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The Week’s Most Mauling, Enthralling, and Governor-Recalling Headlines

OUR CAREER’S IN JEOPARDY, BABY!
“It’s a thing that leftists swear doesn’t exist, and if you disagree with them, they’ll mercilessly use it against you.”

“What is cancel culture?”

“Correct.”

For some reason, nobody at Sony Television foresaw trouble when they hired a guy named Michael Richards as the new host of Jeopardy!

It’s not like there’d ever been a man with that name blowing his career in a racial imbroglio.

The hiring of Richards as the permanent successor to Alex Trebek was not exactly welcome news to a lot of hardcore Jeopardy! fans. Richards had been in charge of finding Trebek’s replacement, and many fans felt cheated when he decided to pick himself for the job instead of popular guest hosts Ken Jennings, LeVar Burton, and Mayim Bialik’s nose (that’s how she’s usually billed as few people notice that there’s a full person behind the sizable appendage).

So there wasn’t a lot of love in the room for Richards when he took the job.

“In Dante’s Fifth Circle of Hell, the actively wrathful wrestle in a bed of slime pointlessly battling each other for all eternity, while the passively wrathful hide beneath murky waters taking anonymous potshots at those above. This circle has a specific name in modern-day America.”

“What is Twitter?”

“Correct.”

Within days of Richards’ ascension, Twitter sleuths did what they do best: They searched for old dirt. Because for a lot of young people today, that’s as close as they come to having a profession. And voilà, in 2013, while hosting a podcast, Richards had made a few innocuous jokes about Jews, women, and Asians.

So Jeopardy! promptly canned him.

Their job done, the Twitter sleuths returned to their vaping and video games, knowing that once again they’d made the world a better place.

“Lavrentiy Beria, the brutal head of the NKVD under Stalin, was not Jewish. But this organization of American Jews would gladly make him an honorary member, as they carry on his work.”

“What is the ADL?”

“Correct.”

The ADL, not content with Richards’ firing, now wants him “investigated,” even though it’s not even remotely against the law to make jokes about Jews (or anyone else).

Ironically, one of Richards’ “criminal” jokes involved Jews having giant schnozzolas, so you’d think replacing him with Mayim Bialik would be seen as racial justice. But no. Bialik, who’d been named host of Jeopardy! prime-time specials, has been targeted for cancellation too, because back in 2012—when Covid was just a gleam in a rabid Chinese bat’s bleeding eye—she’d supported the right of parents to make decisions about getting their kids vaccinated.

She’s since reversed her stance, but to no avail. The Twitter sleuths have her scent! Another day, another scalp.

HOLE-Y BALLOTS, BATMAN!
For Democrats, it’s time to go to Plan C in the California recall election: “C” as in “cheating.”

When the recall gathered enough signatures to be put on the ballot, the Democrats who control the state with the viselike grip of a serial killer strangling a prostitute had a choice: postpone the special election until November, or have it as soon as possible. And the Stasi Freedom Party decided it would be best to have it as soon as possible. The reasoning was, California fire season is usually in the fall, so best to hold the election before Newsom immolates another bunch of people.

Also, in June it looked like vaxxed and unmasked would be the new new normal. After spending a summer free of Covid restrictions, surely Californians would be grateful to the slicked-hair socialist who saw them through the crisis.

But then two things happened: California’s left-wing professorial arsonists decided to start fire season early, and science decided that the Delta variant was the woist Holocaust evah, so masks back on and gatherings prohibited again.

And now, Cali Dems are regretting that with only two weeks to go, they have an unhappy populace, and a recall that’s a dead heat.

But fear not! Dems always have that Plan C up their sleeves. Turns out, the mail-in recall ballots for Los Angeles County were printed so that a hole in the envelope allows everyone to see if the “yes on recall” circle has been colored in.

Yep, everyone from postmen to election workers will know the yeses from the nos…what could possibly go wrong?

With L.A. County comprising over one quarter of the entire state population, this is kind of a big deal.

The L.A. County registrar-recorder told local news that the envelope hole is necessary for blind people to find the line on the outside of the envelope where they need to sign their names (perhaps one day someone will invent a way for blind people to read something using, say, tiny bumps instead of holes), and the fact that the “yes” circle shows through the hole is just the koo-koo-kookiest koincidence.

