Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

They won’t be reading this blog post in Spain – unless they have a portable generator.

A week after proudly boasting that the electrical grid in Spain operated entirely on renewal energy for the first time during a weekday, it all went dark early Monday afternoon.

The Spanish problem also took down power in Portugal and parts of France and Belgium.

Apologists blamed a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” (it got dark?) and “extreme temperature variations” (it got cold or hot?).

And so the Spanish, stumbling around in the darkness, have bumped into reality. Solar power is not as reliable as a source of electricity as coal, uranium, natural gas. It does get dark, or even cloudy, you understand, and that has a crimping effect on solar production.

Just when you need electricity the most, solar can let you down.

Reports on social media noted the problem wasn’t necessarily just the darkness, but the lack of electricity to power transportation, payment systems, access to the internet, etc.

I’ve yet to read a report that the power is back on, it now being night time in the area.

There but the for the grace of God, Trump and Republicans, go us.

Democrats and their advocacy of all things insane, would like to put this nation back in the pre-industrial age of limited or zero reliable electricity.

It’s their dream to do away with coal-fired electricity plants, not to mention those powered by natural gas, or even uranium.

Wind and solar, both proven to be cost-ineffective and unreliable in periods of peak demand, are the proposed alternatives.

While they’re at it, they’d like to ban gas cooking stoves and internal combustion engines in vehicles.

The crusade is based on faulty statistics and the screechings of a psychologically challenged European woman. That’s a winning combination when you reside on the political left.

Fortunately, the so-called Green New Scam here has been put on hold by Trump and his administration. But it lurks in the background, awaiting the next totally clueless, or socialist president to take power.

The Spanish problem will be ignored by these eco-Nazis and the LameStream media. Just another inconvenient reality that stands in 180-degree opposition to their fantasies.

But I’m taking note. And, hopefully, others will, too, when the future elections arrive.

This is the sort of real failure leftist fools in charge can visit on the populace. You already have seen it with fires in California, rampant crime in Blue cities, the invasion of the nation by illegal immigrants.

Putting these people in charge is daring the fates. It’s a losing proposition. Just ask the Spanish today.

The arrest of the man alleged to have stolen the purse of Kristi Noem proves, among other things, that God has a sense of humor.

How fitting that the individual, who has been arrested for swiping the purse of our Homeland Security Secretary, is an illegal immigrant.

Cue the absurd, whiny Democrats, and LameStream media to defend yet another wrongdoer. It is their duty, don’t you understand, to work against American interests and values.

He will be portrayed as a Virginia, Maryland, D.C., man. Perhaps he will be revealed to be a husband and father. If history repeats, we might eventually discover – inconveniently – that the man also is an accused domestic abuser with bastard children. Don’t let the details get in the way of the narrative.

These serial apologists will note that he and his ilk perform work that Americans will not, even though it has been my observation that homegrown Americans are more than willing to lie, cheat and steal, not to mention exist on the public dole through various forms of welfare.

If you are like me, you wondered how the thief managed to lift the purse even as Secret Service agents were on duty “protecting” Noem. It was not as egregious as Donald Trump’s repeated near assassinations while under Secret Service protection. But, it did prompt doubts and speculation,

One story I read Sunday of the theft detailed that it was made while some agents sat at the bar in what was described as an eatery that “wasn’t particularly crowded.”

Somehow, the alleged thief sat near Noem’s table, fished her purse from beneath it with his foot, secreted said purse under a jacket and walked out. He wore a medical mask, of course.

Much has been made of the fact Noem’s carrying ensemble was a “Gucci B” shoulder bag that retails for $4,500, had a $600 purse inside and there was roughly $3,000 in cash.

Talk about victim shaming. Noem and her family can’t go around our nation’s capital with nice things, while under Secret Service protection, without expecting to be robbed.

All that was missing is the “she asked for it” rationalization.

But, to borrow the catchphrase of late, great radio announcer Gabriel Heatter, there’s good news tonight.

