Luke Ford | No sacred cows.

Thilo Sarrazin’s new book: a case of wishful thinking

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Report: The enfant terrible of non-fiction German literature is back. Thilo Sarrazin’s latest book examines the “big mistakes” in current German and EU politics – but his provocative statements no longer surprise anyone.

The most recent tome written by divisive German author Thilo Sarrazin has hit the shelves this week, and critics have been quick to dismiss it. The book, titled “Wunschdenken” (Wishful Thinking), builds on the controversy surrounding his 2010 explosive work, “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (Germany does away with itself).

German newspaper “Bild” had a heyday over the publication, declaring “Sarrazin is at it again.” Others in the German press were more critical: The political magazine “Spiegel” accused the economist and former politician of being egocentric and spreading “cold aggression with a scientific veneer.” The daily “Süddeutsche Zeitung” degraded his work to a mix of “cute, terrible and good.”

Sarrazin is apparently settling a number of accounts in his new book: The 71-year-old author seems to have created a 400-page-long list of reasons why Germany’s government is failing to address key issues. Sarrazin alleges that “Germany’s future is highly contingent upon hot topics like immigration, demographic changes and education – but not equality, gender politics or any debate on climate change.”

His conclusion: Germany has started to waste away its affluence and level of education as well as its cultural heritage. And who is to blame? Sarrazin accuses unequivocally Chancellor Angela Merkel as the main perpetrator behind all the ailments he observes.

Sarrazin believes that Merkel’s approach to the refugee crisis was a fundamentally wrong move. He goes as far as referring to Merkel’s “crude refugee and immigration policy” as the “biggest mistake in German politics since the end of World War II.” Sarrazin also accuses Merkel of putting the nation as well as the European Union under increased risk.

He seems to take particular issue with the increasing number of Muslim migrants arriving in Germany. Sarrazin looks at these developments as an experiment that is bound to fail. He postulates that the majority of asylum seekers arrived from the Middle East and Africa with a low standard of education.

“Their cultural and cognitive profiles are similar to those of the Muslims who already are in Europe. Therefore, it is to be expected that their development in terms of education, integration into the work force, dependency on government assistance, criminality and susceptibility to fundamentalism will follow similar patterns as those who are already here,” he writes.

Sarrazin’s outlook is a gloomy one, accompanied by dystopian statistics: If one million refugees continued to come to Germany each year (as they did in 2015), their numbers would skyrocket to 134 million people by 2050 – his figures include family reunions and offspring.

The author admits that this is an unlikely scenario, but insists that such numbers exemplify how easy it would be to apparently lose control over Germany’s immigration issues. “Gaining back full control over our borders (…) will become an existential issue for our culture and the survival of our society,” he writes.

When Sarrazin first published his theories in 2010, his party, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), investigated whether he should be expelled because of his views, but it was decided that he could remain a member of the center-left party. Although he does not discuss the case directly in his latest book, he does express animosity towards established political values.

“If, as a German politician, you believe that everyone in the world should have the same rights according to Germany’s Basic Law and should be allowed to expect the same services from the welfare state as soon as they cross the German border, your immigration and refugee policies will be different than those of a politician, who truly chooses to work for the best interest of the German population.” Sarrazin fails, however, to specify who may or may not be included in his interpretation of the term “German population.”

… Six years ago, Thilo Sarrazin inflamed the country with his first publication on his views on immigration, “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (Germany does away with itself), where he specifically targeted migrants from Muslim countries. Two other books followed in 2012 and 2014. The once so media-savvy Thilo Sarrazin is now beyond his peak: His views on immigration policies are so well known that this book will fail to attract as much attention.

COMMENTS TO STEVE SAILER:

* Sarrazin has been superseded by the first real Right post 1945 party in Germany, Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD).

If Donald Trump is successful in America, it will have repercussions in Europe.

During a Trump Presidency, AfD will emerge as the main German opposition party to the usual CDU-SPD grand coalition.

* Someone who is fluent in English and German should write book summaries of Sarrazin’s books in English and sell them online. I’m surprised someone hasn’t done so already.

