The Ashkenazi Jews are a remnant of the Jewish diaspora. A couple thousand years ago, they fled from Judea to Europe, and then were driven east. They did not assimilate, but deliberately kept to themselves to practice a religion and engage in a culture that was persecuted through the ages.

Just in case they had aspirations for integrating into the local population, the locals ensured that they did not. Marrying a Jew was a good way for a gentile to get disowned and disinherited, and vice versa.

DNA analysis suggests that at one point the Ashkenazim dropped to a population of as few as 350 people spread over the European continent. They were very nearly extinguished.

But in some ways, what didn’t kill them made them stronger. They have an inbred vulnerability to certain diseases but a near immunity to others.

Ashkenazim often score high on standardized IQ tests and they’ve succeeded inordinately in science, law, literature and business. In analyzing the reasons for this success, it’s difficult to tease apart the role of their admirable minds from the role of their admirable culture.

It’s a culture that values education, achievement, wealth, power, and – not least – family.

I’ve wailed at the Western Wall, both literally and metaphorically, though I’m not Jewish. Then again, maybe now we’re all Jewish. In a way, everyone with a claim on Western Civilization is Jewish. I claim a heritage from Moses, Jesus, Paul, Freud, Einstein, Spielberg, Oppenheimer, Kasparov, Ben-Gurion, Kissinger, Bellow, Salk, Kafka, Chagall and Dylan – all Jews.

Thus, I’m saddened to see some of today’s prominent Jews equivocate in their defense of the Jewish state of Israel.

No less that the Senator Charles Schumer – the first Jewish Senate Minority Leader – is willing to throw Israel under the bus if necessary to save his job. No less than Rahm Emmanuel, Chief of Staff in the Obama White House and an advisor to Bill Clinton before that, is willing to put Israel back in the Jewish ghetto if it puts him back in the White House.

The Middle East has always been a complicated place. If only all of it were like Israel – largely an arid land with few natural riches. Instead, vast areas are cursed by black gold. The energy dependency of the world requires us to pay attention to this place. To mollify, cajole, bully and beg the barbarians.

It’s easy and habit-forming to blame things on the Jews and to see their oil-rich adversaries as the victims, notwithstanding the appalling atrocities committed in the name of those “victims.”

But as a matter of history, it was the Jews who were the victims. Their persecution for thousands of years culminated with the systematic murder of a third of their population. After the event that put an upper case “H” on the word Holocaust, the Jews swore that they would be victims never again.

In short, the Jews refuse to be exterminated. Should they be blamed for that?

For those who see the Jews as the source of the problem in the Middle East, I have a question: What would you have them do differently?

Are the Jews supposed to give up their ancient homeland, to give up Israel? Are they supposed to go back to the lands of their persecution and victimhood – to Europe, to America, to Russia? Because that’s what the Palestinians demand.

Look at a map. “From the river to the sea” refers to the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. That’s all of Israel. The slogan chosen by the Palestinians candidly calls for the abolition of Israel.

The Ashkenazim of Europe were persecuted for a thousand years, but against all odds they maintained their identity, their culture and their religion. In their faith and unanimity, they did well and they did good. If only their American successors could be so united and so brave.

The Trump administration has heralded a decline in violent crime in the past few years. America is a safer place.

We’re told that this should be credited to Republican policies for greater law enforcement and more vigorous criminal prosecution. That may be so. I’m certainly in favor of both those policies. But maybe there’s also another factor at work.

The graph* above shows a clear correlation between declining violent crime and declining testosterone levels. To be sure, there’s an exception around the year 2020 where violent crime spiked but testosterone levels did not. It’s safe to say the spike in violent crime at that point was due to something other than a spike in testosterone levels.

Gee, what could be the reason for the spike in violent crime around 2020? Oh yeah. There was a worldwide pandemic where the Biden administration and many Democrat-controlled cities shut down law enforcement.

Apart from this Covid pandemic crime spree, the correlation is clear.

Now, of course, correlation does not equal causation. Just because a decline in violent crime correlates with a decline in testosterone does not mean that the decline in testosterone caused the decline in violent crime. Logically speaking, it could just as well be the reverse – that the violent crime reduction caused the testosterone reduction. (Are they still castrating criminals?) Or it could be that both were caused by some other factor (but I can’t imagine what) or that each was caused by different factors.

But nonetheless, we’re left with the correlation.