Unlike the Secret Service and the like who, under the Clueless Joe Biden regime, were unable to identify who left cocaine in the White House, this time a suspect has been identified and apprehended.

And, I suspect no left-wing judges will harbor him, or help him slip out a side door at the courthouse to avoid ICE agents.

No, I’m thinking this guy is ticketed for a plane ride and a spot in one of those 80-person cells.

The man should be grateful Noem doesn’t get to deal with the matter herself. Remember, she is the person who shot her own dog when it was judged to be dangerous to her and her children.

And, unlike Elmer Fudd Tim Walz, Noem has proven she knows how to load the gun she’s using.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are providing me an escape from the strains of daily life. I recommend others find similar distractions.

To be glued to a smart phone or computer for the latest updates on politics or finance, to be obsessed with aspects of the big picture beyond one’s control, is to doom oneself to anxiety and all the negatives that flow from that.

I recall reading many years back that workers on assembly lines felt great stress, largely because they had so little control over their jobs. The line kept moving, independent of whether or not their particular task had been completed, or done well.

While the number of assembly line workers in this country is ever smaller, others put themselves on an emotional assembly line by feeling the need to be in a constant state of information update. You gain control by breaking that pattern.

For recent weeks – months? – my routine has been something of a rut. Monitor the political and investment world during business hours, accomplish many mundane tasks, get in a walk perhaps, or maybe write a blog post, then begin the evening by ripping through a DVRd episode of CNBC’s “Fast Money” (usually thus being able to distill that one hour show into 10 minutes or so of content that interests me).

It was then on to mixing viewing Fox News shows such as Jesse Watters or Greg Gutfeld, with slices of Real America’s Voice and various offerings from the assorted general entertainment cable channels.

Since the hockey playoffs opened the past Saturday, the evening routine is spent consuming the feast of first-round games, of which there customarily are three or four.

It is a relief to shift from hearing contradictory trade deal teases, or reports on the latest protests/acts of domestic terrorism, to admiring the brutal simplicity of playoff hockey.

Alex Ovechkin, the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer, has scored some goals as Washington has taken a 2-0 lead in a best-of-7 series with Montreal, including the overtime winner in Game 1. But, what stands out is the way this ancient warrior is dishing out body hits at a prodigious rate.

Dallas-Colorado has been spellbinding, with Dallas managing to kill off a 4-minute double minor penalty late in regulation and into overtime, before winning Game 3 late Wednesday night.

Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog returned in that game after an injury-related absence of THREE YEARS!

And so it goes in the Stanley Cup playoffs, offering intense hockey sprinkled with compelling story lines.

I recall a former news editor telling me years back that he just couldn’t understand how sports fans could get so worked up about something that meant so little in the bigger picture.

He unknowingly was answering his own inquiry. That so much emotional investment can be made in something that really doesn’t affect our lives in a significant way, provides a break from developing tunnel vision regarding the things that do.

Man does not live by bread alone.

We’re back from a long holiday weekend and, true to form, much happened. Time for news and views.

NEWS: Gold is up more than $100 an ounce Monday and the Dow is down about 1,000-plus at the time of this writing as markets react to further reports that President Donald Trump is looking at how to remove reigning Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

VIEWS: Is Trump justified? Powell supposedly serves in a nonpartisan role, but has shown his political side multiple times. In Trump’s first term, Powell raised interest rates citing the inflationary impact of tariffs. There was virtually no inflation, despite Powell’s fears. Then, when Clueless Joe Biden’s regime did produce inflation in the 9-percent range, Powell appeared to try to sway the electorate to keep a Biden-type in office by cutting interest rates huge just before the election. Now that Trump is back in power, Powell refuses to cut rates, citing – wait for it – the inflation he anticipates from Trump tariffs. Interpreting facts through a partisan lens seems anything but apolitical to me.

NEWS: Pope Francis has died after an extended illness.