* If the British electorate votes to leave the EU in next month’s referendum – a prospect that cannot be dismissed out of hand – then, I think, that Austria will be the next nation to leave the EU, possibly followed by others.
Austria, contra to that that daft ‘Schengen arrangement’ has already started to *fortify* its border with Italy, notably the Brenner Pass, in anticipation of a huge loucust-wave of Afro/Asian ‘migrants’ out of Italy, that, surely, will come sooner rather than later. Austria also seems set to elect an explicitly anti-immigrationist president today.

I’ve always found it hard to believe that a people as famously sensible, fastidious and as hard harder as the Austrians could stomach the shit headed EU mandated mass immigration madness that we see today. People who keep the streets of Vienna SL clean that, proverbially, ‘you can eat your dinner off them’ are unlikely to tolerate the metaphorical – and literal – en masse defecation of the unwashed hordes on their doorstep.

On another note. Germany’s relationship with the old ‘mittel Europa’ – the former Austrian Empire more or less, is surely the best, most important, most strategic and mist valuable relationship it has. Why sacrifice it for the sake of unprincipled, mendacious, worthless, Pakistani/Bangladeshi faker/frauds?

* Almost everyday hundreds of Africans seeking a better life are towed to Italy. If this is kept up the Coliseum will be transformed into a giant accommodation centre. As it is they are defecating in parks and urinating in fountains. Pretty soon tourists will strike Italy off and it will become a Nigerian Shantytown albeit with statues and crumbly cathedrals instead of Shebeens.

* Thilo Sarrazin’s list of the Principles of Political Correctness is very well thought out, IMO. He prefaced it with, “I think the list describes the truth but it takes some irony or humor to understand it fully. The problem lies not in any single item on this list but in their combination and rigid application to political thinking.”

1. Inequality is bad, equality is good.

2. Secondary virtues like industriousness, precision and punctuality are of no particular value. Competition is morally questionable (except in sports) because it promotes inequality.

3. The rich should feel guilty. Exception: Rich people who have earned their money as athletes or pop stars.

4. Different conditions of life have nothing to do with people’s choices but with the circumstances they are in.

5. All cultures are of equal rank and value. Especially the values und ways of life of the Christian occident and Western industrialised nations should not enjoy any preference. Those who think differently are provincial and xenophobic.

6. Islam is a religion of peace. Those who see any problems with immigration from Islamic countries are guilty of Islamophobia. This is nearly as bad as antisemitism.

7. Western industrialised nations carry the main responsibility for poverty and backwardness in other parts of the world.

8. Men and women have no natural differences, except for the physical signs of their sex.

9. Human abilities depend mainly on training and educations; inherited differences play hardly any role.

10. There are no differences between peoples and races, except for their physical appearance.

11. The nation state is an outdated model. National identities and peculiarities have no particular value. The national element as such is rather bad; it is at any rate not worth preserving. The future belongs to the world society.

12. All people in the world do not only have equal rights, they are in fact equal. They should at least all be eligible for the benefits of the German welfare state.

13. Children are an entirely private affair. Immigration takes care of the labour market and of any other demographic problems.

Posted in Germany, Immigration, Islam, PC | Comments Off

How To Read The New York Times

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Steve Sailer writes:

One of the curious aspects of New York Times articles is that they are often organized in the reverse order of how the same material would be reported in, say, the Daily Mail. NYT articles tend to start off boring and depressing, with only vague hints of why the reporter is interested in the subject, and don’t get to the good stuff until late in the article, by which point, no doubt, most readers have given up…

What would the Daily Mail’s headline look like? Something like:

“Pygmies Firing Poisoned Arrows Rebel against Exploiting Slavers”

Then there’d be about four sub-headlines about adultery and murder.

Posted in Africa, Journalism | Comments Off

LAT: Japan doesn’t want the U.S. to apologize for bombing Hiroshima. Here’s why

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

There are no permanent enemies and allies in the world. It all depends upon time and context.

Jake Adelstein writes:

Apologizing for a wartime act generations ago would be as welcome to Japanese political leaders as a cloud of mosquitoes. Here’s why:

Does Japan even want an apology?