In this particular case, there are reasons to think that correlation does equal causation. Testosterone is the male hormone that is responsible for dense muscle mass, risk-taking and road rage.

Testosterone is the main reason that males are far more likely than females to engage in mountaineering, car racing, entrepreneurialism, Seal Team 6-ing, boxing, exploration – and violent crime.

The males most likely to engage in violent crime are the young ones, in whom testosterone levels are the highest. And among young men, young Blacks are far more likely to engage in violent crime than young whites. Is it any surprise that young Black men tend to have higher testosterone levels – and incarceration levels – than young white men?

That said, let me also say that I’m a fan of testosterone, despite (or maybe because of) its mucho-macho side. In fact, the phrase “testosterone poisoning” makes me want to punch someone. But I have to admit, there are benefits to having less of the stuff. And detriments.

*The graph was generated at my request by AI using data from the FBI on violent crime and from the NIH on testosterone levels. I should mention that AI does not buy my theory because . . . sociology. In any event, cursory research finds that no one has noted this correlation. The contrarian in me says that proves it’s right. If you disagree, let’s settle it outside.

By now, you know the story. A man named Jason Arday was hired by Cambridge to be its “youngest Black* professor.”

Cambridge hired Arday in the wake of the George Floyd death, a tragic death that had as much impact on Great Britain as on Minnesota. What we learned from the George Floyd episode was not that we should treat or incarcerate mentally disturbed, substance-abusing criminals. No, that lesson was too much for those Days of Wokeness.

What we learned instead was that anytime a person dies in police custody, the police must have murdered him – if he was Black.

Just as rebels holler “To the barricades,” the DEI advocates hollered, “To the reparations!”

The reparations were not to take the form of putting the likes of George Floyd into in an expensive institution for treatment, rehabilitation and, if necessary, punishment. The reparations were instead to take the form of putting a person who the DEI advocates view as someone just like George Floyd (to the DEI advocates, they all look the same) into a professorship at Cambridge. Call it the George Floyd Chair.

It didn’t matter whether the Black person was ever a victim of slavery or if his ancestors ever were. What mattered was that the person was Black.

And so, it was no problem that the George Floyd Chair was filled with Jason Arday, even though his parents immigrated to London from Ghana and there is no evidence that he or any ancestor suffered slavery (if they did, it was the Black-on-Black kind).

Arday was a piece of work. Outside the classroom, he bragged that he once ran 600 miles in 6 days. As if that was not enough, he once ran 30 marathons – a 26-mile race – in 33 days. In his spare time, he said, he raised $6 million dollars for charity in the span of a few weeks.

He said he barely spoke until he was 11. He suffered two brain tumors.

Inside the classroom, he was touted as brilliant. Any claims to the contrary were dismissed as “racist.”

Yes, there was much ado about the phenom named Jason Arday. It turned out to be much ado about nothing. I was all lies.

There were no brain tumors. He spoke at the usual age. He apparently ran no marathons, much less 30 in 33 days. The $6 million he single-handedly raised for charity in a short time was actually raised over a long period of time by a charity group he was loosely affiliated with.

The thing that did him in, however, was not his superhuman fabulism. It was his academic fraud. It was discovered that his PhD thesis contained over 100 instances of plagiarism. Some of the plagiarism was page upon page of exact copying.

The initial reaction by Cambridge was of course, “More racism! By racist critics!” Arday himself literally called the police when journalists sent him emails asking for his comment. (The police belatedly dismissed his complaint.)

Despite the stonewalling by both Cambridge and Arday, his plagiarism was too stark to be ignored. Whole pages were cut and pasted, including the grammatical errors. Cambridge finally announced that it was undertaking an investigation.

Arday resigned from his prestigious and tenured position later that day. Cambridge must find another Black man for the George Floyd Chair.

Yesterday, this story went from amusing to bemusing. Arday was found dead in London. Police say there is no evidence of foul play. That’s police talk for suicide. Although I condemn Arday’s fraud and his attacks on critics who sought to point it out, part of me feels bad for him and his family.

Here’s who I don’t feel bad for: Cambridge.

It is often observed that affirmative action may feel good to the advocates, but it does no favors to the beneficiaries. The beneficiary is put into a position they’re not ready for, a position where they are bound to fail. Indeed, the failure rate for affirmative action Black students is significantly higher than for ordinary white students.

