But something that may have slipped under the radar is the anti-Trump kangaroo court that recently doled out injustice at Orange Coast College. Although most of us were privy to what initially led to the legal lynching, you may not have been aware of the unfortunate, but not too surprising, conclusion to the story.

Several weeks ago, a professor, Olga Perez Stable Cox, under the guise of conducting a class, said, among other things: "I will not tolerate any person in my life that voted for Trump," "I'm not going to Utah where my family lives because of their views on Trump," "President Trump is a white supremacist," "Vice-President Pence is one of the most anti-gay humans in the country," "I know you're stuck in homes, you're stuck in families, you're stuck in places of employment where you're surrounded," "It's scary living in Orange County because so many people are hateful," "I hope that we can counter what this new administration is going to do."

Because he was so outraged by the hatred spewing from the mouth of this self-identified lesbian, Caleb O'Neil taped her and made her screed a matter of public record.

You would have thought Ms. Cox would have been suspended or fired for wasting class time with her partisan bellyaching. But that would only prove that you were a visitor from a past era who had landed in 2017 thanks to your time travel machine. Instead, the administration decided that Mr. O'Neil was the one who needed to be disciplined. His crime? Recording a class session without the permission of the instructor.

His defense – although one shouldn't be necessary because every teacher should be taped or recorded (what do they have to hide from the people who pay their salaries?) – was that he didn't record the entire session, but only the 15 minutes or so after she went off the rails and abused her authority.

In a clear-cut case of academic injustice, the interim dean, Victoria Lugo, deemed Caleb O'Neil's crime so serious that he has been suspended. I guess it's up to him if he wants to try to return in the fall, but I can't imagine why he would.

In the meantime, I have written the following letter to Dean Lugo: "I have read of the disciplinary action you have taken against young Mr. O'Neil. The part that grabbed my attention is that you asked him how he felt about his video having damaged the College's students, faculty and staff. It seems to me that if a 15-minute video of professor Cox in action could be that damaging to your school's reputation, the problem rests with her and not the student.

"How is it you don't see it that way?"

When called out on it, he looked a little weaselly himself when he claimed that's what he'd been told. I guarantee nobody told him something that is so blatantly false and so easily disproven.

On the other hand, that is small potatoes compared to the lies that have been told about him – specifically, the slander that President Trump is an anti-Semite. Unfortunately, like the claims that he hates women, Hispanics, blacks and homosexuals, it's easier to make the charge than to disprove it.

But, inasmuch as the most virulent anti-Semites were the Nazis, you would think that a great deal of proof would have to be offered before anyone would dare say such a thing. But what exactly could anyone in the media know that his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, don't know?

Wouldn't you think that before making such an accusation, the media would have had to discover that his preferred bedtime reading is "Mein Kampf" in the original German? That he wears pajamas adorned with little swastikas? That "Triumph of the Will" is his favorite movie? That he once went to a Halloween party as Joseph Goebbels?

One of the more amusing moments came when a reporter asked, as if it were a serious question, whether Trump wasn't concerned that his attacks on the media weren't undermining the faith Americans placed in the First Amendment.

Apparently, the reporter was unaware that the American people dislike and distrust the media even more than they do Congress. And if they believe that's all because of Trump, they may be even more deranged than Senate Democrats.

One obvious example of the bias the president referred to can be found in the way the left is carrying on about the immigration raids conducted by ICE under Trump. During the first three weeks of February, ICE made 680 arrests. During just three months of Obama's administration (September 2011, April 2012 and March 2015), over 8,000 illegal aliens were arrested. Not a single peep was heard from the American media, staunch defenders of the First Amendment.

He's like a guy who has been declared winner of a debate, but keeps gabbing long into the night after the lights have been turned off and everyone else has gone home.

"Mr. President," I'd say, "just admit that Mrs. Clinton received more votes than you. But point out that you actually read the Constitution, and therefore understood that it was only the votes of the Electoral College that mattered.

"Point out that it was a presidential election, not a beauty contest. And then, with a wink, point out that if it had been, you'd have won that, too."

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As everyone but those who are still mourning Hillary Clinton's defeat are aware, the 9th Circuit is overruled so often by the Supreme Court that even bookies don't like the odds. So how will those on the left react when a Supreme Court, even one that is equally divided between conservatives and liberals, once again reverses the clowns? Will they continue to trumpet their undying faith in judicial wisdom?

The problem for liberals isn't that they are always wrong, but that they lack the imagination to conceive of a future in which they're not in absolute control. So, for instance, when they decided to lock Republicans out of the planning stages of Obamacare and to enact it without a single Republican vote, they lacked the foresight to see a day when the opposition would treat them in similar fashion.

Again, in 2013, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to reverse tradition by making it possible for Democrats to seat federal judges with just 51 votes instead of the usual 60, it never occurred to mental midgets like Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy that the day would come a very short time later when the Republicans would not only be able, but, moreover, be morally justified to treat them with equal contempt.

What I find truly bizarre is that the Democrats are in such absolute lockstep that not a single senator can even bring himself to acknowledge that it is the 9th Circuit that is clearly outside the so-called mainstream of judicial thinking. I mean, if I were a Democratic senator, I would feel compelled to say that although I was grateful that the 9th Circuit agreed with me in principle, I admit they clearly hadn't based their conclusion on an objective reading of the Constitution's separation of powers.

Or take the case of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who claimed to have served as a Marine in Vietnam. It's true that he was in the Marine Reserves, but the only service he saw was in Washington, D.C., and his home state of Connecticut. While I have no reason to doubt that had the North Vietnamese invaded our east coast, Sgt. Blumenthal would have served honorably, the truth is he lied. The fact he has been elected and re-elected to the U.S. Senate proves that the voters of Connecticut remain grateful for whatever small role he may have played in preventing the enemy from invading their country clubs.

They are also willing to overlook the fact that although, like every other Democrat in Congress, he remains in a state of constant outrage over the evil known as income inequality, he hasn't yet convinced himself to share any portion of his $53 million fortune with the oppressed and constantly aggrieved.

Mr. Moreland, the master of the double-take, was always being called upon to shake his legs and roll his eyes whenever he heard a scary noise or saw what he assumed was a ghost. At such times, he would usually look down and, with his teeth chattering, say: "Feets, do your stuff."

Alas, Mr. Williams has never yet said anything that sensible.

In response to a piece I wrote recently, questioning just how great the so-called Greatest Generation was, a man, whose father had enlisted in the Navy months before Pearl Harbor and served nearly four years in combat, pointed out that even during World War II, most of those in the military waited to be drafted. I wrote back to say that even if they hadn't enlisted, I considered those men honest-to-God heroes, so long as they did their part to defend America when called upon to do so.

I added that I was reminded that a while back, I wrote about black men, the majority of whom do not marry the mothers of their offspring and play no paternal role in the lives of their offspring – and who, by the way, resent being called "boys," but refuse to behave like men. I wrote that, in addition to cheating their children, they had short-changed themselves by depriving themselves of the opportunity to ever be someone's hero.

I replied that it was particularly galling when the knuckleheads have so very much to be modest about.

1. Never make a woman mad. They can remember stuff that hasn't even happened yet.

2. Behind every angry woman stands a man who has absolutely no idea what he did wrong.

3. Don't try to understand women. Women understand women, and they tend to hate each other.

4. Arguing with a woman is like reading the Software License contract. In the end, you have no option but to ignore everything and click "I agree."

5. Every time you talk to your wife, your mind should remember that this conversation will be recorded for training and quality purposes.

And will, I would add, be rebroadcast at a much later date for what will be purported to be your own good.

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A strange form of amnesia seems to affect those who seem ignorant of the fact that thousands of people have been slaughtered by those who follow the teachings of Muhammad and who scream "Allah Akbar!" in the midst of their religious killing frenzy.

To suggest that not every Muslim is a terrorist is so simplistic that it hardly bears acknowledging. Not every German was a Nazi, not every Russian was a communist, but enough were to make the two nations an existential threat to every civilized person on earth. What makes Islam more dangerous than either of the other two criminal enterprises is that there are Muslim majorities in over two dozen nations, and those who have emigrated from those states have committed atrocities all over the globe.

Shariah law, which is espoused even by those who claim not to support the jihadists, is in eternal conflict with the U.S. Constitution. So, why of all the people on earth, is it Muslims that so many Americans choose to champion? One reason, I suspect, is because most of these champions are on the left, and they tend to be in favor of whatever and whomever seems to threaten the safety and prosperity of this nation. The other reason is that they hate Donald Trump and will enthusiastically defend whatever they feel he opposes.

Mainly, those on the left and their representatives in Congress have an instinctive need to claim the moral high ground, so whether they're defending Muslims, cop killers or illegal aliens, they can never resist the overpowering urge to claim to be holier-than-thou and moi.

Inasmuch as the College was one of the few items the founders had rare unanimity about, it goes to show how little respect the leftists on the Supreme Court have for original text. It also goes to show that, in open contradiction to justice nominee Neil Gorsuch's declaration that only bad judges always agree with their own judicial opinions, liberal justices are guided only by their own partisan agenda.

I mean, would even Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi seriously argue that if it were Republicans who were in the majority in large urban communities, Justice Ginsburg would be so anxious to abolish the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote?

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I suspect if national security weren't involved, and the data could be made public, perhaps even Judge James Robart might not have been so quick to overrule Trump's executive order. On the other hand, Judge Robart is an immigration activist who feels he has a dog in the fight, so perhaps nothing would have persuaded him that an unelected judge in Seattle has every right to thwart the constitutional authority of the president.

After all, it's a federal court. If it were a state court in Washington, Oregon or California, it might make sense. But how is it that year after year, decade after decade, the biggest loons in the federal court system keep winding up on the 9th Circuit? And doesn't it wear on them to be so consistently slapped down by the Supremes?

Who are these other nations we're supposed to be fretting about? England and France, who stabbed Israel in the back at the U.N.?

Canada, which demands that foreigners be self-supporting and possess skills that will be beneficial to Canada? Mexico, a country that defends its own borders with a ferocity pit bulls would admire, while insisting we keep our own porous?

Or perhaps it's Russia, a Slavic cesspool that invades its neighbors with impunity, pretending it's their right if a sizable number of their citizens speak Russian. It's the same excuse Hitler used when he invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, pointing out that a lot of those natives spoke German.

Maybe the loons are referring to Japan, with its policy against letting any outsider become a citizen? Could be they have the Arab and Muslim nations in mind, even though they not only exclude Jews and murder Christians, but deny entry to those who are either coming from or planning to go to Israel.

So, for just whose high opinion are we being urged to grovel? China? North Korea? Brazil? Venezuela? Congo? It's no wonder they always fall back on the amorphous "world community."

Still, she caught a lot of us by surprise when she took Russia and Vladimir Putin to task for invading Korea. That was particularly troubling news until someone figured out she meant Crimea.

Acknowledging what used to be referred to as the facts of life (aka the birds and the bees) now constitutes hate speech, and the facts of life are no longer considered facts, but merely differences of opinion between humanitarians on one side and bigots on the other.

This particular controversy has been brought about by the same simpletons who spend their days worrying whether other nations respect us. I say they can stop worrying. When sane people see that schools, businesses and even entire states are abandoning common sense and caving in to bullying by the sexually bewildered, even most Americans are having a hard time respecting this country.

Although I am fundamentally opposed to the federal government being involved with education, at least we have a true conservative on the job, and that surely beats allowing the corrupt teachers unions in 50 states to dictate the rules and subjugate the children to their insatiable greed and inexcusable malfeasance.

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In a matter of mere days, he reverted to being Mr. Apprentice by firing Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, when she refused to enforce Trump's perfectly constitutional ban on people traveling from seven centers of Islamic terrorism; he appointed the perfect replacement for the legendary Antonin Scalia, Neil Gorsuch; and he made a surprise visit to the return ceremony for Navy SEAL William Owens, who lost his life during a military mission in Yemen.

Those are three items you would never have found on Barack Obama's daily calendar. But they are what we have already come to expect of President Trump, who's been on the job less than two weeks.

Speaking of which, I'm wondering how Republican voters in Alaska and Maine will be reacting to their respective senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, voting against Trump's nominee for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.

By doing so, the two ladies are openly declaring that they are so deep into the pockets of the teachers' unions that their autopsies are likely to indicate that they succumbed to lint.

I would suggest to Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that if he plans on being re-elected, he should switch parties before his next election. And he shouldn't dither because he'll want to make the change before the next natural disaster hits his state. At such times, when federal funds are essential, it always helps to be in the same party as the person in the Oval Office.

I believe, as I told my reader, that the mythology that surrounds Reagan has more to do with his beguiling personality and his well-scripted lines than his actual accomplishments. To be fair, Reagan had to wheel and deal with Tip O'Neill and the Democrats, and that's never a fun enterprise. But I, for one, will never forgive Reagan, Mr. Trust-but-Verify, for signing the amnesty bill in 1986 that opened the floodgates to illegal aliens.

There are those to be found in our crybaby nation who are still whining about Trump's doing his level best to keep jihadists out of America, and promoting the notion of accepting Christians ahead of Muslims. But the fact is, the Muslims who are attempting to leave the Middle East are merely attempting to get out of a war zone. It's a natural enough desire. But the Christians have been the ones dealing with a war zone during peaceful times. They, along with Israel's Jews, have had to deal with Muslims looking to exterminate them on a daily basis – the same people, by the way, that Obama was so anxious to bring to America.

In "Animal Farm" George Orwell pointed out that not all animals are equal. I insist the same holds true when it comes to refugees.

I knew that the media, female teachers and the creatures of NOW have been waging a campaign to feminize American males, but I wasn't aware that it had already begun to affect sixth graders. Parents of America, run, don't walk, to your sons' room and check for signs of rouge, mascara and metro-sex clothing catalogs.

It used to be that most of the names we could identify were involved at the highest level with entertainment, athletics, literature, politics or were known for singular achievements like Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Jonas Salk, John D. Rockefeller, Roger Bannister, Edmund Hillary, John Dillinger, Thomas Edison and Albert Schweitzer. But today, you have people who have achieved nothing of note, except notoriety. But when they die, the media covers it 24/7, especially if they take their leave through drug overdoses.

But even President Trump, on his worst day, wouldn't think of scheduling three awards ceremonies – the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Oscars – to fall within a seven-week time frame. With all the non-stop back-patting, you would think local chiropractors would be up to their necks in sprains, strains and pulled tendons.

Fortunately, the Hollywood elite can afford to run off to Cabo, Cancun or Bermuda, to recuperate, while working on their tans and cursing Trump, Republicans and, of course, income inequality.

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This truism was brought home for me when Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., promised to slow walk Trump's Cabinet choices through their confirmation hearings after spending the past eight years calling Republicans "obstructionists."

Again, the point was driven home during those hearings when the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken and Schumer excoriated the various secretaries-in-waiting for their various stock deals, some going back more than 20 years. Only Senate Democrats could possibly be that confident the folks at home wouldn't be muttering: "What about your insider trading? How is it that no matter how modest your financial situation may have been when you were first elected to Congress, somehow you all manage to wind up millionaires in the blink of an eye?"

When then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to do everything in his power to ensure that Obama would be a one-term president, the Democrats carried on as if McConnell had burned a cross on the front lawn of the White House. But when over a third of House Democrats spurned the inauguration and saw to it that only two of Trump's Cabinet positions were filled by the time Trump was sworn in, the liberals claimed they were merely being principled and conscientious.

When Trump said: "When you open your heart to patriotism, there's no room for prejudice," those on the left bristled. So far as they're concerned, without stoking the fires of racial prejudice, it's possible that no Democrat might ever again win a presidential election.

According to the DNC playbook, every black and Hispanic must be encouraged to rail against Whitey, blaming the white race for everything from their high school dropout rate, their dependence on drugs within an illegal drug economy, an astronomical illegitimate birth rate and crime stats that are the sole reason America ranks among the most violent industrialized nations in the world instead of one of the least. And as there are precious few white gangs in the nation, not even Lewis Farrakhan can honestly claim that black and Hispanic gangs exist as counterweights.

Recently, a reader asked me how it is that even at this late date, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus can still get away with their race-baiting tactics.

"It's easy," I replied. "When you tell people that their problems in no way reflect on them, but can be laid at the feet of scapegoats who have conspired to keep them poor, ignorant and dependent, it's music to their ears. Still, even I find it amazing that these race hustlers can still keep the con going 150 years after the end of slavery and a half-century after the belated death of Jim Crow."

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The real problem with poverty in America is that, thanks to the welfare industry that provides all the essentials to people who never do a lick of work, the generational poor have no incentive to change their ways.

For the unproductive, it's always easier and more fun to break a window and burn a car than to learn how to repair a window or build a car.

On the other hand, Trump's remark was little more than high-sounding piffle. There have been few groups as truly and tragically patriotic as the Southern Confederacy, but of course that still left plenty of room for prejudice.

The quick answer is that he does it because the media insisted on playing down the size of the inaugural crowd or to bother mentioning that the miserable weather diminished the potential numbers just as it does with baseball games and other outdoor events.

But Radosh concluded with "Trump promised to 'drain the swamp' and put the people back in charge, but he failed to do this with his appointees. Many of them are fantastically wealthy individuals who would be comfortable in the board room of Goldman Sachs or as the CEO of the largest oil and gas company in the world as, of course, Rex Tillerson was until recently."

Because I know Ron to generally be a level-headed conservative who has devoted years of his life to proving that Alger Hiss, along with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were Soviet agents and not sacrificial lambs, to say I was surprised would be a gross understatement. To me, it read as if dictated by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

I replied: "You lost me there, Ron. Does being wealthy preclude someone from being a person? I don't recall Trump's vowing to place poor people in his Cabinet and, frankly, I can't imagine why that would be such a great idea.

"I acknowledge that my Cabinet would look a lot different from Trump's, but that's because I know very few wealthy people. I'm not suggesting that the best way to select a Cabinet would be to toss the names of millionaires and billionaires in a hat and pick 15. But if you're Trump and you personally know people who are rich, accomplished and generally see eye-to-eye with your aspirations for America, it seems to me you'd have to be an idiot or a socialist – there I go, repeating myself – to object."

I'm reminded me of an email I received the other day. On top was a photo of Rex Tillerson, captioned "I own $240 million worth of ExxonMobil stock. Everyone is demanding that I divest my stake in this company in order to serve as Donald Trump's Secretary of State."

Below was a photo of John Kerry, captioned "My wife, Teresa Heinz-Kerry, is the heiress to the Heinz Ketchup fortune. She is worth between $750 million and $1.2 billion. No one batted an eye at my being named Secretary of State under Barack Obama."

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Barack Obama was nearly always given a pass, no matter how many lies he told about the Affordable Care Act or the wonders of green energy, or how much money he squandered in the process of doubling our national debt in eight years.

In fact, if I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I never would have believed that two days before leaving the White House, Barack Obama had the chutzpah to address the fawning members of the press and say, with a perfectly straight face: "You're not supposed to be sycophants. You're supposed to be skeptics. You're supposed to ask me tough questions. You're not supposed to be complimentary. You're supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power."

I bet if I hadn't told you first, you wouldn't have guessed the source of those lines in a million years. Obama might as well have been winking at the ladies and gentlemen of the White House press corps. On the other hand, he could have concluded his statement with, "We all know that's how it's supposed to work, but I really appreciate the fact that you kissed my butt in 2008 and you never – not even when I blew $700 million on Solyndra and a trillion dollars on a Stimulus; not when I drew a red line in Syria and quickly erased it; not when I boasted we had al-Qaida on the run only to see ISIS immediately take its place; not when I lied to millions of Americans about their being able to keep their doctors and their insurance plans; not when I said two dozen times I lacked the constitutional authority to prevent illegal aliens from being deported, but then did it anyway; not even when I made a nuclear deal with Iran that gave the terrorists everything and gave us nothing – did you folks even consider unpuckering."

To compound the sin, they took Trump and his press secretary, Sean Spicer, to task for complaining about the obvious bias. They carried on as if Trump shouldn't be concerned with such trivial matters, that it's simply further proof that he's a raging egomaniac. But in doing so, they're pretty much declaring that they constitute trivial matters, because if the public can't trust newspaper photos any more than they can trust newspaper copy, what exactly is that "Free Press" we keep hearing so much about? Perhaps it's nothing more than an empty platitude they toss around to make lying sound noble.

The media played down the symbolism when Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office and immediately got rid of the bust of Winston Churchill, even though it represented a tip of the hat to his anti-colonial, communist father. The press chose to ignore the insult to the man whose leadership during World War II did so much to defeat Nazism; a man, by the way, who was made an honorary American and who, like Obama, had an American mother.

Compare that to the outrage in the media when a Time magazine reporter accused Trump of moving the bust of Martin Luther King out of the Oval Office. While it's true that the reporter later acknowledged his mistake and apologized, lamely explaining that a Secret Service agent must have been standing in front of the bust, blocking it from his view, nevertheless, hundreds of newspapers eagerly passed it off as legitimate news.

They're the ones that are going to want and need his support in the coming years as they run for re-election. He's the one with the bully pulpit or, in his case, the bully twitter account.

I recall that when George W. Bush traveled to England early in his administration and the media went wild over the fact that 500,000 people in London showed up to display their displeasure with the cowboy president. At the time, I observed that roughly 8.5 million people lived in London, and I thought the bigger story was that 8 million Londoners stayed home.

I know that the left wants to convince us that Trump didn't really win the election. They tried it first by staging recounts. When that failed to do anything but gain him additional votes, they tried to pressure the delegates to the Electoral College not to vote for him. The pressure worked well enough to cost him two votes, but five people took advantage of the opportunity not to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Now, they decided to use the likes of Madonna, Gloria Steinem and Ashley Judd to convince us that American Womanhood is opposed to Trump. I'm afraid in a nation with roughly 170 million women, this handful of post-menstrual harpies screaming obscenities, comparing Trump to Hitler and fantasizing the White House being blown up, merely reminded most of us that some people find it more difficult than others to cope with the reality of being an over-the-hill has-been.

I'm sure that the ladies will ignore my advice, but I have their best interests at heart when I suggest they do what so many other aging celebrities have done in the past, and that is to write a memoir reminding people that there was in fact a time when a great many famous men had sex with them.

And so long as they name names and provide all the scintillating details, I'm sure Megyn Kelly, Oprah Winfrey and the shrews of "The View" will be only too happy to interview them.

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Some people wondered why Obama decided to make Chicago the venue for his speech. But when the crowd greeted his appearance with five full minutes of applause, the question was quickly answered. Where else would he have found so many pinheads willing to overlook the reality of the Obama era?

It was as if the prior eight years had never happened. The fawning crowd no doubt confirmed in his mind that he was as great a president as he keeps insisting he was. Even when he said: "By any measure, America is a better, stronger country than it's ever been," they applauded like trained seals. As if that weren't pathetic enough, when he went so far as to take bows for the Affordable Care Act, the single piece of legislation that did so much to help Republicans sweep Democrats out of the House and Senate, the nitwits kept clapping. I must confess that even I joined in.

Obama was at his hypocritical best when he spoke out against blind partisanship and people huddling only with those whose politics they agreed with, saying: "We have to acknowledge that our opponents might be making good points." This is the same man who, in 2009, ordered the Republicans to sit down, shut up and get out of his way.

When he went on to sing the praises of a free press, it had apparently slipped his mind that he had attempted to banish Fox News from the White House press conferences.

I happen to love the arias of Puccini even though I have no idea what is being sung in Italian. When I listen to Obama speechify, I get the feeling he also doesn't know what the words mean, but that he is so enchanted by the sound of his own voice, he doesn't care. Otherwise, how could the man, who has spent the past eight years ignoring the Constitution's limitations on the executive branch, possibly bring himself to state: "Our Constitution is a beautiful, wonderful document"?

Because Obama has become so accustomed to overusing "I," "me" and "my" in his speeches, it came as something of a shock when he began blowing verbal kisses to the likes of Joe Biden ("My brother"), his staff ("You helped save the world") and Michelle ("You've made me proud, and you've made this country proud"). I think if I had worked on his speech, I might have avoided using the word "proud," as it was so likely to remind people that eight years ago, she admitted she had never been proud of America until her hubby beat out Hillary Clinton to garner the nomination.

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The biggest shock of the evening came when he told his daughters how much he loved and admired them, but the cameras clearly showed us, though possibly not her father, that only Malia was in attendance. As a result, the next day, social media was abuzz about Sasha's absence. Not since America wondered where Waldo was lurking and where Jimmy Hoffa was buried had a question so captured America's imagination quite as much as: Where was Sasha?

When my wife Yvonne asked me that very question, I suggested she might have stayed in D.C. to bone up for a high school exam. But once I heard Barack Obama state that was in fact the reason, I immediately changed my mind. I now suspect that like most 17-year-olds, she took advantage of her parents and kid sister being out of town to invite her friends over to break open the liquor cabinet and party.

Obama ended his overlong address by saying: "Yes we can, and yes we did." It seemed like an odd conclusion unless he was responding to the question: "Did you intentionally set out to weaken America by selling us out to our enemies and betraying our allies?"

I believe that millions of us discovered to our chagrin how unwise it was to elect a person whose previous occupation was as a community agitator to be the commander in chief. But you can't always count on someone making it quite that obvious that he is unsuited to the office. So I have come up with another tip-off. If someone was brought up in Indonesia and then proceeded to move to Hawaii, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Cambridge and finally, Washington, D.C., never even pausing in a place not dominated by the alt-left, you might wish to vote for someone else. Perhaps – dare I say it? – even anyone else!

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Of course, I don't recall the big event, but rumor has it that the obstetrician back in Chicago slapped me on the tush and I punched him in the nose – and he handed me off to my mother, saying: "It's a bouncing baby conservative!"

Sometimes, though, I think I see the Middle East through clearer eyes than anyone in Israel or Washington, D.C. For instance, when everyone was tossing confetti in the air and Nobel Peace Prizes were being handed out like candy corn on Halloween, I said the Oslo Agreement, which called for Israel to cede land for peace, was as dangerously absurd as the peaceniks in America calling for us in the '50s and '60s to unilaterally destroy our nuclear arsenal, insisting that the Soviet Union would follow suit.

It wasn't that different when most of our foremost pundits were breaking out their party hats to celebrate the Arab Spring. Anyone who believed that in overthrowing the despotic likes of Mubarak, Hussein and Gadhafi, Arabs and Muslims weren't going to replace them with the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida, ISIS and the mullahs just wasn't paying attention.

I didn't even think I was being particularly prescient when I stated that the Arab Spring was inevitably going to become the Arab Winter.

Part of the problem is that we Americans think that revolutions are a good thing. But that's because we forget that ours was the lone exception to the rule. In France, the end of royalty led to the guillotine, Robespierre and Napoleon. In Russia, the end of the czars led to Josef Stalin. In China, the end of Chang Kai-shek led to Mao Zedong; in Cuba, liberation from the corrupt Batista led to the brutality of Che Guevara and the Castros.

Revolutionaries like Washington, Madison, Jefferson – men who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, and meant it – do not grow on trees. And neither, it should be obvious to one and all, do they sprout in the barren sands of Arabia.

I blame Israeli politicians along with the hypocritical leaders of the so-called democracies for wasting the past quarter century sitting down with the likes of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas and offering to trade away what precious little land Israel possesses for the promise of peace from vermin who continue calling for the extermination of Jews.

If Israel is serious about wanting peace or at least something resembling it, the Jews will have to get it the same way we obtained it with Germany and Japan 70 years ago, by force. All the diplomatic posturing has done is convince the Arabs and Muslims that Israel is negotiating from weakness. After all, in their world, a world in which the weak submit to the will of the strong, why else would the Israelis sit down with those who continue to idolize Hitler, but feel he took his leave with the Final Solution only half-solved.

Although I suspect that Israel has controlled its temper thus far because of its concern with world opinion, after such seemingly benign nations as France, Britain and New Zealand voted to concede even Jerusalem to the so-called Palestinians, it's time for Israel to put on its big-boy pants and stop fooling around.

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As for American Jewry, they're basically hopeless. For the most part, they are Jews in name only; their true faith is Liberalism, which is why, had it been possible, 70-75 percent would have voted for a third term of Obama.

The sad truth is that when it comes to politics, most of my fellow Jews have their heads so far up their butts, they have to fart through their nose.

When federal funding stops flooding into California in spite of the best efforts of such heavy hitters as Jerry Brown, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Xavier Becerra, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman and Dianne Feinstein, Eric Holder may find his next job is as a crossing guard in Berkeley or San Francisco.

When he replied: "I thought part of the definition of climate was that it changes," I promptly set him straight: "Silly you! It took Al Gore to explain that climate is not only supposed to be static, but that even the slightest change in the atmosphere is bound to be catastrophic; and that the only way to deal with it is by sending lots of money, in the form of a carbon tax, to Mr. Gore, aka the great and powerful Oz."

Even asking if the money is tax-deductible is enough to label you a climate-change denier, and if you live in California, you just might expect Eric Holder to come knocking on your door.

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Obama may pretend to be cooperating with Trump's transition team, but by releasing another bunch of jihadists from Gitmo, by banning oil drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic and by choreographing the latest anti-Israel outrage at the U.N., one can easily recognize that the cooperation is all window dressing.

The shameful vote in the Security Council had Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, Angola, Egypt, Uruguay, Spain, Senegal, New Zealand, Malaysia and New Zealand, voting to condemn Israel, with America's U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power, electing to abstain.

I suppose the good news is that Russia and Ukraine could finally agree on something, and that "something" is that in a world in which China is turning the South China Sea into an armed fortress, Russia and Iran are turning Syria into the world's largest graveyard and the Muslims are beheading Christians and raping Germans, the gravest threat to the world's peace and tranquility is Israel's building apartment houses!

Frankly, I have no idea why one American president after another has seen it advantageous for our taxpayers to cough up $3 billion-a-year to keep the criminal operation on the East River running. I used to respect John Bolton because he made so many convincing arguments for our getting out of the U.N. and getting the U.N. out of the U.S. But, then, George W. Bush appointed him our ambassador to the goon squad, and suddenly he went mute on the subject.

The fact is, the first time I really became aware of Donald Trump was several years ago, long before "The Apprentice," when he suggested that we get rid of the U.N. and let him turn the property into a five-star hotel. For some reason, he never mentioned his notion during the campaign. I'm convinced it would have been enough to garner him the popular vote.

It's time! Sign the petition to urge President Trump to get the U.S. out of the U.N. once and for all.

For my part, I would suggest they move the U.N. to some place other than Brussels or Paris. Let's see how many of those dedicated diplomats would be willing to serve if the organization were headquartered in Yemen or Ethiopia, thousands of miles away from the fancy French restaurants and the $1,000-a-night hookers they've come to regard as their birthright.

Unlike some people, I don't need Bibi Netanyahu to tell Trump that Obama choreographed the Security Council vote; it has his filthy fingerprints all over it. The only surprise is that he didn't order Ambassador Power to join the other 14 despicable nations in voting to condemn the Jewish state. Did the arrogant ignoramus really think the abstention would fool anyone?

The sad fact is that Obama, like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan and most black Americans, is notoriously anti-Semitic. The irony is that most American Jews – because their actual religion is Liberalism, don't attend religious services, don't obey the dietary laws, but do identify with Israel's enemies – would have gladly voted to re-elect Barack Hussein Obama if he had been able to run for a third term.

In most cases, the major connection of JINOs (Jews In Name Only) to their alleged faith is that they have Jewish names, consider the New York Times their bible, vote the straight Democratic ticket and, from their childhood, retain a lifelong fondness for corned beef, latkes, sour pickles and Broadway show tunes.

Although it's often lost in the celebration over Obama's finally departing the Oval Office, there should be a chorus of hurrahs over the simultaneous exit of John Kerry from the State Department. We have had other rotten secretaries of state, including John Foster Dulles, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton, but few who can claim some portion of responsibility for such major disasters as the Paris Climate Accord, the killing fields of Syria, the Iran deal and U.N. resolution 2334. As for that number, I'm not sure how they came up with it, but I suspect it indicates that the U.N. had passed 2333 prior resolutions condemning Israel.

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One of the many things I have come to appreciate about Donald Trump is that he doesn't sit around awaiting official confirmation that an event involving unprovoked savagery by vermin hollering "Allah Akbar" is actually an act of Islamic terrorism.

Unlike Obama, who refused to even say that Maj. Hasan's killing spree at Fort Hood was anything other than workplace violence, Trump isn't afraid to say what every sane person immediately knows.

Which reminds me that when we recently saw gangs of teenagers running wild in shopping malls around the country, vandalizing businesses and terrifying post-Christmas shoppers, and simultaneously saw a large number of college football players being arrested for having sexually assaulted women, even Fox neglected to mention what was apparent on our TV screens – namely, that without exception, they were all young black thugs.

It is high time the media quit covering up the misconduct of blacks, or, more often, neglecting to mention the race of those who commit most of the violent crime in America. It is not racist to report the news, no matter how unsavory it is. God knows the media never hold back when they believe conservatives have misbehaved, even though the worst they can generally say about them is that they had the unmitigated gall to support Donald Trump.

On the other hand, I must confess to being disappointed when I heard President-elect Trump say that one of the things he liked about Obamacare is that children up to the age of 26 are covered under their parents' health insurance policies.

I would suggest that when people feel compelled to call 25-year-olds "children," you know you are being scammed, as surely as you know that climate change is a hoax as soon as you hear terms like "settled science" and "a consensus of scientists" being tossed around like a Frisbee.

When I reported on a medical journal study that indicated people being treated by female physicians did better than those being treated by their male counterparts. I admitted I had no idea if it was true. Furthermore, I couldn't imagine how they could possibly conclude that as many as 32,000 people-a-year would be alive if only their doctors had been women. I only recounted my own dismal experiences with male surgeons, which strongly supported the journal's conclusion.

Naturally, I heard from a couple of male doctors who took strong exception to the theory. But I heard from one reader, whose daughter is a veterinarian, who opined that "a good doctor treats more than one species."

I couldn't argue with that. Frankly, I wish I could put myself in the gentle and caring hands of those who see to our dog Angel's medical needs.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that pediatricians would be the ideal answer for those of us schlepping through our second childhoods.

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It just goes to show that just because you're rich doesn't mean you're smart. Although I'd like to make them pay me for the answers, that's not likely to happen, so I guess I'll have to tell them for free. OK, here goes – she was a terrible candidate. I know that the polls showed that even more people didn't like Trump, but by now we know all about those polls. The fact is that Trump came off as a recognizable human being. Sometimes he was vulgar, sometimes boorish, but sometimes funny. Best of all, he was never boring. What's more, he always seemed to say what he meant and to mean what he said, which was the opposite of Hillary Clinton.

