The late, great radio talk show host Bob Grant used to observe, “It’s sick out there and getting sicker.”  That was more than 12 years ago.  Things “out there” have not improved since then,  If anything, the folks “out there” have gotten even sicker than they were before.  And there is no group “out there” that is any further “out there” than the denizens of the Democrat Party.

In the wake of their devastating loss in the 2024 presidential election, there’s been lots of coverage of the Party’s post mortem “soul searching,” and claims that it’s reviewing its policies to ferret out why so many voters have turned against them.  But that’s just empty talk, because the truth is they’ve learned nothing.  You can’t accomplish soul searching unless you have a soul.  They don’t.

We are being subjected almost daily to reports of Democrat retreats, where they undergo hours or days of reflection to pinpoint why their brand is about as popular as genital warts.  They haven’t come up with the answer, although the answer is obvious.  The inmates are running their asylum, and until they can wrestle the power back from them, get them sedated, and return to reality, things for the Democrats will not get any better.

What I mean by this is that, by ceding control to the Leftist fringe, they have abandoned the issues and the voting groups that were reliable Democrat voters for decades.  Working class voters, Black and Hispanic voters, and young voters didn’t leave the Democrat Party.  The Democrat Party left them.  All their problems are self-inflicted.

The Party is spending time and money wondering what went wrong, but they know the answer, or at least, they knew it in 2020.  If you want to get elected, you have to convince the majority of voters that that you’re relatively normal.  You have to at least pretend to have moderate policies.  They sold Biden as a moderate.  Then they used the empty shell that was Biden to pursue policies that are inimical to the majority of the population.

Simply put, the Democrats have done everything they possibly could have done to alienate the greatest number of voters.  Not too long ago, even Democrats understood that running up trillions of dollars of debt, opening our borders to untold millions of illegal alien invaders, preventing the police from enforcing the law, and hiring prosecutors who refuse to prosecute criminals, were ruinous policies that would destroy our country.

They lost their way.  They forgot that their bread and butter supporters aren’t the sad socialist or anarchist cat ladies with purple hair, who have nothing better to do than march and chant idiotically in support of the rights of male athletes to injure female athletes while making a mockery of Title IX.

After the 1968 presidential election, Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg published a book entitled The Real Majority.  In it, they identified the center of the electorate, the real majority, as moderates who were more liberal on economic issues, such as protecting social security, and more conservative on social issues, such as controlling crime.  Their description of “the average voter” was the 52 year old wife of a blue-collar worker in the Midwest.  Their message – if you win those voters, you win the election.  That was true in 1970, and it’s true now.

Democrats once understood this.  Bill Clinton won Ohio and in 1996, he also won Florida.  Il Duce Obama, The Great Pretender, who posed as a moderate (remember, he started out against gay marriage, before he “evolved”), won Ohio twice and Florida once.  Ohio, once a swing State, recently has swung steadily toward Republicans, and Florida is decidedly Red.  At the same time, Democrats have swung Left, away from their traditional base, and increasingly away from reality and normalcy.  This is a recipe for disaster.

Democrats have been mindlessly following this recipe for 10 years for only one reason.  Donald John Trump.  The Democrats are Ahab, and Trump is the White Whale they’ve been pursuing for a decade.  To get Trump, they have set every trap, broken every law, abandoned any pretense of fair dealing, and in so doing have distracted themselves while their base has steadily trickled away.

Democrat hatred of Trump has been Ahab-like.  Ahab said, “From hell’s heart, I stab at thee; for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”  “I would chase him around the globe.  If it took me to the last corner of the earth, I would find him.” “I will set my sails towards revenge, and nothing will stop me.”  Sound familiar?  Democrats say, “Trump is an existential threat to democracy, a fascist, a Hitler, a Mussolini who must be stopped.”

Every Trump policy is compared to those of Nazis.  Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden said it’s “time to put Trump in a bullseye.”  NY Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman told MSNBC, “It is just unquestionable at this point that man cannot see public office again.  He is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy, and he has to be eliminated.”  Talk like this led to two assassination attempts, in which Trump was shot, a man was killed and two others severely wounded.  Democrats learned nothing.