VIEWS: Cue the conspiracy theorists considering that Vice President JD Vance just met with the Pope a day before the death. Can we get a Russian slant on this, too?

NEWS: Democrats are making the rounds of the usual propaganda outlets proclaiming Trump is, or soon will be, pulling American innocents off the streets and sending them to foreign prisons, so-called “disappearing.”

VIEWS: There was no such outrage when Americans who happened to be in Washington, D.C., one January 6, were pulled from the streets and thrown into jail, often without formal charges, and left to rot there. Trump, on the other hand, has put illegal immigrants in foreign prisons. Not exactly the same thing in my eyes.

NEWS: Trump was supposed to declare martial law, suspend elections indefinitely and generally install himself as dictator Sunday.

VIEWS: Did this happen? Did I miss it? Or was it just more LameStream and social media scare porn designed to prey on the weak-minded?

NEWS: A report is out that Boston’s left-wing mayor, call her Ms. Sanctuary City, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from an individual listed as an official of a Chinese intelligence agency.

VIEWS: Color me not surprised, both by the reality and the LameStream media ignoring this story.

NEWS: The United States Supreme Court has temporarily blocked Trump from deporting members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

VIEWS: The fact this was released literally in the middle of the night, between Friday and Saturday, speaks to the questionable nature of the decision. If the U.S. Supremes have gone full left, it is situation hopeless.

NEWS: A New York Times report again is accusing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth of loose security regarding a past – successful – Yemen mission.

VIEWS: You can tell how worried the left is about an administration official’s success by the degree of character assassinations carried out against that person. Witness Elon Musk. Hegseth is ruffling feathers in the old-boy Pentagon and that includes irritating Neocons, supposedly on the political right. One theory is Hegseth is under fire again because he supposedly was one of a group that talked President Trump out of giving Israel the green light to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

A thought experiment: What might the LameStream media say about Adolf Hitler if he were alive and well today and they decided to sanitize, rehabilitate, confuse, cherry-pick and generally mislead about his many misdeeds?

Such 180-degree reversals are ridiculous, you say? Never happen. Consider, then, the case of Elon Musk. Way back when, maybe two years ago, Musk was the hero of the left and their LameStream media propagandists. He was singlehandedly saving the environment with his electric cars.

This was an assertion that conveniently ignored the ecological problems of mining for such things as lithium for the batteries that powered the cars, not to mention the problems recyling all those battery packs once they’d hit the final zero, or the impact of producing power to recharge the batteries nightly.

Add in that a lot of those Tesla sales were based largely on massive government tax credits and you have a mixed picture at best.

But, the lefties and the LameStream people, never ones to allow the facts to get in the way of a narrative, deified Musk.

Then Elon commited the one unpardonable sin, he aligned with Donald Trump politically. Now Elon was a modern-day Hitler. Teslas – ironically mostly owned by innocent customers – were to be burned, keyed and smeared with swastikas.

Musk was the object of wild death threats. He was evil personified, and that made extreme acts toward him and his vehicles justified.

Now, let’s get back to the original Hitler.

In the spirit of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland Man, Maryland Father, Maryland Husband with those inconvenient allegations of domestic abuse, possible human trafficking and gang membership, not to mentioned admitted illegal status in these United States, how might the media try to whitewash Adolf as they have Kilmar?

Adolf would be a German man, a husband, although likely not a father, a confirmation of the raunchy World War II marching song about Hitler’s testicular allotment being half of normal.

Just because he has greasy hair and a minimalist moustache, not to mention gives Sieg Heil salutes and hangs out with Nazis, doesn’t mean ‘Dolf is in the Nazi gang.

He’s just a fan of the Chicago Bulls – I mean Nazis.

While we’re at it, imgine if the LameStream and the left found the need to rehabilitate other prominent people of the present.