For her part, Mrs. Clinton always seemed to have been programmed for whichever group she was addressing. It was particularly obvious when she went from one event to another, making a point of hugging heavyset black women you realized she would never spend two minutes with if she hadn't so desperately needed black votes. Apparently, even black voters recognized that fact, which explains why they stayed home in record numbers on Election Day.

To which my response was: "There's more truth to be found on the backend of a truck than in the New York Times and Washington Post put together."

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Trump has said that he actually garnered more popular votes than Mrs. Clinton, if it weren't for the votes of illegal aliens. I don't know if that's true. But when you have illegal aliens being granted driver's licenses, free health care and even college tuition, along with the protection of sanctuary cities, I surely wouldn't bet against it.

But what I do know is that Mrs. Clinton defeated Trump in the popular vote by a margin of 2,864,978 votes (65,844,594 to 62,979,616) mainly because she defeated him by 4,269,978 votes in California (8,753,788 to 4,483,810). Without California, Trump's margin of victory would have been 1,404,978 votes, which would have spared us all the endless chatter about the Electoral College, if not about Russia and James Comey teaming up to hand the victory to Mr. Trump.

Apparently, Martin Sheen, who was last seen starring in a YouTube video featuring show biz has-beens urging Republican Electors to ignore their sworn duty and vote for someone other than Donald Trump, was confused by the fact that although he had played a president on TV, he had never really held elected office or, for that matter, been able to tell his ass from his elbow.

Not satisfied with expressing their politically correct opinions on that subject, which was that it was a way for racists to disenfranchise black voters, they also volunteered the information that black people not only don't know how to use the Internet, but have no idea how to locate the nearest DMV office.

Horowitz then traveled to Harlem to share his findings with a cross section of actual black people, representing both genders and a wide range of ages. Big surprise, they all had photo IDs and were happy to show them to a stranger. What's more, they had access to the Internet and probably knew how Facebook and YouTube work, which is more than I do, and, yes, they knew where to find the nearest DMV office.

They were then asked by Horowitz if they thought the students sounded racist. Only one of the responders thought they did, at least a little. The others were willing to give the kids the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that their patronization should better be attributed to ignorance.

Feeling as I do about students at our elite universities, I don't see it as a case of either/or.

I'd love to hear Ami Horowitz ask those questions of the folks in Harlem. I suspect their answers would surprise a lot of people who are as accustomed as those snotty brats in Berkeley to speaking on their behalf.

See Horowitz video:

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But what should be questioned and derided is that the editors captioned his cover photo the "President of the Divided States of America." Does anyone believe the schmucks would have insulted Hillary Clinton in that manner if she had won the election, although there's no question that she was every bit as controversial, if not more so, than Mr. Trump?

For my part, things just keep getting better and better, as Trump continues to flesh out his administration. For a few days, I confess I got nervous when crazy Al Gore got to take a ride on the golden elevator at Trump Tower to have a sit-down with Ivanka Trump. It's no secret, after all, that she, like many millennials, is not as conservative as some other members of the family.

For one thing, she is the one who keeps pushing for a program to provide universal child care. I have nothing against child care if the states or companies elect to provide it. But I don't think it's the federal government's job to be a nanny. It could never do as good a job as Mary Poppins, and it shouldn't try.

For another thing, Ivanka apparently subscribes to the global-warming/climate-change hoax, and it concerned me that she apparently has a great deal of influence with her old man, and that she and her husband are apparently moving to Washington, D.C., to help her dad run the country.

So you can imagine how relieved I was when the president-elect nominated Oklahoma's former attorney general, Scott Pruitt, to head up the EPA. Pruitt has been at the forefront in battling the EPA bureaucrats who have buried the nation in anti-business regulations for the past eight years.

Nobody is campaigning for dirty air and contaminated water, but Obama's minions have made no secret of their anti-industry bias, reflective of a president who based his 2008 campaign on shutting down the oil and coal industries – the American economy and energy independence be damned!

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Some on the left are terrified of the ex-generals whom Trump has been appointing to positions in defense, homeland security and intelligence. These pinheads even talk of a junta in the works, pretending they can imagine people like retired Marine Gens. James Mattis and Robert Kelly plotting to overthrow the government and trash the very Constitution they have been defending for more years in many cases than their critics have lived.

Mattis, a man forced to resign because he disagreed with Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, would require that Congress grant him an exception to serve because of a law passed almost 70 years ago that requires an ex-general be out of the military for 10 years before being allowed to take a civilian job in the federal government. I would suggest that while they're at it, they get rid of the law.

It's an insult to every man and woman in the military that these individuals are treated as if they're second-class citizens or, worse yet, radioactive. It is particularly offensive when you realize that ex-politicians can go from being members of Congress to being a Washington lobbyist overnight, shilling on behalf of multinational corporations and foreign, even enemy, regimes.

Speaking of which, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is concerned that Trump is appointing not only ex-military commanders, but billionaires. It figures that a leftist would be dismayed by an onslaught of competent and accomplished people into a world previously dominated by political hacks, attorneys and escapees from academia – people whose life experiences have pretty much been limited to law offices, classrooms and Congress, where they often have to put in exhausting four, sometimes even five-hour days, casting votes and naming post offices for a living.

One of the sillier defenses I have heard in favor of sanctuary cities is that if illegal aliens fear the police will abide by federal statutes, they will be afraid to come forward to report crimes committed by their fellow illegal aliens. Well, if they all went home, the reporting would be unnecessary. Problem solved.

In Detroit, during the recent recount, it was discovered that a sealed box that was supposed to contain 306 ballots only held 50. The city clerk "explained" that their voting machines are old and that sometimes the ballots had to be sent through more than once in order to register. And sometimes, it seems, they had to be sent through six or seven times.

I would suggest that in the future Trump not only pushes legislation that requires photo IDs be mandatory during presidential elections, but that federal marshals be present to oversee polling locations wherever such crimes are known to be commonplace.

Although I often think the post office comes in for more than its fair share of ridicule, I had a recent experience that had me scratching my head. A friend wrote to me from Richmond, Virginia, but instead of 16604 Dearborn, he mistakenly wrote 16608, but had everything else, including the zip code, correct.

So I wrote to the supervisor of the local post office to say: "Had there been a house with that number, it would have been right next door. As it is, my neighbor's address happens to be 16610 Dearborn. So how is it that a postman who delivers a passel of mail to me and my wife six days a week determines that instead of dropping a letter with my name on it in my mail box decides that the proper procedure is to have it sent back to Virginia rubber-stamped 'Undeliverable'?

"Are your employees required to fail an IQ test before they're handed a bag and sent out to do the job?"
Thus far, I haven't heard back. But it's possible he sent his response to 16608.

Finally, I tend to be the sort of fellow who likes to encourage other people to take action while I stay home and point out where they're going wrong.

But if I thought I had enough followers, I might actually get off my duff and lead a movement against computer passwords. They drive me crazy. I understand that none of us wants to be hacked by some 16-year-old loser plotting from his parents' basement to take control of the world's economy, but when you consider that the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans and some Bulgarian misfit, have successfully hacked the Pentagon, the DNC, the CIA, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Walmart and Columbia Pictures, who are we kidding?

Am I supposed to believe that if someone really wants to know when we're taking Angel in for her rabies booster, I'm going to be able to keep them from finding out with my pathetic arrangement of six letters and two numbers?

I suggest that we get rid of all those dumb passwords that nobody can keep track of, but agree that if we find out that some person or nation is snooping around where they don't belong, we nuke 'em.

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It lasted nearly an hour and didn't lag for even a minute. It was at times inspirational, as when Trump spoke of a united nation going forward; aspirational, as when he spoke of his hopes and dreams for this nation; and at times even funny, as when he teased his staff and scooped the media by announcing days ahead of schedule that he was appointing Marine Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis (retired) to be his secretary of defense.

In the aftermath, I heard some of the goonier pundits taking Trump to task for not sounding presidential. Perhaps that's why I was able to stay awake to the very end, which isn't generally the case when a politician speaks for more than five minutes at a time.

One of the things that made me appreciate Trump even more than I already did is that he paid attention to the people on stage sitting behind him. Most politicians treat them like wallpaper, but Trump kept turning around to acknowledge their presence and show his appreciation of their continued support.

I also couldn't help noticing how different those people looked from the ones who serve as props for people like Obama, Sanders and Mrs. Clinton. Whereas the Democrats only clap when their candidates talk about all the goodies the federal government intended to bestow on them, Trump's people broke out in applause every time he mentioned bringing back jobs from other countries or keeping those we still have from leaving. It clearly illustrated the chasm that exists between those who take and those who make, or, if you prefer, shirkers and workers.

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The next thing that occurred to me was to wonder what the pundits meant when they declared from their perch on Mount Olympus that Trump wasn't acting presidential. Just who in the hell did they have in mind? Bill Clinton, who not only engaged in perjury but introduced oral sex to the Oval Office? George Bush, who never stopped lecturing us about the wonders of Islam, even as its adherents were butchering Christians and Jews all over the world? Or perhaps they were referring to Barack Obama, who regularly displayed his contempt for the Constitution, law enforcement and those millions of decent Americans who insisted on clinging to their guns and their religion.

There was even criticism of Trump's success in persuading Carrier not to move 1,100 jobs from Indiana to Mexico. For the most part, those doing the critiquing based their disapproval on the fact that the president-elect was providing the company with certain tax benefits in exchange for their cooperation. They claimed it didn't comport with Republican principles that favored non-intervention by the government. In an age of globalism, where foreign governments manipulate their currency to take advantage of America, they naively argued for unrestricted free trade.

Well, for one thing, that ship sailed a long time ago. Once tariffs, trade deals negotiated by federal bureaucrats and government subsidies, otherwise known as corporate welfare, came along, it was sheer folly to talk about free markets and untethered capitalism.

It could be said that by employing carrots along with sticks that Trump wasn't strictly adhering to Republican principles. But inasmuch as 1,100 Indiana families will still be able to put Christmas dinner on the table and some gifts for the kids under the tree in a couple weeks, I think it's those questionable principles, and not Donald Trump, the master of the deal, that should be questioned.

Ignoring the drivel that inevitably escapes his lips, a great speaker should not be judged by the words he reads from a teleprompter, words written by someone like me, but by the way he handles the language when deprived of a speechwriter. We have spent more than eight years listening to him sputter like an old jalopy on its last legs whenever he is required to respond to a question he hasn't been fed in advance, and yet the legend of his eloquence continues unabated.

Understand, I very much wanted Gov. Romney to defeat Obama in the 2012 election. But that was then, and this is now. It's not just the nasty things Romney said about Trump during the campaign, either, remarks which indicated that he very much preferred to see Hillary Clinton elected, but by logical extension the nasty things he was saying about those of us who supported Mr. Trump.

After all, if Trump was not only a "phony" and a "fraud," whose "promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University," but constituted "a threat to American democracy," what did that say about the 65 million of us who couldn't wait to vote for the man? Romney went on to answer that question when he concluded by saying: "Trump is playing members of the American public for suckers."

I may well be a sucker, but I'd still prefer to see Rudy Giuliani representing America on the world stage than a schmuck who either backed Mrs. Clinton or squandered his vote on Evan McMullin for no other reason than that he was a fellow Mormon.

Considering that the race card-playing Gutierrez champions identity politics, and inevitably compares conservatives to vermin, I'd say there are few members of Congress who know more about hatred, bigotry and prejudice than the smug little racist from Illinois.

In retaliation, I suggest that Israel and the U.S. should insist that from now on, French imports be labeled "Made in what is still Vichy France."

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One of the great ironies of this mindset is that those on the left are quick to label the rest of us as deplorables and President-elect Trump as Hitler in spite of the fact that der Fuhrer was the leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which translates to National Socialist German Workers' Party or, in its shorter, better-known form: Nazi.

During the '30s, the political schism drove wedges between members of German families. Today, it's playing out in America, where loony liberals are going so far as to deny their parents access to the grandkids. Now, what were we saying about liberals being open-minded, loving and tolerant? Oh, wait a second – that's what they were saying about themselves before they lost the election!

Still, wasn't all this madness inevitable once conservative parents began turning over their children, willy-nilly, to the leftists who control the education industry from kindergarten all the way through graduate school?

Looking back on Obama's eight miserable years, it's apparent that while he was wasting his time committing the works of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Saul Alinsky to memory, he should have found time to read Donald J. Trump's "The Art of a Deal." Perhaps if he had, he would understand that when negotiating with people like the Ayatollah Khamenei and Raul Castro, the object is to get something in return for your concessions. Otherwise, you are behaving less like the president of the most powerful nation on earth and more like a department store Santa Claus who's been drinking on the job.

Ask most of Obama's young fans what it is about his record of accomplishments they admire the most, and they'll look at you as if you've suddenly started speaking Swahili. If you make it simpler and merely ask what they like about him, they'll tell you "He's cool" – which is why I would like to see the voting age raised to 40 or at least until the tots are no longer being covered on their parents' health insurance and have vacated the family basement.

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One bit of insanity I can't lay entirely at the feet of Obama is the very special place that Islam holds in the hearts of liberals. In spite of the fact that ever since Iran became a major nuisance in the late '70s, Muslims have been slaughtering infidels, a group that often includes Muslims of a different sect, chuckleheads like George W. Bush have been insisting that Islam is a wonderful religion. Even when the butchers shout "Allah Akbar!" as they commence the blood-letting, the elitists insist it has no connection to Islam.

Still, I'm willing to wager that when Bush heard about the recent carnage at Ohio State, he had a pretty fair suspicion that the killer would be named something like Abdul Razak Ali Artan, and not Bob Smith. Perhaps the saddest part of the slaughter is that after Artan ran over several pedestrians and crashed his car, bystanders rushed over to help him, assuming he had suffered a stroke or a heart attack. Those were the very first people he stabbed.

While it's true that not every Muslim is a savage, it's not true that the savages are an aberration of the religion. Rather, they're the ones who take their religion straight, just the way Muhammad intended. If only those who dilute Islam didn't keep stubbornly insisting they were Muslims, we could avoid the confusion. It would also solve the problem if they simply converted to Christianity or Judaism.

Another small fortune is spent text-messaging Americans, alerting people to the dangers of chewing tobacco and tanning salons, and telling truck drivers to start eating healthy. Although I can't quite picture truck stop cafes offering alfalfa sprouts and kale burgers, Obama just might make it mandatory before leaving the key under the White House mat. Apparently, Uncle Sam has come out of the closet and announced he's a transgender, and will henceforth be called Nanny Samantha and use any damn bathroom she likes.

At least the folks who lie on Twitter and Facebook don't keep throwing each other banquets and rewarding pomposity and deceit on an annual basis with an endless swarm of Pulitzer Prizes, Peabody's and Emmys.

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For instance, a subscriber, knowing that I have worked in Hollywood for decades, wondered why celebrities always seem to be working for, donating to and voting for liberal politicians. It's a question I have often asked myself. After all, they're born in all parts of the nation. Although, predictably, a great many, including Barbra Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Kimmel, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Jay Z, Will Ferrell and Danny Glover, first saw light of day in New York or California, Sarah Jessica Parker hails from Ohio, Beyonce from Texas, Kanye West from Georgia, Stephen Colbert from Washington, D.C. and Bruce Springsteen from New Jersey.

The best I can come up is that a great many of the power brokers in show business are single women, homosexual and/or Jewish. In addition, there is the echo-chamber effect. If everyone you work with – be they directors, producers, studio heads, composers, musicians or fellow actors – are all parroting the same inane sound bites, it might take more than courage, but in fact a suicidal state of mind to dare utter a contrary opinion.

When I was conducting interviews for my book "67 Conservatives You Should Meet Before You Die," everything I heard Oscar-nominee James Wood say led me to assume he was a conservative. However, when I voiced that conclusion, he quickly corrected me, denying he was even a registered Republican.

It was only a few years later, after he had announced his retirement that he let me know he had lied. He said he had feared that he would have been blacklisted if the truth had come out while he was still seeking employment.

Although voters in the inner-city and college towns weren't particularly concerned with her private server or the money-grubbing reason she resorted to using it, it cost her mightily with small town and rural Americans who still place a premium on honesty and who still believe that a man's (or woman's) word is his or her bond.

Although the pundits and pollsters have been busy pointing to a lower turnout from black voters, Barone reports that the Democratic vote outside big cities plummeted from 52 percent in 2012 to 41 percent in Iowa, 47 to 35 percent in Ohio, 50 to 41 percent in Wisconsin, 44 to 36 percent in Pennsylvania and 52 to 41 percent in Michigan.

In all, it turned the Midwestern electoral vote from 80-38 Democratic in 2012 to 88-30 for the GOP this year. It seems the long-silent Silent Majority had found its voice at long last.

It probably didn't help her cause that Mrs. Clinton had not only labeled half of Trump's supporters as deplorable, irredeemable racists, but suggested that it was high time that people's religious beliefs be changed. As I'm sure the late personality guru, Dale Carnegie, would have counseled her, telling voters that their religion sucks is probably not the ideal way to go about making friends and influencing people.

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The question comes down to whether justices feel they must promote the fallacy that the court is an infallible body or, rather, accept the responsibility that goes with the black robe to interpret the text as the founders intended.

There are those, even among those already seated on the Supreme Court like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, who believe they should have the authority to act as if the sacred principles set forth in the Constitution should change with the times at the whim of those who, like them, believe they know best. They are cut of the same cloth as those simpletons who think the 10 Commandments are merely suggestions.

It arrived shortly after another email alerted me that most high-school graduates failed a basic civics exam. As college grads, the same bunch did even worse. Although it might strike some as an oddity, it made perfect sense to me. After three years of high school, they were merely ignorant when it came to questions regarding the length of a Senate term, the century in which the Civil War was waged and whether Germany was an ally or an enemy during World War II.

After four years of college, they were just as stupid, but they'd been indoctrinated by left-wing pinheads who let them know that such facts were unessential, that all that should concern them was whether Democrats defeated Republicans in presidential elections, no matter whether those elections took place every two, four, six or 10 years.

I was reminded that Mark Twain once observed that if a person didn't read a newspaper, he ran the risk of being uninformed, whereas if he did read one, he'd surely be misinformed.

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So far, I have nothing to complain about. I realize it's early yet, but by this time in 2008 I already knew how vile Obama's reign would be. After all, the former community organizer (left-wing troublemaker) vowed to put the oil and coal industries out of business and send our energy costs soaring. He also declared that the problem with the Constitution and even the civil rights movement was that they didn't deal with the redistribution of wealth.

Heck, if I had wanted what Obama promised, I would have long ago packed my bags and moved to Sweden or Norway.

As I was saying, Trump definitely has my support, but only so long as he carries through on his wish list, which means re-building the military, slashing taxes, slamming shut the border, bringing back businesses, reopening factories, repealing Obamacare and draining the swamp that passes for our nation's capital.

I also expect him to make sanctuary cities say "Uncle! and indict every mayor and city councilman in the nation who flouts our federal immigration laws; clear the inner-city streets of gangs; return oversight of the schools to the cities and states; and deport illegal alien criminals with the threat that execution awaits them if they ever try to sneak back.

One of the most vocal Never-Trumpers, thanks to his syndicated radio talk show, was Michael Medved. The other day, without indicating whom he voted for, he confessed that he didn't vote for Donald Trump. Inasmuch as he has spent years referring to Libertarians as Loonytarians, I assume he didn't cast his ballot for Gary Johnson. I suspect it's far more likely he voted for Hillary Clinton than for Jill Stein since he's always telling his listening audience that Hillary was a very nice person when the two of them attended Yale back in the Dark Ages.

And, heaven help us, Medved, Glenn Beck and George Will are what pass for conservatives in some quarters.

I only mention it because if you're thinking about taking your vacation out here, you might want to consider giving North Carolina a shot.

This is the same yahoo who said that although he knew he was lying about Mitt Romney when he accused him of never paying his income taxes, he boasted that his lies helped defeat the Republican candidate, and that's all that really mattered.

As for Barbara Boxer, her final act as a senator is to propose getting rid of the Electoral College. Fortunately, that bit of insanity is going nowhere because it requires, among other things, that the Constitution be amended. In case, it's one more thing she doesn't know, amending that sacred document requires that three-quarters of the state legislatures sign on. Inasmuch as the College is the only thing standing between having New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, Washington and Oregon elect a leftist every four years, it's as unlikely that 38 states would sign on as Mrs. Boxer is of getting a passing grade on a seventh-grade civics exam.

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I wish I could say I saw it coming, if only because I could have cashed in by making a big bet when the bookmakers were giving odds of 6-1, making Hillary a prohibitive favorite.

Fortunately, that was one of the few places where she was anybody's favorite. Even the majority of Democrats didn't like her, not personally. Oh, they appreciated the fact that she had a (D) after her name and had promised to double-down on Obama's certifiably insane policies, but they knew that she was basically an evil, grasping, creature whose only concerns were her own insatiable greed and self-aggrandizement. People who compared her to Medusa or Lady Macbeth were being too kind. She more closely resembles one of those hideous monsters you often come across in sci-fi movies, complete with fangs, claws and a craving for human flesh.

Besides, nobody likes a liar. And even if they did, it would be because the liar had a great deal of charm, who'd tell his lies with a wink, making you a willing victim of his blarney. But Mrs. Clinton is totally devoid of charm or warmth or even what most people would consider femininity. Hillary Clinton's idea of communicating was to deepen her voice, furrow her brow and deliver heavy-handed pronouncements, reminding some of us of Benito Mussolini in his heyday.

It didn't help that she was so out of touch with people who weren't millionaires that she actually thought most Americans wanted their taxes raised in order to subsidize illegal aliens, inner-city blacks and thousands of Islamic refugees. It never concerned her that a great number of those Muslims she was so eager to adopt were motivated by nothing more than a desire to kill Americans, just like their brothers and cousins who have spent the past several years butchering "infidels" in Paris, London, Berlin, San Bernardino, Orlando and Manhattan.

But, then, why would people like the Obamas and the Clintons, who will spend the rest of their lives being protected by large men with big guns, be concerned by the collateral damage created by their anti-gun/pro-open borders agenda?

I have experienced a great many election campaigns, but never have I seen so much blatant hypocrisy. For openers, we had Hillary's team, an odious group that included Huma Abedin, John Podesta, Donna Brazile and 95 percent of the media, trying to dismiss everything we learned through WikiLeaks about her traitorous activities on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, by telling us to ignore the messages and, instead, kill the messenger. That would be Russia.

Vladimir Putin may or may not have been behind the leakage. If he was, the American people are in his debt. How else would we have ever breached the wall that has surrounded the Clintons for decades? Bill and Hillary may have built the castle, but the media were only too happy to provide the moat.

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What's fascinating about their insisting that Russia was the evil power behind it all is that this is the same Russia Obama pooh-poohed during a debate in 2012 when Mitt Romney called it the No. 1 threat to America's security. As I recall, Obama wondered if Romney thought we were still engaged in the Cold War.

This is the very same Russia Obama pandered to when he promised to be more flexible after his re-election. The same Russia, by the way, with whom Hillary chose to push a reset button, telegraphing that the administration would twiddle its thumbs while the Russian bear swallowed up Crimea, attacked Ukraine, lumbered into Syria and joined forces with a soon-to-be nuclear Iran.

It was only when the Democrats decided to use Russia as a distraction that Obama and Mrs. Clinton decided Putin had morphed into an existential threat.

I always said that I wasn't a fan of George W. Bush or his policies. I particularly resented the way he kept telling us, even after the slaughter of 3,000 people on 9/11 and the killing of American soldiers in the Middle East, that Islam was a religion of peace. To his shame, Obama refuses to name our enemy, but Bush refused to acknowledge that Islam is an evil political movement cleverly disguised as a religion. Still, I always gave Bush high marks for two accomplishments. The first was keeping Al Gore out of the Oval Office; the second was doing the same to John Kerry.

I hope and pray that Donald Trump carries through on his promise to build a wall, rebuild the military, make better trade deals, bring back offshore businesses, cut the EPA down in size and seat Supreme Court justices who understand that their allegiance is to the Constitution and not to the man or the party responsible for providing them with the black robe. But if Trump's only accomplishment is to prevent Hillary Clinton from having a second shot at swiping the White House dishes, I'll be happy.

In conducting the post-election autopsy, most people will either blame Mrs. Clinton or credit Donald Trump, and while both performed their essential roles flawlessly, one who helped immeasurably and shouldn't be denied his share of the credit is Barack Obama.

When he stuck himself into the campaign, going so far as to tell his fan base that he'd be insulted if people didn't vote for Hillary Clinton, he reminded the rest of us that she would represent the third term of the worst president in American history. Obama was fooled by his high approval numbers. He thought they meant he was beloved, but I correctly attributed them to the relief that most Americans experienced at the realization he'd be vacating the premises in a couple of months.

It reminded me that for all their alleged popularity, in 2014, when Obama and Bill Clinton went barnstorming on behalf of four or five Democrats in tough Senate races, they failed to get a single one elected. To their chagrin, they discovered that their coattails were even shorter than those of Batman's nemesis, the Penguin.

I know it's mean to say, but one of the best things about staying awake until 2 o'clock in the morning to hear that Pennsylvania had put Donald Trump over the top was knowing how many tears were being shed by those whom I had come to regard as deplorable and even irredeemable.

The list included the Clintons, the Obamas, Huma Abedin, John Podesta, Donna Brazile, Chris Matthews, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the creeps at MSNBC and CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, those who inhabit the faculty lounges at Ivy League schools and perhaps most of all, the Never-Trumpers like Mitt Romney, George Will, John Kasich and the Bushes, who should all be included in the reclamation project, when Donald Trump gets around to draining the swamp.

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One of the fascinating tidbits to be gleaned from the Wikileaks dump is that not only did Barack Obama lie when he said he had known nothing about Mrs. Clinton's private server until he read about it in the newspaper, but that he used an alias when communicating with his secretary of state. What I haven't been able to discover is what pseudonym he adopted for those occasions. Was it something as unique and absurd as Anthony Weiner's "Carlos Danger" or was it something more appropriate, perhaps along the lines of MisterLightInHisLoafers@aol.com?

Worse yet, he will have to defeat the Never-Trumpers who put personal pique over the best interests of the nation. They're the punks who are more distressed by someone who occasionally talks dirty than by a public servant who, by word and deed, has shown that she belongs in the big house, not the White House.

A for-profit school, Laureate University, paid Bill Clinton $18 million to be its honorary chancellor. Maybe it's just me, but for that kind of money, I think Clinton should also have had to coach their nationally ranked football team, the Laureate Lions.

If not for Brit Hume, how would I know that at Middlebury College, the administrators have decided that it's just fine if the students decide to fly the Black Lives Matter flag? I assume they wouldn't object if campus Muslims decided to hoist the ISIS flag, which resembles the one belonging to the BLM, which actually makes sense, considering the makeup of the two groups.

Speaking of what is jokingly referred to as higher education, a recent poll found that only 42 percent of college students had any idea who Mao was, only 40 percent could identify Che Guevara, and only a third had heard of Karl Marx, although most of them thought he was related to Groucho, Chico and Harpo.

A large percentage of these future doctors, lawyers and engineers believed that George W. Bush had killed more people than Josef Stalin. They also believed that America had introduced slavery to the world, and although 90 percent of them were aware that Thomas Jefferson had owned slaves, only 10 percent knew he had ever been president.

It's bad enough that these millennials are as dumb as rocks and that they get to vote, but a lot of them are the offspring of conservative parents. Perhaps it's time some of you stop driving the kids to soccer practice and start driving home conservative values and beliefs. Instead of just warning them about strangers offering them candy, it's past time you start warning them about ignorant teachers and pinheaded professors spoon-feeding them socialist gruel.

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Having worked for both men and women in my life, I know that every ambitious man is not regarded as a paragon of virtue and not every ambitious woman is dismissed as a harridan. The difference is that the lousy male boss isn't called a bitch behind his back, but a number of things far worse.

What Obama has chosen to ignore is that Hillary Clinton is treated differently because she is a unique creature. She is the only presidential candidate who has an extensive track record of corruption and treason. Unlike most traitors, she didn't sell out our secrets the way atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg did, out of a dangerously naïve loyalty to the Soviet Union, but for no other reason than to conceal the source of the influence-peddling bribes paid to the Clinton Foundation.

The truth is that the American left is generally anti-war in the extreme, always preferring, as exemplified by Barack Obama and John Kerry, to deal with our existential enemies by setting a good example rather than by confronting them. That is why the U.S. now deals with being taunted by Russian jets and Iranian boats by turning the other cheek. It is why after Iran captured a U.S. patrol boat and filmed the humiliation of our sailors, Secretary of State Kerry went on TV to thank the ayatollah for releasing them. It also explains why Obama gave the No. 1 state sponsor of Islamic terrorism over a billion dollars in cash and provided them with a clear pathway to a nuclear arsenal.

The irony is that left-wing pacifists believe that all grievances can be settled peacefully by abiding by the Geneva Conventions, the Marquis of Queensbury rules and the dictates of the U.N., except when it comes to patriotic conservatives. When it comes to dealing with those of us who object to scrapping the Constitution and enlarging the size and influence of the federal government, kneeing, gouging and kidney punching are not only acceptable, but preferred.

A few weeks ago, when a Clinton victory over Trump seemed inevitable, I wrote to a friend who was concerned about the Democrats cheating that it didn't look as if cheating would be necessary, and that if the Clinton camp engaged in it, it would merely be out of habit.

But now that the polls indicate it might be a horse race, I don't think you need suffer from paranoia to believe that the Democrats will engage in all sorts of chicanery to ensure her victory.

The fact that Mrs. Clinton might yet be indicted by the Justice Department or impeached by a Republican House doesn't really faze them. If they have to settle for a Tim Kaine presidency, it won't make the slightest bit of difference. The fact that Sen. Kaine repeatedly sold out to his Muslim constituency in Virginia will no more trouble them than the fact that Mrs. Clinton has spent a great many years selling out America to the highest bidders.

The left pretends to hate the moneyed class, but it's only rich Republicans that repulse them. If the schmuck worth billions happens to be named George Soros, Mark Cuban or Warren Buffett, they're convinced he walks on water. The irony is that you will find very few members of the DNC, Occupy Wall Street or the BLM who give a hoot about the rather exceptional fellow who really could pull off that particular trick.

Instead, as you've probably noticed, they tend to dismiss His followers as those knuckle-draggers who cling to their guns and their religion.

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I would like to think that I was the cause. After all, I had written to FBI Director Comey several months ago to congratulate him on seeming to take his investigative duties seriously. He even wrote back to thank me. I then wrote him a second time, suggesting that the Bureau shake a leg because Hillary had garnered her party's nomination and the voters deserved to know the results of the investigation before they cast their ballots. He didn't write back that time, but within a week or so he famously announced that although she had played fast and loose with our nation's security, he saw nothing that rose to the level of a crime.

That was when I let him know that he had disappointed me and millions of other Americans who had mistakenly taken him at face value. He might look and sound as honest as young Jimmy Stewart, but he was clearly as corrupt as anyone else in Washington who was drawing a federal salary.

We may never know whether or not my letting him know I felt betrayed caused this sudden pivot. But it doesn't matter. I am ready to apologize. All is forgiven. Thanks to James Comey, this is the best Halloween ever. For once, the trick is on Mrs. Clinton, and the treats are reserved for the rest of us.

What's more, the timing could hardly be better, coming as the announcement did, a scant 11 days before the election. Democrats are in a panic. Will she drop out? Will the Muslim-pandering Tim Kaine have to carry the ball into the end zone? Is there a way to replace her with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders or Michelle Obama? Are there snow flurries in Hades?

What makes Hillary Clinton so contemptible is her arrogance, her greed and her blatant lust for power. But what makes her such a danger to America are, as with Barack Obama, her leftist policies. After all, when asked at the Vegas debate what she would look for in a Supreme Court justice, she replied it would be a person who would do what the American people want done. By that, she obviously meant those Americans who would vote for her. The rest of us want Congress to do what we want done; what we ask of the Supreme Court is that they interpret to the best of their ability exactly what the founders meant when they created the Constitution. It was no accident that she neglected to even mention the sacred document.

The nine justices are not there to legitimize what leftists like to call social justice. It is not to place a thumb – no matter how well-intentioned a thumb – on the scales. Lady Justice is always shown wearing a blindfold. It's not, as liberals seem to believe, a fashion statement. It's meant to symbolize that, ideally, justice is determined by the facts, not by the race, religion, gender or financial circumstances of the plaintiff or the defendant.

Where, I asked myself, were these people when I was still playing poker?

What's more, I wish these morons would quit calling themselves Republicans, because they're embarrassing the rest of us.

The only thing better would have been to find "clinton" in the dictionary, spelled with a small "C" and defined as a small slimy creature that lives under rocks and feeds on insects, small rodents and money.

The event would be so tragic and of such monumental proportions that I envision there would be a mad dash to stores carrying yahrzeit candles.

For those among you unfamiliar with that particular item, it's a 24-hour candle lit by observant Jews on the anniversary of the death of family members, but also on Yom Kippur and on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In the book of Proverbs 20:27, it is written: "The soul of man is a candle of the Lord."

If Hillary Clinton becomes our president, I suggest it would behoove us all, patriotic Jew and gentile alike, to light a giant yahrzeit candle on Nov. 8, 2016, in loving memory of America.

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That is why I would blackball him if he were applying to be a minister, a school teacher or a Scout leader. But as you may have noticed, he's not. He's running for president. And while I would like to think that the person in the Oval Office was of the highest moral character, I don't happen to be running. Neither, by the way, are you. The sad fact is that we are either going to wind up with a President Trump or a President Clinton. And when it comes to matters of war and peace, the economy, immigration, race relations, freedom of religion and the future makeup of the Supreme Court, I will take the potty mouth over the lying, hypocritical, scofflaw any day of the week.

But especially on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

A Republican vote for Mr. McMullin, no matter how nice a guy he may be, is a vote for Hillary Clinton.

The only question in my mind is what took Putin so long. It's not as if he ever feared that Obama would call his bluff. Frankly, after Putin saw how easily he grabbed off Crimea and how quickly he made Obama back off providing Poland and the Czech Republic with anti-missile defense systems, I'm surprised that he didn't retake Eastern Europe and re-establish the former Soviet Union. I mean, it can't be that he was worried that Germany, France, Spain and England were about to take him on. Hell, the European socialists haven't even the stomach to take on ISIS, which consists of 40 or 50 thousand ragheads riding around in trucks and lacking both a navy and an air force.

It's a bit difficult to take Democrats seriously when it comes to defending womanhood. For one thing, when it comes to attacking women, Bill and Hillary Clinton have provided an incomparable one-two punch for several decades. Bill attacks them physically and when the ladies complain, his wife labels them bimbos and trailer-park trash.

But let us never forget that Ted Kennedy once drowned a young woman and nevertheless rose to be an iconic figure in the U.S. Senate, who ultimately got to cast a dissenting vote when Clarence Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court. And all because Thomas had allegedly once asked a young woman for a date.