If they are unable to shake their obsession with Trump Derangement Syndrome, they inevitably will go the way of Ahab.  Snared in their own ropes, bound to their Great White prey, as he takes them under for the third time.  In his first term, Trump was his own worst enemy, making statements and personnel decisions that hamstrung him.  He learned from his mistakes.

It may have taken Trump’s appointment of most of the staff of Fox News to his second Administration, but he’s finally found effective and loyal subordinates.  And he’s figured out that all he needs to do is to come out in favor of an issue, any issue, and Democrats will trip over themselves to oppose it.

Trump secured the border, and is relentlessly deporting criminal aliens.  Democrats are urging the courts to keep alien criminals in our country and on our streets.  That’s not popular.

Trump sent federal law enforcement into D.C., causing crime to plummet, and D.C. residents to praise his actions.  Democrats are against enforcing the law, taking criminals and guns off the streets, and protecting innocent lives.  Not too smart.

A Trans maniac in Minnesota gets his/her hands on guns and shoots children in a church, and Democrats immediately announce it’s Trump’s fault, for not taking legal guns away from law abiding citizens.  No thinking person buys that crap, especially since Democrats have no desire to take illegal guns away from teenage gangsters.

There are myriad other examples of Democrat stupidity, but here’s the point.  Until and unless Democrats accept the fact that Trump beat them, and that they’ll have to cooperate with him until 2029, they will just keep losing ground.  Unfortunately for them, since they’ve let the loony Leftist toothpaste out of the tube, it’s going to be hard to put it back in and return to normal values.  Moving to the middle is bound to alienate their 20% nutty Leftist base.  Let’s hope it takes them, about 12 years to figure it out.

The title of this week’s offering comes from Julius Caesar’s Chronicles.  After the 47 B.C. battle of Zela, Caesar famously proclaimed “Veni, vidi, vici,” “I came, I saw, I conquered.”  I was reminded of this quotation when President Trump federalized the D.C. National Guard and deployed federal law enforcement officers to the District of Colombia to combat out-of-control street crime.

Much like Caesar, Trump came to D.C., he saw the rampant street crime and the proliferation of homeless encampments on the streets of the the Capitol of the most prosperous nation on the face of the Earth, and was appalled by the sight.  Trump was unwilling to stand idly by while the nation’s Capitol descended into chaos and squalor, so he decided that it was necessary for the federal government to conquer the city’s crime problem, which is exacerbated by a toothless police department and inept prosecution authorities.

Surprising no one, Democrats are incensed.  They are absolutely shocked, shocked, that the President has dared to intervene in the affairs of the capitol federal district.  Their indignation, of course, ignores the fact that a president has, not only the right, but the duty to see that the laws are enforced everywhere, including in the District of Columbia.  Here’s how that works.

Article I, section 8 (17) of the Constitution provides for the creation of a capitol federal district, to be the Seat of the Government, and to be formed by cessions of the various States.  D.C.  was formed from lands once part of Maryland and Virginia, and consists of 61 square miles of land and 7 square miles of water.  The Congress has control over the District and over all federal properties in the various States.

The President is Commander in Chief of the armed forces, and of all State militias (National Guards) when they are called into the service of the federal government.  Though it’s not a State, D.C. has a National Guard, but one would be hard pressed to argue that the constitutional provision giving the President control of State militias doesn’t apply equally to the D.C. National Guard.  Indeed, because D.C. is uniquely under the control of federal authorities, a better argument would be that the President may call the D.C. Guard to federal service on his own authority as Commander in Chief.

Now, in 1973, Congress passed the D.C. Home Rule Act, which ceded some legislative and administrative powers to the District.  D.C. got a Mayor and Council, but not full autonomy.  Congress reviews all Acts of the City Council, and it may vote to rescind D.C. laws by a simple majority.  In other words, there can be no Senate filibuster.  Congress last did that when the D.C. Council voted to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes, and to downgrade crimes such as carjacking.

Carping Democrats have claimed that Trump’s actions were unwarranted, citing statistics that suggest that crime in D.C. is down.  As I recently noted, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.  That observation applies here.  The Democrats citing these statistics know full well that a D.C. police official recently was dismissed for tampering with the stats to make it appear crime was under control.  In fact, the murder rate in D.C. is twice that in Bogota, Colombia, three times the rate in Mexico City, and 30 times the rate in London.

