Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

To rework a line from the movie “When Harry Met Sally,” I DON’T want to have they’re having. What they’re drinking. What they’re mainlining.

They in this case are the delusional politicians, their leftist acolytes in the LameStream media, and all the other mostly moronic types who are on President Trump regarding everything and anything.

For those who have not watched the movie referenced above, the Sally character loudly fakes an orgasm in a crowded restaurant, just to prove a point to her male escort, and a woman seated nearby then orders what she’s having.

It’s hard not to think of this sort of overdone histrionics as the leftist crowd gets the vapors over feds actually enforcing the law on immigration, pardons being issued, having Trump put forth people for his cabinet who are willing to call out the ills of our time, or basically anything else Trump does or says.

Any time I see a clip from cabinet prospects being grilled, mostly by assorted screwball leftists regarding ridiculous minutia, or baseless accusations, I want to vomit.

We are left with two possible explanations. Either these interrogators are so vacuous, so totally devoid of intelligent thought, that they actually believe the half-truths and talking points they are advancing, or else they are flat-out spreading lies and disinformation.

There are no other rational explanations.

And then there are the media types, similarly stuck on small details and playing gotcha when the big picture is the important aspect as we try to halt the nation’s decline.

It’s evident these people all got their talking points from the same source. You can forgive the Democrat politicians, they are acting in the brain-dead lockstep their party demands. They dream that some day they might advance to trading stocks as well as Nancy Pelosi, if only they can bite their tongues and toe the line long enough.

But what about the media? If only for reasons of self-interest, they should be getting the message that their far-left agenda, praising all things WOKE and ridiculing traditional American values, has them out of step with their desired audiences.

The nation’s voters repudiated this mentality in the most recent election. The response of left-wing media has been to double down.

And their ratings plummet into the zone of irrelevance, leaving leftist outposts such as CNN and NBC to contemplate layoffs and shifting their unrepentant progressive “talent” into obscure time slots, the better to hide them from the public.

If you’ve been paying attention, you no doubt have heard Trump’s leftist critics flay him for his lack of progress on campaign promises. He has, after all, been in office a few days now, they seem to say, neatly exhibiting amnesia over Clueless Joe Biden spending four years doing little, other than to stoke the fires of inflation, throw monkey wrenches into the machines of public and private enterprise, and then add even more nonsensical dictates as he was being shown the door.

All that was acceptable. But Trump, damn it, has been in office about 72 hours as I write this and he has yet to end wars, cure cancer, wipe out hunger and poverty and lift the entire population into middle-class or above affluence.

These laments come from some media types who do one show a week, from politicians who think working maybe 150 days a year is a brutal workload, from bureaucrats whining about being told to start coming to the office again to work.

It was bitter irony recently when some of those government employees were floating the idea of four days, 32 hours, henceforth constituting a work week. When you’re working from home and I’m sure spending a lot of time leaning on the oars (I know some people, not necessarily government employees, who have done this), do you really need to have such a reduction in hours worked?

Or, put another way, will you start wearing a mask when you check to confirm your direct-deposit pay? That’s what thieves do.

The saving grace of all this is that, so far, I believe the unhinged rants by leftists in politics and the media are being largely ignored by the masses.

Keep the faith, people. It can’t all be accomplished yesterday. But Trump and his administration have hit the ground running and I am optimistic they have a mindset to continue their pace.

The schadenfreude of watching these hapless leftists disappearing even further into irrelevance is priceless.

An African-American man is being slurred by politicians and the media. I won’t allow this to stand.

The poor soul in question has been called out for an act of joy that has been interpreted by petty nitpickers as a gesture of hate — a Nazi salute.

His detractors, falling back on their Nazi dogwhistle tactics, seek to destroy this person’s reputation simply because he jumps around on stage at times and flails his arms wildly. It was exactly one of those occasions that prompted this attack.

Have they no compassion? The man suffers from autism spectrum disorder, commonly called Asperger’s Syndrome. Think of the movie “Rain Man.”

Would these people put the Dustin Hoffman character on trial for eccentric behavior such as immediately being able to tally the number of toothpicks spilled from a box in a diner? By the way, it was 246.

More to the point, would we as a populace tolerate such discrimination?

To ignore the mental irregularity germane to this case and then to focus on any action to which it contributes is judgmental and not what America should be about.