So far as I'm concerned, the hypocrisy surrounding the Trump tape is unparalleled in my memory. Right off the bat, we have Hillary Clinton, who said that a man who speaks so offensively about women has no business in the White House, but seems to have forgotten who was living there from 1993 to 2001.

Then we have Michelle Obama remarking about the tape: "It has shaken me." This is the same woman who was neither shaken nor stirred when her husband said that if we liked our doctors and our health plans we could keep them, even though she knew better than most that he was lying.

Then we had Geraldo Rivera, five times married-four times divorced, claiming that someone using that sort of language wasn't presidential material, although he never had a harsh word to say about perennial predator Bill Clinton.

Finally, we had a professional basketball player, LeBron James, asking us to believe he had never heard such crude language, not even in a locker room. I suppose it also escaped his notice that Wilt Chamberlain once announced that he had had sex with 20,000 women and Earvin "Magic" Johnson used to brag about sharing his bed with eight women at a time.

While on the subject, let us not let the ladies off too lightly. We keep hearing they don't want to be objectified. A fancy word, by which I believe they mean they don't wish to be ogled. Well, for one thing, men are born oglers. Some just carry it off better than others. For another, most women either want to be ogled or wish they were oglable.

Otherwise, they wouldn't wear bathing suits in beauty contests. They would just show us their faces and explain how they would go about ending world hunger. So my question is: Why don't feminists start picketing those events and public beaches while they're at it, and stop picking on Donald Trump?

That would not only give Republicans and Independents an excellent reason to vote for Trump, but it would save Trump the indignity of losing to Hillary Clinton. It might even help some of those down-ballot candidates who might otherwise pay dearly for being Republicans this year. Although if they're the ones who have bailed on their party's nominee, especially if they're the quislings who have voiced support for Mrs. Clinton, they deserve to pay the ultimate price.

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Having acknowledged that I believe Trump definitely won the fight, I can't help wishing that he, who has made immigration the cornerstone of his campaign, had brought up the fact that in the email dump that had taken place 48 hours earlier, Mrs. Clinton was found to have called for open borders at a South American conference.

Where I think Hillary did better than Trump was in her presentation. Whereas Trump performed as though it was a regular debate, she took advantage of the town hall format by approaching the folks asking the questions. It wasn't exactly vintage Bill Clinton, who made an art form out of biting his lower lip, conveying compassion and propping up his assertion that he felt our pain – sort of like an over-sexed Christ figure – the best that Hillary could do was to pretend to be interested in what the little people had to say.

But perhaps it was a good thing, after all, that Trump remained somewhat aloof, because if any of the participants had been a hottie, he might have been overcome by an urge to grab and kiss her.

I was delighted to see Trump display his humorous side, especially when he called Hillary out for contending that her role model for being two-faced on the issues was none other than Abraham Lincoln. Still, I found myself hoping he would say: "I knew Abe Lincoln. Abe Lincoln was a friend of mine. And you, Mrs. Clinton, are no Abe Lincoln."

Even if I didn't agree with Donald Trump on most of the issues, I would vote for him because of the justices he has vowed to appoint to the Supreme Court. It's not just that the Supremes have the final word these days on everything from abortions and photo IDs to religious rights and immigration, but because it's the court that would act as a check on Hillary Clinton if, like Barack Obama, she decided to legislate by executive edict.

It is what led me to write the following letter to both House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: "I'm afraid it's time for you to put on your big boy pants," I began.

"While it's true that Donald Trump is rude and crude, he has vowed to build up our military and select conservative justices for the Supreme Court.

"If he doesn't get elected, you will be dealing with President Hillary Clinton for the next four or eight years. That not only means she will replace Antonin Scalia with someone like Sonia Sotomayor, but that we will once again have a chief executive who will legislate with her phone and her pen. It also means that we will have a Supreme Court that will act as a rubber stamp when it comes to her various unconstitutional edicts.

"I understand that the GOP members of the House and Senate often prefer to have a Democrat in the White House because it provides them with a scapegoat, an excuse for doing nothing, and allows them to have more time to devote to fundraising for their re-election campaigns.

"The fact is that it's people like you and your Republican colleagues who are the reason that Trump garnered the nomination in the first place. You told us, after all, that the reason you couldn't get anything done was because the Democrats controlled the House, so we gave you the votes to retake the House. Then you said the reason you couldn't get anything done was because the Democrats controlled the Senate, so we gave you the votes to retake the Senate.

"Then, of course, you said the reason you couldn't get anything done was because the Democrats controlled the executive branch. And now, with the presidential election less than a month away, you're telling us that Donald Trump is too ill-mannered to be president.

"Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on you. Fool us three times, I say the hell with you. Sincerely, Burt Prelutsky"

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"I'm a Christian. God has given us free will and will not take it back from us. He allows it to rain on the just and the unjust. Much as we humans like to 'rate' sin, God hates all sins, not just the ones we categorize as horrific or unforgivable. It's probably a good thing I'm not in charge because I would be chopping off heads, at least until I remembered that I, too, need forgiveness."

In response, I wrote: "It's even luckier for some people that I'm not in charge because I'd probably be lopping off even more heads. The way I look at it, it's not as if they'd even be missed. After all, a great many people, especially those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, never use their heads except as a perch upon which to place a baseball cap, pointed backwards of course."

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Also, it would mean that Albert Einstein, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, G.K. Chesterton, John Locke, C.S. Lewis and Maimonides were all misguided, and that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Charles Manson weren't. Unlike those poor fools whose religion is Atheism, I refuse to accept that Albert Schweitzer was wrong and that Bill Maher is right.

That doesn't mean that when you look around at what's taking place in the world you wouldn't have reason to wonder if God, although definitely not dead, might be laid up in bed with a bad case of the flu.

While one court after another is declaring that photo IDs infringe on people's right to vote, we have left-wing governors Terry McAuliffe of Virginia and Jerry Brown of California passing legislation granting criminals, including those still in jail, the right to help elect the next president.

As screwy as that is, at least the felons would be able to supply those pesky photo IDs in the form of their mug shots.

Although 80 percent of Americans are absolutely convinced that this nation is headed in the wrong direction, at least half of them are determined to elect the woman who has vowed to continue down the same tracks, only faster.

Speaking of which, I hear from parents who are deeply concerned about the trillions in national debt they are bequeathing to their offspring. That used to concern me, too, but that was before 70 percent of them voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. This year, these young lunkheads got behind Bernie Sanders, but will now settle for Hillary Clinton simply because she has promised to erase their college debts, even though that, along with her other free-spending policies, will further cripple the economy.

In case you happened to miss the news, the New York Times claims that Donald Trump has avoided paying federal income taxes for much of his adult life. I only wish I could say the same.

However, I don't think it proves, as Trump suggested during the first debate, that he's smart. After all, Al Capone didn't pay his taxes, either. But at least, unlike Capone, Trump was smart enough to hire accountants to keep it legal. Also, inasmuch as nearly half of his fellow Americans don't pay income taxes, Democrats better make sure they don't label it immoral, lest their base decide they're being insulted.

All along, I have admitted my two best reasons for supporting Trump are, one, that he has vowed to replace Antonin Scalia with a conservative justice; and, two, that he isn't Hillary Clinton. Now I have a third. It seems that Ruth Bader Ginsburg has promised to finally retire from the Supreme Court if Trump is elected! That, alone, should give pause to even the most fervent of Never-Trumpers.

I mean, really, if that's not enough to persuade the likes of George Will, Mark Kirk and John Kasich to get behind Trump it simply means that their so-called principles amount to nothing more than personal pique.

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

Although Donald Trump doesn't come close to being my ideal candidate, I have to admit that the intense hatred he invokes leaves me totally mystified. Whatever you may think of him, Trump isn't a serial killer, a pedophile or a jihadist, but a New York Times columnist named Charles Blow felt free to declare that "If you support Trump, you are on some level supporting bigotry and racism."

Wouldn't that be truer of a presidential candidate who supports Black Lives Matter and the NAACP and who openly seeks the support of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and the Obamas?

The Chicago Tribune wondered "How can a decent human being support Donald Trump?" But Obama's favorite hometown newspaper didn't think to question how a decent human being could lie to the loved ones of the four Americans massacred in Benghazi in order to help Barack Obama maintain the fiction that he'd eradicated al-Qaida, and who could then jeopardize America's security by using a private server simply to conceal the criminal activities of the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton, herself, described millions of law-abiding, taxpaying, patriotic Americans as deplorable and irredeemable, but is proud to be supported by millions of people whose concern for this nation's future extends no further than their desire to have others foot the bill for their food, clothing, housing, education and, of course, abortions.

As vile as I consider Islam, I find that I have more in common with Muslim terrorists than I have with liberals. That's because whereas liberals want to roll out the red carpet for thousands of potential assassins, what jihadists, themselves, crave is to die for Allah, which also happens to be what I wish for them.

My sole subscriber in Ukraine is a Christian missionary named Roger Kovaciny.

The other day, he sent me a satirical ditty titled "Why I Am a Socialist." In 64 words, he manages to boil George Orwell's "Animal Farm" down to its essence.

You see
That he
Has more
Than thee.

So follow me
And I shall see
That he must give
His wealth to thee.

But there must be
A little fee.
Each buck for you
Means three for me.

My work's not free.
It costs, you see
A lot to make
Equality.

We're equal, see?
Both thee and me.
But I'm much equaler
Than thee.

Kovaciny, who moved to Russia, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, saw for himself how the system worked. "They squeeze everyone else down into the working class until they are the political 1 percent and the entire economy passes through their hands. They levy an income tax, sometimes as high as 98 percent, and then redistribute whatever they want the workers to have. As Trotsky said, 'He who has wealth to redistribute will surely not forget about himself.'"

It is the sort of society in which freedom is scarce and toilet paper is even scarcer.

And that, my friends, is the America that Obama, the Clintons, Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi envision – an America where everyone, regardless of race, religion, nation of origin or sexual proclivity, is equal, but some, a select few, just happen to be equaler.

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But we Republicans have come to expect that sort of thing from the moderators every four years, but at least unlike Candy Crowley's shameful performance in 2012, Holt didn't come right out and call Trump a liar.

Rumor has it that an NBC intern delivered the debate questions to Mrs. Clinton a week earlier while disguised as a FedEx driver. I wouldn't put it past NBC, and I certainly wouldn't put it past Hillary. But so what? I sat in front of my TV for 90 minutes, and I didn't hear any questions that caught me by surprise. I'm sure if Trump had had the good sense to let his handlers conduct a couple of mock debates with him, they would have asked the exact same questions Mr. Holt did.

It's no secret that Trump prefers spending his time at campaign events, soaking up the cheers of the crowd. But he did himself no favors by not preparing for a one-on-one debate. If Hillary Clinton came off, as she usually does, as the smug little 12th grade know-it-all who burns the midnight oil before every test, Trump showed himself to be the arrogant high school jock who figures he needn't bone up for an exam because he's too cool to crack the books. Besides, he knows that with his stats, every college in the country is going to offer him an athletic scholarship, so who needs good grades?

Perhaps Trump is convinced that flying by the seat of his pants is impressive, but it's not. It makes him look like the sort of egotistical lug who figures he's going to enter a tennis tournament and carry the day with his personal charisma even though he's never even held a racket.

Trump was at his best, I felt, when he pointed out that, for all her big talk about what she's going to do for women, blacks, students and what's left of the middle class, she's been around for nearly 30 years – and why is it she hadn't done a damn thing? Well, she hasn't been entirely idle. She has evidently bought pricey pantsuits in every conceivable color. In Hillary's world, I suppose that constitutes trickle-down economics.

Something I'll never understand is why Trump ever bothered getting on board with the so-called birthers. So far as I'm concerned, Obama had an American mother, and that should have been the end of the discussion.

As for when and if Trump opposed the Iraq invasion, who cares? He had no more say in whether or not it took place than I did. While that decision was being made by others, he was busy building hotels, golf courses and getting married.

Instead of bragging about what he would have done, it would have made far more sense for him to focus on what Mrs. Clinton actually did.

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To give credit where it's due, Trump did call her out when she insisted that without the police having to employ "stop-and-frisk" – the brilliant program New York's Mayor Giuliani cooked up to deal with the city's criminal class in the '90s – the crime rate was down across the nation.

But what Trump neglected to do was confront her with the fact that it was that very afternoon that her good friends at the FBI had released figures showing that serious crimes – murders, rapes and armed robberies – had soared by 10 percent in 2016.

But because Trump is always about Trump first, last and always, he thought it was more important to defend himself than to attack Mrs. Clinton over Benghazi; the private server that imperiled the nation's security; the $250,000 pay checks from Wall Street; the reset with Russia; the pull-out from Iraq; the creation of ISIS; the chaos in Syria, Yemen and Libya; the nuclear deal with Iran; a crippled economy; and bribes from foreign entities to the Clinton Foundation, which led, among other things, to her granting a Russian oligarch access to half of America's uranium deposits.

With all of that at his disposal, Trump felt the most essential thing to convey to the viewing audience was what a great Monday morning quarterback he was when it came to Iraq.

And what was with the constant sniffling? I kept waiting for Lester Holt to suggest that someone hand the man a hanky.

If Trump was coming down with a cold, he should have blown his nose, excused himself and perhaps asked: "Wouldn't you all prefer someone who blows his nose than someone who spent four long years blowing our foreign policy by alienating our allies and coddling our enemies?"

I will grant, however, that his suit looked better than hers.

Of course I'll still be voting for Trump in November, but I pray that he finds the time between now and the next debate to set his ego aside and spend some time polishing his verbal skills.

Trump has always maintained that he is a fast learner. We'll have to wait and see. What he should have learned the other night is that there's a huge difference between holding a stage for 90 minutes when you're dealing with a snarky antagonist, and communicating with the universe 140 simplistic characters-at-a-time.

In St. Louis, let us all hope that Trump manages to temporarily get over the love affair he has with himself and, instead, focuses all of his attention on wiping that frozen smirk off the face of the robotic Hillary Clinton.

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In spite of all that, the Democrats roll him out every four years like a boogeyman to scare the kiddies. In the meantime, they ignore the fact that Hillary Clinton openly embraces the bigoted likes of the Black Lives Matter movement, the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mrs. Clinton referred to 50 percent of Donald Trump supporters as "a basket of deplorables" at a fundraising event hosted by Barbra Streisand, a pinhead so dumb she doesn't even know how to spell "Barbara," and the assembled millionaires yucked it up as if they'd never heard such a witty line.

The next day, Hillary apologized, but only for the number, leading some to assume she had accidentally inflated the percentage. In private, I have no doubt she would have doubled the number. After all, she wasn't ad-libbing; she was working off a written speech.

Most pundits have compared it to Mitt Romney telling a group of millionaires in 2012 that 47 percent of the electorate would not vote for him because they didn't pay taxes and were therefore dependent on government handouts. The difference, of course, is that Romney was right.

The Democrats are, by nature, elitists, who believe they are smarter, more compassionate and even better-looking than mere mortals (aka Republicans). That's why when they dismiss millions of Christians as "those people who cling to their religion and their guns," they don't even consider it an insult; they believe they're merely stating irrefutable facts.

So far as people like Clinton, Obama, Biden, Kaine, Schumer, Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, are concerned, if you're a Republican, you are by definition, a rube, a bigot and some kind of phobe, be it homo, xeno or Islamo.

I happen to think that even Mrs. Clinton would be an improvement over Obama, but that may simply betray a lack of imagination on my part. Try as hard as I might, I can't believe that either of the candidates could create as much serious mischief as Obama has committed in a scant eight years.

Although it seems like ancient history, let us not forget that he allowed a number of weapons to be delivered to the drug lords of Mexico for no good reason. The stated purpose of "Operation Fast & Furious" was that we'd be able to track the weapons back to the killers, although there was no explaining how that would be accomplished. But what we do know is that those guns have been used to murder hundreds of Mexicans and, not too surprisingly, American border guards.

It is telling that the two major legacies of the Obama administration have been the Affordable Care Act and the nuclear deal with Iran. The first destroyed the finest medical care system in the world, the second handed billions of dollars over to the world's No. 1 sponsor of Islamic terrorism, enabling the mullahs to subsidize missile launches, threaten our pilots and sailors, and subsidize Hamas and Hezbollah. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that by doing everything he could to prop up and enrich Iran, Obama has made America the world's No. 2 sponsor of Islamic terrorism.

Recently disclosed documents from the Osama bin Laden treasure trove prove that there has never been a glimmer of daylight between al-Qaida and Iran. But John Kerry and his State Department still aren't prepared to say that a deal that gave Iran everything on their wish list, including a pathway to a nuclear arsenal, while demanding nothing in return, was even dumber than Chamberlain's handing Czechoslovakia over to Hitler on a silver platter.

In Congress, funding to fight the Zika virus is tied up because Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats refuse to pass a bill unless the Republicans agree to continue funding Planned Parenthood. It is despicable, but at the same time it's classic irony that the Democrats refuse to safeguard pregnant women hoping to deliver healthy babies unless the Republicans provide Planned Parenthood with the wherewithal to continue aborting half a million babies a year.

It is just one more reason why no single bill should ever be allowed to contain more than one piece of legislation. You would think that even the knuckleheads in Congress would have grown tired of tying, say, military expenditures to farm subsidies and taxes to tariffs, making deadlock inevitable.

The best thing to be said for this new entitlement is that it would benefit working people, unlike the welfare Democrats are so adept at providing their particular voting blocs. But, really, is it too much to ask that Republicans quit trying to beat Democrats at the nanny game? Not only do they never win at it, but they come off as doofuses whenever they try.

Clearly, it was Trump's attempt to woo female voters, meant to show he's not a misogynist, although he has occasionally played one on television.

Still, I am more troubled by his continuing to heap praise on Vladimir Putin. The man is a former KGB officer, a tyrant who kills or jails his political foes, who invades sovereign nations and who links arms with the likes of the Ayatollah Khamenei and Bashar Al-Assad.

It's one thing if Trump wants to present himself as someone who, unlike Barack Obama, will stand up to the despot. But by his referring to the Russian butcher as a strong leader, one is left to wonder what he would have said about Hitler, Stalin and Mao, all of whom would have regarded Putin as a pushover, a shrimp they could easily have separated from his lunch money.

I am reminded that author Sydney Harris once wrote: "Men make counterfeit money, but far more often, money makes counterfeit men."

And women, I would add.

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One person who never shirked in her mission to define what being a Republican was supposed to be was Phyllis Schlafly, who recently passed away at the age of 92, after having spent more than half of her life fighting the good fight on behalf of conservatism. In a different America, the flags would all have been lowered to half-staff.

In 2012, I published a book titled "67 Conservatives You Should Meet Before You Die." One of the 67 was Mrs. Schlafly. Unfortunately, because I couldn't find a publisher to subsidize the project, I had no travel budget. As a result, I had to conduct most of the interviews via email or over the telephone.

Even though I was finally able to corral the likes of John Bolton, Ward Connerly, Ben Shapiro, Michele Bachmann, Ralph Peters, George Kennedy, Joseph Wambaugh, Newt Gingrich, Tony Blankley. Ron Kessler, Hugh Hewitt, Gary Sinise, Pat Sajak, Mark Alexander, Tucker Carlson, Pat Boone, Kellyanne Conway, Caroline Glick, Charles Krauthammer, David Limbaugh, Rick Perry, Pat Robertson, Rick Santorum, Andrew Breitbart and myself, without an advertising budget, I sold very few copies.

This seems like an appropriate time to reprint Phyllis Schlafly's chapter. In my introduction, I wrote "She has been a controversial gadfly ever since she came on the scene nearly half a century ago, when millions of copies of her self-published book 'A Choice, not an Echo,' were distributed in support of Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. She led the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, and even now, in her late 80s, she continues to deliver speeches and write articles."

Q. What did your parents do for a living?

A. My mother was a librarian for the St. Louis Art Museum for 25 years. My father was a sales engineer for Westinghouse who lost his job in the Depression and never regained full-time employment.

Q. When did you decide to become a lawyer, and did your parents encourage you?

A. I went to law school after I was 50 and my parents were long gone. Nobody really encouraged me.

Q. What book has most influenced you?

A. I'm a reader; I've read so many books, I can't say which had the greatest influence.

Q. In that case, what is your all-time favorite book, and why does it resonate with you?

A. I think the great American novel is "Gone with the Wind." It's a tale of perseverance and survival against all odds.

Q. I can see why you might identify with Scarlett O'Hara. What is the best advice you ever received?

A. I grew up in the Great Depression, so the best advice was to prepare myself to be able to support myself, as my mother did.

Q. Who or what makes you laugh?

A. The follies and inconsistencies of the feminists, and their lack of understanding of human nature.

Q. In what specific ways do you think America would be different if Barry Goldwater had defeated Lyndon Johnson?

A. We would not have suffered the tragedy of the Vietnam War, which we now know LBJ got us into because of an incident that was a fraud.

Q. You are of course referring to the alleged attacks on the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy, which LBJ used as an excuse to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which he, in turn, used as an excuse to promote his escalating us into an undeclared war.

A. Yes. We would have won the Cold War much sooner because Goldwater would have restored our nuclear superiority, and we would not have suffered Nixon and Watergate.

Q. What is your all-time favorite movie?

A. Shirley Temple movies.

Q. How large a role has money played in your life?

A. It had a big effect when I didn't have any, so I worked my way through college on the night shift, testing .30 and .50 caliber ammunition. That was a great experience! After I finished college, money was not a big thing with me because I don't enjoy extravagance.

Q. What is your favorite piece of music?

A. "The Flight of the Bumble Bee."

Q. Is there anyone you envy? If so, who and why?

A. No. I don't know anyone who has had such a wonderful life as I have had.

Q. When you wrote "A Choice, not an Echo," did you have any idea how important and successful the book would be?

A. I planned for it to be important, successful and to change Republican politics forever. But I thought I could do that by selling 25,000 copies. I ended up selling 3 million.

Q. When you started to fight the Equal Rights Amendment, did you really believe you had a chance to defeat it? As I recall, something on the order of 30 states had already ratified it, and I believe the magic number was 38.

A. Yes, you've got the numbers right. But, yes, I believed we could defeat it, or else I would not have taken on the battle. But nobody else seemed to believe it.

Q. What do you think of Barack Obama, and has your opinion changed in any way since he moved into the Oval Office?

A. He is the same today as he was before he was elected. His goal is Saul Alinsky-style community organizing in order to "fundamentally transform the United States" into European-style socialism.

Q. What role does religion play in your life?

A. A big role. I've been a practicing Roman Catholic all my life.

Q. If they ever get around to filming the story of your life, which actress would you like to see in the starring role?

A. Sorry, I don't go to movies, so I don't know any of them.

Q. If with a snap of your fingers, you could change anything about America, what would it be?

A. I'd defeat Obama and banish the supremacist judges.

Q. And who are they?

A. It's a term I coined and used in my book, "The Supremacists." They're the judges who think they are supreme over the two other branches of the government and the will of the American people. They're the judges who say that the Constitution is a "living" document that they can interpret according to their own biases instead of as it was written, and judges who falsely think that Supreme Court decisions are "the supreme law of the land."

Q. If you could sit down to dinner with any eight people who have ever lived, and for this one evening they could all speak English, who would they be?

A. George Washington, Tom Paine, Ronald Reagan and Thomas Edison.

Q. Ah, the classic seating arrangement of boy, empty chair, boy, empty chair, boy …Finally, if there is a question I haven't thought to ask that you wish I had, what is it and what is your answer?

A. Question: Why am I opposed to feminism? Answer: It teaches women the lie that they are victims of an oppressive patriarchy. Feminism is anti-men, anti-masculine, anti-marriage, anti-motherhood and anti-morality. That's a recipe for unhappiness. In truth, American women are the most fortunate class of people who have ever lived.

Death, as Phyllis Schlafly proves, ends a life, but not the wisdom which inspired it.

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I, on the other hand, thought he sounded great. Perhaps that's because I never put any stock in his promise to deport 11 million or perhaps 22 million people. Frankly, I don't know if he was ever serious about it. I don't even care. As I saw it, you can't just round up people, stick them on a bus and drive them south. There have to be hearings to determine their status. Have you any idea how long that process would take? I'll tell you how long. Try to remember the last time you had to renew your driver's license and then multiply that by 11 or 22 million!

In fact, one of the things I liked best about Trump's address is that for the longest time, I was the only person I knew questioning that magic number. It was probably 20 years ago that I first heard about 11 million people living in the shadows. Were we supposed to believe that nobody else had sneaked across the border during the next two decades? Besides, if they were all hiding in the shadows, who the heck was counting noses?

I'll share another blasphemy with you. I don't even care if Mexico pays for the wall. With all the money we presently waste on welfare, schools and incarceration, for illegal aliens and others, if we cut off the tap, as Trump has vowed to do, we'll have plenty of money for construction projects. At least that will be the case so long as Trump is able to carry through on his promise to get them off the dole and get the criminal class out of the country or into prison once and for all.

Still, I would like to see Mexico have to pay. And the easiest way I can see to get it done is to deduct it from the money we insist on paying them annually in foreign aid. At times, when I see how much dough our government tosses around to other countries for no good reason, I picture America – we with our $20 trillion national debt – as one big, very drunk, sailor, buying drinks for the house. And then, for good measure, buying the house and letting strangers live in it.

I also liked Trump's promise to imprison those who refuse to stay deported. I also gave him a sitting ovation when he vowed to cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities. Take that, San Francisco, with all your self-righteous freaks!

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The man even spoke about cleaning up the visa mess, something other politicians don't even whisper about, even though it's estimated that 40 percent of the schmucks who are here illegally simply flew in and never flew out.

If Trump didn't sound presidential to some people, I suspect that's only because after two Bushes, Clinton and Obama, we have become accustomed to our presidents sounding mealy-mouthed, as they spouted their platitudes and insisted time and again that our existential enemies were followers of a wonderful religion and that, for good measure, we must take to heart the outrageous grievances of urban blacks and foreign trespassers.

When Trump went south to meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto, Nieto insisted that Mexico and Mexicans respected the law. That hardly jibes with millions of them sneaking into another country, too often transporting illegal drugs and weapons. But I suppose leaders of Third World nations always have to put up a good front.

I certainly found Nieto's fibs easier to take than those of his predecessor, Vicente Fox, who, famously and fatuously, compared a wall at our southern border to the one Khrushchev had erected in post-war Germany. Nobody ever accused Senor Fox of being an intellectual heavyweight, but I would have thought that even he would have been able to spot the difference between a wall built to keep people in from one built to keep people out. But on the chance that Fox is as stupid as he was corrupt, someone should tell him it's the same difference as the one between the wall around his house and the one around Leavenworth.

Then, of course, there is the little matter of hypocrisy. I understand that nobody really expects politicians in any country to be known for the purity of their character, but when the folks in Mexico carry on as if a wall between neighboring nations constitutes something akin to an armed invasion, they'd at least consider removing the one they have at their own southern border, which is defended by federales armed with machine guns.

Every four years, these lunkheads are urged to do their patriotic duty and are reminded that others fought and died for their right to vote. For one thing, the right to vote also means the right not to vote. It's only in dictatorships where people are punished for not voting in sham elections for someone like Josef Stalin or Fidel Castro.

The truth is, if people are too dumb or too lazy for three years, 364 days to pay attention to the issues, it's irresponsible to try to get them off their duffs and into a voting booth. You can rest assured that on that all-important 365th day, those lunkheads will inevitably wind up voting for Democrats.

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What do these people imagine that Trump could do that would be worse than what Mrs. Clinton has already done, keeping in mind that she has never had the ultimate authority that goes with the presidency?

To me, Trump is like the slightly obnoxious kid in class who talks too much and always seems to be up to some shenanigan or other, whereas Mrs. Clinton is like the fairy tale crone who lives in the spooky house in the woods and is rumored to make gingerbread cookies out of small children.

So far as I'm concerned, any Republican running for the Senate or the House who fails to endorse Donald Trump is announcing that he or she doesn't really care about getting rid of Obamacare, about cutting the EPA down to size or decreasing the national debt. If they are copacetic about allowing Hillary Clinton to succeed Obama, it means their sole concern is with their own political future, not with the nation's. After all, if they were unable to undo any of Obama's loony legacies, ranging from the Affordable Care Act to the nuclear deal with Iran up to now, what chance would they have with Mrs. Clinton in the Oval Office?

And are these self-righteous morons totally out to lunch when it comes to the Supreme Court?

So far as I'm concerned, Never-Trumpers such as Mark Kirk, Ben Sasse, Ted Cruz, Kelly Ayotte, Richard Hanna and Lindsey Graham don't deserve your vote. They deserve your contempt.

What, I wondered, could have turned the left-wing firebrand into a puppy looking to have its belly rubbed? Then I heard that Sanders recently bought a third home to go along with the two he already owned in Vermont and Washington, D.C. The new place, situated on the banks of Lake Champlain, cost $600,000. I'm certainly not claiming it was a bribe. On the other hand, it would represent chump change for the Clintons and constitute a very small price to pay for the whole-hearted endorsement of your chief rival.

Frankly, I don't really mind that it took Obama a week before leaving the golf course to visit the wetlands. The less I have to see or hear him, the better. Besides, what was he supposed to do in Baton Rouge? Hand out galoshes?

However, the fact is that the worst aspects of Katrina could have been avoided. Ever since the 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers had been trying to shore up the levees of the Mississippi, but they were opposed by the environmentalists who insisted that the necessary work would have a negative effect on the local flora and fauna. Naturally, the ecological nitwits kept finding judges willing to accommodate their lunacy. After all, even lunatics get to vote for judges and, more importantly, to contribute to re-election campaigns.

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But the fault for this unfortunate fact is his as much as anyone else's. For years, I have urged wealthy Republicans to invest in media. But the Koch brothers prefer to spend their money trying to elect a specific candidate, who is fairly likely to lose, taking their investment down with him. Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas owns a newspaper, but unfortunately it's in Israel. As for Trump, he'd rather build another hotel or golf course that the world needs like a hole in the head, and then proceed to waste time griping about how unfairly the New York Times treats him.

And why are they so willing to give a pass to a pathological liar? Mrs. Clinton lied when she said there was no classified material among the 30,000 emails she tried to hide from the prying eyes of Congress, though apparently unconcerned with whether Russia, China and North Korea got a gander at them.

She lied about what happened in Benghazi, and then compounded the lie by insisting she hadn't blamed the massacre on a video. She lied to the FBI, and then lied again when she said that the FBI had given her a clean bill of health.

Hillary lied yet again when she said she wanted Congress to release all the FBI notes so that the public would know the truth once and for all, knowing full well that the notes contained top secret information that even some members of Congress weren't authorized to see. So much for the cock-and-bull story that the 30,000 emails contained nothing more sensitive than her yoga schedule.

Mrs. Clinton lies so often and about so many things that one begins to wonder if her motive, at least occasionally, is simply to stay in practice. Even Pinocchio would be impressed and likely to observe: "That's one hell of a shnoz on the old dame in the pants suit!"

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My problem with the commercials is that the recipients always seem to be living in Haiti and Guatemala. I mean, I might understand an occasional fundraiser for Americans wiped out by a natural disaster, such as the flood the folks down in Baton Rouge recently experienced.

But the fact that these campaigns are always being waged on behalf of the same foreigners year after year strikes me as unreasonable. Whatever happened to the notion of teaching someone to fish so he could feed himself? If these nations simply lack the know-how or initiative to feed its citizens, perhaps they should consider offering themselves up for adoption. I suspect that both places have sufficient natural resources to entice a First World nation into making an offer.

I realize it's a radical notion, but those commercials are really getting on my nerves. I particularly hate the way the talk-show pundits seem to think they have to sound like the smarmiest sort of televangelist simply because they're reading copy that's not pitching potato chips or precious metals.

For another thing, money is money. Anyone who believes that the zombies at Planned Parenthood don't spend every last dollar they receive, whatever its source, any damn way they like just might be in the market for the Brooklyn and Golden Gate Bridges I'm offering for the price of one.

I realize that in a society that frowns on making people responsible for their actions, my next suggestion will never gain traction, but it strikes me that if people are going to require others to fund their abortions, it shouldn't be considered unreasonable to require that they and the sperm donors be sterilized. After all, like abortions, it's a perfectly safe and simple surgical procedure.

I told her I had experienced a similar epiphany. "Sometimes," I replied, "it's much easier to judge a man by his enemies than by his friends. I suppose that's because you can sometimes buy your friends, whereas you have to go out and earn your enemies."

Soros, a Hungarian Jew who made his bones as a teenager working for the Nazis, separating his fellow Jews from their valuables as they were getting on cattle cars heading to places like Auschwitz, just might be the vilest creature currently residing in America. In a just world, he would have been tried as a war criminal. Instead, he became a billionaire in the nether world of currency manipulation. And that is the sort of person Mrs. Clinton wishes we had in greater abundance. I'm afraid that she will have to die and go to hell in order to have that particular wish granted.

In case you think I'm exaggerating, Soros has not only donated $13 million to the Democrats this year, $7 million of it specifically earmarked for Mrs. Clinton, but he has also donated $10 million to groups and individuals working to delegitimize Israel.

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As yet, I haven't heard of anyone suggesting that the DNC or Hillary Clinton return his blood-money. But, then, the Clintons have never spurned a dollar from any of the anti-Semitic, misogynistic, Arab/Muslim states in the Middle East that have flooded their foundation with multi-millions in bribes.

In yet another example of a fool and his money being separated, Soros, through his Open Society Institute, which works primarily to keep America's borders open to any and all, donated $30 million to Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection to help push global-warming policies on the U.S. So far as creeps like Soros and Gore are concerned, the worse America's economy does, the better they seem to like it. Why else, after all, would they promote a hoax that would have virtually no effect on the world's weather, but would cripple the economies of the industrial West?

To me, climate protection consists of umbrellas, parasols and galoshes. To George Soros, it's a way to shut down the coal and oil industries, to shutter steel factories and auto plants, and to ultimately bankrupt America. It would be the final solution for a left-wing currency manipulator.

I suppose that's the sort of inane observation one should expect from a guy who decided the best way to show his contempt for a racist America was by adopting a name from the vermin who rounded up his ancestors a few hundred years ago.

But I also blame the UCLA athletic department. Back when he was still calling himself Lew Alcindor and dunking basketballs, I was friends with an associate professor in the sociology department. He let me know that John Wooden's coaching assistants were visiting all of Jabbar's professors, pressuring them to give him passing grades in order to maintain his eligibility to continue playing basketball for the Bruins.

And that, my friends, is how a lunkhead gets a reputation as a scholar-athlete.

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Having said that, when I consider the various elements that have come together to defeat Donald Trump, I can't help thinking there might be more to be said for his candidacy than I have previously credited to his account.