How does that compare to neighboring States?  Well, at 27.4 murders per 100,000 residents, the D.C. murder rate is triple that in Maryland (been to Baltimore lately?), and 4.5 times higher than the rate in Virginia.  The only logical conclusions to be drawn from these stark numbers is that crime in D.C. was out of control, that the local authorities either couldn’t or wouldn’t do their jobs, and that somebody needed to step in to keep the peace.  Enter Donald John Trump.  Paraphrasing Dean Vernon Wormer from Animal House, I can almost hear him saying, “The time has come for someone to put his foot down, like no foot has ever put down before, and that foot is me.”

The President was egged on in this fight by newly confirmed D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro,  who almost nightly, has taken to the airwaves to decry D.C.’s lax criminal laws, especially as they apply to juvenile offenders, who are responsible for a good portion of the crime, yet are rarely prosecuted, due to anemic laws, and a local prosecutor who is on record as saying, “You can’t arrest and convict your way to lower crime.”  If that sounds stupid to you, it’s only because it is stupid.  The paramount goal of criminal law enforcement is deterrence.  When crime has no consequences, the crime rate has nowhere to go but up.

The juvenile crime problem is especially acute in D.C., because local laws prevent most juveniles from being tried as adults.  This is insane, given that most carjackers are juveniles, and carjacking is considered (everywhere outside D.C.) as the most serious violent crime other than homicide and sexual assault.  To have such lax laws in D.C., which was carved out of Maryland and Virginia is nothing short of ridiculous, not to mention reckless.

Picture this.  A 17 year old carjacker jacks a car on Central Avenue SE in D.C.  He is treated with kid gloves, and if prosecuted at all, gets a slap on the wrist.  About 100 feet across Central Avenue, and into Capitol Heights, in Bluer than Blue Maryland, the same crime exposes the little bastard to a 30 year prison sentence.  The message to the juvenile offenders, and to the people who employ them is very simple, “Do your carjacking in D.C.”  And the message was received, because from 2018 to 2023, carjackings in D.C. went up by 547%.

How is the Trump effort going?  Since August 8th, nearly 500 arrests have been made, and more than 70 homeless encampments have been cleaned out.  The denizens of the encampments were given two choices.  Go to a shelter and get treatment, or go to jail.  Since Trump intervened, carjackings are down 46%, and robberies and all other violent crimes are down 22%.  Pretty good, but they still hate that it was Trump who did it.

As far as long term solutions go, that is a different picture.  Congress can get off its ass, and repeal the lax D.C. laws.  They can do that with 50 votes in the Senate.  Failing that, the D.C. Home Rule Act may need to be amended to curb the suicidal instincts of the D.C. Council.  A more radical fix could be to do away with the District entirely, and return what is now D.C. to Maryland and Virginia.  The Constitution doesn’t require a federal district to be created, it says “Congress may” create it.  And there’s precedent for that.  In 1846, the City of Alexandria, then part of D.C., was formally ceded back to Virginia.

Under this plan, the federal government would still retain control over all the federal buildings in the former D.C., just as it does over any federal property in any of the States.  The interesting question would be what would become of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, which gives D.C. three electoral votes in presidential elections.  The Amendment likely would be null and void.  Maryland and Virginia might each gain one House seat.

The flap over the federal takeover of D.C. law enforcement is just one more example of Democrats who continually jump on the wrong side of every issue.  Trump is trying to promote public safety and clean up the filthy and dangerous Hellhole that is the District of Columbia.  The United States can’t exercise its influence as the leader of the free world if it can’t clean up and control violent crime in the seat of its own government.  No reasonable, thinking American would oppose that position.  Democrats, however, are unreasonable, and they’re still not thinking past the policy of, “Whatever Trump’s for, we’re against it.”

At a time when most of the world is in an uproar, what with wars, and threats of war, economic uncertainty, and a polarized electorate, I thought – Screw it!  It’s the August silly season, so why not concentrate this week on a lighter subject?   Strangely enough, the lighter subject turns out to be the passing of a man that I’m sure not many of you have ever heard of – Tom Lehrer.