Kathy Hochul, New York woman and wife, would a sympathetic, down-on-her-luck figure unable to afford real eggs for Easter, and perhaps a funding account could be set up for her. We would be asked to ignore Hochul is governor of New York, a millionaire and, in keeping with Democrats’ trouble with facts, has chosen to ignore that egg prices are going down.

Bernie Sanders and AOC could be a brave, odd couple (not man and wife) fighting oligarchs looking to rule and ruin this country. We would need to ignore that the two are acting like oligarchs, flying around the country on private jets, or that Bernie is a millionaire socialist (oxymoron) with three houses and counting and AOC, while behind him in net worth and asset acquisition, is gaining much more quickly that you would expect from someone on a public servant’s salary.

Chris Van Hollen could be promoted as a Maryland man, a brave advocate of the forgotten man, fighting the good fight against the machine. Ignore, please, that he is going to bat for an illegal immigrant who, if left to his own devices, might use that bat on the head of a rich white guy like Van Hollen. Also, feel free to forget that Van Hollen has no interest in advocating for constituents who are victims of violence at the hands of illegals, and seems to be spending taxpayer money to milk a political story for his own gain.

James Carville might be described simply as a Louisiana man who, despite appearances, is not the love child of reptilian aliens (interstellar type aliens). It is necessary to ignore that Carville is a political pundit who seems mostly to have gotten it wrong since picking Abe Lincoln and therefore has little to offer of any value.

Joe Biden is a Delaware man, although he likes to be called Scranton (Pa.) Joe for political purposes. Do not note that, beyond his apparent geographic confusion, most would say Biden definitely splits time living in states of confusion and delusion. And all the money his family made while he had prominent roles in politics, that’s just coincidence.

Letitia James is a New York, or Virginia woman. You would be expected to ignore her confusion that extends beyond her residence states in the pursuit of favorable real estate terms, to include perhaps being married to her own father. Also, put on ignore that while she insists this is much ado about nothing, she is the crusader who persecuted Trump on much ado about nothing under the screeching rant that no one is above the law. This could have a karmic quality soon.

Finally, we can’t end without an homage to Hunter Biden, a Delaware, California, or Ukraine man with kids, some of whom he admits to having fathered, not needing court demands to do same. Ignore that Hunter formerly made a lot of money with his art. That’s dried up since daddy went into private life. Times are tough. And, yes, there were some problems with drugs, guns and failing to pay taxes, but Hunter has that pardon, the gift from daddy that keeps on giving.

First, the leftists and their environmental crazies came for my internal combustion car, and I did not speak out — because I could always walk.

Then they came for a my gas stove, and I did not speak out – because I had a microwave.

Then they came for my plastic shopping bags and drinking straws, and I did not speak out – because I could use paper and cloth bags or just drink from the glass.

Then they came for my rights to raise my children, and I did not speak out – because my son is an adult who can speak for himself.

Then they came for our elections, and I did not speak out – because I presumed incorrectly that their illegal actions could not be eliminated.

Then they came for my freedom, and I did not speak out – because I felt able to support those who would oppose them.

Then they came for my country’s ability to protect its borders, and I did not speak out – because I don’t live near a border.

Then they came for my president (repeatedly), and I did not speak out – because I believed he would prevail despite it all.

Then they came for the family dogs, and I did not speak out – because despite a long history of dog ownership, my current pet lineup is three birds and the feral cat who lives on our front porch and is fed daily by the wife.

Then they came for anyone upholding the rule of law, and I did not speak out – because I thought it was but a horrid dream from which I would soon awake.

Then they came for my freedom to eat meat, and I did not speak out – because one can subsist on plant materials.

Then the LameStream media descended into spreading misinformation, and I did not speak out – because non-traditional media sprang up to fight their propaganda.

Then the radical left went full-out violent regarding people on the other side, their houses, their cars, and I did not speak out – because I didn’t drive a Tesla or live in one of those crazed blue communities.

And then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.

The variables of April weather — warm and sunny one day, cold and windy and rainy the next, with temperature swings of 30 degrees — prompt me to enter a questioning state of mind.