Likely not. A secret 2009 state department cable published by Wikileaks in 2011 indicated Japan was cool to the idea and worried that it would only serve to energize anti-nuclear activists in the country.

Hasn’t this come up before?

It has. In 2007, during Shinzo Abe’s first term as prime minister, Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma referred to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as “something that couldn’t be helped.” While opposition leaders took issue with that position, the government’s official stance was that it would be more meaningful for the U.S. and Japan to “aim for a peaceful and safe world without nuclear weapons.”

An apology could trigger unneeded political fallout

Devin Stewart, a noted expert on Japan, and senior program director at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, suggests that an apology could “open a can of worms on many, many issues.”

There’s concern, for instance, it might undermine Abe’s initiative to give Japan a more nimble, capable military and clear the way for troops to fight overseas, something that hasn’t happened since the end of World War II. Abe’s primary goal, Stewart says, is to strengthen the military and everything else, including his economic platform of Abenomics, is a means to achieve that goal.

An apology also could harden the opposition to using nuclear power in Japan, a sentiment that blossomed after the meltdown at Fukushima. The administration has made nuclear power a major part of its energy policy.

“Overemphasizing the inhuman nature of the nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki goes against what the current government of Japan has been working on so hard for decades — removing ‘allergic’ reaction against nuclear weapons and nuclear power. In short, let the sleeping dogs lie,” Koichi Nakano, a professor of Japanese politics at Sophia University, said.

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Why The Left Hates Jews

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

It is not complicated. If you are a true member of the left, you do not accord racial, religious and ethnic differences any importance. On the other hand, identifying Jews generally regard themselves as belonging to the nation of Israel and usually support the nation-state of Israel. Left-wing Jews who care about the welfare of Jews and the Jewish state put their Jewish identity ahead of their leftism. Left-wing Jews who dislike Israel for being an ethno-state put their leftism ahead of their Jewish identity.

There’s nothing sinister going on with either option. There’s no need to get anguished and throw around words like “betrayal.” Whenever we think someone has betrayed us, all it means is that the person has a different set of priorities than what we expected.

Kevin Williamson writes in NR:

The Labour party in the United Kingdom is being convulsed at the moment with a public reckoning of the anti-Semitism of some of its most prominent members, including the former mayor of London, “Red” Ken Livingstone, who has just been suspended from the party for arguing that Adolf Hitler was, effectively, a Zionist. He was trying to explain away the anti-Semitic remarks of MP Naz Shah, who suggested that Israel be liquidated and its population forcibly resettled in the United States.

In the United States, the Harvard Law Record went to some lengths to conceal the identity of a law student who attacked a visiting Israeli dignitary as — in the classic anti-Semitic formulation — “smelly.” That student was Husam El-Qoulaq, a Palestinian leftist. The campus Left has, to no one’s surprise, rallied to his defense. Among those defending him were a number of Jewish law students, who insisted that El-Qoulaq couldn’t possibly have known the anti-Semitic history of “smelly Jew” rhetoric, in spite of his having been reared at the world center of such nonsense. Others insisted that the Harvard case and the Labour cases are — this, too, will be familiar — not at all about anti-Semitism but about anti-Zionism.

One of the fundamental stories of history is that people move around and bump into each other. It is true that most of the current Jewish population of Israel descends from people who were not precisely sons of the soil they now inhabit. But then, neither are the so-called Palestinians, who are Arabs. Arabs famously come from Arabia, but they are located all over the world. No one talks about the need to get the Arabs out of Egypt or Libya — or Palestine, for that matter — any more than anybody seriously thinks about returning the Americas to the descendants of the aboriginal population, which, of course, wasn’t aboriginal, either, but merely the first to emigrate. The Irish are descended of people not native to Ireland, as indeed ultimately is every population in the world, including those in the African cradle of humanity.

Posted in Anti-Semitism | Comments Off

WEHT To R. Daniel Grama?

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

Email: “Do you know what happened to Rabbi Daniel Grama at Mogen David? I went back this weekend after about 6 months or so and he’s gone (along with approximately 75% of the Ashkenazi minyan). Any idea? I always come to your blog first about these things!”