Thomas Andrew Lehrer was an American musician, mathematician, satirist, songwriter/singer.  Born in New York City in 1928, he died in July at age 97.  He was perhaps best known as the resident songwriter on the 1960’s TV show, That Was The Week That Was.  He was a prolific songwriter, crafting tunes and parodies based on familiar melodies.  And, a man after my own heart, Tom Lehrer had a satiric and acerbic wit that spared no one.  No politician, religion, or interest group could escape his barbs, no matter how powerful.  He truly was an equal opportunity offender.

Lehrer paid a price for his honesty.  Most of his songs were so controversial (remember we’re talking about the 1950’s and 1960’s, not the “anything goes” insane asylum in which we dwell), that no radio station would play them.  Tom Lehrer didn’t care.  He was more interested in turning a phrase than in turning a profit.  Lehrer said, jokingly, of his musical career, “If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.”

Despite that, his albums and his live performances all over the world turned him into a cult figure.  He was influential.  Composer Randy Newman said of Lehrer, “He’s one of the great American songwriters without a doubt, right up there with everybody, the top guys.  Other artists who cite Lehrer as an influence include “Weird Al” Yankovic, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, and political satirist Mark Russell.  And you an add me to that list.  Every time I compose a tune or a rhyme on these pages, Tom Lehrer is sitting at my side.

Tom Lehrer was perhaps the prototypical American.  Reminiscent  of Fiorello LaGuardia, whose mother was Jewish, his father an Italian Catholic, and he himself Protestant, Lehrer and his family were ethnically Jewish but loosely practiced Christianity, attending Sunday school and celebrating Christmas.  He joked that his ties to Judaism were “more to do with the delicatessen than the synagogue, and ‘God’ was primarily an expletive.”

A child prodigy, Lehrer attended the Horace Mann School in the Bronx.  A piano teacher taught him Broadway show tunes.  He also attended Camp Androscoggin, both as a camper and a counselor, where Lehrer was a counselor to Stephen Sondheim.

Lehrer skipped two grades in school, and entered Harvard College
at age 15.  He graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics, magna cum laude in 1946, and received his MA degree the next year.  Until 2001, he taught mathematics and other classes at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.  He taught an introductory mathematics course titled “The Nature of Mathematics” to liberal arts majors, which he labelled,”Math for Tenors.”  Through it all, he is best remembered for his songs.

Tom Lehrer composed dozens of them.   This one is perhaps his most famous – THE ELEMENTS

There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There’s yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There’s sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.
These are the only ones o_f which the news has come to Ha’vard,
And there may be many others but they haven’t been discavard.

Here are some snippets of other favorites.

NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD WEEK

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks.
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.
But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
Lena Home and Sheriff Clarke are dancing cheek to cheek.
It’s fun to eulogize ·
The people you despise,
As long as you don’t let ’em in your school

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews.
But during National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
It’s National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-hood Week.
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you.
It’s only for a week, so have no fear.
Be grateful that it doesn’t last all year!

THE VATICAN RAG

First you get down on your knees
Fiddle with your rosaries
Bow your head with great respect
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Do whatever steps you want if
You have cleared them with the pontiff
Everybody say his own
Kyrie eleison
Doin’ the Vatican Rag.

Get in line in that processional
Step into that small confessional
There the guy who’s got religion’ll
Tell you if your sin’s original.
If it is, try playin’ it safer
Drink the wine and chew the wafer
Two, four, six, eight
Time to transubstantiate.

WHO’S NEXT?

First we got the bomb and that was good,
‘Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that’s O.K.,
‘Cause the balance of power’s maintained that way!
Who’s next?
France got the bomb, but don’t you grieve,
‘Cause they’re on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears;
They can’t wipe us out for at least five years!
Who’s next?
Japan will have it own device,
Transistorized at half the price.(*)
South Africa wants two, that’s right:
One for the black and one for the white!
Who’s next?
Egypt’s gonna get one, too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel’s getting tense,
Wants one in self defense.
“The Lord’s our shepherd,” says the psalm,
But just in case — we better get a bomb!
Who’s next?