Does anyone else think Jeff Bezos is quite the trickster, sending that all-women crew on a 10-minute-or-so “space” flight riding a rocket that looked like a penis, or at best an oversize vibrator?

If Bezos is trying to compete with Elon Musk, does he understand he’d need to have impregnated at least half the crew to win?

Is anyone else saddened by the pompous speeches from the self-absorbed women about all they had learned being away from Earth for TEN WHOLE MINUTES?

Have you heard the story of the Russian soldiers shooting down a flying saucer and being turned to limestone by the ticked off aliens?

How long before Zelenskyy reaches out to the aliens asking them to help in his losing battle with invading Russians?

Will aliens, stereotypically short of stature, identify with Zelenskyy?

Who do you think is angrier over talks of a USA-Russia hockey series, Zelenskyy or doofus NHL commissioner Gary Bettman?

Have you heard that for the first time in NHL history, the four U.S.-based original six teams, (Detroit, Chicago, Boston and the New York Rangers) all will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs together?

Should Trump place a tariff on Toronto and Montreal, the two Canada-based original six teams that almost assuredly both will make the Stanley Cup field?

Did it bring a smile to your face when El Salvador president Nayib Bukele told the snarky leftist reporter he wasn’t giving back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, currently jailed in El Salvador?

Along that line, do you find it amusing that Bukele need not fear those over-reaching district judges, and even our august Supreme Court?

Anyone else have a short list of people they’d like to put on a plane and send to El Salvador?

Can we all agree the list of would-be Democrat presidential candidates is a latter-day seven dwarfs?

Do you prefer Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who tried to hide her face behind a couple of blue binders to avoid being photographed in the Oval Office awaiting President Trump?

How about Bernie Sanders, the self-avowed socialist with three homes and a net worth estimated to be on the far side of $3 million?

Would you vote for former drink slinger AOC?

Maybe you back California governor Gavin Newsom, who channeled Nero, sans violin, as he watched California burn?

Do you think Cory Booker’s campaign would last longer than his 25-hour Senate filibuster speech?

What are the odds sports pundit Stephen A. Smith actually runs?

And last, can Kamala Harris convince supporters to give her another couple of billion dollars to blow in a tsunami of cackling word salads?

People who know me understand I’m not a bird lover, even though I currently share my house with three avian creatures.

A blue budgie parakeet sits outside its cage less than two feet from me, twittering away as I write this early Saturday afternoon. In the past, this creature and its cage mate (a green example now sitting atop the cage, too) have seized such opportunities to attempt carrier landings on my head.

It’s a long story.

So, it was with sympathetic amusement that I saw videos Friday of Fox White House correspondent Peter Doocy being annoyed by a bird landing on his head during live television as he attempted to report from the White House lawn. Been there, done that, sort of.

Years back, while fishing with several others along the banks of the Quemahoning Reservoir, I noted a white bird flying along the far side of that particular branch of the lake. Understand, this probably was 300 to 400 yards distant.

I pointed it out to others and, almost on cue, the bird turned and headed straight toward me. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering I read online that pigeons/doves (I think this one of that family) can see shapes and colors at ranges up to seven miles.

The bird kept coming, divebombed my head, and as I yelled (screamed like a girl, one insisted) and waved off the bird, it veered to a perch high up in an overhead tree limb, perhaps to wait for a moment of weakness on my part.

Hell, it still might be out there. Sitting. Waiting.

Allow me to interject at this point that the political left tosses around “phobias” without the sort of medical credentials they insisted upon from anyone who suggested that Clueless Joe Biden was a few bricks shy of a load mentally.

Phobias, in a clinical sense, are supposed to be irrational, excessive, persistent fears of something.

You see something wrong with Muslims killing people for failing to convert to their religion and you are an Islamaphobe.

You do not approve of same sex couples fondling each other and French kissing during afternoon television or in advertisements run during same, and you are a homophobe.