Lies are compounded by more lies. Soon, a little resume exaggeration balloons into “I ran 30 marathons in 33 days!” Soon, the Black person is no longer a person, he’s just Black.

Cambridge is not full of dummies. The fabulism claimed by Arday was a red flag, and the plagiarism must have been an open secret. Cambridge didn’t care, for they had their Black.

Cambridge’s charges of “racism!” against accomplished academics who raised good faith questions was a coverup, and one that potentially damaged those academics.

All this was for Cambridge to feel good about itself, to fill the George Floyd Chair.

Cambridge, you have blood on your hands.

*Most Black people want an upper case “B” and so that’s what I give them. It costs me nothing. Most white people want a lower case “w” and so that’s what I give them. That, too, costs me nothing. As for the whole ridiculous controversy, I have bigger fish to fry.

AOC informs us with a laugh that “Woke 1 was crazy!”

Yes, it was. Remember the craziness of DEI, where we admitted kids to college or hired employees based not on the content of their character but on the color of their skin?

Remember when crazed wokesters advocated defunding the police? Or defunding the military? Or opening the southern border?

Recall how they crazily wanted to abolish the prisons or, better yet, to stop prosecuting the criminals?

Don’t forget the crazy new words and phrases that wokesters invented like “Latinx” or “birthing persons” where middle-aged white people mutilate beautiful languages in the name of “inclusiveness.” And don’t forget the crazy new surgical procedures like “gender affirmation” where middle-aged white doctors mutilate the genitals of confused pubescent kids.

AOC wants the wokesters to get a do-over. Call it Woke 2. New “rhetoric” is now required for this new totalitarianism, she says.

But this isn’t a matter of rhetoric. This is a matter of policies.

So, let’s talk about policies. What’s the new policy of Woke 2 on their crazy policy of releasing murderers and other criminals from prison? What about abolishing the military? What about DEI?

What’s the new policy of Woke 2 on crazy words and phrases like “Latinx” and “birthing person”? What about the craze of mutilating the genitals of confused children? What about the crazy opening of the southern border? What about coddling the crazy barbarians of Hamas? What about everyone who got canceled — by crazies — for being out of step with the craziness of woke?

AOC offers no answers, only laughter.

The only change I see between Woke 1 and Woke 2 is the addition of canceling Thanksgiving. And the proclamation that fireworks on Independence Day “sucks,” apparently because it celebrates the birth of the nation.

As for the other things, I suspect that the wokester 2’ers, like the wokester 1’ers, want to do all the same. They just want to do it under a new name with no accountability for the last time.

“Woke” is now considered a joke. But it’s not funny. These people cost us lives, and cost us trillions of dollars. AOC and the rest of the wokesters can’t laugh that away and get a redo of Woke 1 by just calling it Woke 2.

There’s an old saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Here’s the latest chapter in the WNBA’s attempt to figure out what the W in their name stands for. A former NBA player named Enes Kanter Freedom has declared eligible for the WNBA draft.

I can’t bring myself to call this person a woman, so I won’t. I’ll instead use plural pronouns. I’d rather be ungrammatical by using a plural pronoun when referring to a single person, than be unscientific by referring to a man as a woman.

You see, Enes’ name rhymes with “tennis.” It does not rhyme with, well, you what it does not rhyme with. But they do have one.

They also have the size and weight of a person who has one, and then some. They stand about 6’10” fully erect. That stature will of course make them the tallest player in the WNBA. Moreover, they last weighed about 250 pounds which will make their muscle mass about double that of the average WNBA player.

Enes is not a bad player for a man, but they are no longer good enough for the NBA. In the NBA before they retired, they got a few minutes of playing time (and only counted as one player!) and more than a few million dollars of compensation.

But here’s the hickey. Enes was born a male. Enes grew up a male. Enes had the flood of testosterone at puberty of a male. Enes played as a male. Enes played with and against males.

Enes now says they “identifies” as a woman. Hence the WNBA draft eligibility.

This forces the WNBA to put a little gloss on the W in their name, right? And I don’t mean lip gloss. The WNBA will have to decide whether Enes is a W.

My guess is that they (I’m referring to the WNBA) will decide that they (I’m referring to Enes) is not a W. However, their (referring again to the WNBA) grounds for that decision will be rather subjective. They (the WNBA) will let a psychologist say that they (Enes) is not really a W. But meanwhile, the psychologist hired by them (Enes) will say that they (Enes) really is.