Interestingly, certain “conservatives” are so jittery about being associated with claims of vote fraud in the wake of the lunatic ravings of the likes of Lindell, Powell, and Wood, they’re actually dismissing any concerns about the Amazing Transparent Ballot.

Punjabi Republican flack Harmeet Dhillon scolded her Twitter followers about their ballot secrecy concerns:

This is stupid. You control how your ballot is put in and it it isn’t a peephole. It’s a pair of holes designed for the vision impaired to know where to place their signature. Don’t want your mark to show? Don’t put it in so that it shows. Done.

There’s that Indian “how do you use a toilet?” intelligence. Ballot envelopes should be obstacle courses! “What’s wrong with this picture” brain teasers! It’s up to voters to notice the security flaws and fix them; it’s not up to the government to prevent the security flaws in the first place.

And to think otherwise is “stupid.”

Morons like Sydney Powell on one end, morons like Harmeet Dhillon on the other…doesn’t the GOP offer anything in between?

And don’t the Democrats offer anything other than dirty tricks?

Good questions…and rhetorical.

NO LEOTARDS FOR REOTARDS
Tights, leotards…these comprise the official uniform of the ballet dancer. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s also about aerodynamics. Loose-fitting, flip-floppy apparel does not lend itself well to the art of ballet. There’s a reason Edward James Olmos’ Zoot Suit: The Ballet closed during rehearsals. All of those heavy, flapping pachuco outfits greatly inhibited the ability of the dancers to execute their brisés and cabriolés.

Of course, along with the aerodynamic advantages of formfitting clothes, the attire has helped advance the popularity of ballet in less commonly spoken-about ways. Men who’d been dragged to the ballet by their wives could busy themselves by playing “spot the camel toe,” and gay men could marvel at the jiggling junk of the ballerinos as they twirl and jump like West Hollywood clubgoers when the DJ starts playing Cher. Indeed, La Scala used to hand out scorecards to its gay patrons in which the hanging beauties of the male dancers could be ranked from “blueberry” to “jackfruit.”

But in the immortal words of the AIDS virus, “party’s over, queers.” The days of tight-fitting ballet clothes are finished.

And why? Well, 50% of all modern annoyances are race-based, and 50% are gender-based. And this one’s the latter. Turns out, tranny men who want to dance ballet don’t like it when the audience can see their biological equipment. The illusion that tranny men falsely think they’re pulling off by donning a wig and lipstick (“No one will ever know!”) is threatened when tight-fitting clothes highlight the Balzac and Dirlywanger. Yet even though the tranny illusion fools no one except the reporters at Vice and Bill Nye, we all have to act like the pubgoers in the Invisible Man sketch and play along.

So tranny ballet guys complained to their respective companies that the tights and leotards were “destroying the illusion,” and as a result, ballet companies are banning the apparel. As reported in The Sunday Times:

A group of ballet schools is to abolish leotards and tights to make transgender performers more comfortable. Loose-fitting clothing will instead be promoted to accommodate transgender dancers who may be self-conscious about their bodies. New guidelines have been adopted by the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, whose member schools include the London Contemporary Dance School, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the Rambert School and the Central School of Ballet.

The guidelines lament that tight clothing forces men in drag to engage in “binding and tucking” in order to obscure their sausage ’n’ eggs.

Of course, the easiest solution for not having to worry about your prima ballerina’s rod and testes jiggling during a performance is to hire actual women. But the West is long past such primitive thinking. Now that men are officially women and it’s up to the rest of us to obscure their genitalia and humor their fantasy, get ready for productions of The Nutcracker in which even the ballerinas are dressed as toy soldiers, to keep their nuts from not just cracking, but showing.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE COUGHING CHINAMAN (A MIKE STAMMER MYSTERY)
For fans of classic TV, there’s no better detective character than Columbo. Indeed, Columbo might very well be the greatest fictional American detective in history (forget Batman; Columbo would’ve deduced the Bruce Wayne/Batman connection within the first minute of meeting him).

Part of Columbo’s charm was his act—and the audience always knew it was an act—of pretending to be forgetful, clumsy, and scatterbrained. Columbo craftily used this facade as a ruse to put the villains at ease, to make them think they were dealing with a senile moron.

At the moment, the U.S. is being led by Columbo, but an iteration in which the distracted, doltish, amnemonic routine is totally real.

We’d do better with Inspector Clouseau.