For instance, just the other day 50 so-called Republicans claiming to be so-called national security experts signed a letter predicting that Trump would be the worst president in history when it comes to keeping America safe.

Huh?

Let me get this clear. We have a current president and a presidential wannabe who have been instrumental in rolling out the red carpet for Russia in the Middle East; given rise to ISIS, simultaneously making a mockery of the money and lives we had previously sacrificed in Iraq; handed over $1.9 billion to Iran ($400 million of it in the form of an illegal ransom) along with a clear path to a nuclear arsenal; released 166 Islamic terrorists from Gitmo; welcomed thousands of un-vetted Syrians into the homeland in spite of their cohorts having slaughtered hundreds of innocent people in Paris, Brussels, Munich, San Bernardino, Orlando and Constantinople, during the past year; created space between the United States and Israel – space that hadn't existed since 1948; and have devoted more time and attention to invalidating the Second Amendment and disarming American patriots than it has to combating worldwide jihadism.

I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that those 50 Republican fruitcakes imagine that Donald Trump could be worse. Naturally, they don't bother explaining how he would manage to do what strikes me as virtually impossible. Short of detonating a nuclear device in Times Square, what do they imagine Trump could possibly do that would match what the abominable twosome have already done?

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

Now it seems we have yet another nincompoop vowing to do everything in his power to save us from the unspeakable horrors of a Trump administration. Evan McMullin, a 40-year-old calling himself a Republican who used to have some connection to the CIA, is pretending to run as an independent. I say "pretending" because anyone entering the race because he hates or fears Donald Trump, knowing he himself has no chance of being elected, is clearly out to help Hillary Clinton get across the finish line.

Mr. McMullin claims he's an independent at this point, but in his opening statement declared that Trump is "inhuman and doesn't care about anyone but himself." One is left to conclude that McMullin believes, against all existing evidence, that Mrs. Clinton is in fact human and does care about someone other than herself.

In response to a follow-up question, McMullin said that he believed that both Trump and Clinton are unequipped to be commander in chief. But inasmuch as he surely knows that as an alleged conservative, the only votes he might possibly siphon off are those that would otherwise go to Trump, it's clear which of the unequipped candidates he would prefer to see inaugurated next January.

Unfortunately, he isn't the only spoiler in the race. The Loonytarians have two former Republican governors, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, whose sole reason for running, ego aside, is to grease Hillary Clinton's slide back into the White House.

I have sought better reasons to vote for Trump aside from his being the last line of defense against a continuation of Obama's demented policies, and I think these lunkheads have provided it.

Although I certainly prefer Trump's stated approach to taxes, immigration, trade pacts, the military and the Supreme Court, to anything the Democrats offer, I always worry that Trump might change his mind overnight.

But when I look at the bozos standing shoulder-to-shoulder in opposition to him, I begin to find my doubts vanishing like the morning dew.

In my own case, I have often taken comfort from those who have attacked me over something I've written. Often, it's those who voice their contempt and outrage, even more than those who let me know they're on my side, who have done the most to convince me that I must be doing something right.

I mean, how bad can someone be if the likes of the Bushes, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, George Will, 50 dopes who think they can predict future calamities – but failed miserably to predict them when that was exactly what they were being paid to do – and some dodo named McMullin who didn't bother joining the 17 other contenders vying for the GOP nomination when it was actually up for grabs, all agree that you're the worst thing to come along since unsliced bread?

Even more telling is the fact that these morons have all decided that Hillary Clinton, whose easily hacked private server might very well be the reason Dr. Shahram Amiri, a nuclear physicist who was spying on behalf of the U.S., was recently executed by Iran, would make a better president.

Hillary Clinton is a woman who is so beholden to the underbelly of black society that she wouldn't even risk filling out the questionnaire sent her by the national Fraternal Order of Police, lest she receive their endorsement, thus causing consternation to the racists who constitute the membership rolls of the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Black Lives Matter movement.

For good measure, Mrs. Clinton is now being sued by survivors of the Benghazi massacre for defamation of character. Apparently, she thought she was already the president and could get away with insisting they were lying when they reported that she had blamed the deaths of their loved ones on a video she knew full-well had played no role in the gruesome events of 9/11/12.

Those Never-Trumpers might wish to reconsider their priorities in light of the evidence. Perhaps to salvage their dignity, they might think about declaring themselves Maybe-Trumpers to begin with, and then slowly begin calling themselves Probably-Trumpers in September and October, before finally caving in and voting for the far-more deserving candidate in November.

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As a result, Elizabeth Warren could call herself a Cherokee in order to advance her academic career and land her a spot at Harvard, where apparently being or at least claiming to be a Native American counts far more than honesty, character and intelligence. In much the same way, left-wing activist Rachel Dolezal insisted that, in spite of being born to white parents, she was a black woman, and Bruce Jenner, physical evidence to the contrary, could announce he was a she named Caitlyn.

Mislabeling can be annoyingly far-fetched, as when a lousy movie cherry-picks words from a terrible review to sell itself to a gullible public. In fact, I bet if you check the entertainment section of your newspaper, you will see that some clunker about which some reviewer wrote: "It's a wonder that the same studio that produced last year's Best Picture Oscar winner would release this piece of dreck" is running an ad that states "It's a wonder!" "Best Picture" and "Oscar winner."

But, then, show business is always allowed far greater latitude in advertising than other industries. It explains why people such as Rob Schneider, David Caruso, Ben Affleck, Ethan Hawke, Josh Hartnett and Adam Sandler are allowed to identify themselves as actors on their income-tax returns.

For that matter, there's nothing on the books to prevent those people whose religion is Liberalism from insisting they're Jews. The truth is that millions of Americans who have no more connection to Judaism than Eskimos take some perverse sort of satisfaction in carrying off this charade. Perhaps they merely want to cash in on the Jewish reputation for being intelligent or at least well-educated. But far too often, these are people who favor Israel's enemies over Israel and are so dense they will vote exactly like urban blacks and never wonder why one of the best-educated segments of the electorate would vote the exact same way as the least-educated.

Most American Jews have such a tenuous connection to the religion of their grandparents that, quite often, the only way to recognize them is by their last names, their fondness for corned beef and sour pickles, and their unnatural tolerance for gefilte fish and kishkah (don't ask!).

Yet another example of mislabeling are those currently flying under false colors. I refer to the turncoats calling themselves Republicans while doing everything they can to deny Donald Trump the presidency and handing it over on a silver platter to Hillary Clinton.

It's the alternative to Trump that makes this bit of treachery so alarming. It would be one thing if sore losers like the Bushes, John Kasich and Ted Cruz were opting for one of those Democrats for whom earlier Republicans would occasionally have an affinity. I refer to people such as Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Sen. Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, who weren't afraid to engage the Soviet Union in the Cold War at a time when a great many loony left-wingers were pushing for unilateral disarmament and insisting that if we would only beat our nuclear arsenal into plowshares, the Soviet Union would do the same.

But that's not the alternative today. If Trump isn't elected, someone should remind these Fifth Columnists that the next president of the United States will be none other than Hillary ("What difference, at this point, does it make" who killed four Americans?) Clinton.

Have these morons already forgotten that this woman, whose greatest accomplishment in life was marrying a sexual predator and staying married for the sake of her political and financial ambitions, has more scandals on her resume than a hunting dog has fleas? Hillary Clinton is the furthest thing from a Cold War warrior. Considering the cold shoulder she gave to Ambassador Chris Stevens when he pleaded for additional security in Libya and the lies she told the nation and the families of those murdered in Benghazi, she can't even claim to be a fair weather patriot.

People like Truman, Kennedy and Jackson would be outraged if they'd seen her giggling like a very old school girl as she pressed the reset button with Vladimir Putin.

At the DNC convention, delegates were approached and asked if they agreed with a series of statements attributed to Hillary Clinton. Apparently, almost without fail, they did. The kicker is that all of the lines had been lifted from remarks and speeches made by Donald Trump.

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By this time, it's certainly no surprise that Democrats are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, not the sharpest knives in the drawer, and certainly not to be trusted within a country mile of a voting booth, but the way so many prominent Republicans are carrying on these days, I'm beginning to wonder if stupidity is a contagious disease.

But, unlike Zika, which is spread by a certain breed of mosquito, the multiple sources of this particular virus are irritating pests like George and Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Katie Pavlich, Glenn Beck, Rich Lowry, Ed Meese, Erick Erickson, William Kristol, George Will and Michael Medved.

We can only hope and pray that medical science will come up with a miracle cure before Nov. 8 rolls around.

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For one thing, although the liberal brain has a very difficult time discerning between truth and lies, once it figures things out, it definitely prefers lies because they're so much more comforting. Clearly, there is something haywire about the way the damn things are wired.

A liberal's brain isn't totally dysfunctional. It can master those tasks that require the reading and memorizing of texts. However, when it comes to processing something as complex as ethics or a value system, it is likely to blow an internal fuse.

But what really makes the study of the liberal brain so difficult is locating it in the first place.

While those with conservative brains scratched their heads, wondering if he had suddenly begun speaking in tongues, those with the tiny liberal brains cheered wildly and threw their tiny hats in the air as if he had exposed the mystery of the universe.

The explanation for the disparate responses was easy enough to figure out. Those fortunate enough to have conservative brains knew they had done exactly what Obama insisted they hadn't, whereas those with the miniscule brains, being aware that they really had never built anything, were reassured that nobody else had either.

Obama's point was that nobody accomplished anything without the federal government having made it possible. Initially, that struck me as just so much flapdoodle. But after mulling it over, I began to see where he was coming from.

After all, look at all the things the feds had built under his stewardship. By pulling our troops out of Iraq, he singlehandedly created ISIS. By increasing the power of EPA even beyond that of Congress, he destroyed an untold number of businesses, greatly increasing the actual number of unemployed Americans. Then, not wishing to rest on his laurels, he increased the number even more by waging war on the coal and oil industries.

Through Obamacare, he increased the government's share of the economy by a full 15 percent. Through his reset with Russia and his refusal to follow through on his red line threat in Syria, he built up Putin's influence in the Middle East. Through his imbecilic mishandling of the economy and his massive increase in welfare, he doubled the national debt.

And, finally, by dismantling the U.S. military, he has increased the threat to our national security and that of what was previously referred to as the Free World.

So, if you like ISIS, a soon-to-be nuclear Iran, a stagnant economy, a health-care system in shambles and a national debt that will enslave the current and future generations, you have to tip your cap to Barack Hussein Obama.

I know that Donald Trump, with his hotels, his towers and his golf courses, considers himself a master builder, but he's small potatoes in comparison to Obama.

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

The second clue to the reason that veterans are dying while waiting to obtain medical attention is that over the past decade, the VA has spent well over $20 million on art, with the amount increasing annually. It spent $670,000 for just two sculptures at a certain VA facility. Most telling is that it is a facility serving blind veterans!

I have to hope that once Trump stops attacking Republicans and even the media and, instead, zeros in on Hillary's hypocrisy, vile record and corrupt foundation, the situation will improve.

He could begin by asking that all-important question: Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? Do you really wish to elect someone who has vowed to continue Obama's policies? Do you really want to see the Supreme Court packed with justices differing merely in name and possibly gender from the likes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor?

Trump might even point out that not a single word was mentioned during the coronation of Hillary about the Clinton Foundation. Is it even conceivable that if the foundation weren't the sole reason Mrs. Clinton insisted on using a private server, the speakers wouldn't have constantly mentioned how many wonderful things it has done for the needy? Don't you imagine they would have wheeled out a busload of beneficiaries to pay tribute to our very own Mother Teresa? Instead, we only got to see three of them on stage, all of them named Clinton.

If the sole purpose of the Clinton Foundation wasn't to launder bribes from some of the world's worst villains, don't you think it would have been front and center in Philadelphia, where the entire purpose of the four-day charade was to try to graft a human face onto the most despicable woman on the planet?

I confess that I wouldn't wish to run for president and have to do all that traveling around and answering the same dopey questions every day. I wouldn't even want to be president and have to spend all that time in the company of politicians. But I certainly envy Donald Trump and those three golden opportunities he'll have to debate Hillary Clinton.

In fact, the best thing about Mitt Romney deciding to be a Never-Trumper is that there's no chance Trump will turn to him for debating tips.

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If Hillary Clinton is able to rally the forces responsible for re-electing the tyrannical wannabe in 2012, she will be able to combine the worst ideas of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders going forward. Worse yet, she will be able to leave, as her legacy, a majority of leftist loons in complete control of the Supreme Court.

I wish that every last Never Trump holdout would pause and consider how much permanent damage a court consisting of seven or eight justices cut from the same cloth as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor could do.

It amazes me when I consider such matters as the Second Amendment, religious rights and the criminal justice system that anyone could despise Donald Trump for his rudeness and occasional oafishness so much that they would even consider staying home on Election Day and allowing the Clintons to return to the scene of their earlier crimes.

As I see it, the DNC can apologize all it wants and can continue to claim that Mrs. Clinton would have emerged victorious in any case. However, what they can't deny is that Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled the half dozen debates – down from the 20-odd in 2008 – when they were sure to draw the smallest possible audience, thus denying the formerly unknown Vermont senator a decent chance to make his wacky case to the greatest possible number of pinheads.

When you combine that with the 600-odd party bigwigs who have the power to out-vote millions of Democrats, the DNC didn't just have a finger on the scales, they had their entire fist on it.

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

Old Bernie was so totally emasculated by the Clinton machine that he didn't even dare squeak when Hillary then turned around and named Mrs. Wasserman Schultz the honorary chairwoman of her presidential campaign, proving that if there's one thing the woman appreciates, it's dirty tricks performed on her behalf.

Understand that I hold no sympathy for Sen. Sanders, an alleged Jew who sides with Israel's enemies and who invited Paul Bustinduy to be his personal guest in Philadelphia. Senor Bustinduy is the secretary of Spain's far-left/anti-Semitic political party known as Podemos. The only surprise is that he wasn't allowed to address the crowd. With his credentials, he would have brought down the house.

Well, the big news is that the congressman hasn't gotten any smarter in the intervening six years. While addressing the anti-Semitic scumbags who constitute the group calling itself the "U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation," he garnered a standing ovation by referring to Israelis as "termites." But, to be fair, he may just be following the lead of his glorious leader, Barack Hussein Obama, who also favors the Islamists over the Jews.

Having read the accounts of Ron Kessler and Dick Morris, I know that the origin of this particular union was cobbled together in a much different place. It's a place where a serial adulterer and a harridan given to profanity-laced tirades directed at Secret Service agents, uniformed military personnel and the aforementioned sexual predator will eventually spend eternity – unless, of course, Satan is merely an unfounded rumor.

Instead of Shakespeare's doomed lovers, the couple the Clintons most closely resemble are Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler in 1939, when the two slimiest creatures in the world signed a mutual non-aggression pact.

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As for his wife, Melania, I received two very telling emails in the wake of her address at the convention. A reader named Ralph wanted me to know that he was hoping that the convention would provide him with a reason to vote for Trump, and, happily, "It did! I'm voting for Melania."

In the wake of the media going berserk because some half-baked speechwriter put Michelle Obama's words in Melania's mouth, another reader, Tom Skelly, observed: "Judging by the media outrage, you'd think Mrs. Trump had violated national security, undergone a federal probe and been criticized by the head of the FBI."

As a writer, I recognize plagiarism when I see or hear it. But in this particular case, I cut Mrs. Trump some slack because when I heard her speak of her affection for America, I believed her, as was never the case with Mrs. Obama.

I fully realize that not since 1964 has a Democrat won the presidency while garnering the majority of the white vote, but I think Mrs. Clinton may be overdoing it with her fawning over the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter rabble. Of course, I can't speak for Democrats, but those two outfits strike me as being so blatantly racist that I could no more vote for someone who seeks their benediction than I could for a Republican who cozied up to the KKK or the Aryan Nation.

On top of all her other sins, Hillary Clinton is an unabashed carpetbagger. Although she had no connection to New York, she moved there for the sole purpose of winning an easy election for the Senate.

What's more, she's a liar at heart, whether it comes to important things like Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation and her private server, or lesser matters, such as her own voice. This year, as in 2008, whenever her presidential campaign takes her south of the Mason-Dixon Line or into a black Baptist church, she affects a drawl that has her sounding like Aunt Jemima.

Reader Randall Slafsky has come up with a slogan for wall-builder Donald Trump: "If you build it, they won't come."

Another reader suggests that Trump should fly the family members of the Benghazi Four to his first debate with Hillary Clinton, seat them in the front row and make Hillary tell them once again that their family members died all because of a video.

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

Barry Williams, a black judge, recently acquitted the fourth victim of state prosecutor Marilyn Mosby's vendetta against the Baltimore police department. When you realize the risk that this man is taking when time and again he does the right thing and denies a corrupt and politically ambitious prosecutor the opportunity to lynch an innocent cop, you have to hope that Donald Trump has added Williams to his short list of potential Supreme Court jurists.

The race war is on in America, but, like the war being waged by Islamic terrorists, neither the politicians nor the media care to acknowledge it, let alone engage the enemy.

In fact, shortly before the bloody events in Orlando, Florida, and Nice, France, John Kerry gave us the good news that ISIS was on the run, reminding us that shortly before 130 people were slaughtered in Paris, Barack Obama let us know that ISIS was contained.

I don't know why the media want to be complicit in the lies and keep fostering the false narrative that Islam is a religion of peace and that in every confrontation between blacks and cops, the blame lies solely with the cops.

In Philadelphia recently, a homeless white man was beaten to death because a black kid lied, telling his mother he was late getting home because the fellow who got tips at the local station pumping gas for customers had hit him.

As a result, three black women and a gang of kids, aged 12-14, attacked the falsely accused victim with hammers and their feet. They proceeded to smash and stomp the poor soul to death in broad daylight.

I submit that if the killers had been white and the victim black, it would have generated headlines around the country and been the top-of-the-hour story on the nightly news. Instead, I suspect this is the first you've heard about it because black-on-white violence doesn't fit the phony narrative that's been foisted on us for the past several decades.

I see the problem, but I also see a possible solution. It won't be cheap, but I think it would be a great investment in America's future. I propose that every black person who fears for his or her life because of racist cops and every Muslim who wishes to live under Shariah law or fears reprisal for the villainy of Islamic butchers be air-lifted to the country of their choice. As they step off the plane, they would be required to sign a contract promising never to return on pain of execution. Once the paperwork was out of the way, they would be handed $50,000.

I suspect there might be as many as 20 million black Americans and Muslims willing to accept the offer. Perhaps 200 million if we allowed every American citizen to sign up, but that's not part of the deal. I told you it wouldn't be cheap. In fact, unless I've been befuddled by all the zeros, it would add up to $1,000,000,000,000 ($1 trillion). A steep price for the American taxpayer, but if it cuts down on the incessant griping and obnoxious chanting, I'd consider it money well spent.

I realize that because I have never been hesitant about showing my contempt for black rabble, I have sometimes been accused of being a racist. I find that odd inasmuch as no less a moral authority than Martin Luther King advised us to judge people not by the color of their skin, but by their character.

So when I see thousands upon thousands of black urban dwellers rioting because some black thug who was probably terrorizing them yesterday is shot today in the line of duty by a cop, or when I see the BLM rabble-rousers marching in the streets insisting that cops should be fried like bacon, I am simply following Rev. King's instructions.

If I saw mobs of white people behaving that way, I would curse them out. So why would I hesitate to do it when black people are involved? At least when I look at them, I recognize them as human beings, not the herd of sacred cows that patronizing white politicians and media pundits pretend to see.

That's why I was delighted to hear from a 67-year-old black CPA named Glen Smith. In his teens, he had been stopped by police "more times than I can count. I've even been in jail twice on minor traffic infractions when I was young, but no cop has ever pulled a gun on me, handcuffed me or laid a finger on me.

"I was living in Elmsford, New York, when I was 17. I was at home preparing to leave for the local community college when a cop showed up to arrest me. Apparently I'd gotten a traffic ticket I hadn't paid. As he led me out to the patrol car, he told me to sit in the front seat with him. At the time, my parents' home was on a dead end street and ours was the last house on the block. The cop had me sit in front because he knew a patrol car would get plenty of attention, and he didn't want the neighbors to get the wrong impression.

"Within an hour, I was before a judge. After all these years, I don't recall the outcome. I assume I paid a fine. What happened next? The same white cop brought me home, again seated in front with him. He had no responsibility to do it, but he did it anyway. Keep in mind this was 50 years ago, in America!"

Mr. Smith went on to add: "The problem in the black community is a pervasive perverse culture. A culture nobody wants to mention. Whites won't call it what it is because they'll be accused of being racist. Blacks won't mention it because it would require THEM to change their ways, and the blacks don't want whites to know it's their own problem to solve. The way things play out today, it's the whites who have to change while the blacks can continue their self-destructive ways!"

My new friend would go on to become a decorated Air Force veteran. He let me know he doesn't "dress 'funny,' have stupid hair-dos and doesn't behave in suspicious ways." It just might explain why Glen Smith hasn't had anything but cordial relationships with the police for the past half century.

Finally, I'll let Mark Twain have the last word: "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Speaking for myself, I'd say it was a combination of the two.

OK, Twain only got the next-to-last word. So sue me.

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With nothing to boast about in terms of foreign or domestic policy, with former allies not trusting us and current enemies not fearing us, with an economy that is on life support and a health-care system that nobody envies, what could he possibly have on display? Heck, even at this late date, he refuses to divulge anything about his shadowy past, including school records, travel visas and even his questionable sex life.

If he possessed even a glimmer of wisdom, instead of a library, he would create a theme park, built along the lines of Disney's Fantasyland with fun rides and perhaps a house of horrors with life-like replicas of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Valerie Jarrett, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Al Sharpton.

Barack Obama claims we may never know the motives of Micah Johnson, the Dallas assassin who killed five police officers, even though Johnson told the Dallas police chief that he was out to kill white people, especially white cops. But, then, Obama is the same odd creature who decided long ago that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam even though those committing the carnage invariably shout "Allah Akbar!" while shedding innocent blood. Obama prefers to attribute it to workplace violence or to some mysterious urge beyond human ken.

Apologists for Obama are forever claiming that any attack on his policies or character is the result of bigotry, but they are never required to explain why that bigotry is never extended to include people like Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Herman Cain, Condoleezza Rice, Tom Sowell, Walter Williams or Jason Riley. My guess is that liberals would dismiss these people of accomplishment as a bunch of Uncle Toms and Aunt Jemimas, which would merely highlight their own bigotry.

The liberals also fail to explain how it is that Obama was twice elected to the highest office in the land in a nation where blacks only represent 12 percent of the population. I, of course, attribute it to the general feeblemindedness of the electorate, but I would love to hear their explanation.

I wonder if even Republicans realize how often they feel obliged to praise Obama's oratorical gifts. Having had to listen to him far too many times over the past eight years, I'd say the man could put hummingbirds to sleep. So why the disconnect between me and all those others? I believe it's the result of diminished expectations. So little is asked of him that even in 2008, Joe Biden felt called upon to reveal that Obama smelled good. It was Joe's way of letting us know that the presidential candidate apparently showered regularly or at least had the decency to use a name-brand deodorant.

When it comes to his speechifying, Obama gets brownie points simply because you can understand him when he speaks, which isn't often the case when it comes to such Congressional Black Caucus luminaries as Elijah Cummings and John Lewis.

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

This double standard was on full display in the wake of the Dallas memorial for the five murdered police officers. Everyone on Fox News, or so it seemed, felt obliged to praise Obama up until the moment he veered away from lauding cops back into his comfort zone by pretending that guns, not Micah Johnson, had been responsible for the five dead bodies.

Anyone who has been paying attention realizes that Obama hates and distrusts cops, and that he was only saying what decent people actually believe about them – that they bravely lay their lives on the line to protect all of us for very little money and even less gratitude – so that he could segue into his canned harangue about guns.

As my wife, Yvonne, pointed out, it is the exact same approach that one of Obama's Chicago mentors, Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, has employed for decades. He starts out sounding reasonable, suggesting ways that urban blacks might improve their lot before inevitably getting back on point and blaming all the ills of black Americans on the blue-eyed devils!

It only recently came to light that in 2015, Obama's State Department, through the auspices of a group calling itself One Voice, spent 350,000 of our tax dollars trying to defeat Bibi Netanyahu in his attempt to retain the prime ministry. Fortunately, as is usually the case when Obama spends our money – be it to build renewable energy plants, track weapons into Mexico or prevent illegal aliens from facing deportation – his efforts failed.

I wonder what it is about liberals that not only encourages their leaders to lie to them, but why it is that no matter how blatant the lies, it never seems to bother the true believers. When Bernie Sanders said that by simply raising taxes on the wealthy, it would cover the $18 trillion his policies would have cost, how is it that not one of his fans bothered doing the math? And how is it that when Hillary Clinton spent a year lying about her private server and FBI Director Comey then testified she had lied every single time she'd opened her yap, she didn't take a nose dive in the polls?

Furthermore, when Barack Obama, at the Dallas memorial, said it was easier for a black kid to get his hands on a Glock than a computer or even a book, why wasn't he booed off the stage?

Not only is what he said a lie, but if it were true, what would it say about the way black kids are raised in America that they would very much prefer getting their hands on a Glock?

In the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's announcing that a Donald Trump presidency would mean an end to Western civilization, which is a clear violation of judicial ethics, we learned that such ethics don't apply to Supreme Court justices. That's according to Supreme Court justices. If so, it sounds like it would be a perfect fit for Bill Clinton in his wife's administration.

Mrs. Ginsburg went on to say that the mere possibility that Trump might be elected served as a reminder that her late husband used to say on similar occasions – such as when Ronald Reagan was on the verge of being elected, no doubt – that it might be time to move to New Zealand. Well, just say the word, Mrs. G, and I'll gladly drive you to the airport.

Finally, I won't be at the GOP convention, but just in case one of you has Donald Trump's ear, might I suggest that he not limit the spotlight to himself, his wife and the Pences? If it were me, after checking on their availability, I would ask to be joined on stage by Newt Gingrich, my secretary of state; Dr. Ben Carson, my surgeon general; Ted Cruz, my nominee for the Supreme Court; Carly Fiorina, my secretary of the treasury; Gen. Mike Flynn, my secretary of defense; and, last but not least, Chris Christie, my official food taster.

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Having heard from various usually reliable sources that Mr. Comey was one of Washington's few square shooters, I was particularly disheartened. The fact is, if they ever decided to remake "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," they could do a lot worse than cast him in the leading role. He certainly looks and sounds as idealistic as young Jimmy Stewart and, at 6-foot-8, is even taller. But having met and spoken with Jimmy Stewart; I can't picture him reading off that bill of particulars and then letting Hillary Clinton scoot.

I was so angry about it, I sat down and wrote the man the following letter:

"Dear Director Comey: Frankly, I'm disappointed in you. I didn't have the chance to watch your entire session with the congressional committee, but I don't see how anyone can avoid concluding that you oversaw a year-long investigation that ate up tens of thousands of man-hours that might better have been devoted to digging a little bit deeper into the terrorist ties of one Omar Mateen. At least that might have prevented the killing of 49 Americans at an Orlando nightclub.

"Unless I may have missed something, the basic reason you suggested that Secretary Clinton should not be indicted was because you couldn't find proof of criminal intent. That is an odd conclusion because, one, the statute involving classified documents never mentions intent; and two, no reasonable prosecutor, to use your own words, could possibly ignore the obvious fact that her private server proved it was her intention from day one to fly under the government radar.

"During your testimony, you said that there was no favoritism shown to Mrs. Clinton, and that even if a 'John or Jane Doe' had been guilty of the same crimes, but was no longer employed at the State Department, he or she would not have faced any disciplinary action. Let's say, merely for the sake of argument, that's true. But inasmuch as Mrs. Clinton had left the State Department two years prior to your investigation, why then did you launch it in the first place?

"Even you must admit that your statement was entirely absurd. Would you actually have us believe that if a minor bureaucrat was found to have been so reckless with top security documents that foreign governments, including Russia, China and North Korea, had easy access to state secrets, he or she would not have been indicted and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, even if two years prior Mr. or Ms. Doe had resigned, retired or – who knows? – let's say decided to make a run for the presidency?

"You may doubt it, but if the parties had been reversed and if a Republican had done all the things Mrs. Clinton has done, and you had advised against an indictment, I would be equally frustrated with you and the system. You have, as so many others have done over the years, shown that there is one set of rules and laws for most people, and an entirely different set for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"Speaking of which, what possessed you to second-guess what a "reasonable prosecutor" would or wouldn't do? Why did you feel it was required of you to make a recommendation to Attorney General Lynch? Why didn't you simply provide her with the same facts you provided to the American people, and leave the decision up to her? At least then, when she decided not to prosecute, her own partisanship – especially after her secret meeting in Phoenix with Bill Clinton – would have been fully exposed.

"On the very day that you went on TV with a laundry list of items proving Mrs. Clinton's malfeasance in office and her multitude of lies to Congress and the American electorate, she was flying on Air Force One and appearing at a campaign rally with Barack Obama. It certainly suggests that you had reported the "glad tidings" to those two very interested parties before you made your findings and recommendations public.

"It simply doesn't pass the smell test that President Obama would have risked appearing at her side if the director of the FBI were about to recommend a federal indictment on live television.

"I confess I had high hopes for you, although perhaps not as high as your former boss and mentor, Rudy Giuliani, had before you caused him to lose faith in your competence and your integrity.

"Clearly, the job calls for an older, wiser and, perhaps, shorter man. So if you would do the right thing and step down, Director Comey, rest assured I am ready to pick up the reins. Sincerely, Burt Prelutsky."

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In a not entirely unrelated matter, I decided to find out what is happening with the traitor, Bowe Bergdahl. It seems that his court martial trial is set to begin in February 2017, even though Gen. Robert Abrams called for a trial in December 2015.

We have all heard that justice delayed is justice denied, but even two years after Barack Obama broke the law by trading five Gitmo prisoners for this bag of crap in 2014 without even allowing Congress to have its legal say in the matter, Bergdahl remains a free man. I believe it is safe to assume that if Hillary Clinton is in the Oval Office in 2017, even if the military tribunal finds Bergdahl guilty of desertion, a presidential pardon would guarantee that he would never see the inside of Leavenworth.

I simply can't imagine she would allow his guilt to highlight the fact that her predecessor was so pathologically committed to shutting down Gitmo that he actually exchanged five high-profile terrorists for one reprehensible traitor.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect she would even be able to get FBI Director Comey to go on TV and assure us that justice had been served.

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In addition to which, Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama's partner in crime, read the writing on the wall and announced he will be stepping down in October. So, within three months of each other, the two schmucks who had the most to do with selling us out with the Iran nuclear deal will be history.

Someone sent me the following definition of white privilege: "It's being held accountable for the acts of your distant ancestors by people who accept no responsibility for the acts of their own children."

Another person reminded me that either Obama or one of his representatives showed up at the funerals of Freddie Gray, Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, but not at the funeral of Kathryn Steinle, the young woman who was strolling with her father in San Francisco when she was shot dead by an illegal alien who'd already been deported five times.

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But midst all the hoopla over new gun laws, what's too often ignored is that, with the strictest laws in the nation, 329 people have been murdered in Chicago this year. In 77 percent of the cases, the killers were blacks, 18 percent were Hispanic and 5 percent were white or "other," meaning they may have been Asian, Pacific Islanders or Martians. But, astonishingly, not one of the 329 was a member of the NRA!

I know it conflicts with the narrative spun by Obama, Mrs. Clinton and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and I acknowledge it might be a fanciful notion, but is it just possible that the violence in urban communities has less to do with the NRA, the confederate flag and Republicans, than it does with the fact that 72 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers on welfare?

Someone suggested that Trump should start holding his rallies at construction zones because everyone knows that protesters would never dare show up at a job site.

Even after Attorney General Loretta Lynch promised to be transparent and forthcoming about the transcriptions of Omar Mateen's phone and text messages, she went ahead and changed "Allah" to "God." Transparent, yes, even if not in the way she meant; but forthcoming? Not so much.

I know you think I make up some of this stuff, but I swear Ms. Lynch actually said that our best defense against terrorism was "compassion and love." I tell you, Obama isn't just a racist, a traitor and a fool, the S.O.B. is contagious.

How is it that we never hear that the U.S. is hacking Russian and Chinese computers? I know this administration would claim they wouldn't want word to get out. Why not? It would finally be a bit of foreign policy they could actually brag about. At the very least, someone not in the employ of the feds should hack the bastards and find out exactly what they managed to extract from Mrs. Clinton's private server.

Speaking of China, isn't it high time we stopped importing all its crap, providing it with the American dollars it so desperately needs now that its economy is beginning to tank? At the very least, we should stop buying its damn dog food, which, more likely than not, has dog as its main ingredient. On top of all the other evil they commit, those commie degenerates are turning our pets into cannibals.

As the son of immigrants, I'm really getting sick of liberals claiming Republicans are racists because we're against Hispanic aliens swarming into the country. The hypocrites pretend there is no difference between foreigners who come here the right way and those who sneak in like the thieves they are. Anyone who objects to my use of "thieves" will have to explain what they would call those who not only come here illegally, but, once on American soil, feel entitled to grab whatever they can from the American taxpayer.

As for Obama, who seems hell-bent on raising doubts when it comes to his patriotism and his religion by flying in thousands of Muslims, any number of whom have murder on their minds, I find myself fantasizing about him almost as much as he no doubt fantasizes about George Clooney or Denzel Washington. The difference is that in mine, Obama is fully clothed and is being horse-whipped just prior to his being tossed in Leavenworth.

A reader let me know that when his son was teaching at a small college in North Carolina, he became acquainted with a Muslim convert to Christianity. The man explained that there are three kinds of Muslims.

"There are those willing to kill you; there are those who won't kill you personally, but will help someone else kill you; and then there is the great mass of 'peaceful Muslims' who won't kill you and won't help someone else kill you, but do agree that you need killing."

I'm reminded that in the wake of Brexit, someone let me know that Scotland, which wishes to remain in the E.U., will vote to toss off the yoke of British masters in favor of E.U. masters.

To which I replied: "Then they had better learn to speak Arabic because they are a very small country, and Brussels will be sending a horde of Muslims to the Highlands, and the kilt will soon be replaced by the burka."

He wrote back to say "The Scots are conditioned to be ruled, not governed."

I let him know that while I couldn't comment about the Scots, that certainly seemed to be the case with Arabs, Muslims and liberals.

In case you weren't fully aware of how depraved our society has become, there was, until it was recently shut down, a "game" on Google that allowed players to "kill" Jews at Auschwitz.

In an online review, one player complained that although he very much enjoyed the game, a major drawback was that "every 20 minutes or so the oven fills up and I have to remove the ashes."

If I'm not mistaken, that was also Adolf Eichmann's major complaint.