Those who are not emamored with guys wanting to be girls, and kicking female butt in athletic events, are transphobes.

Interjection: The blue budgie just buzzed me and, having been repulsed, flew into the living room to land on the head of my wife, who is holding and petting a yellow-naped Amazon parrot.

This flyby did not please me, and so I would be shoved into the ornithophobia category – fear of birds.

Allow me to push back. I am not afraid of the birds. I’m confident, if it came down to me or them in a physical confrontation, I would prevail.

Also, I do not hate the birds – the preferred politicalization of the phobia term. It’s just I prefer not to have my head serve as a landing pad, as I also prefer not to have my big toe bitten by the parrot, something that has happened because the bird, a psychotic rescue animal, seems to have abuse by feet and/or shoes in its past.

As a parting shot, I presume my lack of unconditional love for the parrot could be labeled misogyny, too.

Herbie arrived as a reported male but, after several incidents of laying eggs, has been moved to the female category. Maybe he just identifies as a female.

My wife has suggested a name change to Her-She. I’m not sure what the bird’s preferred pronouns are, but I suspect, since it can mimic human speech, it would share them if only someone programmed it with what to say – sort of like confused people have been coached along that line.

I wait with bated breath.

In case you were busy living your life Wednesday, early in the afternoon President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause for most tariffs, except those on China, and stock markets went wild to the upside.

You’d think this would make most adults in the populace happy. And you would be wrong, which explains a lot about the hatred for Trump among Democrats, LameStream media, and, surprisingly, many financial types.

It already was a good day financially for me prior to Trump’s change of heart, with gold up about $90 an ounce at the time, and silver up more than $1 an ounce. Those rises in precious metals prices had to do with panic in the bond market in overnight trading.

One theory making the rounds is that hedge funds with overleveraged positions were playing arbitrage between bonds and futures on those bond instruments and got caught short in a liquidity crunch.

Once Trump paused tariffs, the bond market was freed up and stocks went crazy to the upside, retaking much of the losses from previous days of panic.

The Dow Jones Industrial average was up nearly 3,000 points, a tad under 8 percent just on the day. The tech-heavy NASDAQ was up 1,800 and change, slightly more than 12 percent.

Understand, the doom porn purveyors in business and regular news had spent the past few days predicting the end of financial life as we know it, sort of like Democrats kept trying to portray the last election as the end of democracy should Trump win,

They were wrong then, and all the people calling for financial armageddon were wrong, too.

Oh, to see these half-wits try to scramble to cover for their tariff misread, sort of like how all those LameStream media types who denied Clueless Joe Biden was, indeed, clueless, now are trying to get on the right side of that history.

We wrote here, several times, advising all to remain calm and ignore the panic being spread by people who are supposed to know better. Trump coined a new term for them, calling them “panicans” (those who panic).

I would call them tariffied, as in terrified by tariffs.

All I know is if people succumbed to the panic spreaders and sold, they missed a huge rally, one that just might have legs in coming days.

Regardless, the race was on among media and Democrats on the national scene Wednesday to ignore the financial market gains and impugn Trump for blinking in the face of market turmoil. It didn’t matter that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he and Trump had discussed this very strategy Sunday. Once a flood of countries approached the U.S. government about trade deals to end reciprocal tarrifs – and reportedly more than 75 have done so – the plan was to pause tariffs for those nations to provide time to negotiate.

But, for countries such as China, which has been quick to counter with tariffs on the U.S., no deal.

It makes sense. One might go so far as to say Trump brilliantly has isolated China economically, not a bad thing considering that the Chinese Communists are dedicated to the demise of the United States.

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, like Bessent a guy with an impressive resume of Wall Street success before joining the Trump team, went on CNBS’s Fast Money show to address the situation and found himself being grilled by panelists, who seemed to be aligning themselves with China.

Part of Trump’s plan with tariffs is to incentivize companies to return production to America, thereby avoiding any tariffs.