Having this happen on Day I of Trump II pretty much proves what all the naysayers have contended about him and his followers, right?

Garbage. Deplorables. Nazis.

Discrimination against African-Americans and the disabled is an unfortunate thread of our national tapestry.

Do you recall when critics of then-candidate John Fetterman were outed as ableists for thinking his stroke and subsequent incoherent campaign debate performance (sound familiar?) rendered him incapble of serving in the Senate?

Of course Fetterman was able. He was/is a Democrat, after all, the party that pledged allegiance to mentally limited president Joe Biden for most of his four years in office.

And, sure, some Democrats are getting nervous about Fetterman because he is willing to talk to Republicans – horrors – and even vote for common-sense legislation they might propose.

Bottom line, he beat the attempted discrimination and I’m hoping the African-American to whom I refer, Elon Musk, can do the same.

But I do wonder where are the usual suspects who rush to defend any African-American under attack?

ACLU? Rev. Al Sharpton?

OK, so they’ve been burned in the past leaping on the racial discrimination bus only to have the likes of Jussie Smollett, Crystal Mangum (Duke Lacrosse) and Tawana Brawley turn out to be race hucksters running hoaxes.

I’m confident the Musk salute is an innocent twitch having more to do with his mental situation than an allegiance to Hitler. We have the video, and supporting footage of people ranging from Kamala Harris, to the Village People, to any child looking to be called upon by a teacher in class, performing similar salutes.

I’d hate to think this was happening simply because Musk is African-American.

I’m just glad that, despite his disability, Musk has been able to find gainful employment and, fortunately for him, the boss isn’t going to fire him on the strength of false accusations.

I awoke uncustomarily early Tuesday. It must have been a result of the dull roar of Democrats, particularly their far-left wing, whining in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president again and Trump acting from Day One to undo four years of carnage visited on this nation by Clueless Joe and Cackling Kamala.

To quote one of the left’s own, Barack Hussein Obama, “Elections have consequences.”

Barry was all full of himself early in 2009, having won the presidency and been inaugurated. He is reported to have lectured Congressional Republicans with this bon mot about elections and their fallout, adding at the time, “I won.”

Nancy Pelosi, not yet the completely amazing stock trader she since has become, doubled down on that as speaker of the House, also in 2009, telling the Republicans in the House minority who had little to no input regarding a stimulus bill, “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.”

Democrats lost their House majority in 2010 mid-term elections and Pelosi showed typical Democrat hypocrisy by lamenting then that elections “shouldn’t matter as much as they do.”

Now, Democrats have lost the presidency, Senate and allowed Republicans to maintain control of the House. That’s elections have consequences in triplicate!

Here’s a little primer for Democrats and their sycophants in the LameStream media, including leftist house organs CNN and PBS, the better for them to understand that elections do, indeed, have consequences.

Democrats are just fine with Clueless Joe pardoning thousands, including many family members, in his waning days off office. This would include son, Hunter, the man Clueless Joe had denied on numerous occasions that he would pardon.

Yet, as the clock ticked, Daddy Joe was there once again to bail out failed son Hunter. An attempt to justify the reversal used the same, labored excuse, that The Big Guy feared a weaponized justice system persecuting his flawed son.

If this sounds like psychological projection – Clueless Joe envisioning Trump acting toward his family as Clueless Joe has toward Trump and his kin – it’s fairly obvious to be the case.

Meanwhile, Trump on the campaign trail had promised pardons for many of the so-called Jan. 6 insurrectionists, who were jailed for having the termerity to question the 2020 election. Yes, some over-reached by entering the U.S. Capitol, possibly with urging by FBI instigators in the crowd, but their treatment has been extreme, with considerable overcharging and failure to have speedy due process.

Trump on Monday noted that leftist protesters can burn down cities and take over sections of same, with little to no legal consequences. Yet, the Jan. 6 people were guilty until proven innocent and given the most draconian sentencing

Because of this, Trump promised pardons and he delivered. Elections have consequences.

Note, Democrats, he didn’t lie about it in advance as Clueless Joe did, then try to slip it past the populace. You must be so proud of Joe, trying to hide his latest flood of pardons for his family with a release of the information even as Trump was being sworn in as president.