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And because being a Democrat calls for a sheep-like subservience to the herd, once one of them bleats anything, you can count on all the other lambs chiming in.

The House Democrats attempted to remind people of the civil rights movement by staging a sit-in. They even, to their shame, sang a few bars of "We Shall Overcome." But mainly they chanted like banshees about gun control laws. In the end, they were more reminiscent of the union members in Wisconsin who stormed the state Capitol a few years back to display their anguish over Gov. Scott Walker digging in his heels and refusing to cave to their demands, which would have bankrupted the state.

It remains unclear what new laws they want. After all, the only thing the Senate Democrats could agree on, as four new gun bills went down to defeat on the same day, was that nobody on the no-fly list should ever be allowed to buy a weapon. The two obvious problems with that were, one, Omar Mateen, the ogre of Orlando, although twice investigated by the FBI, was never on the list and would therefore have been able to buy guns legally; and, two, the no-fly list is unconstitutional because it deprives American citizens of their Second Amendment right while denying them the protection of the Fifth Amendment.

That, by the way, isn't merely theoretical. Steve Hayes of Fox News and the Daily Standard wound up on the list accidentally, and it took him seven months to get off it. And in a piece of irony that should escape nobody's notice, Rep. John Lewis, a black congressman who led the chanting and singing on the floor of the House, is still on the list five years after his name landed there!

Even the ACLU, which owes its very existence to communists and its subsequent survival to the donations of liberals, determined that what the Democrats were seeking was entirely unconstitutional.

Besides, if new and bigger gun laws were so essential, why is it that when the Democrats had such absolute control of the three branches that they could shove Obamacare down our throats without a single Republican vote and there was a higher murder rate then there is today, they didn't pass a single gun control bill?

One has to wonder which Constitution he and his charges were studying in his classrooms. And was Obama ever able to pass one of his own tests without copying off someone else's paper?

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Obama keeps saying that he has to create legislation when Congress refuses to act. But when Congress doesn't create a law, they are acting, just not the way the little tyrant would like. He is not their boss, and they are not a large pool of stenographers whose job is to take his dictation.

On about two dozen occasions, Obama said he lacked the constitutional authority to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens because he wasn't a king or an emperor, and then went ahead and did it anyway. All the high court did was to agree with what he said all those other times, while perhaps suggesting that, like that other famous royal, he was as naked as a jaybird.

The reason the vote went as it did was because the occasionally sensible Anthony Kennedy bugged out, apparently deciding that even though he had opposed race-based quotas in the past, he didn't have the cajones to be the justice who finally put an end to affirmative action, even though it continues to be an affront to the principle that this is supposed to be a colorblind society.

And while I say that as a white man, I would say the same if I were black or Hispanic. That is because I would not ever wish to have my achievements tainted with the suspicion that I owed them to white paternalism, rather than my own efforts.

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You merely have to look around. You will see people sending out second-by-second bulletins about themselves: "I'm fourth in line at the checkout line … now I'm third." You will see them taking selfies, taking far more pictures of themselves than of their friends or relatives. Some thought it outrageous when Obama was seen taking a selfie, but why would the biggest narcissist of all not engage in the fad? After all, this was the same egotist who campaigned for the presidency while standing in front of Greek columns.

This is a Facebook world in which every single thing a person does or says is instantly posted for all the world to see and marvel at, a world in which the same people who rail at cameras posted in public as a means to control crime are never without their own camera phones, immortalizing every last second of their lives.

When George Orwell wrote "Animal Farm," it was an allegory about the Russian Revolution and the resulting tyranny under Josef Stalin. The book told of a revolt by the farm animals against the farmer, and how under the iron-handed rule of the farm's new leader, a pig named Napoleon, the motto of the revolution, "Every animal is equal," quickly morphs into the more realistic "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Today, in America, we see the results of a similar revolution that began in the 1960s. But instead of a single boar at the top, we have millions of them running around. It is more like the situation envisioned by Orwell in his other classic, "1984," in which a leader, Big Brother, controls society through his legions of Thought Police. But what we have brought on ourselves isn't a single brutal tyrant, but millions of Big Brothers and Big Sisters making certain you mouth only false pieties. It is mob rule, but one in which competing mobs jockey for authority.

Dare to suggest that illegal aliens are a drain on society in every way imaginable, and they will call you names and try to deprive you of your livelihood. Dare to suggest that Islam is not a religion in the way that others are, but is, in fact, a political movement that seeks to dominate the world, and they'll stone you.

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Dare even to suggest that Shariah law should be an abomination in the eyes of civilized people who claim to be in favor of free speech, equal rights for women and religious tolerance, and thugs waving foreign flags and throwing fists and eggs will descend on you, demanding that you toe the politically correct line. Or else!

Suggest that transgenders don't need their own bathrooms, but instead a platoon of psychiatrists, and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters will treat you the way Cotton Mather treated "witches."

Suggest that most of those who inhabit urban communities and will demonstrate on behalf of the criminals who prey on them, but never on behalf of the cops who risk their lives trying to protect them, should stop being treated like sacred cows, whose every gripe calls for federal action, and you will be condemned for racial heresy.

Apparently, this isn't the first time that the service academies have allowed football players to be drafted straight from graduation into the NFL, thus allowing them to avoid their military commitment, even though that was the deal the cadets signed up for when they agreed to have the American taxpayer pick up the tab for their college education.

In their pathetic defense, the academies claim that having these recent grads playing professional football acts as a recruiting tool for enlistments, although they are unable to provide any collaborating evidence.

If that has a familiar ring to it, perhaps it's because it's the one Obama keeps dragging out as his rationale for letting terrorists out of Gitmo in his attempt to finally shut down the facility.

But not all the tyrant's horses and not all the tyrant's men have been able to come up with even a smidgen of evidence that the jihadists have ever recruited a single person to their cause because of the prison. In fact, it's been Obama, himself, who has recruited killers to the cause of ISIS and the Taliban. He did so by releasing scores of them from Gitmo so they could return to the killing fields of the Middle East.

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Ali was a very good boxer. Some have insisted he was the best, while others have claimed Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Robinson were better. For the record, let me confess that in my opinion, being a boxing champion ranks near the bottom of the list when it comes to human achievements. Even serving in Congress is one step up.

It amazes me that a man who refused to serve in the military could be regarded by so many as courageous. This is a guy who explained he wouldn't serve because "No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger." Well, no Viet Cong ever paid his way to the Olympics so he could win a gold medal, either.

Furthermore, as excuses for not serving his country go, not having been called a name by the enemy is pretty pathetic. At least so far as I'm aware, not a single Polish American, Italian American or Jewish American, ever bugged out of World War II simply because no German had ever called him a wop, a Polack or a kike.

As sportsmen went, he was the Trump of his generation. He referred to his opponents as "ugly," "a bum," "too dumb to be champion." He referred to himself as "The Greatest," but called Sonny Liston "a big ugly bear who even smells like a bear." His singular achievement was that he was the person who introduced trash talk to professional sports.

In his own personal life, he wasn't much better. He was married four times and had seven children. He had another two with women he didn't bother marrying.

Even after Ali was tested and found to possess an IQ of 78, (below 70 is deemed feeble-minded), he boasted "I said I was the Greatest, not the Smartest."

Although he was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., in honor of his father, whose own grandfather had been a slave, at the age of 23, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali and converted to Islam. One might regard that as peculiar, seeing as how it was Arabs who had been the major slave traders in Africa, the very folks who had put his ancestors in chains. But, then, I suppose irony is lost on people with 78 IQs.

Not too surprisingly, Barack Obama, upon learning of the ex-boxer's death, said, "Muhammad Ali fought for all of us," going on to compare him to Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Whether it comes to thieves or vile narcissists, it often does take one to know one.

In seven hours of testimony during a deposition about Hillary Clinton's private email server, Cheryl Mills, Mrs. Clinton's counsel and chief of staff, replied "I don't know" or "I don't recall" 189 times. That works out to 27 times-an-hour.

Now, I'm not one to call someone I've never even met a big fat liar, but Ms. Mills is only 51 years old. So she is either a bigger fibber than Pinocchio and Brian Williams put together, or she is clearly in the early stages of Alzheimer's and should seek help immediately before she manages to forget her own name and where she parked her car.

Although a few people had already let me know how offended they were by the amount of attention that was paid to the death of a gorilla and how little was paid to the crash death of Blue Angel pilot Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss, I have decided that I would focus on the difference between the public send-off Muhammad Ali, a draft-dodging braggart, received and the one given Air Force Col. Thomas E. Schaefer (ret.), who recently died in Arizona, at the age of 85.

Schaefer had been the military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when Islamists seized the compound on Nov. 4, 1979, and 66 people were taken hostage, all because Jimmy Carter had betrayed the shah of Iran, ushering in the Ayatollah Khomeini and four decades of worldwide Islamic terrorism.

From the beginning, Col. Schaefer was singled out for special attention. As the ranking military officer in the Embassy, he was accused of running "a nest of spies" and treated or, rather, mistreated, accordingly.

He was paraded blindfolded in front of TV cameras and threatened constantly with immediate execution. He would eventually spend 150 days in solitary confinement in a freezing cell, with damp floors and only a thin blanket for warmth.

He would later report that he used a pin to punch a code into his Bible on a daily basis to help him endure the ordeal. "They were breaking me down both physically and mentally. I could feel myself losing it."

Release came after 444 days of captivity. It was no coincidence that the hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981. It was the very day that several thousand miles away Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

On the flight home, by way of a symbolic salute, the co-pilot gave up his seat to Col. Schaefer just as the plane entered U.S. airspace.

After retiring from the Air Force, Schaefer spent many years speaking to students and adults on the subject of facing and overcoming adversity, a subject he knew far better than any decent American ever should.

In 1998, Schaefer said that the United States should re-establish relations with Iran for strategic reasons. But in 2013, he denounced the Iran nuclear deal, calling it "foolish." I suspect that "foolish" was the word he used for public consumption. In private, I'm sure there were several other words he used in describing the deal and the men, Obama and Kerry, who brokered it. He said he didn't know any Iranian leader who could be trusted. I suspect he said much the same about the American leaders at the time.

Col. Schaefer is survived by his wife of 63 years, Anita, two sons, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Not to mention a grateful nation.

There will be a service at Arlington National Cemetery in the fall.

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Being a political junkie, I found the movie fascinating, funny and even a little sad. It was funny because here was a guy who, as a liberal Jew, could have spent 40 more years in Congress, rising, as every aging left-wing hack does, to the inevitable rank of statesman, if only he wasn't fixated on texting pictures of what, in romance fiction, is often described as one's throbbing manhood, to various women he had never even met.

If you think I exaggerate, merely consider the fact that former KKK grand kleagle Robert Byrd; Ted Kennedy, who let a young woman drown in his car rather than jeopardize his political career; and serial sexual predator Bill Clinton all managed to achieve the status of party icon.

If Weiner had merely raped a woman or let one drown, he might have gotten to maintain his seat in Congress, but his offense was so embarrassing that even someone as cheesy as Nancy Pelosi couldn't just let it slide. Besides, everyone knew that the demented voters in New York's 9th Congressional District could be counted on to elect someone equally liberal.

Two years after he had been booted out of the House, Weiner decided he had wandered in the desert long enough and decided to get back in the game by running for mayor. In what was regarded as a major political comeback, Weiner appeared to be leading the pack going into the final weeks of the campaign, when, suddenly, it was discovered that Weiner had resumed letting the world know that he spent far more time thinking with the little head below his belt than the big ugly one perched above his neck.

In the end, even New Yorkers couldn't bring themselves to vote for the schmuck. Weiner wound up running a distant fifth. Fortunately, the knuckle-headed voters had a fallback position. They didn't have to settle for just another run-of-the-mill liberal; there was an avowed communist on the ticket. And not just any communist, but one who was married to a black woman who had formerly been a lesbian. So, on top of all his other sins, Anthony Weiner is the reason that Bill de Blasio runs the biggest city in the nation.

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I found the movie a little sad because, like one of Shakespeare's tragic characters, Weiner carried the seeds of his own destruction within himself. As you see his fate unwind, there is no way to pull for him. But you can see that even he doesn't comprehend how it has come about. Other politicians have been doomed by their greed or by taking up with someone else's wife, but when you have done yourself in because of an unnatural desire to expose yourself to strangers electronically, that is textbook pathology.

In the end, Weiner tries to justify himself by pointing out that he didn't kill anyone. He didn't even hurt anyone. Weiner just seems to be at a loss to understand why anyone even cares, except for, maybe, his wife.

His wife, in case you're unaware, is Huma Abedin. Now there is another case study whose life I would like to see documented on screen. I mean, imagine that you are not only married to Anthony Weiner, but at the same time work closely with Hillary Clinton. Huma must be one scary can of worms.

I mean, consider that with all the Democrats in Washington, the best they could do was come up with Hillary Clinton, evil personified, and a loon like Bernie Sanders, who was booted out of a commune years ago because he never did a lick of work and bored everyone to tears with his non-stop blather about the problems facing the working man.

Clearly, he preferred talking about working to actually working, so it was inevitable that he would consider a career in politics. In fact, his first full-time job was as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, when he was just shy of 40.

Just as those who didn't vote for Weiner instead found someone even worse to elect, it's silly to imagine that if you could miraculously rid the nation's capital of people like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Steny Hoyer, Charles Rangel, Patrick Leahy, Xavier Becerra, Sheila Jackson-Lee and Chuck Schumer, the voters would turn around and elect the solid likes of Trey Gowdy, Jim Jordan and Mike Lee.

The fact of the matter is that in spite of the obvious perks, the best people don't tend to pursue a career in politics. I didn't. You didn't. It wasn't because we didn't wish to serve our nation. And it certainly wasn't because we thought it was beyond our abilities. You merely have to look at those who have served in Congress and even in the White House to know that just about anyone can handle the job, and if you ever question that statement, just check out those who belong to the Congressional Black Caucus.

No, the reason most decent, capable people don't wish to get into politics is because, one, they don't want a bunch of low-information ignoramuses deciding every two, four or six years whether or not they still have a job, and, two, they don't want to constantly be going, hat in hand, to beg lobbyists and arrogant millionaires to accept their souls in exchange for campaign contributions.

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I understand that there are a great many innocent victims who, through no fault of their own, have become dependent on prescribed pain killers as a result of suffering traumatic injuries. But those I have in mind are the pinheads who have ignored all the warnings that the schools, the media and Nancy Reagan have been delivering for decades.

That is why I would become enraged when John Kasich, whenever he started talking about those who needed the help he was offering, invariably included drug addicts. As far back as the 1940s and '50s, books and movies like "The Man with the Golden Arm" were putting the downside of addiction on clear display. But Kasich kept insisting that we pity these creatures and subsidize their rehabilitation when it was their own irresponsible pursuit of cheap thrills that placed them behind the eight ball.

The following email was sent by a career Army officer: "Those girls knew exactly what they were doing. And they did it as an act of defiance against the history and tradition of West Point, which has been run over the years by what they consider a white establishment. In my opinion, they are hard-core black racists. And, of course, they realized they could get away with it, considering who is now in the White House and who encourages acts of defiance against the police and authority. They are black, racist revolutionaries. And Lt. Gen. Caslen (West Point Commandant) is cowed by political correctness to act and speak as he has in order to save his career, because if he did what was right, Obama would have him relieved – as he has many general and senior officers already. The high moral standards of our Armed Forces have gone by the wayside under Obama."

For my part, I pity the white soldiers who wind up serving under these unrepentant black bigots. Furthermore, when the women receive the disrespect they deserve, I'm certain they will blame it on the racism and sexism of their subordinates.

A reader let me know that she had just heard a radio broadcast on which a rabbi said that he didn't think Europe had the desire or fortitude to fight terrorism, and Glenn Beck said he didn't think the U.S. did, either. She wanted to know my opinion.

I replied that I thought it was obvious they were both right. "Otherwise the U.S. and Europe would have invaded the Middle East long ago, and after wiping out ISIS in two days, they would have declared war on Iran, the sponsor of most of the attacks on the West.

"Until that happens and we see actual retaliation for all the terrorism they've inflicted over the past 37 years, when Iran first announced its evil intentions by taking hostages, the barbarians will continue to behead people and blow airliners out of the sky.

"Just for a change, I would like to see real pain doled out in Tehran, and not constantly in places like Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and New York."

If you believe that HUD is going to move poor blacks next door to the Clintons, I'd be happy to give you odds and take your money.

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For instance, back when I was a youngster, homosexuals were openly ridiculed and referred to by demeaning nicknames. Eventually, the name-calling stopped, and a civilized society granted them civil union status so they could visit one another in hospitals and even file joint tax returns. But, suddenly, even that wasn't enough. Nothing less than same-sex marriages would do, and no matter whether your objection was based on religious or common-sense grounds, you were the one being called bad names. What's more, the game was so changed that if you, as an individual, objected to going along with the joke by baking same-sex wedding cakes or videotaping the ceremony, the government would drum you out of business.

Even when it was glaringly apparent that even in towns with a multitude of photographers and bakers the homosexuals were intentionally targeting those whose religious beliefs trumped their commercial concerns, the government sided with the bullies.

We have seen a similar scenario play out in cities around the nation when it comes to blacks. Every time, a black thug is shot during the commission of a crime by cops doing their job, the media, the courts and even the federal government are certain to take up for the black rabble.

This isn't meant to deny that on rare occasions, rogue cops haven't take advantage of the badge to dispense what they regard as street justice. But the operative word is "rare." Far more often, as in Ferguson, a black punk has been shot by a white cop, and it triggers a series of predictable events. First, the black community will pretend that the thug was a choir boy destined to eventually cure cancer. They will then show their moral outrage by setting fire to stores after first removing all the food, liquor and Nikes they can possibly steal.

This will be followed by Obama's defending the mob and claiming that the victim could have been his own son. Next, the attorney general will call for an investigation of the police force and immediately place the department under the thumb of the Justice Department.

A series of photos that has gone viral tells the story better than I can. Headlined "Looting," one photo is captioned: "An act performed in urban communities to honor a recently killed person that nobody knew, but whom the looters claim was like a son to them." In another, it reads "When free housing, welfare checks, free food and a free education just aren't enough." A third: "Because nothing says you care about a dead kid and the community more than stealing 50 pairs of Air Jordans, and then burning the place to the ground!"

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The fourth in the series shows a Ferguson store owner standing in the middle of what had once been a proud symbol of his entrepreneurship and now resembles downtown Beirut. The headline reads: "Gets robbed by Michael Brown." The caption reads: "Gets looted by people honoring Michael Brown's memory."

The fifth is a picture of Obama announcing, "I will be signing a new executive order replacing the word 'looting' with 'undocumented shopping.'"

Both were angry about the picture, about the fact that Obama gave the young women a presidential thumbs-up and that West Point was not only allowing them to graduate on schedule, but planned no disciplinary action. As one of the two, an Air Force vet, wrote: "I would give the women three options: 1) face a general court martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice; 2) graduate, but not be allowed to take part in the ceremonies, and be given a dishonorable discharge; 3) same as option 2 regarding graduation, but allow them to enlist as an E-1 (private) and be required to serve the full seven years for having made the taxpayers foot the bill for their education, but not be allowed to progress beyond the rank of E-4, then be discharged either honorably or dishonorably, depending on their performance while in uniform.

"Under no circumstances would I allow them to progress to the rank of senior NCO or officer, because they have already demonstrated their startling lack of leadership capabilities by engaging in such a foolish protest. Lest anyone think these options are too harsh, consider what the ensuing outcry would have been if those cadets had been white males holding up the Confederate flag. I think you know the answer."

The other reader identified himself as a proud second generation graduate of the Academy (class of 1952), and also the third of four generations of career Army officers. He let me know that he had written a strong letter to the superintendent of West Point.

"His initial response was that there was an 'ongoing investigation' as to the rationale and motivation behind the event. The next day, Obama said they were admirable ladies! And, surprise, surprise, the day after that, the superintendent said the women were not going to be disciplined or punished, since they didn't really mean what it was so obvious they did mean!

"What bothers me most is that once they realized they might be in real trouble, it is obvious they lied to the investigators. At the U.S. Military Academy, that is a breach of the Honor Code, which in my day would have meant, at best, demotion of cadet rank to private and delayed graduation. At worst, it would have meant expulsion and no graduation, commission or graduation certificate.

"You can bet that if they were white, an honor violation would be a big deal."

In closing, he mentioned that he had not only personally contributed generously over the years to the Academy, but helped to raise millions of dollars for West Point. But never again.

At least honor still counts for something among its graduates, even if it no longer responds to Reveille at the institution.

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When I was younger, I don't recall people – not even political hacks – claiming to have misspoken. But in this era of Obama, Biden, Clinton and Trump, either they or their aides are constantly bringing out the brooms and mops in an attempt to clean things up and convince us that what we heard either isn't what was said or what was meant.

Formerly, if someone actually did misspeak, it meant that he had simply used the wrong word or had mispronounced the right word. Today, when you hear a politician use it as a defense, it means they were either caught lying or caught sharing an embarrassing truth.

In the same way, when people used to say they were taking responsibility for something or other, it meant they were explaining the reason for their sudden resignation. Today, when someone such as Hillary Clinton announces she's taking responsibility for something illegal or unethical, it's intended to be the equivalent of Monopoly's Get Out of Jail Free card. It means that the person has made an admission of sorts, sort of like a Catholic confessing one of the lesser sins to a priest, and is now to be regarded as suitably contrite, not as someone who should either resign, retire or go to the clink.

If Mrs. Clinton were to ask West Virginians why they voted overwhelmingly for her in 2008 and have now thrown their support to Sanders, it would be poetic justice if they replied, "Oh, did we do that? I guess we must have mis-voted."

Instead, I replied: "I have a son who is now 43. I haven't seen him in years. Because of his gambling addiction, he began getting into trouble with the law as a teenager. Among his misdeeds were stealing and check-kiting. He never went to jail, but I thought when he was in his early 20s, he should have. It was the only way I could imagine he would ever hit bottom, which I had heard was the only way that some people ever reach the point at which they're truly motivated to turn their lives around. But the justice system kept letting him scoot.

"Periodically, I would see him over the years, and he seemed to have at least found a way to earn an honest living playing poker. But because I could never bring myself to pretend I found his lifestyle admirable, we became fully estranged. He went so far as to change his name because apparently every once in a while, because of our unusual last name, some fellow gambler would ask him if he was related to me, and Max found it increasingly annoying.

"In retrospect, the best I can say about fatherhood is that if I hadn't experienced it, I would no doubt have assumed that I would have had wonderful, loving, productive children. At least this way, I don't have to be held hostage to a delusion."

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But it does occur to me that when I see college students behaving like brats if someone dares voice an opinion they happen to disagree with, I'm further convinced that the so-called millennials must be the single most ignorant, most infantile, most coddled generation in American history.

In roughly 70 years, we've gone from the slightly over-hyped Greatest Generation to one that is either unwilling or unable to grow up. It seems that whichever way you turn these days, you encounter a Peter or Petunia Pan.

A cartoon someone recently sent me summed up the current state of affairs in four panels. In the first, a young man is telling a young woman: "I don't believe that women have any rights, and I think gays should be hanged." In the second, the young woman responds: "Wow, what a complete primitive a--hole you are! You must be a Republican."

In the third panel, he says: "No, actually, I'm a Muslim and those are my religious beliefs." In the fourth, she naturally replies: "Oh! I'm sorry! I apologize! I hope you don't think I'm Islamophobic!"

Needless to say, if my wonderful wife, Yvonne, should take exception to those words, I am fully prepared to state for the record that Mr. Golding not only didn't deserve his Nobel Prize for Literature, but that, in this instance, he obviously misspoke.

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To the extent that the resentment is in any way racial, it's not because Americans hate Hispanics, but because so many of them arrive without marketable skills, which means that a large number of them will be dependent on their reluctant hosts to provide them with food, shelter, clothing, health care and, inevitably, penal incarceration.

Which brings us to Donald Trump, who has based much of his campaign on the harsh measures he is prepared to impose on illegal immigrants, insisting that he will not only deport every single one of them, but will build a wall and send the bill to Mexico.

If I seem skeptical, it's not because I hate him, but because here on the planet Reality, I know flapdoodle when I hear it. A lot of Republicans regard Mr. Trump as a breath of fresh air, a man who says what he means and means what he says. I might join their ranks if he didn't keep denying he said what I heard him say the day before. Most recently, he claimed to be in favor of raising the minimum wage. The next day, he changed his mind.

For my part, it would also help if he didn't keep trying to pass himself off as a political outsider. This is a guy who started testing the presidential waters over 30 years ago, and yet, until 2015, he never did so as a registered Republican.

Even though he never got around to running, he has been deeply involved in the political scene for decades, funding any number of campaigns, most of them on behalf of people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer and even Hillary Clinton.

For some reason, a lot of Republicans are more than willing to give him a pass, pointing out on his behalf that it was the price of doing business. These are the same people who never turn a blind eye to those they regard as RINOs, even though being a moderate on some issues is often the price of doing business in Washington or of even getting elected in most states.

Even now that he has clinched the GOP nomination, Trump continues to support Planned Parenthood and to flay Republican legislators in North Carolina for passing a law requiring transgenders to use the bathroom facilities designated by Mother Nature.

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Frankly, I have no idea why so many Republicans have fallen prey to the Pied Piper of Manhattan or why they placed so much stock in the primaries in places like New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Vermont. Those are not states that any Republican is going to carry in November. But I guess unless God or the FBI intervenes, we are going to see Trump and Clinton duke it out in six months. It's hard to handicap the fight because Trump has the weight, height and reach advantage, but she fights dirty.

As for booting out millions of illegal aliens, even Trump understands that the law requires that each of the individuals have a legal hearing to determine his or her official status. However, the one way to get a wall built is to threaten to skip the hearings and make it appear we are loading the scofflaws onto trucks and railroad cars heading south. Mexico, facing the unwelcome return of all those people, would not only pay for the wall, they'd have the damn thing built in a week. What's more, they'd erect guard towers every few hundred yards, and they'd mine the surrounding area to make certain that nobody was trying to tunnel their way back home.

One of the sillier things liberals say when they're pleading on behalf of illegal aliens is that we should never even consider separating families. I'm all for keeping families intact, but if it mattered as much to the parents as it does to me, why didn't they stay home in the first place and take care of their kids?

The result of what has transpired over the past few decades is that we have a near-majority of what Rush Limbaugh refers to as low-information voters. It's because there are so many of them that Barack Obama and his flying monkeys in Congress can get away with passing off millions of young able-bodied Islamic males as "widows and 5-year-old orphans."

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One of the few liberals I have retained cordial relations with is a former agent of mine. He is without a doubt the only agent I ever had that I liked. Believe me, in most cases, you really don't want to be seen in public with these people.

I know that Charley (not his real name) sometimes reads my articles, but he never comments, so I can only imagine his typical reaction, which I have always assumed is "Burt writes well, but his positions on the issues are absurd. If only he saw the light and agreed with me when it comes to politics, he'd be brilliant."

Recently, Charley broke his silence and in response to an article in which I wrote that inasmuch as Obama was raised as a Muslim, wouldn't his claim to be a Christian make him an apostate. And if so, why hadn't any of the Islamic factions put out a fatwa on him, as they had on Salman Rushdie when he wrote "Satanic Verses"?

Charley wrote: "Has it ever been documented – other than in an opinion piece by someone who hates him – that Obama was 'raised Muslim'?"

I responded: "He was brought up in Indonesia by a Muslim stepfather until, I believe, the age of 12. Does that not count? Why else would he have remarked that the Islamic call to prayers was the loveliest sound in the world? But, as I have said on several occasions, inasmuch as his idea of a Christian church and a religious mentor was the church presided over by Rev. Jeremiah ("G—damn America!") Wright, I didn't see how that was better than attending a mosque."

In response, Charley wrote: "Mmmm, you exaggerate when you say he was 'raised Muslim.' I enjoy your columns, but I do think sometimes you state things as if they were facts, when they are merely hypothesis. Still … please don't ever stop entertaining all of us."

Sugar is nice, but it has its limits. I wrote back to say: "Frankly, I don't see the exaggeration. I don't think his being raised as a Muslim makes him worse than he is. Furthermore, you seem to think that those facts with which you disagree aren't facts.

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"Inasmuch as you are a liberal and therefore of the opinion that Islam is every bit as legitimate a religion as Judaism and Christianity – and maybe even more so – why do you take umbrage at my conclusion based on the circumstantial evidence that Obama was raised in the Islamic faith? I would take a Muslim – except for one looking to blow up a pizza parlor or a school bus – over a guy who, with all the churches to choose from in Chicago, sought out one that promoted racism, anti-Semitism and was virulently anti-American."

Apparently, business was slow that day because Charley took the time to write back: "Yes, I do believe Islam is a legitimate religion. I don't dispute that a disproportionate number of Muslims seem to be radicalized – I'm not sure why that is – and I'm not making apologies for those who hate the West and/or Jews and/or Israel for no good reason. While I find your columns stimulating and entertaining, I will 'bust your chops' when you present something as fact that I don't believe is. I think I did so a few years ago when in one column or another you stated 'most lawyers are liberals.' Most that I know are conservatives. I have found no statistical evidence that 'most attorneys are liberals.'"

"You're right," I conceded, "I should have made it clear that it was criminal defense lawyers I had in mind. Perhaps I assumed that in the context of what I was writing at the time, my readers would have understood that to be the case. But when it comes to Muslims, those who kill in the name of their religion are the true believers. And that should answer your question regarding why they hate Israel and the West and why they behead non-believers.

"I do believe that most Muslims take pride in the brutality of their brethren, which may explain why you never see Muslims parading in opposition to the butchers. But I would still like to know why you approve of Obama and why you would like to see Mrs. Clinton continue his policies. Is it all about party label? I mean, I'm a conservative, but I had little regard for G.W. Bush. The only two things I appreciated about him was his managing to keep Gore and Kerry out of the Oval Office.

"From my perspective, Obama's policies and the EPA's regulations have extended the lousy economy; his foreign policies have raised the threat level from Russia, China, ISIS, North Korea and Iran; his pro-black/anti-cop bias have made race relations worse than they've been in over 50 years; his total disregard for the Constitution has increased the divide between members of the two parties, as has his bad manners (telling GOP politicians, including his recently defeated opponent John McCain, in 2009 to sit down, shut up and get out of his way, etc.)"

Charley replied: "You never see Muslims parading in opposition to the butchers? While I think a hell of a lot more could be done, please note below." (Below was a link showing a handful of Muslims holding signs in Paris stating they opposed the recent violence that left 130 dead.)

I replied: "Interesting. Odd that you never see it happening here in the States, where it would be safest for a Muslim to go public. In fact, after 9/11, I thought it would have been a fine idea if American Muslims had passed the hat in their mosques and come up with reward money for Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. Instead, they continued funding Hamas and Hezbollah through phony charities until the FBI shut them down. In addition, they kept playing the victim card, yammering about being racially profiled, although hate crimes committed against Muslims never came close to those committed against American Jews.

"But how about taking a moment to let me know why you think America would be better served if Obama is replaced by someone who vows to continue more of the same? Is it enough for you that the president is someone with a (D) after his name?"

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For instance, two people with equally good intentions can arrive at differing conclusions when it comes to achieving certain shared goals. But when one of those people intentionally lies, and for no apparent reason, gaining no obvious advantage, what other explanation can there be?

You should understand I am excluding politicians. After all, they will say or do just about anything if they have reason to believe it will help them get elected. But what excuse do liberal voters have for enabling politicians to get away with it?

For instance, when liberals defend sanctuary cities as being necessary in a humane society, how is it they don't recognize that compassion has nothing to do with it? What their politicians want are millions of potential voters. But why should normal people want to encourage sneaks to invade America? Surely they know their tax dollars, along with everyone else's, will be spent housing, sheltering and providing health care for these scofflaws. In addition, they will not only take jobs away from American citizens, but are likelier than others to commit crimes because they have relatively few marketable skills.

Why do liberals insist that women are paid less than men when they know that the law has prevented inequality in wages since the 1960s? The discrepancy between genders exists, but it's because objective studies have shown that on average men work longer hours, are obviously going to take less time off for pregnancy and child care and, typically, take higher-risk jobs that happen to pay above average wages. It is not a coincidence that men are far likelier than women to have accidents or even to die on the job when they are generally the ones who work as cross-country truck drivers, deep-sea fishermen, coal miners and loggers. Seen a lot of female welders working on the 60th floor of a skyscraper under construction lately?

Liberals get away with the obvious lie by pretending that a kindergarten teacher or social worker is comparable to a chemist or a physicist, and then cry "Foul!" that the far better-educated male is paid more. The truth is that female chemists and physicists also earn more. But there are just a lot fewer of them.

Another convenient lie on the left is that photo IDs are racist in spite of the fact that blacks never seem to have a problem providing the photos when they get on a plane, buy a six-pack, drive a car, collect welfare or enter any venue where Barack Obama is giving a speech.

Among other lies, there's the one that insists that guns in the hands of law-abiding people are any more dangerous than screwdrivers, pliers and juicers, when everyone knows that the only time guns are really dangerous is when they're being used by loons and inner-city gangbangers, just as pressure cookers only become lethal when they fall into the hands of young Muslims.

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Two other big fat liberal lies spring to mind. The first is that it makes no difference whether a child is raised by a mother and a father or by a same-sex couple, although liberals seem to favor the latter. The second lie involves transgenders, whom liberals seem to regard as an endangered species. The notion that people should be entitled to use any bathroom facility they like, and that to deprive them of that license is the equivalent of Jim Crow laws, is so absurd it could only be seriously put forth by left-wing morons. Especially those with college degrees.

Finally, why do they perpetuate the lie that college campuses are the happy hunting grounds of sexual predators? What is the purpose of insisting, as feminist activists do, that 20-25 percent of American coeds are doomed to be raped before they graduate? The proof that everyone knows this to be a totally bogus statistic is that liberal parents continue sending their daughters off to college.

On top of which, if college campuses were really that toxic, why would so many young women pursue advanced degrees? Doesn't what passes for logic in liberal circles dictate that the more time one devotes to getting an education, the greater the likelihood that a young man will become a rapist and a young woman a rapee?

Another annoying aspect to liberalism is that although they have nothing but contempt for capitalism and the motivation it inspires, they never even stop and consider what other reason there was for people much smarter than they are to have invented and then improved upon computers or any of the other technological gadgets they can't live without. Do they really believe that Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg weren't looking to make millions, even billions, of dollars?

For that matter, considering the contempt they have for money and those who have it, how is it that they're always fawning over the super wealthy, people like the Clintons, rock stars and the Obamas? And why is it that their attention is so often focused on money – whether it's in the form of welfare, free college tuition or a higher minimum wage?