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Relations, sparing no expense, ‘II
Send some useless old utensil
Or a matching pen and pencil.
(“Just the thing I need! How nice!”)
It doesn’t matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it.
What’s important is the price.
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest you merry, merchants,
May you make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

SEND THE MARINES

When someone makes a move
Of which we don’t approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first-
Send the Marines!
We’ll send them all we’ve got,                                                                   John Wayne and Randolph Scott;
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,
What do we do?
We send the Marines!

I think you get the picture.  If you like Lehrer’s work,  see  tomlehrersongs.com.  In any case, Rest In Peace Tom Lehrer.  Your like will not be seen again.

This week, we’ve been treated to yet another round of the Texas Two Step, courtesy of that ever dwindling group, the Texas Democrats.  The Texas Two Step has various meanings.  Most commonly, it’s a dance.  Texans love to dance, especially to the music of a fiddle and guitar.  The dance is basically a fox trot.  The steps are quick, quick, slow, slow, one-two, one-two, slide shuffle.  Then, step-together, walk, walk.

The Texas Two Step is also a Texas Lottery game.  The player tries to match four numbers plus the bonus number, to win the progressive prize.

Another meaning of the Texas Two Step refers to a type of business bankruptcy, presumably perfected in Texas.  I never heard of this, but apparently, a solvent company that’s facing large lawsuits can undergo what’s called a Texas divisive merger, that splits the company’s assets and liabilities, and then declare a Chapter 11 bankruptcy to shield the assets from litigants.  Basically, it’s a scam, just like the Democrat Party.

The Texas Two Step to which I’m referring is both none of the above and all of the above.  There’s a curious Summertime exercise going on in the Lone Star State.  The Texas Legislature has had the temerity to pursue redistricting of its Congressional districts, which redistricting could accrue to the benefit of Republicans, possibly adding five House seats to the Republican caucus.

Surprising no one, Democrats in Texas and nationwide are apoplectic.  How dare Texas Republicans try to redistrict for political gain?  Texas is just doing the bidding of that authoritarian dictator Donald Trump.  Republicans are planning to steal the 2026 elections because they know they can’t win fairly.

The Texas Democrat response to the redistricting effort was the Texas Two Step.  As they did in 2021, more than 50 Democrats have fled the State to keep the Legislature from having a quorum in order to do business.  The flight of the Democrats has elements of all the meanings of the Texas Two Step.

They did the dance.  Quick, quick, slow, slow, one-two, one-two, slide shuffle.  The Democrats were quick to complain, and slow to comply, as they shuffled toward the door.  Then it was, step-together, walk, walk to a private plane, reportedly paid for by three time loser Democrat Beto O’Rourke, which whisked the fugitives away to, wait for it – Illinois, a U.S. State that has perfected the practice of gerrymandering.  More about that later.

The Texas Democrat exodus also mimics the Two Step lottery game, because these misguided refugees actually believe they will profit from their folly.  The odds of winning the top prize in the lottery is more than a million to one.  The odds of Texas Democrats turning political cowardice into political gain are considerably longer.

And then, the flight of the Democrats implicates the bankruptcy definition, because it has conclusively proven that Democrats are morally, intellectually, politically, and fiscally bankrupt.

None of these factors have prevented denizens of the Left from denouncing the Texas Republicans in their usual manner – incessant lying.  Rachel Maddow (is she still around?) laid the blame in the usual place, at the feet of President Trump, claiming he ordered Texas to do what it did because he’s an anti-democratic dictator.  This from the Party that prevents its own voters from picking its candidates in primaries, tried to imprison, and then kill its opponent, tried to remove his name from State ballots, and engaged in a criminal conspiracy that utilized government agencies to reverse the will of the voters.

And we can never leave out the Nazi references.  One Texas Democrat elected official actually compared Texas Governor Abbott’s efforts to force Democrats to return to the State to attend legislative sessions to (I’m not making this up) the Holocaust.  That’s right.  Trying to force elected officials to do the jobs they were chosen to do is the same as murdering ten million people.

What the Republicans are planning in Texas must be unprecedented and outrageous, right?  Wrong!  Redistricting for political gain, also known as gerrymandering, is a time honored practice, as old as our Republic.  The name refers to Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who in 1812 created grossly contorted Congressional districts, one of which resembled a salamander, hence Gerrymandering.  Both Parties have used the practice, but Democrats are masters of the trade.