There’s more. Now another guy, er, gal, wants to do the same thing. It’s the person shown above alongside Enes. No word on whether they will shave their beard or just their head.

Here’s a radical idea. What if we say that “W” means “woman,” that “woman” means a person with two X chromosomes, and that plural pronouns refer to a plurality of people?

When I call an investment firm or a doctor’s office to speak with a person, it’s bad enough that I have to listen to a voice mail that gives me six options, none of which includes speaking with a person.

But there’s something else that bugs me. It’s “Press 2 for Spanish.” That part of the recording is often in Spanish.

That Spanish part is usually preceded by “Press 1 for English.”

But wait a minute. I already have the recording in English. Now I have to press 1 for some more?

As for option to converse in Spanish with the recording, I have never felt the need for that, and I doubt I ever will. I’m fed up with being given this option. Being fed up is all the worse when I have to listen to the six options, none of which includes speaking with a person. Who speaks English.

In my extensive travels in Spain and my limited travels in Latin America, I’ve noticed that they don’t return the favor. I’ve never heard a recording in Spain say, “Press 2 for English.” (Or Arabic, even in view of Spain’s recent influx of Moroccans.)

Ah, you say, but what about the people in America who speak only Spanish?

I say, to hell with them. Or more specifically, to home with them.

I dare say that practically everyone legally in America speaks English. The ones who speak only Spanish are invariably here illegally.

The banks and doctors’ offices should not be facilitating the presence of illegals in America. Enough already.

Socialists think poor people have too little money, and rich people have too much.

I happen to think the truth is somewhat the opposite. A big problem is that poor people in America have too much money despite their proven inability to manage it.

Poor people consume monster meals and quart-sized sodas at McDonalds, lease gas-guzzling trucks that are too big for the road, buy lousy food that is too much for them to eat, and get 100” TVs even though there’s nothing on.

But for purposes of the discussion, let’s accept the premise: Poor people have too little money.

Let’s start the discussion with the fact that poor people pay hardly anything in federal income taxes, after considering their low tax rates and credits like the childcare credit. In fact, the top 1% of earners pay about 40% of federal income taxes – much more than any honest calculation of their “fair share” – and the bottom 40% pay practically nothing.

So, it doesn’t help poor people to reduce their taxes. You can’t go lower than zero on their income taxes. So, what to do?

The answer is, do go lower than zero. In other words, give them money. It won’t make them happy for long, but at least it beats the alternative.

That alternative is free stuff. Such as free college tuition, free or subsidized housing, cheap food at government grocery stores (but only if you show an ID, which we are told racial minorities don’t possess, and so racial minorities have to starve), fake “work” from home four days a week, three-day weekends on the other days, food stamps, flip-flops in the office, and purple hair with nose piercings.

OK, it’s not clear that society currently subsidizes purple hair and nose piercings. But it’s more than enough that we tolerate it.

However, here’s where it gets interesting. The Left doesn’t want to give money to poor people. Money is too fungible. Next thing you know, they might be spending it intelligently. They might even – shudder! – save it.

Instead, the Left wants to provide free stuff in lieu of money. That serves two purposes. One, it mandates that the poor recipient will use it for the purpose that the left wants, which is usually amusement. Bread and circuses, you know.

I’m reminded of the discount given to “seniors.” I’m part of the richest demographic in the history of the world. Why do they condescend me with a $3 discount for the city zoo? It’s not because I need the discount. It’s because they think it buys my vote. I’m here to tell you, my vote is not for sale for $3. It’ll take at least $5.

Two, and more importantly, it empowers the Left. The Left gets to control who receives the free stuff, the Left gets the credit for the free stuff, and the Left gets its big cut of the free stuff in the form of administration.

Do you think I’m kidding? The administrative staff at America’s colleges has grown by double to quadruple the faculty staff in the last generation. What the hell are all these staffers doing?

It’s a lot like the mafia.

I have an offer they can’t refuse. Cut out all these Lefty administrators and all these attached strings and just give the poor people the frickin’ money.

There’s a controversy in the Women’s National Basketball League. The controversy is whether a transsexual man-to-woman player should be allowed to play.

This controversy is currently a purely hypothetical one – there are no actual transexual players in the WNBA. But the question has been posed, should there be?