Speaking of millionaires and billionaires, why is it that aging rock stars never follow the example of those old generals who simply fade away? Why are we still being lectured to by the likes of Bono, who demands that America throw open its doors to Islamic immigrants, even though I don't see him inviting them to come live in his castle?

Then there's Bruce Springsteen, the self-righteous punk who canceled a concert in North Carolina simply because the state passed legislation denying transgenders the right to decide for themselves which bathrooms to use. Did The Boss even consider the fact that in promoting a boycott, the people who suffer the most aren't the legislators in Raleigh, but the working stiffs all over the state who lose jobs when the economy tanks?

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But, by and large, I would be happy to vote for someone who agreed with me on, say, 75 percent of the following issues: I'm against abortions and same-sex marriages. In the first instance, I refuse to accept that a baby can be both a little person whose birth is anxiously anticipated by large numbers of people, while in another case can simply be removed like a wart. Either the little life is precious or it's worthless, but it can't be both simultaneously.

When it comes to same-sex marriages, my opposition isn't based on hatred of gays, but because it is nonsensical. Society has its normative values, and they shouldn't be tossed aside simply for the convenience of those who think "love" trumps everything.

I am in favor of capital punishment because the taking of an innocent life is either the worst crime imaginable or it isn't, and I happen to believe it is. I also favor building more and larger prisons. Judging a society by its number of inmates, as liberals do, is pointless. The only nations that should be judged in that fashion are those tyrannies, such as Russia, China and Cuba, where people are incarcerated for what they think, not for what they do.

I oppose sanctuary cities because they are as illegal as the aliens they protect against federal prosecution. I would also arrest the mayors and city council members who are responsible for thumbing their collective noses at federal law. I also object to illegal aliens, be they Hispanic or Islamic, receiving social services of any kind and to granting citizenship to the children of those who are here illegally. After all, you cannot profit from the commission of a crime, and neither should your offspring. In addition, I would make illegal entry a felony, not a misdemeanor. Defending America's sovereignty should not be equated with jaywalking.

I am for enlarging our military and am totally in favor of waging war against ISIS and other jihadists. What I oppose is nation-building or pretending that Islam is a peace-loving religion.

I would do away with the U.N., but would form a mutual defense treaty with Israel, thus announcing to Iran and other mullah-riddled Middle East regimes that an attack on Israel would constitute a declaration of war on the U.S.

I oppose transgenders using the bathrooms, locker rooms and pronouns of their choice. Being a freak should imply certain inconveniences, not being granted unwarranted privileges.

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I oppose all forms of welfare for the able-bodied and oppose the minimum wage. The minimum wage is nothing more than a cheap trick the Democrats play on Hispanic aliens, the most ignorant members of their base. Actually, it's a win-win for the liberals, because they receive kudos from those union members whose contracts are tied to the minimum wage, thus providing them with an automatic pay raise without the necessity of walking around in a circle chanting inane slogans and carting picket signs.

I oppose Obamacare and any other form of federal health care, but I would compel insurance companies to compete in all 50 states. Moreover, I would prevent their dropping customers whose premiums were all paid up simply because they had contracted a major life-threatening disease. Instead, I would see to it that every insurance company in the country contributed to a common fund that covered catastrophic injuries and illnesses.

I would fire any teacher and professor who used his status to promote his political agenda, even if it happened to be one I agreed with. A teacher's primary responsibility is to teach the basic essentials while encouraging his or her charges to think for themselves.

In addition, I would immediately expel any student who disrupted the free expression of another, especially on the embarrassing grounds that whatever the person was expressing hurt their feelings. The first 10 amendments to the Constitution, the students should have been taught early on, are the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Suggestions.

There are probably a few other items I've neglected to mention, but you get the general idea.

And because I know that no one politician agrees with me about everything, the thing that matters the most isn't which Republican wins the nomination, but that no socialist, be it Clinton, Sanders, Biden or Elizabeth Warren, be elected. That's because those people disagree with me about everything.

To those who have sworn they will stay home if their favorite, be it Trump, Cruz or Kasich, doesn't garner the nomination, I say, as Reagan said about federal bureaucrats, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

If your partisanship is to a single candidate, not the nation, you are not, as you believe, a patriot; what you are is an uncompromising, self-indulgent, moron. As someone recently said on Fox, a candidate should be allowed to say, "Please compare me to the alternative, not to the Almighty."

For instance, I believe I have even come up with a way for Donald Trump to reach the 1,237 vote plateau needed to wrap up the GOP nomination. I'm sure if I were on some politician's payroll, I could come up with a fancy term for it, but basically it comes down to bribery.

Let us say, for instance, that Trump arrives at Cleveland 100 or 150 votes shy of the required number. My suggestion is that he sit down and write 100-150 $1 million checks.

I understand that it's not exactly kosher, but why should Democrats be the only people who are allowed to buy votes?

At least Trump would be using his own money, not ours.

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At the time, I said that America could probably manage to survive eight years of Barack Obama, but I wasn't convinced it could survive an electorate that would provide him with a second term. I still feel that way.

For instance, the biggest mystery surrounding polls are the missing percentages. In other words, in a poll prior to the Wisconsin primary, Cruz was at 38 percent, Trump was at 33 percent and Kasich 22 percent. That added up to 93 percent. So where was the other 7 percent hiding? Were they people still holding out for Rubio, Christie or Bush? Or were they the people who when asked by the pollsters who they favored in the primary, replied, "What's a primary?"

Consider that the front-runner is a woman who is regarded as dishonest and untrustworthy by a majority of Americans, including even the pinheads who can't wait to send her back to the White House.

The other person in the race is an elderly man who even after a quarter of a century in the Senate hasn't a single accomplishment on his resume. He is so lacking in integrity that even though he identifies himself as a socialist, but calls himself an independent, in spite of rubber-stamping every item of Obama's agenda. He is running as a Democrat because, as he admits, he couldn't even wage a campaign if he had an (S) or an (I) after his name.

He is running to be commander in chief because it's been his lifelong ambition to lead a revolution that turns America into a socialist's wet dream. The odd thing is that I believe America has already achieved that dubious status, and I would support a revolution that reversed the leftward trend that began under the abominable Woodrow Wilson, was sped up under FDR and LBJ and saw its vile culmination under Barack Obama.

After all, how much more socialistic could we be? For openers, Social Security was essentially a Ponzi scheme, but nobody ever went to jail for not investing his money with Charles Ponzi.

Then there is the matter of Medicaid, welfare for illegal aliens and able-bodied sloths, unemployment insurance, Obamacare and food stamps for millions who don't need them. Let us not forget disability insurance, which has become so corrupt that cops and firemen are regarded as suckers if they don't declare, and have confirmed by shyster quacks, that they've suffered disabling injuries shortly before announcing their retirement.

Then there is the matter of single women giving birth to multiple babies American taxpayers are going to have to support, while the women and the no-account men who impregnate them get off scot-free.

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The welfare system in America is called a safety net, but in reality it is a Faustian arrangement that consists of a rope with nooses at both ends, requiring that the recipients remain forever dependent and requires that liberal politicians trade on that dependence in exchange for votes.

The tragedy is that nothing is off limits when it comes to a corrupt, left-wing-dominated society. Even the military, which used to be a shining example of the best America had to offer in terms of patriotism, courage and character, has evolved into a laboratory for social engineering. No longer do we even pretend that we are out to wage and win wars. Whereas we used to use terms like "no guts, no glory," "go for broke" and "Semper fi," today the most common expression used in connection with the military is "no boots on the ground."

It used to be that the worst thing to be said for the Pentagon was that it wasted our money by spending too much on everything from screwdrivers to latrines, but those days are long gone. Ever since Clinton was in the White House and the litmus test for promotions was how many butts a general could kiss, things have only gotten worse.

These days, when even "don't ask, don't tell" has been turned into a welcome mat for homosexuals, and the move is on to satisfy feminists by placing women in combat, few at the Pentagon even concern themselves with military morale.

Society in general appears to be trying to replicate ancient Rome as quickly as possible. For openers, pornography is one of the few growth industries we can point to. Next, radical Islam has declared war on us, as well as the rest of the non-Islamic world, but instead of taking them on, we accommodate them by encouraging millions to emigrate to the West, and then pretend to be surprised when they butcher us.

We promote diversity, which, when properly translated, means we pretend that unskilled and unschooled people from Third World countries are a welcome commodity and that their culture is every bit as advanced as our own.

We pretend that transgenders have every right to use whichever bathrooms, locker rooms and pronouns that suit their perverted inclinations.

Furthermore, we pretend that there is a war on women and that employers are so biased towards females that they are only too happy to pay an extra 29 percent in order to hire men to do the same job.

When it comes to guns, there are those in government who believe that those who use them for hunting or to protect their loved ones should be disarmed, but come down with a case of the vapors if you even suggest going after the black and Hispanic gangs who use them to commit most of the homicides in America.

Part of the revolution I would like to see is the one that turns our schools back into places where the basics are taught and where independent thought is encouraged. Instead, we have brought up generations of youngsters on a diet of left-wing propaganda with an emphasis on the students feeling good about themselves and their accomplishments. Those accomplishments, by the way, consist solely of parroting the malarkey they've been spoon-fed and displaying an intolerance for diverse opinions unmatched since Stalin dealt with dissenters by sending them off to winter in Siberia.

When I was young, I had a bunch of born-in-czarist Russia uncles who constantly hailed the glories of the Soviet Union, which they would refer to, with a straight face, as the workers' paradise.

Like Sen, Sanders, they, too, longed for a revolution. I would point out to them that they had all been black marketers during WWII in Chicago, who had then moved to L.A. and invested their untaxed profits in apartment buildings, liquor stores and bowling alleys.

I would patiently explain that inasmuch as they were all war profiteers, absentee landlords
and unrepentant Jewish capitalists, when the revolution arrived, the communists would probably line them up against the wall before the firing squads even got around to the Rockefellers.

Because I don't have his ear, I'm afraid someone else will have to point out to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who pulls down $174,000-a-year without even breaking a sweat, what he can expect, comes the revolution.

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So often greed and sloth determine a nation's policies, but the hidden costs in welfare, crime and an inevitable decline in societal standards when it comes to education and even civility, can kill you. Sometimes, as we've seen for ourselves in Boston, Manhattan, Fort Hood and San Bernardino, quite literally.

But the ingratitude I refer to was when Sen Sanders, at an early debate, insisted that he was tired of all the chatter about her private server, thus taking off the table the very issue that could lead to her federal indictment. While it's true that Hillary applauded his statement at the time, she should have offered to fund his damn campaign.

No matter how Bernie feels about her criminal acts, I think we can all be grateful that Vermont's favorite socialist isn't the head of the FBI.

What's more, Sanders hasn't once referred to Benghazi or to her calling the families of the four victims liars when it was she who was on record blaming the massacre on some innocuous video at the same time she was alerting Chelsea and an Egyptian official that the video had nothing to do with the attack. There is a very good reason having nothing to do with political partisanship that a great many people refer to her as Hillary Rotten Clinton.

The way Sanders has laid off the woman's most blatant failings both as a secretary of state and as a human being is so breathtakingly chivalrous that even the marquis of Queensbury might have commended him, even if the marquis would probably have pointed out that it's a really pathetic way to run a campaign.

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All Team Trump had to do was point out that there had been troublemakers at some of his events and that they didn't want to take any chances with a woman they didn't know who seemed overly aggressive. But these well-paid morons, taking their lead from their leader, are so full of themselves that they can never bring themselves to admit they goofed.

As for Trump, he can pretend that women love him, and if he's referring to family members, I have no reason to doubt him. But if he actually believes he can win in November with poll numbers among women that approach Bluebeard's, he is even more delusional than I had imagined.

It now appears that the photo of his wife, Melania, Trump used as an excuse to attack Ted Cruz and threaten Mrs. Cruz was even more of a put-up job than I first thought. Even though Trump knew that the PAC that used the revealing photo in a TV ad was not connected to the Cruz campaign, and had supported Rubio and Bush in earlier days, there is no lie he won't tell and no weapon he won't use if he's convinced it will burnish his image as a tough guy.

Oddly enough, it works on some of his less discerning fans. Keep in mind Trump was the son of a multimillionaire and that he attended prep schools and pricey universities. He likes to pretend that he graduated from the School of Hard Knocks, but it was really the Wharton School of Business.

Although he actually boasts that his attendance at the New York Military Academy gave him more of a military background than many of those who actually served in combat, he not only didn't serve in the military, he used a number of student deferments to make certain he would never have to sacrifice time, blood or his pompadour in order to serve his nation.

So he can pretend to be a super patriot or a street fighter, but Trump only talks tough. In reality, he's about as tough as Frank Sinatra, the master of the sucker punch, who would hide behind his bevy of bodyguards if his victim decided to retaliate.

The real story behind the shot of Melania is that she was the girlfriend of Trump at the time he was considering running for the presidency on the Reform Party ticket, and the photo shoot was financed by Trump as a way of reaching out to young (male) voters.

As many of you know, I keep searching for reasons to vote for Trump, aside from wanting to keep a Democrat out of the White House. Needless to say, I'm still searching and have resorted to using bloodhounds.

Unfortunately, today, thanks to what Rush Limbaugh refers to as low-information voters, "interest" has morphed into "self-interest," which explains the popularity enjoyed by Hillary and Bernie.

As impatient as I and millions of others are to have the FBI investigation concluded and to see Mrs. Clinton indicted on charges that could land her in Leavenworth, I would imagine the one person even more impatient than the rest of us would be Joe Biden.

He must be wearing a hole in the carpet with his endless pacing back and forth, hoping against hope that the indictment is handed down tomorrow so he can slide in before Bernie Sanders has a chance to be crowned the King of Fools.

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Some years ago, the park rangers at the Serengeti began coming across the trampled carcasses of rhinos. They couldn't figure out the cause of the massacres until they set up hidden cameras. What they discovered was that young rogue elephants were the villains. They were running around like teenage gangbangers killing rhinos just for the hell of it.

The rangers were at a loss. The only option seemed to be to kill the pack before they started in on all the other animals. Fortunately, one of the rangers decided the cause was the lack of bull elephants in the area. Poachers had killed them off for their ivory tusks.

The plan the rangers hatched was to bring in a bunch of older elephants as role models. The problem was that nobody had been around to show the youngsters how elephants are supposed to behave or to administer discipline.

Before bringing in the herd, the rangers killed the leader of the pack, having determined that he was beyond redemption. Once he was out of the way, the elders quickly restored order.

Some people might resent having young blacks and Hispanic troublemakers compared to elephants, but it's the elephants who should be insulted. That's because it takes a poacher's bullet to prevent them from carrying out their paternal responsibilities.

The fault that does lie with society at large is that we've made it socially acceptable for young, unmarried, uneducated women to bear and raise children.

Although society pays lip service to the importance of children, we put the lie to our words when we dole out relatively short prison sentences to pedophiles and when we turn a blind eye to the huge number of babies born to women who are in no position to care for themselves, let alone raise babies, children and, most difficult of all, adolescents.

What is really odd about this is that we are a health-conscious nation when it comes to things like a balanced diet. We focus on things like calories and trying to avoid something called gluten, but we barely give a second thought to incompetent women or homosexual couples raising the next generation.

I'm not saying that these people don't love their children, but love isn't enough. If it were, most of us would try to survive on chocolate, that most lovable of foods.

I find it amazing that, for no other reason than political correctness, people are so willing to surrender the notion that the ideal when it comes to parenting is a father and a mother. Anything other than that combination is the equivalent of bringing up a child on an all-dairy or all-protein diet.

I'm aware that there are factors, including death and divorce, that can affect the situation. But when 71 percent of black babies and 53 percent of Hispanic babies are born into homes without a father's presence, we shouldn't be shocked when the kids grow up to slaughter rhinos.

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Another issue left-wing politicians tend to lie about is that young blacks and Hispanics have a high unemployment rate because of racist employers. But if these teenagers lack the discipline to even complete high school, where they're surrounded by their friends for six hours a day, why would anyone think they'd be willing or even capable of putting in an eight-hour work day?

As anyone who's been reading me for a while knows, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. But even I am getting a little fed up with the anti-Trump campaign. It's non-stop and all consuming, and it has nothing to do with his stand on the issues or even his actual rhetoric.

For instance, Michele Fields, a now-ex-reporter for Breitbart, claims that Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski grabbed her arm so hard it left a bruise. Well, I have watched the alleged assault several times on TV, and I was unable to see it occur.

That doesn't mean he didn't do it, but a couple of bruises on an arm could just as easily be self-inflicted. I mean, she wasn't hurled to the ground. It is possible that Lewandowski or some other Trump aide thought Ms. Fields was crowding the candidate as he approached the dais, and it certainly wouldn't do to have a presidential candidate shove past a young woman. His polling numbers among women aren't too good, as it is.

But knowing what we do about the media, when even seasoned White House reporters jostle to be seen on camera asking a question of Obama or Josh Earnest, are we supposed to ignore the fact that members of the media are every bit as publicity-mad as their cousins in show business? After all, a lot more people and potential employers have heard of Ms. Fields today than they did a couple of weeks ago.

On the other hand, Lewandowski did indeed go into a Trump crowd to wrench an obscenity-laced protest sign away from a demonstrator who had sneaked into the hall with the idea of raising a ruckus. I say, more power to Lewandowski.

If you want to hear what Trump or any other candidate has to say, you belong inside. If you're only showing up to let the TV cameras know you disagree with him, your place is outside, preferably across the street, not interfering with those entering the auditorium.

The weirdest thing about the anti-Trump activists, a great many of whom are being paid, probably by George Soros, is that the louder they shout and the more rabid they get, the better it is for Trump's campaign because it shows him being victimized by the mob.

I agree it's hard to picture a man with several billion dollars, a beautiful wife and a bunch of attractive, respectful, kids as an underdog, but somehow these dingbats are managing to pull it off.

Finally, I suspect that Barack Obama is such a sissy boy when it comes to armed conflict that he won't even watch war movies or John Wayne Westerns.

What confounds me is that even after ISIS has at long last been condemned for committing genocide against Christians, Europe is unwilling to initiate a modern-day crusade against the Islamists.

In prior times, we sometimes had to invent stories about the atrocities committed by our enemies to help foment sufficient hatred to get our patriotic juices flowing.

But nobody has to invent anything about the jihadists. They even make videos of their beheadings with which to taunt those of us in the West. Moreover, they have taken their unholy war to every corner of the globe. And still, the superpowers and some of the less superpowers sit idly by and let them get away with it.

It occurs to me as I see these barbarians turn the world into one large killing field that Hitler must be kicking himself over his lousy timing.

It turns out the little schmuck was simply born 80 years too soon.

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A campaigner may be able to get away with promising to do things on his own, pretending that Congress and the Supreme Court don't even exist, but only a dictator can actually get away with it.

Still, the most fantastic thing of all is that a candidate with an "R" after his name can be competitive in 2016 America. How is it even imaginable when the Democrats have bought and paid for the votes of blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, Muslims, college students, single women and union members? The left has even managed to convince a good number of financially secure senior citizens that they're being suckers if they don't sign up for SNAP (food stamps).

When you realize that even farmers believe they're entitled to receive ethanol subsidies until the end of time, I'm a tad surprised to find I'm not the last Republican standing.

That is about as clear and as succinct an argument against socialism as I've come across.

Although I don't encourage violence or lawlessness, I think it would be poetic justice if every dumb cluck with a Sanders yard sign or bumper-sticker had half his car and half his house or apartment confiscated for the sake of those poor unfortunates who lack homes and automobiles.

But it just made no sense to me that a charity could afford to spend so much money advertising night after night on Fox News.

Recently, WWP CEO Steve Nardizzi and COO Al Giordano were fired for their lavish spending. To give you an idea, the annual staff meeting at a 5-star hotel in 2014 ate up $970,000 in charitable donations.

In what passed for a mission statement, but what I read as a criminal confession, Nardizzi had summed up his approach: "We need to embrace the notion that has long guided the 'for-profit' world – think big and spend big in order to succeed big."

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My rule of thumb is to donate what I can to the Salvation Army. When it comes to veterans' groups and other charities, I suggest you go online and check out their financial reports, and if their directors are making more than you are, scratch them off your Christmas list.

What's more, never send a nickel to the Humane Society of the United States, no matter how many address labels they send you. Instead, I suggest that pet lovers donate to the various animal rescue groups in your community. The folks at the Humane Society of the U.S. make Nardizzi and Giordano look like pikers. Your donation is far likelier to wind up in a numbered account in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands than it is to save the life of a single dog or cat.

Trump's use of tough talk is certainly adolescent in the extreme, but it had no more to do with the mob behavior of Black Lives Matter, MoveAlong.org and the Bernie Sanders fan club, than it did with the similar mob that greeted Ben Shapiro when he tried to deliver an address about free speech at Cal State a week earlier.

For all the chatter about Trump's telling his supporters to punch out the lights of troublemakers, the most incendiary rhetoric of our times has come from black leftists calling for burning cops like bacon. But I haven't heard anyone in the media taking Sanders or Clinton to task for pandering to the creeps in the Black Lives Matter movement, and I'm betting I never will.

Ever since the 1960s, when young fascists were given a pass at Columbia, Cal Berkeley and the 1968 Democrat convention – also in Chicago – to act up without consequences, we have seen similar riots taking place on a regular basis.

We've seen them in Ferguson, Baltimore and New York, anytime a black criminal is killed by a cop in the line of duty, and on nearly every college campus when a conservative arrives to give an address. College campuses, where free speech was once held sacred, are now pig pens where left-wing professors and students display their mutual contempt for the First Amendment by mimicking their Nazi forebears and silencing those with whom they disagree.

The irony is that if you asked them why they're behaving like barbarians, they'd justify it by insisting it's because the speaker is someone who is intolerant of blacks, illegal aliens, Muslims, homosexuals and socialists. But what they really mean isn't "intolerant of," but, rather, not "reverential toward."

What took place in Chicago wasn't the final rousing scene of "Les Miserables," it was just another act in the long-running psychodrama known as "Fascism, American Style."

Wallace was grilling Donald Trump about his statement that the followers of Islam hate us. In framing his question, Wallace pointed out that whereas there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, he could only account for 100,000 jihadists.

If he hadn't repeated the number, I would have assumed I had misheard. I can't even imagine where he came up with his jihadist nose count.

I imagine there might be an 800-number that liberals call to order their statistics. It would explain where they got the 10 percent of the population who are allegedly homosexuals, when the actual number is probably between 1 and 2 percent, or that there are only 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., a number that, miraculously, hasn't wavered since they began tossing it around in the 1990s.

Getting back to Wallace, generally when it comes to guessing the number of real or potential terrorists in the Muslim world, the percentage you hear most often is 10 percent, which would translate to 150 million jihadists. But I consider even that a lowball figure.

Perhaps if they're only counting the Muslims who would have the guts to blow themselves to smithereens for the glory of Allah, 150 million might cover it. But when you add up those who feel Islamic pride well up when they hear about 3,000 people murdered in Manhattan, 130 slaughtered in Paris, 13 gunned down in San Bernardino, or when countless thousands are butchered, burned or beheaded, throughout the world, the actual number, I would suggest, is probably around 1,499,999,994.

And I'm not so sure about those other six.

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That's where Yvonne's role kicks in, but she will also comment on the content, and as annoying as that can be, I must confess she sometimes makes such a persuasive case that even Ted Cruz would be swayed.

I thought her last two suggestions were particularly good, and although my initial reaction was to pass them off as my own, I figured she might notice.

First, she would like Congress to pass legislation requiring that no member of the federal government ever be exempt from the laws they pass. If Yvonne's bill had already been the law of the land, I very much doubt that every Democrat would have been quite so anxious to sign the Affordable Care Act. I can't quite picture Nancy Pelosi giggling while telling her fellow House Democrats: "I guess we'll have to pass it before we actually know what's in it."

Yvonne's other bill would dictate that those legislators who oppose school vouchers be forced to enroll their own children in those local public schools they're forever boasting about, even as they have their own offspring safely ensconced in private and religious schools.

I'm aware that Yvonne wasn't the first person who ever came up with those ideas, but as husbands everywhere will confirm, ideas carry more weight when they come from your wife, and then keep coming.

Most, though not nearly all, of the problems with colleges these days involves those teaching the classes and those taking them. In far too many cases, neither group really belongs there. The professors, instead of utilizing the Socratic method in order to help the students to think for themselves, are using their bully pulpits to bully the students into parroting their leftist propaganda. Goodbye, Socrates; hello, Saul Alinsky.

In many cases, the fault belongs with the well-intentioned parents, who would like to believe the fruit of their loins are all scholars, not because the kids have ever shown any interest in pursuing scholarly matters, but because the parents are convinced it reflects well on them. And far too often these idiots are willing to mortgage their homes in order to finance the delusion.

But the fault is shared by those companies who won't even consider employing someone without a college degree, although most jobs require little more than a high school diploma.

If they were on the ball, more businesses would hire kids straight out of high school and put them through a 30- or 60-day training program so the kids would learn what they actually need to know and not waste four years while left-wing morons fill their little sponge brains with a lot of anti-capitalist bull-hockey.

Heck, if the military can take half-baked kids and teach them to fly supersonic jets and handle computers on nuclear subs, I'm betting that P&G or Ford can manage to teach them everything they'll ever need to know about cereal and cars.

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At least so far as Sanders is concerned, I suspect he really doesn't understand that million, billion and trillion, aren't really the same word spelled slightly differently for no other reason than to confuse him. Otherwise, how could he possibly believe that he could up with the $18 trillion he'd need in order to provide free universal health care and free college tuition by merely raising taxes on the super wealthy?

The shocking truth is there are only 540 billionaires in America. Bill Gates tops the list with $78 billion, and there are 39 others with fortunes in excess of $10 billion. Together, they add up to roughly $1.1 trillion.

The other 500 are worth on average $4 billion. In other words, if Bernie were able to confiscate every last cent these people had in the world – and he'd like nothing better! – the entire haul would fall short of $18 trillion by $14.9 trillion, give or take a few hundred billion.

Surely, even a 74-year-old socialist who spent his first 40 years scrounging off his parents and living in their basement, must understand that if confiscating the wealth of the very richest Americans still leaves you that far shy of the mark, the only way you'll ever reach your goal is by doing the very same thing to what still remains of America's middle class.

Still, the Wall remains one of the wonders of the world. If you include its branches, it measures over 13,000 miles long. Its walls originally rose to a height of 16 feet, 5 inches, but over the centuries those sections that were composed mainly of mud, rather than stone or brick, have eroded down to a height of less than seven feet. Having experienced similar erosion myself, I know all too well how the Wall feels.

Finally, it is only Chinese legend that the Great Emperor Don not only got it built, but made Mongolia pay for it.

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George Kennedy

George Kennedy died recently. It ended a friendship that had lasted nearly half a century.

I first heard from Kennedy in 1967 when, in my role as movie critic for Los Angeles magazine, I predicted he would win an Oscar for his performance as Dragline in "Cool Hand Luke." He wrote me a thank-you letter. I, in turn, invited him to my housewarming.

Much to my surprise, he showed up with his wife, but stayed only briefly because they had already committed to another party. As a housewarming gift, he brought me the LP of Lalo Shiffrin's score for "Luke."

When he happened to mention at the door that he didn't expect to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, I made him a $10 bet, based on my belief that Gene Hackman and Michael J. Pollard, both of whom had been nominated for "Bonnie and Clyde," would split the vote.

I guess nobody in the history of the world has ever been happier to lose a bet than George.

He called to suggest he pay up over lunch. As Claude Rains put it to Bogart, it was the start of a beautiful friendship. Once, he even went so far as to tell me that I should never hesitate to pan one of his performances, that it wouldn't affect our relationship. As it turned out, I panned a lot of his movies, but I never thought George gave a bad performance. He always seemed perfectly natural on screen, no matter if he was playing a cop, a priest, a judge, a gunfighter or a soldier.

If he seemed to be an especially convincing member of the military, perhaps it's because he spent 16 years in the Army, some of that time trying to survive the Battle of the Bulge.

He had intended to put in a full 20 years, but his back began to act up. At the time, he had been assigned to be, of all things, the technical adviser on the old Phil Silvers sitcom, "Sgt. Bilko." But his back got so bad and his limp became so pronounced that George decided he needed to have an operation.

However, when he visited the Army hospital, he ran into two soldiers he knew who told him that they had had the operation performed and they were in worse shape than ever.

At that point, George called off the operation and paid a visit to the producer of "Bilko," Nat Hiken, to ask if he could keep the job even if he was no longer in the service. Hiken told him the job was his, and Kennedy retired from the Army.

After a while, Hiken began to stick Kennedy in the back row of the soldiers in the barracks Bilko would address in every episode. That led to two life-changing events. The first was that Hiken's secretary noticed Kennedy limping around the office and advised him to see her uncle, a chiropractor in the Bronx. He did, and his limp disappeared. (However, once he began appearing in Hollywood Westerns, he had to visit chiropractors on a regular basis. And so, I suspect, did the horses that had to cart the 300-pounder around.)

The other thing that happened was that Kennedy's brief appearances on a hit comedy got him an agent. The agent advised George to go to Hollywood. At the time, there were a great many Western series on TV, and a lot of the heroes were very large men. Guys like Jim Arness and Clint Walker needed large villains to beat up, lest they came off like bullies.

He later bragged that just about every good guy on TV had at some time or another knocked him down or shot him dead.

George first became known to movie audiences when he became the villain with the hook stalking Audrey Hepburn in "Charade." It was his sympathetic portrayal in "Luke" that saved him from being typecast as a brute and helped extend his acting career to as recently as 2014.

Because George gushed about so many of his fellow actors, but especially his fellow World War II veteran, Jimmy Stewart, that I once asked him if he had ever worked with an actor he didn't like. Reluctantly, he admitted there had been two.

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The first was John Gielgud. Kennedy said that hardly a day went by on the set of the 1973 remake of "Lost Horizon" that Gielgud wouldn't mention that he was accustomed to doing Shakespeare and that he had only stooped to doing this piece of crap for the money.

While it's true that the movie was a turkey, the cast included the likes of Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann, Michael York, Sally Kellerman and Charles Boyer. But, as Kennedy said, none of them felt the need to carry on as if they were slumming, even though they had earned their own stripes by doing the likes of "A Nun's Story," "Cries & Whispers," "Cabaret," "MASH" and "Gaslight."

As George said, "If you're a professional and take their money, you shut up and do the best you can."

The other actor Kennedy had no use for was O.J. Simpson. It seems that every morning Simpson would bring his newspaper on the set of "Naked Gun." But when he was finished reading it, to make certain nobody else would get his mitts on it, he'd ball it up and shove it to the bottom of a trash can. If you think about it, that sort of selfish attitude would go a long way toward explaining why the schmuck would have killed his ex-wife and her boyfriend.

Although Kennedy didn't personally dislike Paul Newman, he knew that Newman resented the fact that George had won the Oscar for "Luke," while he had only been nominated.

He also discovered that when it was time to cast "Sometimes a Great Notion," and the producer wanted to cast George as Newman's brother, Newman nixed it. The producer later let George know the reason was that Newman, who was 5-foot-9 hadn't been comfortable acting next to Kennedy's 6-foot-4. Instead, the Oscar-nominated role went to 5-foot-7 inch Richard Jaeckel.

In hindsight, it's probably lucky that Robert Redford was only 5-foot-10 or "The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy" might never have been made.

For years, the two of us would meet regularly for lunch at Art's, George's favorite deli in the San Fernando Valley. One mystery I could never solve was how he could resist the tempting aromas of corned beef and pastrami, but I never knew him to order anything but an egg salad sandwich on rye bread.

Once George moved to Idaho so his second wife could be close to her family, I never got to see him again. But we did exchange email and birthday greetings. George got into the habit of signing off as one of his favorite old-time character actors. So one time it would be Adolph Menjou, another time Beulah Bondi or Eric Blore. I then began doing the same, keeping alive the memory of all those people who helped make the movies of the '30s and '40s so memorable.

So, good night, George. Please give my regards to Charles Bickford, Fay Bainter, Peter Lorre, Charles Coburn, Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick, Edmund Gwenn, William Demarest, Eric Rhodes, Eve Arden, Sydney Greenstreet, Frank Morgan, Edward Arnold, Una Merkel, Harry Davenport, Richard Haydn, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers and the rest of the old gang.

I'm sure they've already welcomed you with open arms and an egg salad sandwich.

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I have made many attempts over the years to explain the seemingly inexplicable. Just the other day, on receipt of an email from a reader, I had to do it all over again.

I always begin by pointing out that wisdom is not the same thing as being well-educated, and that making a good living doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with having even a grain of common sense. With that out of the way, I went on to write: "Jews are nearly always on the left and see their role in life as identifying with those they deem to be downtrodden, even though those people – blacks, illegal Hispanic aliens and felons – are among the worst anti-Semites in America.

"Jews are often raised in matriarchal homes, which helps to explain why so many more of them wind up as doctors, lawyers, scientists, accountants, set designers and gay, than in the military or working on a police force.

"It even explains why they often side with Muslims, especially on college campuses, in debasing Israel. It is engraved in the racial memory of Jews that we have suffered time and again at the hands of European Christians – even going so far as to misidentify the pagan Hitler as a Christian.

"It doesn't help that a great many Jews insist on pretending that they personally suffered through pogroms, in much the same way blacks like to pretend they felt the lash of the whip in the cotton fields.

"It probably doesn't help that in pursuing those advanced university degrees, Jews typically wind up spending far too many years in school, absorbing propaganda from left-wing, often Jewish, professors who simultaneously promote Islam and socialism while attacking Judaism, Christianity and capitalism.

"I know it doesn't really make a lot of sense that those who have benefited to such an extent from the freedoms and safety guaranteed by the Founding Fathers, most of whom were Christians, to appear so appallingly ungrateful. But, then, it is always easier to diagnose insanity than it is to cure it."

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Like Bernie Goldberg, I believe that Trump would have preferred to run as a Democrat, but decided it would be easier to run roughshod over the GOP contenders than have to face Hillary Clinton, whom he not only claimed had been a great secretary of state, but deemed the best person to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran.

Moreover, he shares common ground with Bernie Sanders when it comes to Obamacare. Both New Yorkers favor a single-payer health-care system. So much for New York values, which have a lot less to do with first responders than with the socialist agenda, which explains why the morons keep electing governors named Cuomo and mayors like Michael Bloomberg and Bill De Blasio.

Finally, in case you missed it, at a town hall meeting in South Carolina, Trump told Joe Scarborough that he doesn't want to take sides between Israel and the Arabs. Mr. Tough Guy said he prefers to remain neutral.

Imagine being neutral in a conflict between a free nation that is one of our few allies in the world and a group of guttersnipes who call for Israel's extinction and who rally to the cry of "Death to America."