He works for Aish Ha Torah:

Rabbi Daniel Grama, originally from Englewood, New Jersey, has been in LA for almost 20 years. After several years studying in Israel and the US, he was ordained by the Israeli Rabbinate. He and his wife Ruthy then moved to Panama, where he was part of a kollel group from 1994 to 1996 before moving to Los Angeles. He has a Master’s in Educational Leadership, and has spent his years in LA teaching at YULA and involved with NCSY and Aish HaTorah. Rabbi Grama also joined Congregation Mogen David in 2014 as the rabbinical leader of the Ashkenazi minyan. The Gramas have seven children.

Posted in Mogen David | Comments Off

Why Did Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz Leave Kehilat Israel?

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Luke Ford

President Steve Osman writes in the shul bulletin in 2013:

This article will formally announce to those who do not already know, that Rabbi Yanklowitz has resigned his position as
Senior Rabbi. On Friday, May 17 a verbal agreement was reached and was affirmed by a written letter of resignation. Those attending
Shabbat Services on May 18 heard me read the following letter:
4/26/2013
To the Board, Officers, Staff, and Congregants of Kehilath Israel
From: Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz
My dear friends,
It is with heavy heart that I inform you that I am resigning as Senior Rabbi of the congregation. Due to misunderstandings regarding the application of the synagogue’s policies and procedures as outlined in its Constitution and my Engagement Agreement, I believe I must move on.
Shoshana and I were very blessed to have had eight wonderful months with you. So many of you have touched our hearts and become true partners and friends. We are very grateful to you and will miss you very much. We wish you all good health, long life, growth, and happiness. You will always have a special place in our hearts.
With deep gratitude and appreciation, wishing you all many blessings,
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Do social justice and scandal go together? It would be funny if the rabbi did something unethical. Reading between the lines, it sounds like some sort of financial problem. I wonder if YCT moved in, paid money all over the place and had articles removed from the web to save him as he is one of their biggest stars.

In July of 2013, came this announcement from Phoenix:

Valley Beit Midrash hires one of ‘America’s top 50 rabbis’

Earlier this year, Newsweek named him one of “America’s Top 50 Rabbis” for the second year in a row. And now, starting in July, Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, founder and president of the social justice organization Uri L’Tzedek, will be executive director of Valley Beit Midrash.
Yanklowitz, 31, was described by Newsweek as “Orthodoxy’s most prominent voice on social justice” who “has a resume longer than many rabbinic leaders twice his age.”
This resume includes a master’s degree in leadership, moral development and psychology from Harvard University and a master’s in Jewish philosophy from Yeshiva University. He received ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School (the same school as his predecessor Rabbi Darren Kleinberg), as well as a second one from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in Efrat, Israel, and a third from Rabbi Nathan Lopez Cardozo of Jerusalem. Last year, he received a doctorate in epistemology, moral development and developmental psychology from Columbia University.
He is also the author of “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” and serves as CEO of the Shamayim V’Aretz Institute, which focuses on preventive health, kosher veganism, animal welfare, activism and preservation of the environment.
In the past decade, he has been the director of Jewish life and senior Jewish educator at the Hillel at the University of California, Los Angeles; a chaplain in the U.S. Army; a hospital chaplain; and a congregational rabbi.
Valley Beit Midrash, founded in 2007, describes itself on its website, valleybeitmidrash.org, as “a collaborative organization that brings new, exciting and relevant Jewish programming to the Greater Phoenix Jewish community in a diverse welcoming, engaging and pluralistic setting” and partners with a number of local synagogues and Jewish organizations to provide this programming.

Posted in R. Shmuly Yanklowitz | Comments Off

The White Death

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Luke Ford

Comments: I remember the “Greatest Generation” drank, constantly. They also chain smoked.

The generation after them I think is called “The Quiet Generation” — they seemed more abstemious.

My fellow Boomers, many of them picked up the drug habit and never stopped. But the drug habit isn’t just any particular drug, it’s the idea that you have to self-medicate constantly. And many do. I can think of at least a couple cases where peers just dropped dead in their ’50′s from excessive “self medication.” I don’t believe that heroin was the cause (but I know some of those, too.) But it may well have been decades of alcohol, MJ, pain pills, meth, and cocaine abuse.