But the Wall Street money machine has been built on corporations headquartered here, but paying sweatshop wages to foreign workers to create their products abroad, which they then sell here for huge profits.

Manufacturing of all sorts has fled this country, leaving a gap in the availability of jobs for people who didn’t go to college to get a degree in philosophy.

These smug CNBS types chortled that there is no reason to have Americans making sneakers. Lutnick pointed out maybe there is need to have semiconductors, or pharmaceuticals, or steel, or aluminum made here.

After Lutnick’s segment was done, the studio types ridiculed him in absentia.

It was left for CNBS commentator Rick Santelli, brought on to talk about bond distress, to challenge his co-workers for opinions on whether Trump had struck a blow against globalism.

These arrogant twits even took shots at Santelli, wondering whether his question was significant. Santelli believes it is, as do Trump voters. They want control of this country in the hands of our citizens, not elites in Europe or Asia,

Trump’s tariff battle is an attempt to push the reset button on the world and guarantee the U.S. is in a position of strength to fend off the globalists.

But Santelli soon was cut off and then there was a segment with an academic, a China expert, who, surprise, called Trump names and panned his policies.

Meanwhile, the very same Democrats who were rushing to microphones to berate Trump when stock markets were declining, now are demanding investigations about why he paused the tariffs and helped fuel a huge stock market rally.

Talk about hypocrites.

The latest is that the spreaders of fear porn are speculating that miffed China might do something dramatic in coming days as retribution. Let them do so, say I.

And do yourself a favor, ignore these fools. Accept that what Trump is doing could produce future volatility, but the end result likely is going to be worth any short-term discomfort. Keep the faith.

I’m guilty of schadenfreude and I’m not apologizing.

Like the Democrats and their lapdogs in the media, who refuse to apologize for Russia, Russia, Russia, COVID-19 or insisting Joe Biden was sharp mentally as president, I will not say I’m sorry for finding joy in the pain of others, which is the condition described by that German word from paragraph one.

This is the roundabout way of telling you it did my heart good to see Houston coach Kelvin Sampson looking like someone had hit him in the gonads with a two-by-four after his team lost to Florida in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament title game Monday night.

What a far cry it was from Saturday, when Duke choked away a 14-point lead in the second half to lose to Houston in a semifinal game.

Afterward, Sampson failed to appreciate that his team would play on only because there was no one to administer a group Heimlich maneuver to a gagging Duke team.

Instead, Sampson had acted like was 69 going on 13 years of age. He was smug, arrogant, boastful, preachy and generally obnoxious in panning Duke and overhyping his team. He called out anyone who had ever doubted the greatness of his Houston team, and presumably of the coach, too.

Well, I’m one of those doubters. I will admit I did not have Houston getting to the title game. I did have Florida winning there.

Fast-forward to Monday night and Sampson’s team choked away a double-digit lead in the second half and lost to Florida, which barely led in the game, except when it counted – at the end.

Karma is a female dog.

Sampson’s team looked lost at crunch time, commiting turnover after turnover and then failing even to get off a shot on its final possession.

It was glorious and all I could think of was maybe Sampson wished he’d just put a sock in his mouth Saturday instead of ranting in one of those oncourt interviews at game’s end.

Sampson mumbled through an attempted postgame explanation Monday and didn’t feel moved to call out doubters of his team.

Again, his distress was delicous.

Somehow, I kept thinking about how a lot of other Texas institutions of higher education refer to Houston as “Cougar High,” a knock on the perceived academic shortcomings that cause them to consider it something less than a college or university.

On another front, an email I received today from CBS sports gave me the final report on my bracket that I’d entered in one of their contests.

Where previously I’d ranked 600,000-something, getting Florida correct as the champion catapulted me all the way up to – wait for it – 286,535 in the pecking order. I got 73 percent of my bracket picks correct, above the national average of 68 percent.

Getting the eventual national champion right was nice. Watching it come at the expense of Sampson was priceless.