This is the shmoe his supporters think is ready to defend our country? Well, perhaps against an impending invasion from Canada. But, frankly, I think Vladimir Putin would pants him and take away the fat boy's lunch money.

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Dr. Ben Carson lacks the experience to step from the surgical amphitheater into the Oval Office, but at least he seems like a grown-up. I can't imagine spending five minutes with any of the others, who come across like petulant children.

The fact that it is only February and that we might not settle on a nominee before the convention convenes in Cleveland in mid-July fills me with despair. I feel like the father of a large family heading off on a cross-country trip. Only instead of the kids asking the age-old question, I'd be the one constantly screaming "Are we there yet?"

We have Kasich, who spends all his time either bragging about single-handedly balancing the national budget 20 years ago or talking about how he's going to play Mother Teresa to the nation's dope addicts.

Then there's Cruz and Rubio, who can't quit squabbling for even a few seconds. It doesn't help that they are both of Cuban heritage, nearly the same age, both tea party favorites and both first-term senators. It's probably inevitable that they would take sibling rivalry to depths not seen since Cain and Abel.

But worst of all is Donald Trump. Like every bully, he has his band of flunkies who are just happy that he's not bullying them. They know he's gross and boorish, but they mistake that for toughness, and they labor under the delusion that it reflects well on them and makes them look tough.

They don't object to his sexist comments about Carly Fiorina and Megyn Kelly. They don't object to his vulgarity. They don't even object when he claims that George W. Bush lied in order to get us to invade Iraq, and then, the day after he says it in a debate, insists he said no such thing. The inevitable conclusion is that he not only thinks we're deaf, but dumb.

Trump also claimed that Jeb Bush said he would like to moon people. What Bush actually said was that he gets so little attention from the media that even if he pulled down his pants and mooned the members of the press, they wouldn't report it.

It would be like saying that Trump had seriously threatened to shoot people because he'd bragged that his followers love him so much that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't cost him a single vote.

To Trump's ditto-heads, I say you're free to admire him if you like, support him if you must, but you should at least acknowledge that you're like coeds who develop a crush on a loudmouth braggart not because they believe he's smart or decent or even a nice guy, but simply because he's the school's quarterback.

None of the preceding should be taken to mean that if Trump manages to somehow garner the nomination, I will be sitting home sulking in November. As bad as I think he is, Trump would clearly make a better president than the daffy duo duking it out on the other side.

Perhaps I'm hopelessly misguided, but I simply can't imagine that the majority of Americans would vote for a lying harpy like Mrs. Clinton, who suffers from what a friend describes as "electile dysfunction," or a self-proclaimed 74-year-old Jewish socialist. Keep in mind, though, that the last time I was this sure about anything was in 2012 when I insisted there was no way that the electorate would repeat the same mistake they'd made in 2008 after suffering through four interminable years of Obama.

Speaking of whom, one of my readers worries that Barack Obama will use an executive order to seat Eric Holder on the Supreme Court. I don't believe he could get away with doing it or by slipping him in as a recess appointment. Part of the reason I feel that way is because the Supreme Court in 2014 ruled that Obama had overstepped his authority in appointing members to the National Labor Review Board during what he claimed was a Senate recess, but which the Senate insisted was no such thing. Moreover, on a court that, until Justice Scalia's passing, decided nearly everything by a 5-4 vote, the Supremes voted 9-0 against the tyrant's unconstitutional ploy.

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Something that has gone viral on the Internet involves an imagined conversation between a Muslim child and his burka-wearing mother in Dearborn, Michigan. The child asks, "What's the difference between democracy and racism?"

Mama explains, "Democracy is when American taxpayers work hard every day so we can get free housing, free health care, free education and grants to build more mosques, along with more money in welfare payments than America's retired workers receive in Social Security benefits."

"But, Mama, don't the Americans ever get angry about that?"

"Of course they do. That's what we call racism."

Every year, the Washington Post holds a contest in which it invites its readers to take a word from the dictionary, add or subtract a single letter, and come up with a brand new definition.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Intaxacation – "Euphoria at receiving a tax refund, which lasts until you suddenly realize it was your money to start with."

Bozone – "The substance surrounding stupid people that prevents bright ideas from penetrating."

Foreploy – "Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting sex."

Decafalon – "The grueling event that calls for getting through the day consuming only those things that are good for you."

Glibido – "All talk and no action."

Reintarnation – "Coming back to life as a hillbilly."

The Post also has a yearly contest that calls for its readers to supply alternate definitions for common words.

Coffee –"The person upon whom one coughs."

Flabbergasted – "Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained."

Circumvent – "An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men."

Abdicate – "To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach."

Negligent – "Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown."

Pokemon – "A Rastafarian proctologist."

Oyster – "A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms."

Lymph – "To walk with a lisp."

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It was mind-boggling to hear her going on and on about a man who would not pass for a conservative among any conservatives I know. That doesn't mean I can't understand those who respond to his siren call of tough talk and big promises. But it does mean that I, personally, don't respond to a siren who has flip-flopped within just the past few years on just about every major issue.

Nobody has yet diagnosed Palin's odd behavior or determined her motive, if one rules out cold hard cash. But why rule out the most obvious motive? Although she has become very wealthy in the eight years since John McCain plucked her out of obscurity, it's always possible that the billionaire was in a position to make her an offer she couldn't refuse. After all, Trump has admitted to donating millions of dollars to dozens of liberal candidates over the years. Why would he do less for himself than he has done for Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton, when she was running for the Senate?

Heck, Trump even paid the Clintons $100,000 just to show up for his wedding.

The other possibility is that the sound of her own voice has finally driven Palin insane, much as it threatens to drive me whenever I hear that high-pitched whinny.

But it's not only pop culture that reflects this form of lunacy. For instance, if a painting can be authenticated as the work of Van Gogh or Picasso, people will pay tens of millions for it. However, if it is later determined to be a fake, it is worthless, although nothing about it has changed, and it may even have required an X-ray to establish its inauthenticity. In other words, aesthetics never entered into it. The painting was worth a fortune simply because it was painted by somebody famous.

Which reminds me, George Gershwin, composer, and Oscar Levant, pianist, were once traveling by train from New York to L.A. At bedtime, Gershwin told his friend to take the upper bunk. When Oscar asked why he had to take the less comfortable one, George explained: "It's the difference between talent and genius."

Politics in America has become increasingly frightening over the past several years, and it's not entirely due to Barack Obama, although heaven knows he seems to constantly go out of his way to send cold chills down my back and, I suspect, yours.

For instance, any president might feel the need to show his support for American Muslims by visiting a mosque. President Prelutsky wouldn't, but others might. But if I did, I would make sure I wasn't showing up at a Baltimore mosque that has been closely connected to terrorists for the past decade and that even now is on the FBI's watch list.

Unlike some, I do not believe that Obama is a follower of the Islamic faith, but that's partly because I don't see him abiding by any of the rules, which include not only praying five times a day, but not smoking, not boozing and not lying down with men. Besides, being a faithful Muslim would require Obama's acknowledging a god greater than himself.

On the other hand, it's obvious that because of his upbringing in Islamic Indonesia, he continues to have a soft spot for the religion. So don't expect him to ever dismiss the followers of Allah as "those who cling to their religion and their suicide bombs."

While pandering to the followers of Allah, he said that he would like to see some Muslim characters on TV who aren't terrorists. For our part, we'd like to see some terrorists in real life who aren't Muslims.

In case you're not sure what socialism is, a cartoon on the Internet shows Bernie Sanders as a grandfather, holding a book, sitting beside the bed of a small child. On the wall is a college banner reading "Millennials," identifying the tyke as a representative of the group that includes Bernie's most fervent supporters.

The child is saying "Read the part again how you're gonna make evil rich dudes give me a free pony, a free Xbox, a free hoverboard, a free ..."

That not only sums up socialism, but the mindset of far too many young voters. They have been raised to believe they are entitled to everything the world has to offer, except, of course, pain, discipline and deprivation. They have scooted through a public education system that promotes the notion that good grades are a fundamental right so as not to jeopardize anyone's self-esteem. And once in college, the young knuckleheads are handed off to aging left-wing propagandists, who, armed with tenure, are free to spout the same anti-American crapola they were spouting 40 or 50 years ago.

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I know that those who defend Islam insist that there is a gulf between radicals and moderates that's wider than the Grand Canyon. I just don't see it that way. I understand that most American Muslims would never think of slicing the throat of a non-believer, but where is the proof that they don't cheer on those who do?

We know that even after 9/11, the FBI had to stop a great many American Muslims from sending donations to Hamas and Hezbollah under the pretense that they were making charitable contributions. We've certainly heard them whining about racial profiling and about having the activities inside their mosques monitored by the police. But when have we ever seen Muslims marching in protest to the butchery committed by their co-religionists?

We are told that all Muslims are not alike, but what group is? Christians aren't. Some are Catholics, some are Methodists and Presbyterians. All Jews are not alike. Some are orthodox, some are conservative, some are reform, and a great many just have Jewish names and like corned beef sandwiches. But none of these people are killing in the name of their religion. And when a Christian or a Jew does commit murder, you do not hear other Christians and Jews defending them.

And yet we have Obama, Hillary Clinton and just about every other Democrat insisting that we welcome in as many Muslims as we can get our hands on. They do so not because they love them or think they bring with them something special in the nature of art, music, fashion or cuisine to America, but because they assume that Muslims, like the Hispanics who have sneaked into our country, will vote overwhelmingly for left-wingers like themselves.

Leo Hohmann, in an article posted at WND, reports that Hamdi Ulukaya, owner of Chobani yogurt, not only has hundreds of his fellow Muslims working at his plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, but at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, urged his fellow CEOs to do everything in their power to assist Muslim refugees. As a result, Ikea, MasterCard, Linkedin, Western Union and UPS have all agreed to hire more Muslims or at least provide them with free services.

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If you've been buying Chobani, you just might want to consider giving one of the other brands of yogurt a try.

In related news, the 53 Muslims working at the Ariens snow blower factory in Wisconsin are suing to have unscheduled prayer breaks from the assembly line. These folks, let us remember, belong to the same religion as those taxi drivers who refused to carry passengers accompanied by dogs or bottles of liquor, as well as the truck drivers who refused to convey pork products.

The question is why anyone in his right mind would ever hire these schmucks.

Socialism and its strong-arm partner, communism, oppose families as well as religion. The reason they hate families is because they prefer that the loyalty of the masses be solely to the state. They hate religion, which Karl Marx referred to as the opiate of the masses, because it asks that people concentrate on a higher and deeper meaning to life than the redistribution of wealth.

There is nothing in Marx's own demented religion that offers anything to compare with the wisdom of the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments. What's more, the Rule and the Commandments managed to get everything said in 84 words, whereas Marx took 304 pages in the "Communist Manifesto" and another 1,152 in "Das Kapital" to spell out his asinine beliefs.

When you realize that the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez and Castro have all used it as their bible, Satan might as well have his name on the copyright.

Tragically, one of Marx's goals has already played out here in America. Today, when 72.3 percent of black babies, 53.3 percent of Hispanic babies and 29.1 percent of those born to non-Hispanic whites are born to unwed mothers, we are well on our way to having an America where men are no longer fathers, but merely anonymous sperm donors.

It's now become commonplace for privileged blacks to gripe about such minor matters. However, you never hear anything when occasionally two of the four acting awards go to blacks, even though 50 percent far exceeds their proportion in the nation or in Hollywood. Apparently, quotas only matter when they provide boneheads with evidence of victimhood.

What is peculiar is that you never hear Latinos bitching about not receiving their fair share of Oscars even though they out-number blacks in America. In fact, over the years, 11 black actors and actresses have taken home the golden eunuch, whereas only seven Hispanics have won, although Anthony Quinn won twice as Best Supporting Actor.

Just don't blame me when the members of La Raza and their representatives in Congress start holding demonstrations outside the Dolby Theatre. Sooner or later, they were bound to notice how much attention jerks like Sharpton, Smith and Lee receive whining over this non-issue, even if I hadn't mentioned it.

But a few months ago, he let me know that although he still missed his wife, he was falling in love with another woman and felt he had found a reason to live.

It struck me that sometimes it's true that when one door closes, another opens, but only if you remain open to life's infinite possibilities and haven't removed the welcome mat.

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I found the people very friendly, and I liked the Midwestern food. I did find it odd that when I'd talk to the high school students who would hang around the location and ask them about their plans, they nearly always talked about moving away after graduation. But they weren't looking to move to the bright lights of New York, Chicago or L.A. They were talking about moving a few miles up the road, most of them hoping to grab a job with one of the major insurance companies that were headquartered in Des Moines.

I didn't hold their seeming lack of worldly ambition against them. I thought it was admirable that so many of them looked forward to getting married, settling down and raising their kids within a half hour drive of their own parents and childhood friends.

Having said all that, I do not understand why either political party allows itself to be held hostage by a state that is totally out of whack with the rest of the country, demographically speaking.

I understand why Iowa wants to maintain its position. Being front and center during election season is a definite advantage. For one thing, with all the candidates and reporters having to spend month after month within its borders, every four years Iowa's retailers and the local TV stations that get to run political ads 24/7 are able to enjoy the longest Christmas in America.

But to spend all those millions of dollars and to waste all that time in a competition to garner the majority of about 120,000 caucus votes is a fool's errand. Worst of all, traditionally, the winner in Iowa does not go on to garner the nomination, let alone the presidency.

However, every time some other state makes a move to gain first position by moving ahead of Iowa, the Hawkeye State counters by threatening to move their own caucus to an even earlier date, like, say, the previous June!

The only way to bring order out of chaos is for the two parties to set up a different order of primaries and to then threaten any state that challenges the common-sense solutions with having their numbers at the nominating convention cut to the bone.

And the same goes for New Hampshire!

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All in all, I thought most of the contenders did pretty well in the main event, although, for the life of me, I don't understand the constant sniping between Rubio and Cruz. I find it really hard to believe that it plays well with voters, particularly the evangelical Christians of Iowa. This was underlined during the undercard when Rick Santorum was asked a question that appeared to question his authenticity when it came to family values. When Carly Fiorina was next called upon, she opened her remarks by calling out the moderator for appearing to question Santorum's pro-life credentials. It was the biggest applause line of the evening.

The only line that came close came just after Cruz and Rubio had just concluded yet another of their nitpicking spats and Gov. Chris Christie observed that listening to senators talk reminded him once again why normal people required a Washington-to-English dictionary converter.

Generally, when people conclude a staged debate, be it in high school or college, they shake hands, and it reflects well on all parties. But when these guys, particularly Cruz, Rubio and Bush, conclude theirs with handshakes and big smiles, it makes them look like hypocrites.

Would it kill them to say they may disagree about immigration, ethanol, tariffs or even gluten, for goodness sake, but that they agree on most issues and that they'd vote for the other guy in a heartbeat if he were to wind up being the nominee?

I honestly believe it would play a lot better with most voters, including me, though not necessarily for those favoring Trump, whose support seems to rest on his continuing to be the most arrogant and obnoxious boor in the race.

Basing one's candidacy for the Oval Office on being a billionaire and an ex-reality TV star doesn't strike me as a giant step up from having "former community organizer" on one's resume.

There you have it, 16 letters that not only sum up the two candidates, but their party whose own motto might well be: "For over 80 years, using smart people's money to bribe really stupid people to vote for us."

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I know why I was there. It's because I take my responsibility to ridicule liberals seriously, and I am always seeking grist for my busy little mill. But what were all those other people thinking? Is it possible that 10 percent of Americans are masochists?

Where to begin? Well, for openers, I assumed that when I heard that his speech wasn't going to be his customary list of future plans to destroy America, but, rather, a summing-up of his accomplishments, he'd have it all wrapped up in four or five minutes.

But, then, I had forgotten that the occasion calls for him to make a grand entrance, stopping every two seconds on his way to the podium to shake every male hand and kiss every female cheek.

As time-consuming as that was, everything took three times as long as it should have because, one, Obama paused two or three times during every sentence, as is his wont, in order to verbally underline each and every platitude he utters; and two, the puppets in the audience greeted 70 of those sentences with a standing ovation. Trained seals around the world could only look on in awe and envy.

Speaking of the pauses, it's as if Obama thinks he's delivering dictation, though not to a stenographer, but, rather, to a stonemason who's carving his ill-chosen words into marble.

In case you've been waiting seven years to hear the man voice a regret, the wait is finally over. But instead of regretting the Affordable Care Act; his defense of the Black Lives Matter movement; his dismissal of Christians as "those who cling to their guns and their religion"; his ceding Iraq to ISIS; his lies about Benghazi; his idle threats to Assad; his doubling our national debt; his kowtowing to Putin; his providing Iran with $150 billion and a pathway to a nuclear arsenal; his subverting the Constitution; his major regret, we discovered, was that, in spite of his best efforts, there is greater rancor between the two parties than when he took office.

Now, if you're done laughing, I'll continue.

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Inasmuch as he seemed to be at a loss as to the cause of this division, I would suggest it might have something to do with the fact that when he was ramming Obamacare through Congress, he told the Republicans to sit down, shut up and get out of his way. Or perhaps it was when Sen. John McCain dared to suggest at a bipartisan gathering that sending a check to low income earners who don't pay income taxes is not the same as a tax cut and Obama cut him with a look and muttered, much as a Mafioso might have done: "I won."

Or, again, maybe a portion of the mysterious rancor was the result of Nancy Pelosi's referring to tea party members as "astroturfers" or Joe Biden's comparing those who opposed the agreement with Iran to Iranian hardliners or Obama, more than once, calling Republicans "unpatriotic" and likening his political foes to terrorists.

It was a foregone conclusion that during his address, Obama would make no reference to Iran's capturing and humiliating 10 American sailors that very day, but perhaps the most revolting part of the speech came when Rev. Obama insisted that the answer to the problems facing America could be solved by unconditional love. Perhaps after he finally vacates the White House, he can become a pitchman for eHarmony.

But, frankly, listening to the most divisive president in American history prattling on about returning civility to political discourse was sheer torture. This is the man who based his re-election campaign in 2012 by lying about a video, insisting that al-Qaida was on the run, and creating divisions among the electorate between rich and poor, white and black, young and old, men and women – scapegoating half of us and sliming a decent man like Mitt Romney – all in order to win a second term. To me, it was a lot like listening to King Henry VIII deliver a lecture on table manners.

I know that a lot of pundits showered Gov. Nikki Haley with kudos for her response to Obama. Granted, in many ways, she out-shined him, but that is faint praise, indeed. At least she completed every sentence in the allotted time and didn't keep pausing to provide her own clichés time to hit the floor before moving on.

Furthermore, Gov. Haley, to her everlasting credit, didn't overstay her welcome. However, she didn't sound all that different from Obama, Clinton or Sanders, when it came to immigration. It's fine for the daughter of Indian parents who came here legally many years ago to remind us, once again, that we are a nation of immigrants.

However, at a time when millions of Latinos have sneaked out of their country and onto our welfare rolls and thousands of Muslims have either over-stayed their visas or been flown in on our dime by Obama, who views them not as potential terrorists, but as potential Democrats, it's time to stop pretending that "Send us the wretched refuse of your teeming shore" should constitute national policy.

You needn't take my word for it. One merely has to look to France, Germany and Belgium to see how well that form of lunacy has worked out for them.

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After all, they are our best pals and our boon companions, ready to protect our homes and loved ones no matter how small they are. I know for a fact that even our Angel will rip the postman to shreds if he even thinks about setting one foot inside our house. OK, perhaps she wouldn't exactly rip him apart, but she would certainly bark at him until he caved in and scratched behind her ears.

Unlike the people in our lives, they don't judge us by our looks, our age or even by our wealth or lack of it. And long before Martin Luther King Jr. got around to mentioning it, they were judging us solely by our character and not the color of our skin.

But besides being the first line of defense at home, dogs have proven themselves to be the fiercest and most loyal soldiers at time of war, whether it's the war on illegal drugs or the ones taking place on the battlefield.

So far as I'm concerned, in a nation where we dedicate days to honoring dead presidents, mothers, fathers, grandparents, secretaries and even the labor movement, it's high time we devote a day to our beloved dogs.

But you needn't take my word for it. If you're looking for a second to my motion, consider the following testimonials:

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"I used to look at my dog and think 'If you were just a little smarter, you could tell me what you're thinking' and he'd look at me like he was saying 'If you were just a little smarter, I wouldn't have to.'" (Fred Jungklaus)

"I can't think of anything that brings me closer to tears than when my old dog – completely exhausted after a hard day in the field – limps away from her nice spot in front of the fire, comes over to where I'm sitting and puts her head in my lap, a paw over my knee, and closes her eyes, and goes back to sleep. I don't know what I've done to deserve that kind of friend." (An anonymous farmer)

"I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent devoted companionship of a dog that you can't get from any other source." (Doris Day)

"We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made." (M. Facidam)

"Dogs teach us many things about being a better person that people don't or simply can't teach us." (An anonymous dog owner)

"A dog wags its tail with its heart." (Anonymous)

"Some of our greatest historical and artistic treasures we place with curators in museums, others we take for walks." (Roger Caras)

"In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe peering into the rueful morrow of manhood. After this most inconsolable of sorrows, there is nothing life can do to him that he will not be able to bear." (James Thurber)

"While he has not, in my hearing, spoken the English language, my dog makes it perfectly plain that he understands it. And he uses his ears, tail, eyebrows, various rumbles and grunts, the slant of his great cold nose or a succession of heartrending sighs, to get his meaning across." (Joan Little)

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." (Mark Twain)

"Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other." (Robert Benchley)

"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to Heaven, and very, very few persons." (James Thurber)

"Dogs are not our whole lives, but they make our lives whole." (Anonymous)

"When God created the world, he placed a widening abyss between man and the animals. At the very last possible second, the dog leapt across to be with man." (Indian legend)

Perhaps it's just a coincidence and nothing more, but I swear to you that our dog Angel just came over and licked my hand.

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The last few presidents, although each was elected to a second term, have done a really lousy job. Clinton, who reaped the benefits of a phony dot.com economy, gave up a fortune in gifts of coal and wheat to North Korea in exchange for a meaningless piece of paper promising to end their nuclear program.

For openers, George W. Bush increased our national debt in order to fight an enemy in the Middle East to a draw. But he compounded the problem by endlessly repeating the lie that Islam is a religion of peace, thus explaining his reluctance to bomb mosques in Baghdad even when we knew they were being used as barracks and ammo depots. Then, for good measure, he made Big Brother the arbiter of education in America and, in an apparent attempt to woo the ecology zealots, made a complete a-- of himself by banning incandescent light bulbs.

So far as Obama is concerned, his crimes and misdemeanors are too long to list, but it's worth noting that he has befriended our enemies and betrayed our allies; pushed the Affordable Care Act down our throats; paid Iran $150 billion while paving their path to a nuclear arsenal; handed Iraq and Afghanistan back to the bad guys; sided with the mob against the police; thrown open the gates to Gitmo; divided America along racial, religious and economic lines; nearly doubled our national debt; and left his dirty footprints all over the Constitution.

A few years ago, I suggested that the doctors at Bethesda give Obama a brain scan during his annual checkup because there had to be something seriously wrong with a man who was more concerned about Jews building homes in Israel than he was with Muslims building nukes in Iran.

Today, I demand the medics give it a second look because now it seems Obama is far more fretful over the weather than he is about North Korea testing hydrogen bombs and Iran's firing missiles in the vicinity of American battleships.

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In the meantime, Obama continues to demand that we accept thousands of Muslim refugees into America in spite of the fact that one of those schmucks was behind the attacks in Paris; another took part in the San Bernardino massacre; and, on New Year's Eve, scores of them, recently welcomed by Angela Merkel, repaid Germany's kindness by raping women in Hamburg, Cologne and Stuttgart.

These are the same so-called Syrian refugees we keep hearing Obama describe as women and orphans. But once again, Obama is trying to put lipstick on Islamic pigs because 90 percent of those I see on TV are men in their late teens and early 20s, that awkward age in the Muslim world where they're too old to merely throw stones at Israelis but too young to blow up a school bus for the greater glory of Allah.

I'm not sure what bills he has in mind unless he's saving up to pay off the national debt.

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On the other hand, I do have readers all over the country, and I suspect that 99 percent of them are Republicans and that 100 percent of the 99 percent actually vote on Election Day. So they shouldn't be too casually dismissed, even if I'm not licensed to practice.

Having said all that, I was shocked by the results. Donald Trump may be running away with the race, the way all the other polls are suggesting, but if my poll indicates anything it's that he should contact NBC and find out if he can return to "The Apprentice."

Because I thump Trump a lot, my wife thinks people assume I hate him. I don't. It's just that he appears to be at the head of the pack and I happen to think the GOP can do better. But they can also do worse, as they've proven in the past. And certainly if Trump garners the nomination and faces Mrs. Clinton in November, I will vote for him as many times as I can.

There were three components to my poll. First, there were my subscribers. Then, because both WND and the Patriot Post ran the article, I have returns from their readers.

In the first group, Ted Cruz received 71 votes; Donald Trump received 26; and Marco Rubio, 20. Among the others, Christie got 11; Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush tied with 4; Carson got 3; Rand Paul 2; and Mike Huckabee got just 1.

In other words, of 142 votes cast, Cruz received exactly half of them!

When it came to the Patriot Post, the vote was even more lopsided. Of the 108 votes cast, Cruz received 82; Rubio, 10; Trump, 7; Rand Paul, 4; Carson & Fiorina, 2; Santorum, 1.

With WND, only two candidates collected votes. Cruz got 15 of them, Trump just 6.

When you add them all up, 271 votes were cast, with Cruz receiving 168, Trump 39, Rubio 30, the entire rest of the field, 34.

So if Cruz winds up being our standard bearer, remember, you read it here first.

About Bill, he wrote: "I doubt if I've ever known anybody as blatantly ambitious for political office, but who simply doesn't have the judgment or character to deal with it."

Even when it came to defending Clinton during the impeachment hearings, Bumpers called Clinton's conduct "indefensible, outrageous, unforgivable and shameless." He simply didn't think any of that rose to the level of an impeachable offense.

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I'd hate to think that even my enemies would say such things about me, let alone a friend. And yet, millions of Americans continue to admire Bill Clinton.

It suggests to me that electing Obama to a second term wasn't a fluke, after all. It appears that so far as millions of Americans are concerned, Martin Luther King's hope that people would one day be judged by their character and not the color of their skin, or their folksy, good-old-boy image, for that matter, is as unlikely as peace breaking out in the Middle East.

In other words, how is it that even after all this time, Barack Obama has been allowed to keep so many personal documents under lock and key? And why is it that none of the trained monkeys who comprise the White House press corps ever put the question to Obama or his personal flunky, Josh Earnest?

Another question that bears asking is how an executive order differs from a dictator's edict. If you take a civics class, you are told that there are three equal branches of government: the executive, the judicial and the legislative. But if the executive chooses to tip the balance by going around Congress and using his pen and his phone to change legislation dealing with immigration, drug laws or Guantanamo, there is nothing anyone can do about it except wait for someone with what the justices on the Supreme Court consider standing to bring it before them.

So far as I'm concerned, any American citizen who is outraged by a president behaving like a tin-horn despot should qualify.

Speaking of which, the chief justice is paid $258,100 a year, the other eight justices are paid $246,800. (And what's with those numbers? Wouldn't you think they'd round it off to the nearest thousand?) In any case, you would assume that for that much money, you could get a decent year's work out of them. But between the end of June and the beginning of October, they've all gone fishing.

And even when they come back, they are unlikely to do anything about a commander in chief who holds the Constitution in rather low regard because, in his own words, it failed to deal with the redistribution of wealth.

These are people who think a cartoon provides a suitable motive for mass murder. They think that if you disdain Islam in favor of a different religion or even a different form of Islam, you deserve to be butchered or raped or burned alive. They believe women are not wholly human and deserve to be treated like chattel.

Their actions are horrific, but there are also their inactions to be considered. Although you will occasionally see a Muslim on TV calling for a reformation, pretending that after 1,400 years it might be right around the corner, but when have you ever seen the so-called moderates marching in the streets and calling for an end to the madness? I'm not even talking about the streets of Mecca or Medina or Baghdad. I'm talking about Dearborn, Michigan, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

You hear American Muslims whine about being profiled, but you never hear their collective voices raised in condemnation of the atrocities committed in the name of Allah. Aside from those few well-dressed, well-spoken, Muslims Fox occasionally invites on to convince us that not all Muslims are blood-thirsty perverts, you rarely hear them acknowledging that as Americans, they owe their allegiance to the Constitution, not to Shariah law.

A great many people feel they command the moral high ground when they point out that not every Muslim has sworn to kill the infidels, but the point they're missing is that every murderous cuckoo who has vowed to kill the infidels is a Muslim. And judging by their deafening silence, I have no reason to think there is division in their ranks.

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Knowing that she would never be confirmed, she paid the ultimate price by removing herself from contention when Obama selected her to replace Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state. As a consolation prize, Obama made her his national security adviser. Like most of his other decisions, this one, too, turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

When it came to defending the swap of five Gitmo terrorists for Bowe Bergdahl, Susan Rice had the gall to say that Bergdahl "served with honor and distinction." Ludicrous for sure, but, then, she'd use the same words to describe Barack Obama's presidency.

But perhaps she reached the nadir of her public life when she went on CNN to defend Obama's deal with Iran and had the following exchange with Wolf Blitzer after he said that Iran would be able to buy weapons for al-Assad and Hezbollah with the previously frozen $150 billion.

Rice: "They can't do that, Wolf, because they'll still be under an arms embargo that would prevent them from sending weapons."

Blitzer: "What if they're just sending money for the purchase of weapons?"

Rice: "They may be able to send money, yes. By the way, Wolf, just to be clear, they are sending money now while they are under sanctions."

Blitzer: "Yeah, but they will have a lot more money if the sanctions are lifted."

Rice: "Yes, they will have more money."

Keep in mind that Rice not only graduated from Stanford, but Oxford, where she was a Rhodes scholar. For his part, Obama graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law School. Anyone still think affirmative action is a good thing?

Apparently, Col. James Pohl, who is in charge of military tribunals at Gitmo, has been allowing the terrorists to litigate over the right to pray during the trial, to wear battle fatigues, even to have a softer pillow provided during bus rides.

I'm no expert on military court proceedings, but I doubt if providing prayer mats and cushy pillows are mentioned anywhere in the rule book.

As one of the 9/11 survivors aptly puts it: "This is jihad in the courtroom."

Today we are down to (alphabetically): Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum and Donald Trump.

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I know that people like to say that anything can happen in presidential politics, and like to point to early poll-leaders of the past who crashed and burned even before they got to New Hampshire. But I'll climb out on a limb and predict that at least half of these people will be gone by mid-February. They're the ones who are only sticking around in order to sell their books or garner higher fees for their speeches. As for Jeb Bush, I suspect he's gotten in touch with his inner masochist and has discovered he actually enjoys being ridiculed by Trump.

So I am asking you to send me an email at BurtPrelutsky@aol.com and let me know who you are supporting at this time, not whom you predict will be the nominee. And, yes, I understand that you might change your mind along the way. After all, I've already changed my own mind a few times already.

I only ask that you limit your response to a single name and that you not bother explaining your vote or letting me know who your second choice might be. Believe me, we'll get to all that later.

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Month after month, one will often come across interviews with WGA members responsible for things like "Nightmare on Elm Street XII" or "Rocky: The 15th Round" talking about how they were born to write it, pretending that the job was motivated by something besides paying their mortgage. I swear, if you were able to get Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Dickens, Melville, Poe, Tolstoy and Twain together for a roundtable discussion, you wouldn't hear such self-aggrandizing bull hockey.

To make matters worse, the members of the Guild are nearly without exception liberals. One day about six or seven years ago, I had reason to visit the WGA headquarters. As I walked down the hallway, every office that had its door open revealed an Obama poster on its wall. So not only are the members of the WGA certifiable, but those employed by the Guild march to the same tin drum.

As I was saying, I opened the November-December copy of the Guild's bimonthly to find that in response to the September-October issue that was devoted to the Hollywood blacklist (inspired by the release of the movie "Trumbo"), they had received a record number of letters to the editor. That reminded me that I had written such a letter and I wondered if they had run it. I also wondered if others had reacted to the blacklist issue as I had. Silly me.

There were 10 letters in all. Nine of them could have been written by the same person. They were effusive ("Great issue! Congratulations!" "Bravo!" "Superb issue!"); some of them sharing glowing memories of those who had been victimized by the blacklist, including Dalton Trumbo, Sterling Hayden, Ben Barzman and Adrian Scott. My letter was the tenth.

From having been in the Guild since the late 1960s and having served on the Board of Directors from 1987-1991, I knew some of those who had been blacklisted, including George Kirgo, Jean Butler, Ollie Crawford and Paul Jarrico, and had met Trumbo, Edward G. Robinson, Lee J. Cobb and John Howard Lawson, a second-rate screenwriter who had been the head of the Hollywood cell of the Communist Party.

Get the real story behind Hollywood Communists and their love for America's enemies: "Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters – Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler"

I even liked a few of them, but let them know that I thought their politics indicated a deficiency, either of character or intelligence or both. (I acknowledge it's not always easy being friends with me.) But if I can speak that way to people I actually like, you can imagine how I felt about a magazine that attempted to turn their mental and/or moral flaws into virtues of heroic proportions.

But instead of having to imagine it, I will share the letter I wrote:

"How much longer is the Guild going to carry on as if the 1950s Blacklist was the second coming of the Holocaust? The fact of the matter is that John Howard Lawson, a man born to run a gulag, was a devout Communist who controlled what a great many Hollywood screenwriters thought, said and wrote. He also had them tithing a tidy portion of their studio salaries to the Soviet Union, even though Stalin was as evil and despotic as Hitler and had an equal amount of blood on his hands.

"The only reason the Soviet Union was our ally during World War II was that Hitler betrayed Stalin – who had been only too happy to sign a mutual non-aggression pact with the fuhrer – by invading the Soviet Union. But Stalin had the last laugh. He not only helped destroy Germany but then got to pick up where Hitler had left off, enslaving all of Eastern Europe for half a century.

"I find it equal parts repulsive and embarrassing that six decades after the short-lived Blacklist, Written By continues to honor those who may not have been evil but supported evil and were dangerously gullible. They lived up to the appellation given them years earlier by Vladimir Lenin: useful idiots.

"It is particularly offensive in 2015 when we are in the midst of the Hollywood gray list, which denies older writers a livelihood for the singular crime of aging, and the Guild magazine is still dredging up and revising ancient history."

Thus far, I haven't received any "Bravos!" or even a single "Atta boy!" from my 9,000 fellow Guild members.

I'm beginning to think that I am once again a majority of one.

I'm not complaining, you understand. I'm bragging.

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After all, you don't need young, able-bodied guys to hand out uniforms, cook, serve as clerk-typists, clean latrines, and you certainly don't need to provide benefits and medical care to the guys who play in military bands.