I am going to guess that many of these deaths involve people either in young or later middle age who really don’t have anything to do in their lives. That’s the sad truth for a lot of people, even if they have kids, once the kids grow up and leave. However, you might be right that many of these people have a nearer connection to obtaining various types of drugs that keeps the Quiet Ones alive.

* I was watching a documentary recently about the death of the actor Heath Ledger. The main drugs found in his system were anti-anxiety drugs and painkillers. Doctors these days don’t like to give out drugs like Valium because they have the potential for addiction. However, a medical expert on the documentary pointed out that it was very unlikely someone could actually die from overdosing on doctor-perscribed sedatives like Valium. What killed Ledger was probably an overdose of high power pain killers (of a type usually only given to cancer patients) which he somehow acquired illegally. Interestingly pain killers not only help to dull physical pain, but they can also help to dull psychological pain, since the two types of pain are closely connected from a neurological perspective.

* The deep trough in the early ’70s is interesting. I was born in ’76. That was the era where drugs weren’t quite so cool (perhaps “Just Say No” was more effective than lefties give Nancy credit for) and when sex was honest to God deadly, with AIDS deaths peaking ca. 1987-1993. I pretty much assume that every other male celebrity who died during that time frame died from AIDS. AIDs definitely contributed at least a little to the spike in the ’50s.

People born in the early to mid-70s were flooded with propaganda discouraging us from drugs and unsafe sex, as well as the fitness boom. We had seat belts, airbags, anti-lock brakes, and never had to go to war.

Social media seems to be weakening the effect of old school anti-drug propaganda, though. People seem to take a rather casual attitude towards drug and alcohol abuse these days, and are quite happy to brag about it on Facebook and elsewhere. The legalization of pot in several states is one consequence of that.

Posted in America | Comments Off

Christianity Under Attack

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Luke Ford

Posted in Christianity | Comments Off

America Needs A Black King

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Luke Ford

Steve Sailer writes: Back in the 1990s, I proposed that America have a Head of State distinct from the Head of Government, who would embody the ceremonial majesty of the country.

I think a ten year appointive term with an unwritten tradition that it would be filled by senior black celebrities would be satisfying to the public: such as in 1996 James Earl Jones, in 2006 Oprah, and in 2016 Samuel L. Jackson or Denzel Washington, with, say, Will Smith or David Robinson on deck for 2026; for 2036 LeBron James, Russell Wilson or Viola Davis?

This might be a good solution to the problem that has been emerging for the Democratic Party of white candidates having to abase themselves in front of demented black protestors, which is related to the problem the Academy Awards have been having: the black feeling of megalomaniacal entitlement that once you go black you can never go back.

But of course there’s not such a surplus of black competence that these strongly felt emotions can safely be accommodated.

However, there is no shortage of blacks with kingly or queenly affects.

So, create important ceremonial positions only open, by tradition, to black celebrities.

COMMENTS:

* A big part of the Trump movement is the result of the masses believing that we no longer have a constitutional republic. Too many thousand-page bills and trade deals that no one gets to read are rubber stamped. The federal government refuses to enforce existing laws, or at the least picks and chooses which laws to enforce. De facto amnesty has been granted to millions of people who don’t belong.

Yet the Trump supporters are the problem? Trump only needs to enforce existing laws to make an impact. Yet enforcing laws seems to be autocratic by Douthat. Oh, and throw in a reference to Putin. That’s double-plus-bad.

We get it. We are supposed to shut up, let the rulers replace our population and outsource our industry all while trying to start a war with Russia.

* The Douther is a real moron.

If people want a king, it’s because a king focuses on the kingdom.

What we have is an empire, and the imperial presidency has turned the president into an emperor(albeit a puppet-emperor) of the GLOB order.

I think it’s better to have a ‘king’ than an ‘emperor’.

Emperor is too focused on the world to care about the security and interests of his own kingdom.
Once the rulers become addicted to World Power, that of the empire, then one’ s own kingdom or republic seems so puny and small. Addiction to scale.