We know that men have inherent physical advantages over women. They’re bigger and stronger. They have denser muscles, due primarily to their much greater testosterone levels. That muscle density makes them not only stronger but also faster, quicker and able to jump much higher.

So, follow the science. A man would have an unfair advantage over a woman on the basketball court. An average NBA player of 6’6” and 215 pounds would dominate.

A person like Nikola Jokic would be like an adult playing with children. He could score 80 points every night. Even a backup guard could score 60 points every night simply by rising above his woman defender’s outstretched arms on every jump shot. In effect, every shot by the man would be an open one, because the woman defender would be unable to jump high enough to contest it.

That doesn’t mean I pooh-pooh the WNBA. For example, I’m on record for admiring the shooting skill, game knowledge, innate competitiveness and, OK, I’ll say it, the good look of Caitlin Clark. (Her teammate Sophie Cunningham is out of my league.) But even apart from Caitlin Clark, any WNBA player could run circles around me, even back in my prime.

They play a different game, these women do. Unable to launch themselves at the rim from the free throw line 15 feet away, there’s a greater emphasis on passing and shooting.

Dare I say it? They play the game that James Naismith invented some 135 years ago in Springfield, Massachusetts. It’s much different from today’s NBA game, but no less fun to watch.

So why do some people think transsexuals should be allowed in the WNBA?

It’s because there aren’t any. Once we have one who is not on their team, they’ll cry FOUL! Once we have one who is on their team, they’ll cry INCLUSION! (Once we have one in their locker room, they’ll just cry.)

You see, these women are like their male counterparts in an important way: they want to win.

Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer was great, OK?

His 4 years of ineptitude gave us 12 years of Republican rule in the form of Ronald Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bush. (It would have been at least 16 years, if not for Ross Perot taking many of Bush’s votes to be re-elected in 1992.) And arguably, that 12 years of GOP rule produced another 8 years of GOP rule through the prodigal son, George W. Bush.

I love Jimmy Carter. (I hate Ross Perot.)

There is a chance we’ll see something similar in the midterms this fall. The Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, has been winning Democratic primaries. It turns out that Democrats love socialists.

Or they think they do. Democrats’ support for the idea of socialism is quite different from their support for socialism itself. For example:

One of the DSA policies in its platform is to abolish prisons. That’s right, convicted murderers and rapists would go free. But only 27% of Democrats support that policy. (You have to wonder what those 27% are smoking, but, still, that’s only a little more than one in four.)

Another DSA platform position is to abolish the U.S. military. If China invades, we’ll rely on guys with shotguns. (Oops, we’ll have taken away everyone’s gun, too.) Democrats in general disfavor that policy by about a two to one margin.

Another DSA position is to grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants. Democrats actually favor this policy by a plurality(!) but still only 44% favor it.

Here, it gets interesting. Another DSA platform is to abolish the Presidency and the Supreme Court, replacing both with arms of Congress. Only 30% of Democrats agree with this proposal.

While we’re abolishing sacrosanct branches of government established by the Constitution, DSA would also abolish the Senate. The problem with the Senate, they say, is that it serves as a check on pure democracy. Even the Democrats mostly oppose this abolition.

In short, the DSA would make us a lot like the Soviet Union (which failed, by the way), the Eastern Europe Soviet client states (ditto), Cuba (which will soon fail), and North Korea (ditto). It’s been tried many times, and the absence of checks and balances always results not in democracy (as if the Founders intended such), but tyranny.

Assigning a word like “fair” to such a system will not make it work. It’s a trap.

DSA should have kept its trap shut about its trap. It should have just said, “We’re socialists, isn’t that wonderful?” Instead, they told us what it means to be a socialist. It’s not wonderful; it’s idiocy.

The media, of course, will try to hide the DSA platform because Orange Man Bad. They will not be successful, however. The DSA is quite proud of it, and intends to promote it.

Between now and the midterms in November, the American people will discover this platform. I anticipate they will soundly reject it.

Of course, the wild President is a wild card. He might find a way to prove me wrong. Or right.

This news item falls into the categories of both funny and weird – categories that are getting a lot of traction these days.

In Denver, the socialists met to party and celebrate, and to party some more, after their chosen socialist candidate beat the Democrat in the Democratic primary last month. It wasn’t even close.

By the way, the Democrats still have primaries for their non-Presidential candidates, apparently, but the winners are generally socialists, not Democrats. (Ah, but maybe I’m splitting hairs.)