The kicker is that it was reported by the AP and published in the Washington Post … on Nov. 2, 1922. Fifty years later, Newsweek warned that we were entering into a new Ice Age. And yet here I sit in mid-December, 40-odd years later, and my parka is still in mothballs.

Because going to court to defend against a lawsuit is such an expensive and time-consuming proposition, lawyers know employers are likely to settle. Besides, a boss going to court against an employee in the People's Republic of California has the same chance of prevailing as the proverbial snowball that finds itself in hell. The question remains why anyone would ever consider opening or maintaining a business in a state that is riddled with sanctuary cities, the highest taxes in the Union and politicians who seem unaware that the day will inevitably arrive when those who pay the taxes will be gone and they'll be left with 20 million laggards and 10 million illegal aliens on welfare.

It helps explain why so many American Jews – particularly those teaching and studying on college campuses and those in the media – are among the most enthusiastic when it comes to condemning Israel as militaristic and fascistic.

The reason non-Jews are so confused by this state of affairs is because they generally have a high regard for Jews and feel so protective towards Israel. For the most part, Jews in America are Jewish only because their parents or grandparents were Jewish. Their real religion is Liberalism. In most cases, they receive two traditional gifts at their bar mitzvah. The first is a fountain pen. The second is a lifetime subscription to the New York Times, which thereafter will serve as their bible. Their god, you see, is not the one referred to in the Old Testament, but, rather, whichever Democrat happens to be in the White House at the time.

Speaking of which, Barack Obama chose Rabbi Susan Talve to light the White House Menorah to celebrate Hanukkah. I can only imagine that Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Ayatollah Khamenei were otherwise engaged.

As Thomas Lifson wrote in the American Thinker: "Talve is a member of the anti-Israel group known as Truah," which is involved in the vile BDS movement, which calls on colleges, corporations and individuals, to show support for the Palestinians by boycotting Israeli products, divesting themselves of their investments in Israeli companies and, finally, leveling sanctions on the nation of Israel.

Rabbi Talve is also a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, so instead of saying a single word about Hanukkah, she delivered a rant about getting guns off the street. "I stand here," she said, standing next to that other Talmudic scholar, Barack Hussein Obama, "with my fierce family of clergy and Black Lives Matter activists who took to the streets of Ferguson."

She also rambled on about how "the gates of this nation should be open to all immigrants and all refugees. I stand here to light these lights to say no to the darkness of Islamophobia, Homophobia and Transphobia." Then, after demanding justice for the Palestinians, she began chanting "Ins 'Allah, Ins 'Allah," which apparently means "Allah willing, Allah willing."

Ms. Talve, who looks a like a slightly younger Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is the founding rabbi at the Central Reform Congregation, apparently the only Jewish congregation within the city limits of St. Louis. Not too surprisingly, its motto is "Our goal is justice." For a Jew, learning that Central Reform is the only synagogue in St. Louis is very depressing. It would be like a Christian getting the word that the Trinity United Church is the only church in Chicago.

And how is it that these apologists for all things Islamic don't spend their time finding excuses for our non-Muslim rapists, pedophiles and murderers?

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The full extent of their Islamic depravity is that Syed Rizwan Farook and Mrs. Farook, Tashfeen Malik, had just had a baby six months earlier. Only the followers of Islam would think the best way to celebrate a birth in the family was to go out and destroy as many other families as possible.

Although, as I sit here, the authorities haven't yet explained the motivation behind the bloodbath, I feel safe to assume that Mr. Farook simply couldn't abide his co-workers celebrating the birth of another baby, the one named Jesus Christ.

Does anyone still doubt that there were Muslims in New Jersey, or in St. Paul, Minnesota, or Dearborn, Michigan, celebrating on 9/11?

Liberals, including Barack Obama, who refuse to acknowledge that a war between civilizations is taking place, are eager to label the slaughter that left 14 dead and 21 maimed "workplace violence," lest anyone get the idea it had anything to do with Islam. As I see it, where Muslims are concerned, terrorism is workplace violence. It is, after all, the only work for which they seem to have a genuine aptitude.

I realize that some people have moral objections to any form of suicide, and I can respect that. To them, I say, "Don't take advantage of it for yourself. May your own suffering be of short and endurable duration. But why deny to others what is otherwise available only to our beloved pets and, oh yes, serial killers?"

Unfortunately, logic doesn't work with the majority of people. In fact, in most quarters, logic is now regarded as a concealed weapon.

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

But the TSA is worse than useless because, one, it encourages its greedy agents to confiscate items that pose no danger to anyone and, two, it simultaneously gives people a false sense of security while causing them a great deal of actual frustration.

It should come as no surprise once you realize they're employed by the federal government that, to date, 73 TSA agents have been flagged for terrorist activities.

In the meantime, however, the government does nothing to prevent those Americans who have recently gone to Syria and Iraq in order to link up with ISIS from returning to the U.S. or to prevent those who come by way of Europe from taking advantage of our hospitality. On the contrary, Obama thinks it makes sense to invite 10,000 Muslim refugees, whom he likens to 17th century Pilgrims, to our shores.

A challenge to my readers: Can anyone recall a single instance when Obama has displayed more or even equal respect for America's history, people or values, than he has for that of our existential enemies?

Understand that when I spoke about the average IQ in America now being in the 70s, I wasn't referring to the folks in Hollywood.

Out here, to achieve that high a mark, they'd have to copy off some Republican's test paper.

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The fact is whenever anyone starts quoting the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty, "The Modern Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, with its open invitation to the huddled masses and wretched refuse, I am reminded that we are already filled to the brim with welfare recipients who answer to that description. I would also like to point out that bad poetry is a lousy basis for national policy.

Obama keeps telling us that Gitmo has to be shut down because it's a recruiting tool for the enemy – an enemy he refuses to name, by the way – but everything about America acts as a recruiting tool for the Islamists. And by everything, I include the fact that our women drive cars, go to school and show their faces in public; that our Constitution guarantees free speech and freedom of religion, and does not kowtow to Shariah law; and that we do not prostrate ourselves to Mecca five times a day. In fact, if Obama didn't keep yakking about Gitmo, nobody else would.

When Barack Obama mocks Republicans who reject the notion of Muslims flooding into America by saying: "Apparently, they're afraid of widows and orphans," you would hope that someone on our side would confront the arrogant jerk and say: "No, Mr. President, what we fear is that as a result of your endless pandering to all things Islamic, we might wind up with thousands of widows and orphans of our own, just the way we did on 9/11."

The truth is that until fairly recently, no national leader in the West, and certainly not in the U.S., has ever looked around and said: "You know what we don't have nearly enough of? Muslims!"

The folks who favor bringing in vast numbers of Syrians oppose using religion as a factor, claiming it would be bigotry to favor Christians, but they ignore the fact that the Muslims have been tossing Christians off the boats headed to Greece. But, then, we all know how tolerant Muslims are when it comes to infidels, their pet name for non-Muslims.

Experience more of Burt Prelutsky's humor and wit in his books -- at WND's Superstore.

Both Obama and Mrs. Clinton claim that if we identify the terrorism problem the world is facing as having any connection to Islam, it will antagonize a billion Muslims around the world. But for over a thousand years, half the Muslims have been trying to kill off the other half. It's the world's misfortune that so far both sides have failed.

We keep hearing from the FBI and Homeland Security that although we are aware of 1,250 people in the U.S. with links to ISIS, we only have enough human resources to track 60 or 70 of them at a time. At the same time, we have more agents working for the IRS than for the FBI and Homeland Security put together. Few things better reflect Obama's priorities as commander in chief.

But it also raises the question why we prefer to track them when we should be jailing them.

Although I knew Bobby Jindal had no shot at the GOP nomination, I took no pleasure in seeing him drop out of the race. I would much rather have seen the thinning of the herd begin with Bush, Kasich, Pataki, Graham and Dr. Ben Carson.

Unlike the other four, I like Dr. Carson. If the race for the nomination were a beauty contest, I have no doubt he would be voted Mr. Congeniality.

Still, I did sit up and take notice the other day when, questioned about his knowledge of foreign affairs, he said, "I know a lot more about it now than I'll know a year from now, and a year from now, I'll know a lot more than I know now."

I realize that on occasion, we all misspeak, but that was a humdinger. But we already have a vice president notorious for his verbal gaffes, although, I grant, Carson's was funnier than almost anything Joe Biden has ever said. But even I understand that we should expect more from our leaders than that they provide me with a few cheap laughs.

Having said that, I grant that Dr. Carson strikes me as a very decent man and I suspect that most of us would love him as a next door neighbor, unless we happened to be living at 1602 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I understand that when it comes to ISIS, Boko Haram, Iran and Vladimir Putin, Obama would prefer to play a waiting game, so he can leave all of these problems for his successor to deal with, but even I can't fathom why he is pressing so hard for these so-called Syrian refugees. If just one of them pulls off an act of terrorism over the next 14 months, that, and not his refusal to confront or even name Islamic jihadism, will be his lasting legacy, and will sink any chance for a Democrat to succeed him.

In the meantime, ISIS, despite its vile sadism, remains what I regard as a much smaller problem than a nuclear Iran. If the West had the will to act, I am convinced it could wipe ISIS off the face of the earth because, militarily, they are the equivalent of a flock of wasps, gnats and fleas; in short, a JV team that has been allowed to score at will because the other team refuses to take the field.

By the West, by the way, I mean the United States. For, as they've consistently shown over the years, the U.N. and NATO are useless when it comes to dealing with evil. At best, they are merely grand-sounding organizations which exist as a way for diplomats and military brass to live high off the hog in Manhattan and Brussels.

When it comes to confronting Islam, American politicians are all cowards, far more concerned with losing an election than they are with Iran's wiping Tel Aviv off the map. Our enemy keeps boasting that their god is greater and more powerful than our own, and, by our moral cowardice, we make their case for them.

After the massacre in Paris, even President Hollande has demonstrated a willingness to strike back, something that President Obama has never shown. It's as if the world suddenly underwent surgical reconstruction, as a result of which France wound up with the balls and America wound up with the a—hole.

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For instance, if Ronald Reagan had won the GOP nomination in 1976 instead of 1980, and defeated Jimmy Carter, as he most likely would have done, the shah of Iran would not have been overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini, American hostages would not have been held for over 400 days, and the Islamic reign of terror would not have been ushered in by the feckless goober in the White House.

How do I know this? Because on the very day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, Jan. 20, 1981, the hostages were released. Bill O'Reilly may labor under the impression that was a coincidence, but nobody else does.

If Mitt Romney had been elected in 2012, I dare say that ISIS would not have been dismissed as the JV team and that Romney would not have done everything in his power to empty both Gitmo and the federal prisons of terrorists, killers and drug dealers. Neither would he have used a presidential edict to circumvent Congress in order to grant amnesty to millions of Hispanics who have no business being here, nor would he have rolled out the red carpet for thousands of potential terrorists posing as refugees from the Middle East.

Speaking of which, I have grown weary of hearing the governors and ex-governors running for their party nominations say, "In my state, I did such and such, so visit my website, give me your money and elect me president."

Kasich, Bush, Christie, and even George Pataki and Martin O'Malley, may be telling the truth about their gubernatorial accomplishments, but it's basically meaningless. In some states, after all, the opposition party may control the legislature, thus stifling the governor's best intentions. Besides, each state is distinctive. In one state, gun control laws may mean you can barely get your hands on a water pistol, whereas in other states, the ones that recognize the legitimacy of the Second Amendment, large numbers of people are allowed to carry concealed bazookas.

In short, being a governor no more prepares you for the life-and-death decisions faced by a president than shacking up with someone tells you how good a husband or wife, father or mother, that particular someone will turn out to be.

On the other hand, roughly 60 percent of the governors deserve commendations for at least announcing their refusal to accept the so-called Syrian refugees (aka the ISIS outreach program) in their respective states. Gov. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire deserves a special shout-out because she is the only Democrat to add her voice to the chorus.

The question at this point is whether they have the legal authority to overrule the federal government, especially one under the thumb of the schmuck who has an open-door policy when it comes to Hispanics, who are most likely to vote for Democrats, and Muslims, who are most likely to massacre Americans.

Speaking of which, when I hear people like Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley complain about the preponderance of Hispanics and blacks in our prisons, I understand that's what Democrats have to say when running for office. But I assume that if you hooked them up to lie detectors, they would admit that a racist society had nothing to do with their incarceration, and that they're in jail because a preponderance of crimes committed in America happen to be committed by Hispanics and blacks.

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Another inconvenient truth you'll find tucked away in FBI crime statistics is the fact that on average, 27 "honor killings" are committed every year by Muslim fathers and brothers in the United States. It would take a true degenerate to not only commit such a barbaric act, but to then attribute it to honor.

It's no secret that single women vote overwhelmingly for liberals. Married women, on the other hand, vote overwhelmingly for conservatives. I guess the main difference is that the unmarried airheads see abortions as an unfortunate side-effect of having sex, while grown-ups tend to regard babies as a positive result of the activity.

This tells me that Republican mothers are falling down on the job when it comes to raising their daughters. Far too many of these young women obviously think having an abortion is like going to the dentist, the main difference being that you don't get to go home with a new toothbrush.

To be fair, Republican fathers aren't doing a lot better when it comes to raising sons, for whom an abortion is a lot like having someone else go to the dentist.

After Caitlyn Jenner was named Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine, James Smith sent the Woman of the Year plaque his late wife, Moira, was awarded by the magazine in 2001 back to Editor Cindi Leive.

In his note, Mr. Smith, whose wife had won the award for rushing into the South Tower to rescue strangers on 9/11, suggested in no uncertain terms what Ms. Leive could do with the plaque. He went on to say that with women in the military fighting and dying for America, with female cops and firefighters doing their best to protect us, and with other women on the front line in the war against cancer and the like, he found it incomprehensible that Glamour couldn't find a more worthy recipient than a guy who claims to be a woman.

At last report, none of the other 2015 honorees – has-been actress Reece Witherspoon, trophy wife Victoria (Spice Girl) Beckham and lesbian activist Billie Jean King – have returned their plaques.

I keep wondering why Vladimir Putin remains so cautious when he sees how fearful the U.S. and Europe are of taking on ISIS. Members of this administration even have the gall to suggest it could take years to defeat this ragged band of ragheads who lack an air force and drive around in open trucks. If memory serves, it took George H.W. Bush about a week or so to defeat Iraq, and keep in mind that Saddam Hussein actually commanded a modern-day military that came complete with tanks, planes and heavy artillery.

Even after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the recent series of shootings and bombings in Paris, French President Hollande has limited his response to bombing ISIS in Syria, an approach Obama has already shown to be of negligible value when it comes to exterminating cockroaches.

If I were Putin and shared his expansionist goals, I would take advantage of the fact that Europe and America – both the leaders as well as most of their citizens – hide under their beds at the mere mention of armed conflict. They repeat the mantra "No boots on the ground" as if it's a magical incantation. Let the diplomats duke it out, they say, ignoring the fact that the diplomats gave us Munich in 1938 and the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.

If I were Putin, my motto would be "Crimea yesterday, Syria today, London tomorrow."

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These are not isolated events, and even though I have only mentioned a few that have taken place over the past 36 years, they are not all of recent vintage. In fact, in one form or another, they have been taking place for the past 1,400 years, ever since the cursed Muhammad brought forth his cult of death. The religion has been exactly what you would imagine a religion created by a man who was both a pedophile and a butcher would be.

One American president after another has described Islam as a religion of peace, and Barack Obama has gone so far as to claim that Muslims helped create America and also played a major role in space exploration, although both claims are as false as his vow that we could keep our doctors and our insurance plans if we liked them. Islam was never peaceful. From the very beginning, those who refused to accept Shariah law and to bow down to Mecca were killed.

Unlike Christianity which says that we should treat others as we would wish to be treated, to love our neighbors as ourselves and to be our brother's keeper, Islam's message is a threat: Convert or perish.

Whenever I see the so-called Muslim moderate Dr. Zuhdi Jasser show up on Fox, I am reminded of the well-dressed, well-spoken representatives of CAIR, the terrorist organization that attempts to pass itself off as a benevolent society, as if it were the Islamic equivalent of the Shriners.

Dr. Jasser keeps telling us that Islam is a wonderful religion that has been hijacked by a handful of thugs. Inasmuch as they have committed countless atrocities in the name of Allah in Spain, France, Egypt, England, Russia, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Java, Yemen, the Philippines, Lebanon, China, Austria, Italy, Argentina, India, Kuwait, Scotland, Japan and the U.S., that is some handful.

Dr. Jasser may mean well, but he is a boob if he actually believes that after 1,400 years, Islam is going to reform itself. If you're looking for a religion you don't have to apologize for every five minutes, try Christianity or even Judaism. They're not always perfect, but at least they're not torching churches, blowing up school buses and crucifying people for following a different faith.

And, please, I would appreciate it if those pinheads who feel the need to jump to the defense of Islam don't bring up people like Timothy McVeigh, Dylann Roof, James Holmes and Adam Lanza. For one thing, none of them screamed "Jesus is Great!" while on their killing spree; for another, when a so-called Christian murders people, other Christians do not rally to his side or celebrate the occasion by dancing in the street. Instead, other Christians either shoot him down like a mad dog or see to it he goes to prison. Furthermore, their religion tells them he will end up spending eternity in Hell, not Paradise.

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But instead of acknowledging that a state of war exists between Islam and the rest of us, we in the West feel compelled to treat its followers with respect, a misguided attitude we never thought to show any of our former enemies. It's true that it was easier to defeat a foe that had borders, flew a flag and had its combatants wearing uniforms. It's far more difficult to defeat an ideology that has followers spread throughout the world. It's comparable to removing an infected tooth as opposed to fighting a virulent form of cancer, but fight it we must.

After all, even cancer can be defeated. But not if you don't fight back and not if you pretend it is benign.

Nobody raises a fuss if an FBI agent attends a church or a synagogue, but heads roll if it's discovered that an FBI agent or a New York cop attends a mosque. Then it's decried as infiltration. But if nothing criminal is taking place inside the mosque, if plans are not being hatched to massacre Americans, if the emir isn't preaching murder, why isn't an outsider as welcome there as he'd be in any other place of worship?

One keeps hearing that American Muslims are loyal to our country and our values, but that they are afraid to speak out against Islamic terrorism or the vilest aspects of Shariah law because they're afraid of repercussions. That, alone, suggests that Islam isn't as peaceful as they like to pretend. Besides, when women such as Wafa Sultan and Miriam Ibrahim have the courage to convert to Christianity, it is difficult to regard those who fail to follow suit as anything but cowards or frauds.

Those like Dr. Jasser who talk about their wonderful religion having been hijacked are lying through their teeth. Suggesting that there is nothing wrong with a religion whose Quran is a handbook for terrorism is reminiscent of those fools who keep insisting that communism is perfect, and that the only problem with it is that it's never been done right, whether in China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Mongolia or North Korea. Believe in Marx's utopia, the idiots insist, not your own eyes.

My own politically incorrect suggestion is that we remove ISIS from the face of the earth, hopefully as a joint effort with every other nation it has threatened or attacked, and that we then bomb Mecca off the face of the earth, not concerning ourselves in the least with collateral damage, letting the Muslims know once and for all that our God is far more powerful and, yes, vengeful than their own puny deity.

It's harsh, but they've been asking for it for over 1,400 years, and it's time they got it. I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing the Islamic bullies demand our lunch money and, like a bunch of scrawny wimps afraid of our own shadow, we hand it over. What's even more appalling, we then pretend we did it because we're good guys who realized that they're human beings just like us, and who just happen to be a little bit hungrier than we are.

The notion that we in the West can re-educate Muslims or show them a better way to live by our example is foolish in the extreme. It's not just our movies or our music or the fact that we live in a post-ninth century world that they hate. It's our art, our culture, our technology, our Judeo-Christian values, our tolerance, our treatment of women, even, for all I know, our love of dogs.

The idea that we can civilize these savages is beyond ludicrous.

It would be easier to domesticate snakes and raise them for their milk.

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More and more, as you look around the world or at our own political landscape, it seems to be the case that Satan has thrown open the doors and furloughed the worst offenders, perhaps following the lead of his friend and close associate, Barack Obama, who is doing his best to release killers, rapists and terrorists from our prisons and from Guantanamo.

One of my longtime readers let me know he doesn't expect Paul Ryan to be any improvement on John Boehner. I disagree. I don't always see eye-to-eye with Rep. Ryan, but I believe he is a man of integrity and will allow all members of the House to have the opportunity to make their case and, unlike Boehner, will not punish those who opposed him in the recent election.

Do I expect to be happy with the House as we move forward? Of course not. For one thing, without a Republican in the Oval Office, it is difficult to get anything past a presidential veto. For another, the GOP is not a very conservative party, except when compared to the Democrats; furthermore, the U.S. is not a very conservative nation, and it hasn't been one since the days of Calvin Coolidge.

Looking back on the Benghazi hearings, Adam Schiff and Linda Chavez, who took turns lavishing praise on Mrs. Clinton, were clearly auditioning for Cabinet positions in her administration.

People used to suggest that one day those who used phony excuses and student deferments to avoid military service would be asked by their children, "What did you do during the war, Daddy?" and would be ashamed to tell the truth. These days, I like to picture people like Schiff, Chavez and Elijah Cummings being asked by their offspring why they hadn't asked a single question about a terrorist operation in which four brave Americans, left unprotected by Secretary Clinton, were massacred by Islamic savages.

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Something else about the hearings that had me seething were the frequent references to the $4.7 million that had been spent trying to ascertain the truth about the terrible events that took place before, during and after the attack. The various Democrats must have mentioned the amount at least 4.7 million times. They were fairly foaming at the mouth over this squandering of tax dollars. Never mind that more money is wasted each and every time Obama jets off to a political fundraiser or vacations with Michelle and the kiddies on Martha's Vineyard.

I fully accept that the typical Democrat is the inevitable result of a corrupt media and a public school system that sees propaganda, not education, as its mission. Still, I can't fully grasp why they are so willing to accept being lied to by politicians. After all, Democrats heard Obama claim that if they liked their doctors and insurance plans, they could keep them. But when they discovered they couldn't, they didn't seem to mind at all.

They also didn't seem to mind having Obama and Mrs. Clinton conning them about the Benghazi massacre being the result of a stupid video. Even ostriches were aware that the lie was told and endlessly repeated because a presidential election was less than two months away and Obama's team had based his campaign on his having killed Osama bin Laden and scrubbed the Middle East clean of al-Qaida vermin.

For all I know, the reason Democrats appear to be zombies is the result of generational inbreeding, which would also explain Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Nancy Pelosi, Elijah Cummings, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Clintons.

Although liberals always carry on as if a government shutdown is a bad thing, I insist that anything that keeps politicians and bureaucrats out of the corridors of power is a good thing. The most appalling thing about these occasional shutdowns is that all the schmucks on the federal teat continue getting paid, including those deemed unessential by their department heads. In some departments, those allowed to stay home constitute 90 percent of the entire staff. What's worse, nobody has ever explained why those people were hired in the first place.

In case you don't already have sufficient reason to despise our masters in Washington, let me remind you that millions of our tax dollars were sent to the family of drug-dealing scumbag Freddie Gray, but not a nickel to the wife and four children of Sgt. Josh Wheeler, who was killed while attempting to rescue our Kurdish allies in Libya, a combat mission that the forked-tongue crowd at the Pentagon insist wasn't really, truly, actually, a combat mission.

When well-meaning people bemoan the fact that we are not leaving America a better place than we found it, I always feel free to lay a lot of the blame on those who will inherit it. After all, 70 percent of them voted for Obama in 2012. The same percentage think it's uncool to pay attention to the news, and then embarrass themselves on TV when they are unable to identify their senator or the vice-president or give a cogent reason why they're so eager to elect Hillary Clinton.

We have raised a couple of generations of cock-sure ignoramuses who side with the Arabs against the Israelis; who have a more favorable impression of Islam than of Christianity or Judaism; who have been convinced that illegal aliens have the same rights as American citizens; that bakers and florists whose religious convictions prevent them from participating in same-sex weddings should be fined and jailed; that homosexuality is not merely an alternative lifestyle, but is superior in many ways; and that America is the most evil nation on the face of the earth.

There are exceptions, of course, but not nearly enough. The problem is that whereas atheists and liberals don't send their kids to church, conservative parents barely think twice before sending their own children off to be indoctrinated in the liberal temples passing themselves off as public schools, colleges and universities.

From the 1960s on, we have been raising the stupidest and most selfish breed of Americans this nation has ever known. The current generation is so outrageously self-engrossed, they would rather take photos of themselves than of their friends or family. They are convinced that they live in freedom not because others have fought and bled and died for it, but because they themselves are very special and are, therefore, entitled to the best of everything.

How dumb are they, you ask? They are so dumb, they have grown up convinced that an air guitar is an actual musical instrument.

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The worst things were the moderators, who displayed their liberal bias so blatantly that even Democrats would have been hard-pressed to dismiss their snarky attacks as objective reporting.

On the other hand, the candidates all got to display verbal jujitsu as they turned the endless insults back on CNBC's John Harwood and his merry band of left-wing inquisitioners. Although the evening was a triumph for Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie and even Mike Huckabee, allowing all of them to display their grasp of the important issues plaguing our nation and to offer a range of solutions, the evening's highlight came when Ted Cruz finally confronted Harwood.

Looking and sounding every bit the Texas state prosecutor he used to be, Cruz said: "The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media. This is not a cage match. Look at the questions – Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don't you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? Why don't you ask about the substantive issues that people care about?"

Predictably, he received an ovation in the Colorado auditorium, but he also received one in my house and, I'm willing to bet, in a great many others.

As for CNBC, a network I had never had occasion to watch, they merely convinced those of us who were tuned in that they're definitely not ready for prime time.

For me, other highlights included Gov. Huckabee neatly turning one of the gotcha questions into an attack on the Clinton machine; Chris Christie speaking of the necessity of reforming entitlements, which represent 71 percent of the federal budget, an act of courage comparable to performing the limbo under the third rail of American politics; and Mrs. Fiorina, who delivered a tutorial on the evils of crony capitalism.

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I have no idea if the moderators have any idea what a whipping they got. As we all know, those in the media tend to exist in an echo chamber where their only responsibility is to parrot the words of Barack Obama and root for Hillary Clinton. So, for all I know, Harwood and the rest of his lynch mob may have gone to sleep that night, imagining that they put those GOP yokels in their place and garnered super ratings – keep in mind we're talking about CNBC – in the process. But on the chance that they woke up to reality, they have no right to gripe about it. As James Boswell once said, "He, who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it."

When they ask, I am only too willing to oblige. The one thing I always make clear is that my favorites are those I've enjoyed the most and seen the most often, not necessarily the ones accepted as classics. The lists are not static because I may see one I haven't seen in many years and be reminded how good it was or, as is more often the case, because I see a former favorite once too often. In those cases, as has happened with "Casablanca," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "A Walk in the Sun," I still have fond feelings for them, but I can't imagine ever wishing to sit through them again.

The top 30 (in alphabetical order): "A Foreign Affair," "A New Leaf," "Apartment for Peggy," "Bachelor Mother," "Defending Your Life," "Die Hard," "Field of Dreams," "Force of Evil," "Hail the Conquering Hero," "Groundhog Day," "Hoosiers," "House Calls," "I Remember Mama," "It's a Wonderful Life," "L.A. Confidential," "Midnight Run," "Murphy's Romance," "My Cousin Vinny," "Nobody's Fool," "Quigley Down Under," "Remains of the Day," "Shane," "Stairway to Heaven," "Support Your Local Sheriff," "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "The Fugitive," "The King's Speech," "The Princess Bride" and "The Untouchables."

I believe that what makes this list unique is that nearly half of them are comedies and that the only people to appear in two of them are James Garner, Kevin Costner, Walter Matthau, David Niven and, of all people, Emile Meyer!

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In the days and weeks following 9/11, friends and neighbors saw the American flag flying by my front door and assumed it was in remembrance of the people murdered by Islamic terrorists. I didn't bother correcting them because, by then, that was certainly part of my intention. The thing is, the flag had been out there for several months, but they just hadn't noticed. Or maybe they just thought it was corny and didn't want to comment. But, now, I think, is a good time to set the record straight.

I went out and bought the flag because of my grandparents. I should explain I had never known my dad's parents, both of whom died before I was born. I knew my mother's parents, but could never speak to them. Although they had come to America in 1921, they never learned English. They could speak Russian and Hebrew, but they preferred Yiddish. I couldn't converse in any of those languages. And, so, to me, my grandmother was this little old woman who would give me a wet kiss on the cheek and slip a quarter into my hand.

My grandfather was a very quiet, soft-spoken, bearded man who always wore a black frock coat; he looked like a short Abe Lincoln. He went to shul twice a day. When he was home, he could be counted on to be reading the Talmud, shelling lima beans or sipping tea through a sugar cube held between his front teeth. In short, if my life were a movie, they'd have been dress extras.

So why did I buy a flag because of these four people – two of whom I had never met and two others to whom I had never even spoken? It's simple. Because of sheer, unadulterated gratitude.

You see, one day, on my way home, I began to think how lucky I was to have been born in America. Through no effort of my own, having made no sacrifice, taken no risk, I was the beneficiary of freedom, liberty, education, comfort, security and, yes, even a little luxury.

It was not the first time I had acknowledged this good fortune. The difference this time was that, for some reason, it suddenly, but belatedly, occurred to me that my good luck hadn't just happened. It had been the direct result of those four people pulling up stakes and moving thousands of miles, across an entire continent and the Atlantic Ocean, to a new country, pursuing a dream that their children and their children's children, of whom I am one, just might have better lives.

There were no guarantees. That was my epiphany. They had lacked the assurances of hindsight. They had done all this on a roll of the dice, only knowing for certain that there would be no going back.

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My father's parents were illiterate peasants. My mother's parents not only never spoke a word of English, but her father – although he owned a small grocery store in Chicago – never, in 30 years, spoke on a telephone because he didn't want to embarrass himself. But their grandson, bless their hearts, has enjoyed a career as a fairly successful writer. I doubt if any of them imagined anything so specific or anything quite that wonderful when they had sneaked across the border into Romania in the dead of night, but they had certainly heard a rumor that in America anything, including miracles, was possible.

The fact is, had those four people, all of whom were poor and barely, if at all, educated – their little children in tow – not somehow found that courage to undertake the journey, I would have been born a Jew in the Soviet Union. Between Stalin and Hitler, the odds are likely I would have wound up in a Siberian gulag or as a bar of German soap.

So it happened that day when I was out driving and thought about the enormous debt I owed those four immigrants, a debt I could never possibly re-pay, I decided to pull in at the local hardware store and buy a flag.

I thought it was something they'd have wanted me to do on their behalf. It wasn't nearly enough, I know, but it was something.

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At least in the beginning, it was usually clocks, razors and small kitchen appliances they were referring to, pointing out that it was cheaper to replace these things than to repair them. Before we knew it, we were including such pricier items as cars, TV sets, iPhones, printers and computers.

By now, it shouldn't be too surprising that thanks to the combination of a leftist media and an education system that sees its primary objective to be propagandizing on behalf of those who despise America's values and traditions, the list has expanded to include husbands, wives, children, the Constitution, our national sovereignty, religious freedom, logic and common sense.

The thing that makes political campaigns so tedious isn't just their length or even the mediocre participants, but their predictability. This is particularly true of Democrats. Year after year, they fall back on the same old tiresome talking points. For instance, they argue for stricter gun laws, although the locales that have the most stringent are also the places that have the most murders.

They argue for a higher minimum wage, although they know that those receiving it have the least marketable skills, and if you raise their wages, those paying their salaries are more likely to fire them than to pay them $30,000-a-year to flip burgers.

They accuse the GOP of being a party that wages war on blacks and Hispanics, while ignoring the fact that they're the party offering up three white men and a white woman, while the Republican field includes Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, while a fourth contender, Jeb Bush, is married to an Hispanic.

The Democrats are forever insisting they're the ones looking out for the middle class, although it's their fiscal policies, their tax plans and their rules and regulations that have kept wages stagnant for the past seven years, prevented corporations from bringing home their foreign profits and stopped the Keystone pipeline dead in its tracks.

The only members of the middle class the Democrats care about are government workers because they know they can count on their votes, in exchange for which the Democrats have acceded to all their demands for larger salaries and fatter pensions, the very things that are helping to bankrupt the nation.

I know that a lot of people have attacked Jeb Bush because he appeared to be dismissive of the massacre that took place in Roseburg, Oregon, when he said: "Stuff happens." He might have been more eloquent, but he was right. In a nation of 320 million people, where crazy people are far more likely to be hit with lightening than to be institutionalized before they go on a murderous rampage, bad stuff is bound to happen on a regular basis.

The fact remains that if Barack Obama were serious about preventing such carnage, he would start talking more about preventive incarceration and less about guns, which are no more lethal than pressure cookers, unless they, too, happen to wind up in the hands of thugs, loons or jihadists.

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It would also help if instead of condemning guns on a daily basis, Obama would concentrate on the fact that gun-free zones have been the location of just about every massacre since Nidal Hasan channeled his inner Osama bin Laden down at Fort Hood. These various killing fields have included induction centers, military bases, movie theaters, along with a slew of high school and college campuses.

But, then, if Obama really cared more about eliminating violence and less about social engineering, he wouldn't be promoting the building of public housing in neighborhoods where poor people couldn't otherwise afford to live. As a matter of fact, if sanity could ever trump a leftist agenda, there would be no such thing as subsidized public housing for anyone but criminals and the insane, the two groups Obama seems only too happy to see in the streets fending for themselves.

The fact is that every time I see or hear Barack Obama, I am reminded of a line I read a while back: "I wonder if clouds ever look down on us and say, Hey, look – that one is shaped like an idiot."

In the wake of John Boehner's resignation, it appeared that Rep. Kevin McCarthy would replace him. But then McCarthy proved he was cut of the same cloth by saying something so stupid that if you shut your eyes, you would have imagined you were listening to Boehner. He managed in 10 seconds to do what the Democrats had failed to do in a year, which was to make Trey Gowdy's Benghazi committee appear as if its sole purpose in looking into the facts surrounding the tragic events in Libya was to destroy Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations.

It's common knowledge that the Democrats in Washington are evil and the Republicans are stupid, but must the Republicans insist on constantly pounding the point home? Do we really need to be reminded every hour on the hour?

Speaking of Republicans, in the group photo taken at the CNN debate, Jeb Bush, apparently acting on instructions from his grossly over-paid advisers, went up on his tippy toes. I suppose it was intended to send the subliminal message that he literally stood head and shoulders above his rivals. If so, it failed.

On the other hand, it did lead to the Los Angeles Lakers offering him a contract.

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