So, the paradox of Trump is he wants to be the big man to focus on the little people of his ‘kingdom’. He wants ‘kingdom first’ than ‘empire always’.

And that is the good side of Putin. He wants to be the Russian leader of Russia, not the world.

It is the US that is an empire, and it is US presidents who’ve been acting like globo-emperors.

No more emperors trying to rule the world. Better to have kings focusing on the kingdom.

As the Romans found out, when you conquer the world, the world conquers you. All roads that lead out from Rome also lead to Rome.

* Of course we’re dealing with the “NYT affect” whereby any pundit, no matter how boring or worthless, is deemed IMPORTANT because they are published in the newspaper.

We can start with the fact that Ross is only published in the NYT, because he is a “reasonable” Conservative. That is, he agrees with rich liberals on everything that matters, but disagrees with them on stuff that doesn’t.

So, of course, Ross thinks Trump is the greatest threat to the USA, ever, ever, because Trump opposes open borders and bad trade deals.

The truth is that Trump is a moderate Republican who wants some sanity in our Government dealings regarding trade and immigration but otherwise is a pretty reasonable, middle of the road, american billionaire.

But evidently, even the slightest disagreement with the status quo means you’re “just like Hitler!!”

* Sometimes, maybe most of the time, I have no idea what Douhat is saying, or why he is saying it.

There’s an inherent obscurantism in the guy. As the Good Dr. Nietzsche would have it, he muddies his waters that they might appear deep.

* There’s another interpretation than “the cult of the presidency”. There’s the real-world observation that the presidency keeps getting more powerful, so it’s logical to assume if your guy wins he’ll have at least as much power as the last guy.

The only thing that obscures this observation is that recent GOP presidents think small domestically. Their biggest domestic accomplishments are either stuff Dems wanted too (raising social security taxes to extend the program, creating the department of homeland security) or temporary (Reagan’s tax cuts; W’s top rate tax cuts). But Obama shows what’s possible. He created the biggest new entitlement since LBJ and imported millions of future voters for his party by deciding not to enforce some immigration laws.

* Reflecting back on the Obama presidency, I’ve come to the conclusion that Obama cared very little about governing but cared a lot about trolling whitey. Indeed, he spent the bulk of his time very visibly enjoying the perks of office, burning through more tax payer money on vacations than all the presidents of the 20th century combined. Truly, he was the first Hip Hop president with his Secret Service posse, and his own private 747. His goal was to be a proxy Everynegro living the lifestyle every black man and woman thinks he/she is entitled to.

So as an improvement to our democracy, I propose a copy of Versailles be built somewhere on the National Mall to accommodate this new head of state. And I recommend that he stand for election during regular presidential Election years but 1) the vote be conducted on the first Monday of Nov. and 2) the head of state can be reelected as many times as he wishes to run. This will divert the black electorate toward more pressing matters like who has the best pimp style, who is keeping it real, and whose First Hootchie Mama has the phattest ass. Come back to the polls on Tue to vote in a second election for some boring chief executive? Fuhgeddaboudit!

* Obama claim to fame is master of the passive aggressive troll. Obama could be as lazy, as golfing, as hoops shooting as he wanted to be because he appointed energetic true believer leftists and race hustlers working under him. Such as Hillary messing up Libya and Syria, causing the migrant invasion of Europe. Thomas Perez and Holder at Justice. Valerie Jarrette who is Obama’s brains. Scores of gay, lesbian, black and other types of minority appointees at Justice, State and everywhere. So Obama is vacationing up at Martha’s Vineyard eating ice cream for two weeks? So what, because his appointed termites keep busy gnawing away every day of the year. Call this “The Art Of The Laze”.

Posted in America, Blacks | Comments Off

Larry Wilmore at White House Correspondent Dinner 2016 [WHCD FULL SPEECH]

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Luke Ford

— “Welcome to Negro Night here in Washington. Or as Fox News will report, ‘Two thugs disrupt elegant dinner in DC.’”

— “Nice to be here, though, at the White House correspondents’ dinner where, as you know, they’re gonna call it next year, ‘Donald Trump Hosts a Luxurious Dinner Paid For By Mexico.’”