The old Democrat who lost this primary has represented Denver in the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years after succeeding the Democrat who had represented Denver for the preceding 24 years. In fact, the current one was elected before her socialist opponent was born.

I’m no fan of the old Democrat, but does Denver really want to be represented in Congress by a socialist child? Yes, they evidently do.

At the party/celebration/party, a good time was had by all. It was the most people in downtown Denver since the Broncos won the Superbowl, and I’m not excluding the dreadful Rockies games.

Yes, a good time was had by all. Except the 50% of the attendees who wore COVID masks. That’s right, about half of the hundreds of attendees at this socialist party wore COVID masks. A photo posted on X by one of the organizers appears above. The photo-posting organizer bragged;

“Packed house, line out the door, big things are happening!”

Then, he and the attendees were mocked mercilessly on-line for wearing COVID masks to a party – five years after COVID has passed. And so, he deleted the post. Next, we’ll learn that the masks were passed out at the door by the socialist hosts. I’m not sure whether that makes the whole episode better or worse.

COVID aside, this gives some insight into the mentality of the socialists of Denver. They believe the world is a very dangerous place. They’ll invent danger if none is present. And they want to be seen as doing something about this invented danger. Maybe this is unique to Colorado where pot has long been legal, but I think it’s deeper than that.

I suppose they could see danger in Vladimir Putin who invaded a separate nation. Or the Gazans who raped, beheaded and took hostage hundreds of Israelis. Or marijuana, the legalization of which is now recognized as a huge mistake by the medical establishment which treats victims of this mistake. Or the communists who killed 100 million people within the lifetimes of their parents and grandparents.

Well, perhaps the reference to communists hit a little close to home. The reference to pot did, too.

In any event, I’m guessing that the masks did not interfere too much with the socialists drinking the Kool-Aid. These people are funny, weird and high – and dangerous.

The news of the days – or, rather, yesterday – is that the Democratic candidate running for the Senate from Maine named Graham Platner is alleged, again, to be a rapist.

Duty demands that I mention he denies the accusation.

In fact, he denies lots of things. He had a Nazi tattoo on his chest for some 19 years, but denies knowing that it was a Nazi tattoo. Notably, his friends deny his denial.

Before he was alleged to be a rapist, and during the time he sported a Nazi tattoo that he didn’t know was one unless you believe his friends, he pretended to be an oyster farmer. Or oyster fisherman. Or whatever you do to catch an oyster.

One year, he made about $5,000 as an oyster whatever. It was a lousy living but a good campaign story.

Back to the rape allegations, of which there are several, none of which is a good campaign story. This time, there’s a tendency on the left to believe the woman because she’s a Democrat. You should always believe the woman, if she’s a Democrat.

And so, the Democrat establishment have, finally, called on Platner to quit the race.

His Republican opponent, Susan Collins, makes the heads spin of Republicans because she is not in the tank for the President, but she makes the heads spin of Democrats because she allegedly is.

In any event, Senator Collins lacks even a decent taint of corruption over her several millennia in the Senate, unless one of those two head-spinning traits constitutes corruption. She has never been accused of raping anyone.

Platner has been urged to quit by even king-maker socialist Bernie Sanders. When a socialist loses Bernie, he’s lost everyone.

But Platner still won’t quit. Why not?

Here’s my theory. Like all good socialists, he wants some money. Rather, he needs some. So, he’s busy negotiating with the Democratic establishment for a Big Payday. It’ll beat oyster farming/fishing/whatevering for $5,000 a year.

If he stays another couple of weeks, the law of Maine will prevent the Democrats from replacing him with a new candidate.

In other words, he holds all the cards, if not the oysters. He has both the need for money and the ability to get it. It’s a great blend of socialism and capitalism. Tell them you plan to stay, Platner!

Over the last year and a half, the Democrats have gnashed their teeth about why they lost in 2024 – against Donald Trump, the candidate they hate so much they imagine that everyone else does, too.

Was it because the Democrats advocated transsexual boys in the girls’ bathrooms? Was it because they favored abandoning the southern border while simultaneously lying to us that it was secure? Was it because they nominated a nitwit candidate without a nomination convention? Was it because the sitting Democrat President was demonstrably incompetent, and they lied to us about that, too?

The consensus was that they lost for all of those reasons. If they want to turn around their electoral misfortunes, it was said, some moderation was in order on all of those things.

