Taking Leave of Your Census

"This is our child unit, Pumpkin!"

There surely must be stories in which the phrase "a federal district judge has ruled" actually leads to something good, or at least vaguely like justice. But today's news item is decidely not one of those stories.

Specifically, Judge Jesse Furman has ruled that the Trump administration may not add an outrageously offensive question to the 2020 Census asking, "are you a citizen?" Which, in our opinion, would have saved a lot of time and money by keeping dogs and cats from being interviewed. But noOOooo.

The judge made this ruling because he "infers from the various ways Commerce Secretary Ross and his aides acted like people with something to hide that they did have something to hide." For instance, they might have been hiding a suspicious desire to know how many actual American citizens there are, or been attempting to get a better grip on the number of aliens who are illegally in the country.

Had the wildly unacceptable question been allowed (which will be reviewed by the Supreme Court once Ruth Bader Ginsburg is again able to cling to her perch and gnaw her cuttlebone) it would have had terrible effects, according to the director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project (who is apparently unaware that illegals aren't supposed to be voting).

"The inevitable result," he said, "would have been to strip federal resources and political representation from those needing it most." In other words, the Left wants illegals to maintain the same access to taxpayer-funded benefits and political representation that citizens have...essentially making citizenship itself meaningless.

Whether or not that's the future we want for our country is worth discussing...but as usual, it's a discussion the Left wants to make sure has no reliable facts about which to argue.

BONUS: BULLY SHTICK

In an absolutely jaw-dropping advertising gaffe, Gillette razors has been running a spot in which they basically accuse all men (formerly their target market) of being ignorant, sexist, skirt-chasing thugs and bullies, guilty of "toxic masculinity" during this enlightened #MeToo era.

Really, Gillette?!

There's a message worth delivering about real men not being rapists, bullies, and all-around assholes, but like candidate Hillary Clinton, Gillette chose to call all men Deplorables. Except, of course, for those Gillette-approved pajama boy types who intercede to tell their neanderthal friends that it's "not cool" to show that you're attracted to a woman, and a bad idea to stand idly by as a gang of feral boys beat the living crap out of another kid who looks like a little boy, but whose gender we don't want to assume out of fear of traumatizing him/her/it.

The imagery in the commercial includes a "Stepford Husbands" row of toxic men in a suburban back yard, standing shoulder to shoulder behind their evil, smoke-emitting grills as animal meat sizzles menacingly...soon to become testosterone-fuel coursing through the veins (sometimes dangerously remaining in certain veins for four hours or longer) of a nation of grunting, hirsute, brutal man-beasts eternally cursed by their possession of a Y chromosome.

Having had a long career in advertising, we find ourselves wondering how in Hell any overpaid ad exec (and teams of testers) thought the way to sell razors to men was by insulting them? Seriously, you don't see "Summer's Eve" running commercials telling women not to be vicious, overly-emotional harpies who should - oh yeah! - buy more lemon-zesty douche products.

Which is why the ad isn't really intended to rein in sexists and bullies at all, but is rather a crass and commercial appeal to neutered social justice warriors who enjoy seeing the unwarranted slander of one of nature's two favorite genders.

Our bottom line: toxic masculinity is a lot less of a threat to our culture than toxic emasculation. We don't need Gillette's razor to tell us that; Occam's will do nicely.

Top Billing

Today's post is a straight up bitch session, although it technically doesn't involve Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, or Joy Behar. No, we mean "bitch" in the sense of a complaint...in this case related to our first round of paying bills for 2019.

Specifically, we discovered that the government, in its infinite wisdom, has tripled the cost of Medicare coverage for the reasonably healthy Mr and Mrs Jarlsberg, owing to the unforgivable sin of our lofty perch amongst the evil rich.

Only we aren't rich. And not really very evil. Rather, a couple of years ago we took some investment money out of our personal retirement account (rather than going on Social Security) and put it in the bank to pay our bills with. And it was admittedly a tidy amount, owing to the fact that it was intended to cover all of our expenses for a couple of years. And of course, we paid a massive amount of income tax on the withdrawal rather than subjecting ourselves to life on the run and/or repeated prison shower rapes.

But apparently, this still didn't fulfill our duty to the state. Which is why the Social Security Administration just gifted us with an IRMAA (Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount) which triples our joint Medicare payments to approximately $1000 a month.

Granted, a lot of people are paying way more than that for insurance now that Obamacare has more than doubled prices while slashing benefits. But still, after paying into our Medicare policy for over 40 years (paying double, in fact, being self-employed) we're still a little nonplussed by this sudden uptick in charges. And we also find ourselves wondering how many of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's snot-nosed social media followers would be demanding "Medicare For All" if they knew their "free" health care was going to cost them a grand a month up front (not including skyrocketing taxes)?

Fortunately, our Medicare premiums should drop back down next year when the government looks at our actual somewhat pitiful income. Assuming that the government shutdown isn't still going on by then...

Tan O'Clock and All's Well

As promised, we've brought back this popular feature in which women of temporary color give their unique and valuable perspectives on breaking news stories. It is entirely coincidental that this feature will almost always appear on very slow news days...

Yes, that first model is a Democrat.

All of the headlines above are from the Drudge Report, but we haven't bothered to create links because - seriously - who wants to know more about this stuff?

We will say that the shutdown is getting interesting, and we find it amusing to hear the increasingly alarmed predictions of the end of our republic - usually without any mention of the fact that Chuck and Nancy could end the whole thing with a single phone call. But surely, they don't want nationwide chaos during the Trump administration, right? Right...?

And yes, Beto O'Rourke live-streamed his dental cleaning while interviewing the hygienist on her thoughts about living near the Texas/Mexico border. An action which frankly leaves us at a floss for words.

And the last story is about how the birth rates of white women have declined in virtually every state to the point that white populations will continue to decline as the birth rates of Hispanics and African-Americans increase. We are not reporting this as a good thing or a bad thing, but rather as a point of statistical interest and, most importantly, as an excuse to post pictures which might briefly inspire some white guys to show a little damn initiative in the fertilization department.

BONUS: IT'S BEEN BEATEN TO DEATH, BUT WE STILL HAD TO DO IT...