Ninety days ago, President Biden ordered a full, comprehensive report on the origins of the pandemic that has quite literally disrupted the entire world. Thanks to Covid, today’s Australians get to experience what it was like on the prison ships from the U.K., and New Zealand managed to turn overnight into a nation of Edith Beales, cowering in a corner every time there’s a knock on the door or mail dropped in the slot.

And here in the U.S., child-suffocating is now the most important goal of the public education system.

But not to fear—Detective Demento is on the case! He’ll find the answers to the source of this global plague! After all, Covid either came from a Chinese lab or through the Chinese exotic animal food trade. And either way, China’s at fault (although the official Chinese government position is that the disease was imported in a bad batch of Mrs. Paul’s frozen fish sticks. As Chinese State Department spokesman Hoo Flung Pu told the AP, “Why we no ever see MR. Paul? I think old lady kill him. She no good; she start Covid”).

Maybe it’s because all Covid roads lead to China that Biden’s much-heralded origins report has the official conclusion of “I dunno.” Released last week, the report was greeted with skepticism based on its cover alone, which depicts Lenny from Of Mice and Men staring blankly ahead saying, “Lookit the rabbits, George.”

Simply put, the report concluded that, in the words of a U.S. official quoted in The Wall Street Journal, “If China’s not going to give access to certain data sets, you’re never really going to know.”

Well, Biden certainly got to the bottom of that one, didn’t he?

Literally, “we’re never going to know” is the report’s conclusion.

Columbo Biden: “So you’re saying, sir, that even though China has a history of both naturally occurring zoonotic diseases and zoonotic bioweapon experiments, neither has anything to do with the emergence of a deadly zoonotic pandemic in your country?”

Xi Jinping: “Precisely, detective. And I’d appreciate it if you’d leave now; you’re becoming a nuisance.”

Columbo Biden: “Of course, sir. My apologies.”

[Pause]

Columbo Biden: “Oh, just one more thing…am I wearing pants?”

Xi Jinping: “NO! And it is most offensive.”

Columbo Biden: “I thought I felt a draft. Good day to you, sir.”

AND SPEAKING OF THE DODDERER IN CHIEF…
In March 1991, following the stunningly swift Gulf War victory in which the U.S. soundly beat an army of spear-chucking Tusken Raiders, George H.W. Bush was riding high with an approval rating of over 90%—one of the highest ratings in U.S. history, and the highest since that time FDR socked a Hitler look-alike in the nads at a Madison Square Garden war bonds rally.

Yet the very next year, Bush lost to a country-bumpkin rapist married to an anthropomorphic cymothoa exigua. And the main reason was that Bush had pledged, “Read my lips: no new taxes,” only to later reverse himself.

Of course, times were different in 1992. It was not yet illegal to be white, gays were promising that if we let them marry it wouldn’t mean the end of gender as we know it, toddlers didn’t have their faces wrapped like mummies, and wars were undertaken by Big Oil and Big Neocon with the understanding that they should be concluded swiftly and decisively instead of slowly and for perpetuity.

Funny to think of a time when a broken tax pledge was the worst of our problems.

Biden’s already blown his Gulf War moment, handling the Afghanistan pullout with all the grace and skill of the Three Stooges fixing a faucet. And now, barely a half-year into his presidency, he’s blown his “read my lips” moment, too.

As reported by Americans for Tax Reform, Biden has blatantly violated his election pledge “No. Taxes on small businesses won’t go up.” Turns out, taxes on small businesses will go up under his tax plan…but the hike will “only” affect about a million small businesses.

Well, hooray for that.

The big question is, does anybody even care anymore? As Reason pointed out last week, because of Covid closures and lockdowns, most Americans don’t even owe any taxes at the moment. So why worry about tax hikes when you can lobby for more stimi dough and unemployment largesse?

And as the nation’s layabouts lay about spending the money given them via taxes collected from those small businesses that foolishly try to stay afloat, one has to wonder if Biden can survive a bungled war and a broken tax pledge when thirty years ago a different president couldn’t survive a hugely successful war and a broken tax pledge.

Maybe the old coot had one final moment of lucidity when he chose a cackling ten-dollar escort as his vice president.

Even with Biden’s bungling, a majority of Americans are envisioning the possibility of a Kamala presidency and declaring Read our lips: no shrew blackses.