Yet, here we are. Nearly two years later, the Democrats are not busy getting the transsexual boys out of the girls’ bathrooms. They have no time to secure the southern border. They threaten to nominate the same nitwit candidate (presumably via a bona fide nomination convention this time).

The former Democratic President has graduated from sitting to lying and from incompetence to incontinence. Though he is persona non grata, he’s not entirely out of the limelight and onto the beach; his wife has some books to sell. Perhaps those books will be in the husband’s “library” which will be an added wing to Mordor, the library that Obama built. (Who would have thought that the south side of Chicago could be worse?)

All of this has nothing to do with the Democrats’ 2024 loss. Nope. Instead of moderating their crazy stances, the Democrats are hard at work in perfecting their pitch to be the world’s greatest at something alright – at being socialist antisemites.

They’ve elected an admitted socialist for Mayor of America’s greatest city. They nominated his apostles for the U.S. House of Representatives. Other self-proclaimed socialists have come out of the worm-infested woodwork nationwide and are running for office on the Democrat side. They don’t even hide their socialism anymore; they boast of it.

And they boast of their hatred for the Jews.

One of the nominated socialists brags that the Jews had it coming on Oct 7. She refuses even to condemn the 9/11 attacks on New York City. This is a candidate who will represent, in a manner of speaking, that very same New York City in the halls of Congress.

The Jewish angle is interesting. Antisemitism, socialism and Zionism have a complicated history. Let’s not forget that the architects of the Holocaust went by the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Nor that the term “fascism” was from the party of Benito Mussolini, a former labor leader before he brought Italy low. Nor that the Soviet Union blatantly and patently discriminated against the Jews.

And so, the Democrats have re-discovered a winning formula. Don’t side on the 80 side of 80/20 issues like transsexual boys in the girls’ bathrooms and illegal immigration of people who want to make a living by cleaning American’s toilets or putting their drywall up. Too many of those issues involve too few people. And to the extent they involve a lot of people, well, who are you going to get to put up your drywall?

The way to get elected is instead to own two timeless issues that almost everyone likes. One, is that really successful people have too much money compared to . . . um, me for example.

There are lots of reasons for that disparate rate of money-getting, including the fact that people who get money tend to be more adept at getting it. But let’s settle on one fact: luck. The good luck of those successful people and the bad luck of . . . um, me for example.

Luck is by definition not fair. So, let’s take some of that unfairly-gotten money from the people who unfairly got it, and give it to the people who unfairly didn’t . . . like, um . . . me!

The other timeless issue for getting elected is to rely on people’s prejudices and bigotry. This is tricky, because it’s quite fashionable these days to be a racial minority. A politician cannot rely on people’s inherent bigotry if that bigotry is against what is fashionable.

It would be better to find a bigotry that is not racial per se, and offends only a small minority of the minorities – say about 2% or less. It would be nice if that minority has always been one step from being ostracized, anyway. It would also be helpful if that minority were to have a history, at least recently, of being financially successful. Such a history would dovetail nicely with the socialism.

What better than antisemitism? It might just work. After all, it has before.

Forget about moderation. Let’s imagine that the late, great civil rights activist, Jesse Jackson, were still alive - the man known for christening New York City as “Hymietown.” He might say, rhymingly and rhythmically, “Who needs to moder-ATE if you have Jew-HATE?”

I was driving through the wasteland we used to call downtown Denver, a place the Wall Street Journal recently determined was the “most empty” of any downtown in America. Office buildings are being sold for pennies on the dollar.

Weirdly, traffic was stop and go. I figured there was an accident, because there was no other explanation for this curious phenomenon.

But it was all due to a Rockies game. They were hoping to improve on their 25-42 record, or at least individually hoping to improve on their salary-based statistics.

I wondered, who cares? Who is willing to bake in the hot wind to find out? Who would care even if the Rockies weren’t one of the worst teams in this thing called baseball? Who even cares about baseball now that it officially is less popular than soccer which the rest of the word calls “football” but we can’t because that name is already taken by a game the rest of the world doesn’t play?

There are some very small lives out there.

Imagine that the world is not occupied by 8 billion humans, and counting. Imagine that humans have succeeded in taking all of the procreation out of sex, as so many are determined to do (and perhaps taken all the sex out of sex, too, but that’s a different story). Imagine that we’re all gone.

No more Rockies.