You might think that, if a political Party gets 45% of the vote in a State, that would translate into a respectable number of Congressional seats in that jurisdiction.  You’d be wrong.  The Texas Democrats fled to Illinois to protest gerrymandering?  It is to laugh.  Illinois has 17 Congressional districts.  Democrats recently gerrymandered the districts into meandering knots in order to eliminate Republican House members.  They succeeded.  Although Republicans garnered more than 42% of the votes, they won only three districts.

Is that just a coincidence?  No way.  The new 13th District starts near the Indiana border, then meanders west through Champaign, Decatur and Springfield, before turning south, and ending near the outskirts of St. Louis.  It resembles the Florida keys.

The 17th District is in the shape of a C, beginning near the Wisconsin border, west to Iowa, then south, before turning east and ending in the center of the State.

The only thing more outrageous than the convoluted shapes of these gerrymandered districts is the fact that Illinois’ bloated barrage balloon Governor Pritzker went on record denouncing gerrymandering.  Other crooked Democrats joined in.  Massachusetts Governor Healy ridiculously declared that the Texas action has forced her State “to fight fire with fire.”  It’s unclear what that means, since her State already has eliminated all Republican House members, despite 40% of the voters supporting Republicans.

Maybe Governor Healy could help Connecticut with their gerrymandering, but they don’t need any help.  They gerrymandered all Republicans from office years ago.  The same way New Mexico banished Republicans from their delegation, and California, which has 42 Democrats to 8 Republicans, and Maryland, which has one Republican…  Need I go on?

The point is that the Democrats already have gerrymandered their States to keep them in power, or very close to a majority.  Gerrymandering may be frustrating, and unseemly, but it’s not illegal.  It goes on in every State in one way or another every time there’s redistricting.

Some complainers have called upon the federal government to outlaw the practice.  There’s little chance of that.  Politicians who are trying to ensure their own reelections are the people who get to decide on the new districts.  They won’t willingly give up that power.  And it may not even be legally possible.  The U.S. Supreme Court has washed its hands of review of redistricting, unless it can be proven to be racially motivated.

As this is written, Texas Democrats remain at large, still hoping they can Two Step away from their responsibilities, the better to help them destroy the democracy they falsely claim to be protecting.  Let’s hope they’re dancing on their own political graves.

Those of you who patronize the mainstream Lap Dog media in hopes of learning the news, this Summer are being treated to almost daily “revelations” documenting the myriad lies that were peddled for truth by Hillary Clinton, Il Duce Obama, Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden, and their various henchmen.

These so called revelations are presented as “now it can be told,” bombshells, but they’re really not new.  The truth is that these facts have been known at least since 2017.  They were told, but you just weren’t paying attention, and that’s not entirely your fault.  You’ve been lied to for so long, that it’s difficult for you to recognize the truth.

It’s been more than 140 years since Grover Cleveland proclaimed, “Public service is a public trust.”  We might debate whether that was true when Cleveland said it, but it sure ain’t true now.  The reason for this lies in the character of the people we elect to office.

Back in 1884, Joseph Pulitzer gave four reasons for endorsing Grover Cleveland.  “One, he is an honest man.  Two, he is an honest man.  Three, he is an honest man.  Four, he is honest.”  Nowadays, the focus isn’t on the candidate’s character.    Indeed, honesty doesn’t even seem to be important.

Politics has never been the bailiwick of saints or philosopher kings, but our leaders at least pretended to be honest custodians of the public welfare.  Sure, politicians always hid the truth, or shaded the truth to the extent they could, but at the end of the day, there were journalists willing to set the record straight.  Not anymore.  This didn’t happen overnight, and it’s not purely an American phenomenon.

Otto von Bismarck  observed, “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.”

William Butler Yeats said it in rhyme.  “A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote.  A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat.  So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote.”

Of the  Soviet Union, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.”  Russian writer Elena Gorokhova expanded on this theme.  “The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them.”

Harry Truman might have been joking when he said,  “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician.  To tell the truth, there’s hardly a difference.”  Truman was on to something.  The late P.J. O’Rourke entitled one of his books about Congress, Parliament of Whores.

