender opera" in Columbia and a "transgender comic book" in Peru. 

Who approved these projects and disbursed the money? Who got the loot? Most importantly, why was taxpayers' money spent on such lunacy?

The answer to the last question is obvious: The Deep State hates the Heartland, which Deepstaters sneeringly refer to as Flyover Country. Our DC-based federal workers despise the patriotism, work ethic, and religious values of patriotic Americans, and they display their contempt by endorsing transgender opera in Columbia and transgender sports in the Heartland's school gymnasiums. 

Now, the Trump-launched Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) has pried up the rock under which the nation's salaried culture destroyers have hidden. The Deep State is fighting back, using the nefarious tactics it has perfected: specious litigation, hysterical rhetoric, and mass-circulated misinformation by the Deep State's sycophantic media.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who represents Harvard University and the Cherokee Nation in the Senate, accused Elon Musk of buying the presidential election. Warren apparently forgot that Kamala Haris, the Dem's genetically clueless candidate, spent far more campaign money than Trump and still went down to ignominious defeat.

Some Deep State politicians have even issued veiled hints of violence, calling for supporters to fight "in the streets." Perhaps they can rally the arsonists who burned down Minneapolis to make good on their threat.

We will soon see whether Trump's legion of decency or the Deep State will win the battle for our nation's soul. The leftist breastbeaters should remember, however, that Flyover Country is on Trump's side and that the people living in the Heartland will never consent to be governed again by the wingnuts of the DC swamp who want to allow hairy males in girls' bathrooms.

"Losing their minds"  Photo credit: Yahoo News