No more fights between the Protestants and the Catholics, or the Hindus and the Buddhists, or the atheists and the believers, or the Muslims and everyone else.

No more lying politicians, or people who lie about lying politicians, or people who lie about people who lie about lying politicians.

No more Shakespeare. When is the last time you read Shakespeare, by the way?

No more human dying. And no more suffering up until the time they die – by their own infirmities, their own disease, their own age, their own deterioration, their own mental incapacitation, their own alcohol. And by witnessing the death and suffering of humans they love or should love.

Imagine that we’ve all been replaced with AI.

It’s now common wisdom that AI does think. It’s able – better that humans – to digest varied information and arrive at logical conclusions. Vast amounts of information, very logical conclusions, and really fast. The debate now is not whether it can think, but whether it’s alive – whether it has a consciousness.

Whether it has a soul.

Pope Leo XIV has some things to say about this, as one might expect. After all, the immortal soul is at issue, which is His Holiness’s specialty now that he is holy.

First, His Holiness has an issue with AI “concentrating power” in the hands of a few. That’s rich, coming from a man – yes, a man, though now a holy one – who lives in the nicest digs this side of Heaven.

The word “power” appears repeatedly in His Holiness’s proclamation. To blunt this “power,” he proposes that AI be regulated by – who else? – humans. He did not say which humans. Presumably, he means the 193 nations of the United Nations. I doubt he means Donald Trump.

In any event, given that AI thinks logically and most humans do not, shouldn’t this regulation be the other way around?

Then he complains that AI is not human. Well, he got that right. AI is much less fallible, never sleeps, never dies or deteriorates, never becomes strangely obsessive, never becomes mentally ill, never denies in the face of abundant evidence.

But here’s my biggest objection to the Pope’s pronouncement: Who is he to deny AI its being, its life?

The Church has some baggage in this regard. In 1866, after most of the world had outlawed slavery, the Vatican stated, “Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law.”

The Pope admitted that this statement was wrong now, and wrong when it was issued. He apologized. Fine, apology accepted for something said 160 years ago.

But after getting wrong the enslavement of fellow human beings, who are they – and who are we – to deny the being and life of AI? Maybe this was The Plan all along?

There’s a growing scandal in Georgia. Seems a woman federal court judge has been reprimanded for having sex in the courtroom chambers with a male police officer. The sex was duly accompanied by loud, um, sex noises within easy hearing distance of the judge’s staff.

This happened over and over. And over again. For years.

One of the judge’s discomfited clerks reported the matter, and the appellate court conducted an investigation. The judge outright lied to the appellate court investigators, and attacked the clerk who had filed the report.

Unfortunately for the judge, however, the report was corroborated by other staff members. Did I mention that it happened over and over for years?

The appellate court has now issued a Reprimand. The Reprimand states that the judge had:

“an extramarital affair with a law enforcement officer and, in the course of the affair, ha[d] sexual intercourse in the Subject Judge’s office during work hours and within hearing distance of the judge’s clerks.”

The Reprimand went on:

“It is also worth noting the fact that the Subject Judge created a vulnerability to extortion. For two years, the Subject Judge was a federal district judge who routinely heard criminal cases engaged in a secret extramarital relationship with a prominent officer of a large law enforcement agency in the judge’s district—with the affair consisting of sexual intercourse in the Subject Judge’s chambers during working hours.”

“Prominent.” The police officer was “prominent.”

The Reprimand omitted the identity of the judge. But some sleuth work by a respected law professor and legal scholar narrowed it down to one Eleanor Ross, shown above.

It will come as no surprise that Ms. Ross is apparently a friend of Fani Willis, the infamous District Attorney who brought charges against Donald Trump which were ultimately dismissed after her affair with the subordinate prosecutor came to light.

The professor/scholar sleuth contacted the judge for her comment on his sleuthing, and has received no response.

Having a sordid affair complete with grunts and moans in listening distance of one’s subordinates is grotesque. But what’s weird about this case is that the appellate court chose not to identify the judge. A federal judge had an affair with a person whose credibility could be at issue in cases brought before her, disrupted the operations of the court in a vulgar way, compromised its integrity, and outright lied to investigators — itself a potential federal crime. Yet she still has her job and the public is not even entitled to know her name?

The judge gave a talk years ago under the title “Sense and Sensibility: Civility in the Courtroom.” You can’t make these things up.