Harry Truman also famously said of Richard Nixon, “There was a man who would never tell the truth when a simple lie would do.”  Truman would be distressed to learn that today’s Democrats have put Nixon to shame.

The Democrats have raised lying to an art form.  They’ve taken to heart the saying, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice,” but paraphrased it, “How do you gain and then maintain power?  Lie your asses off.”  They have refined this practice over many years, with the aid of alleged journalists whose motto is, “You lie, and we’ll swear to it.”

Just think about the sheer volume of shit that was peddled for truth by the Democrats.  “You can keep your plan, you can keep your doctor, and costs will go down.”  “The border is secure.”  “Joe Biden is sharp as a tack”  When in power, Democrats tell us, “The economy has never been better.”  “We created millions of jobs.”  When out of power, “It’s the worst economy since the Great Depression.”  “There’s rampant unemployment.”  They lie with impunity, secure in the knowledge that their lies will be repeated often enough by the media to convince the unsuspecting that they’re true.

This is a tactic has come to be known as The Big Lie.  The idea is, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”  This quotation often is attributed to Joseph Goebbels.  In reality, it comes from psychiatrist  Walter Langer, who while employed by the OSS, authored a psychoanalysis of Adolph Hitler.

Langer’s observation wasn’t original.  The 18th Century poet William Shenstone wrote, “A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.”  The Democrats have truly mastered this art.  Which brings me to the inspiration for the title of this week’s offering, which comes from former Congressman Ron Paul, “Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”

And lying is the Democrats’ stock in trade.  Lying about Donald Trump has been the entirety of Democrat policy since 2015.  They told us Trump is racist.  He’s not.  Trump is anti-Semitic.  He has a Jewish daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.  He has been the best friend in the White House that Israel has ever had, so he clearly is not.

My favorite Democrat lie is “Trump is a fascist.”  I’ve told you before.  Benito Mussolini’s definition of fascism was:  “Everything inside the State; nothing outside the State, and nothing against the State.”  That could be the motto of the Democrat Party.

In 2016 – “Trump will crash the economy.”  It soared.  Taxes were cut.  Lower income Americans benefited most.  Unemployment was negligible.

I have documented the multitude of lies that branded Trump a Russian agent.  They used the lies to cripple his first term.  How many times did Adam Schiff  (for brains) and Eric Swallwell tell us they had seen the evidence that now admittedly never existed.  Potential prosecutions are being contemplated.  Some Democrats are still repeating those lies.

In 2021, Democrats lied about the Covid vaccine, and used their lies to try to imprison Americans, and shut down the the economy.

Democrats lied about what they called the Inflation Reduction Act, which resulted in 9% inflation.

In 2024 and 2025 Democrats told us again Trump would crash the economy.  A lie.  The stock market would crash and bring about a depression.  As this is written the market is at record highs.   They said the tariffs would result in inflation.  A lie.  Trump has finalized trade agreements that greatly benefit the United States.  They said store shelves would be empty.  Lie.  Economic growth would be 1.8%.  The latest numbers show it is over 3%.  Tariff revenue in July alone is over $150 billion.  The Treasury reported a surplus in April.  Not to be outdone, as this is written, Democrats are calling these statistics “a mirage,” clearly embracing British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s observation that “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  Democrats excel in each of these categories.

Democrat reaction to Trump’s illegal alien deportations is nothing more than a tissue of lies.  Democrats say no work will get done.  Restaurants will close.  Lawns will go unmown.  One elected Democrat imbecile in Vermont even said, removing illegal aliens was a matter of “national survival,” because without them, “who will wipe our ass?”  Oh, the horror!  Instead of economic ruin,  American employment, and American incomes are rising faster than ever before.  Yet they keep on lying.

“ICE is grabbing children from schools.”  Lie.  “People are being torn from churches.”  Lie.  “Citizens are being ‘disappeared.'”  Lie.

And what have Democrats gained from their decades of lying?  Democrat approval is at all time lows, around 33%.  Yet they have learned nothing.  All of the above presents American voters with a clear choice in upcoming elections.  Republicans aren’t perfect, God knows.  But who will better serve your interests?  The Party that actually does what it’s promised to do, or the Party that pees on your leg, and then tells you it’s raining?