And to those whiners who lament that Jan. 6 protesters harmed police officers, this has been proven to be an overblown assertion. Also proven for the record is the most egregious act on that day was the fatal shooting of unarmed Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt by a troubled DEI Capitol Police hire whose checkered record included such notable achievements as leaving his loaded service weapon unattended in a Capitol bathroom, failing a shotgun qualifying test and assorted other shortcomings.

Meanwhile, Clueless Joe has pardoned a man convicted of killing not one, but two FBI agents. This brought negative feedback from the most unlikely of sources, notable among them Chris “Don’t Call Me Fay” Wray, soon to be former FBI director.

Wray, more prone to be a bootlicker of the left and proponent of all things anti-Trump, found a sense of moral clarity in doubting the wisdom of sending such a killer of government law enforcement people back onto the streets.

Note, no Feds were killed by Jan. 6 protesters and the injury claims of some police have been found to be, shall we say, exaggerated.

As if Trump had not given the left enough fuel to feed their penchant for hypocritical whining with his flood of executive orders, CNN and PBS, among other outlets with a leftist bias, were trying to gin up a controversy by suggesting that Elon Musk had given a Nazi salute at a Trump celebration Monday.

Congressman Jerry Nadler, who never met a meal he wouldn’t eat, managed to stir his pudgy fingers into action and posted his disdain for Musk’s alleged affront on X, ironically the social media platform owned by Musk.

But the Anti-Defamation League, the nonprofit group at the forefront of fighting antisemitism, said the Musk action was NOT a Nazi salute.

Such is the level of leftist desperation with elections having consequences that they will try to gin up controversy where there is no basis.

Perhaps this explains why CNN is losing lawsuits and PBS just might have its federal largesse cut.

By the way, I’ve seen side-by-side images posted online at citizenfreepress.com of Musk’s alleged Nazi salute, and a similar right-arm-raised, palm-flat gesture by Kamala Harris.

I guess Kamala was just trying to get the bartender’s attention.

We won! And, no, I’m not tired of winning. Far from it.

Donald Trump’s return to the oval office became official earlier this afternoon and the reclamation of this country now is underway. I guess I finally can take down my Trump signs, buried as they are in snow in the front yard. I was holding out on doing this until the day’s ceremonies.

Don’t expect miracles. This will be a tough slog due to politically corrupt leftists in the bureaucracy, Democrats in both houses of Congress determined to throw sand in the gears of progress, and the various landmines the outgoing Biden regime left for Trump.

It was laughable to hear Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar speaking at the swearing in ceremony about equal justice. This on a day when once again it was raining pardons in Washington, D.C., as Clueless Joe Biden added some just-in-case, preemptive pardons to a lot of suspect people from his regime plus other members of his family.

Not that they did anything wrong mind you, unlike Hunter Biden, but just because Trump is mean and vindictive and might want a pound of flesh from these people who have made it their life’s work to persecute him.

Chief Justice John Roberts again butchered giving the presidential oath, rushing it and not having Trump put his hand on the Bible. Cue the conspiracy theorists.

Later today, Trump is expected to seek to prove the pen is mightier than the sword. That saying once applied to media standing up to corruption and abuse of power. Those days of an independent media, regrettably, are gone.

But Trump will wield his executive order pen in the attempt to reverse similar orders by Biden.

Later, once the proper legislation has made its way through Congress, Trump will sign into law those efforts to restore sanity to the nation.

Leftists in the Capitol inauguration audience, including all the prominent Democrats, seemed stapled to their seats as Trump repeatedly elicited standing ovations from the faithful.

I’m happy that the Trump message was no milquetoast attempt at reaching out to the opposition; the same opposition that has called his supporters deplorables, Nazis, racists, bigots and just plain garbage.

These people hate Trump, his followers, and their deep-seated desire to reverse the WOKE lurch of this country, the sort of descent that has produced porous borders, out-of-control crime in cities, and LA fires still consuming the city while WOKE leadership assigns blame to others.

Trump started hard in his acceptance speech, noting the dark past four years that was authored by Clueless Joe and Cackling Kamala, who were seated to his left and looked at times like they were sucking the sourest of lemons.

I would suspect that Nancy Pelosi, who didn’t make it in person, must have been throwing her walker at the nearest television because, you just know she had to be watching. Maybe she tore up a copy of the speech, for old time’s sake like when Democrats controlled Congress.