— “A little bit about me: I am a black man who replaced a white man who pretended to be a TV newscaster. So yeah, in that way, Lester Holt and I have a lot in common.”

— “I can’t understand why everybody treats Donald Trump with kid gloves. Then I realize they’re the only gloves that will fit his stupid little baby hands.”

— To Obama: “I saw you hanging out with NBA players like Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors. That was cool. You know, it kind of makes sense too, because both of you like raining down bombs on people from long distances.”

— “Speaking of drones, how is Wolf Blitzer still on television? Ask a follow up question! Hey Wolf, I’m ready to project tonight’s winner: Anyone that isn’t watching ‘The Situation Room.’”

— “I have to say about the first lady, it is so nice to have dinner with you. She is the epitome of grace, class, and poise. Isn’t she? She really is. Not to be confused with future first gentleman Bill Clinton whose three favorite strippers are named Grace, Class, and Poise.”

— “Some of America’s finest black journalists are here tonight. Don Lemon’s here, too.”

— “Hillary [Clinton] was flustered when a Black Lives Matter protester challenged her. I haven’t seen a white lady that upset over being blindsided by a black person since Kelly Ripa.”

— “The Treasury promised to put Harriet Tubman’s face on the $10 bill, but now we have to wait until 2030 for the $20 bill. Man, women haven’t been this deceived by a Bill since Cosby.”

— “Chris Christie was supposed to be here tonight. I don’t know if he made it. He RSVPd for three: He, his wife, and Donald Trump’s dry-cleaning. I shouldn’t make fun. Chris lost a lot of weight recently, didn’t he? This is what he said, he said he just eliminated everything from his routine that wasn’t necessary. Like his self-pride and dignity.”

— “Man, everybody hates Ted Cruz. Even OJ Simpson said, ‘That guy is just hard to like.’”

— “There’s a joke going around the Internet that Ted Cruz is actually the Zodiac Killer. I’m not making that up. Come on, that is absurd. Some people actually liked the Zodiac Killer.”

— “John Boehner came out of retirement and described Ted Cruz as Lucifer in the flesh. Lucifer. I mean that is not fair, man. Lucifer is horrible — but he’s not the Zodiac Killer.”

— “MSNBC is here tonight. Yep, which actually now stands for ‘Missing a Significant Number of Black Correspondents’. . . MSNBC got rid of so many black people, I thought Boko Haram was running that network.”

— “You look terrible, Mr. President. No, you do, man. Look at you. Your hair is so white it tried to punch me at a Trump rally.”

— “I am impressed with the people in this room. There are so many rich, powerful people in this room. You know, it’s nice to finally match the names to the faces in the Panama Papers.”

— “C-SPAN, of course, is carrying tonight’s dinner live. . . Which is ironic because most of the viewers are not. It is true, guys. C-SPAN is the number-one network among people who died watching TV and no one‘s found them yet. No, but it is good to be on C-SPAN. I am glad I am not on your rival network ‘No Input HDMI-1.’”

— “CNN’s here tonight. I have not watched CNN for a long time. I used to watch it back when it was a news network. I don’t know about you guys, but I cannot get enough of that CNN countdown clock. Now we can see exactly when they hit zero in the ratings.”

— “I am confused with Bernie Sanders’s stance on guns. He seems to be anti-gun everywhere except Vermont. Bernie doesn’t care who gets a gun in Vermont. [fake whispers] There are no black people in Vermont.”

— “Bernie got in trouble for saying Hillary Clinton was unqualified. She is extremely qualified. In fact, when you factor in all of her policy flip-flops, she is at least several of the most qualified candidates ever to run for president.”

— “Donald Trump looks like the rich dad in every episode of ‘Law & Order’ where the frat kid accidentally strangles a hooker. Or as they say here at the Washington Hilton, Tuesdays.”

— “The president and first lady will return to private life. It is going to be different for you guys. Nobody to wash the dishes or change the bed linens, sweep the floors. You are going to miss Joe Biden.”

— “I just got a note from the president saying that if you want another drink you should order it now because the bar will be closing down. Of course, he said the same thing about Guantanamo so you have at least another eight years.”

Posted in Comedy, Journalism | Comments Off