Trump promised that a golden age begins today, liberation day. I hope sulking Democrats are not able to prevent him from delivering on that promise. More to the point, as long as Republicans in Congress, and the American public remain behind Trump, I am confident he will prevail.

Recent years have seen much of the joy removed from watching and following many sports, from Major League Baseball, to college football and basketball, to the NFL.

College sports, at least on the men’s side, have become nothing more than semi-pro leagues, filled with mercenary players whose recruitment and retention is based more on Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) payments and the sort rather than allegiance to the school.

Perhaps you’ve heard that one of the Deion Sanders progeny, a college football player, is in the midst of a bankruptcy case having to do with a judgment against him, and is in the courts pleading to keep his NIL deals nonpublic.

Ohio State, which plays for the national college football title Monday night, is widely reported to be the team that $20 million in NIL funds put together.

In a bit of hypocrisy, I probably will watch at least some of the Ohio State-Notre Dame game. But my appetite for college sports in general is far from what it once was.

It is the same, sad story, all about the bucks, with other sports enumerated above.

My viewing solution is to hope for the best, but plan for the worst. And that is why my experience with the Kansas City-Houston NFL playoff game Saturday was a brief one.

Once the first questionable officiating call in favor of the Kansas City Swifts was made, a phantom personal foul penalty against a Houston defender for breathing on KC quarterback Patrick Mahomes, it was time to leave the broadcast for other diversions lest my television succumb to a thrown remote.

Having covered sports for a living during much of my 35 or so years in journalism, I used to chuckle at fans who were quick to blame officials for their teams’ failures. Not that I never encountered what I thought was officiating bias. It’s just it was not nearly as apparent on a widespread basis when one had no rooting interest in the outcome.

I checked the score periodically on that eventual Chiefs win yesterday, just to be sure my initial assessment had been correct, and then watched the entire Washington-Detroit nightcap without anything happening that caused me to think the invisible hand was weighing on the scales to benefit either side.

It also was interesting to scan various internet feeds, both yesterday and today, and find there is much being written about apparently bad calls favoring the KC Swifts.

No less a source than Troy Aikman, who was on the game broadcast team, is reported to have lamented with fervor a questionable penalty against Texas for hitting Mahomes while he was sliding. This happened after I’d stopped watching.

“Oh, come one,” Aikman reportedly said. “I mean, he’s a runner. I could not disagree with that one more. He barely gets hit.”

Yo, Troy, it is in the best interest of the NFL ratings and general interest to have Mahomes and crew continue in the playoffs, the better to allow gratuitous shots of Taylor Swift cheering for paramour Travis Kelce, AKA Mr. Swift, who catches a lot of passes from Mahomes and presumably Taylor is OK with it.

We should be empathizing with Swift, a prominent Kamala supporter who could have used some officiating help to turn that one into a winner.

Back to the NFL, if you think the product on sale here is competition and football, you are a tad naive. Consider all the WOKE platitudes that still adorn many helmets and the edges of the playing fields.

Were this latest KC game an isolated instance, it could be overlooked. But favorable officiating for the Swifts, which in this game included Swift boy pal Kelce not being flagged for celebrating over a fallen defender, a staple of the NFL these days, was hard to ignore.

Throughout the years, the Swifts seem to have gotten do-overs when plays failed at first, kid glove treatment for their stars, and the general nod on close calls. KC has a great program and really shouldn’t need the help.

Yet, we ask, could all involved be fair and pure as the driven snow that pelts my house as I write this Sunday afternoon? Sure. Could there be a bias, either stated or implied, to give the Swifts the benefit of the doubt? That seems to be possibility.

Either way, it’s annoying to watch. Hopefully, today’s NFL playoff games unfold with less controversy. But, if they do not, there is an abundance of options to otherwise invest the time that would have been spent watching it all.

Watching segments of the confirmation hearings/inquests of Donald Trump’s cabinet has produced several epiphanies for me.

Begin with some excerpts involving proposed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. I loved it when he pointed out to one hack Democrat Senator who was pursuing Clueless Joe Biden’s oligarch witch hunt path, that Clueless Joe himself recently had awarded medals to several guys who would fit the oligarch definition.

But it was another segment of Bessent’s testimony that struck me. If you pay attention, you recognize what these antagonists are trying to put on the record simply by the way they get around to asking their questions. In this example, the Democrat woman’s goal seemed to be to let the public know that Bessent is gay. She made a great point of congratulating him for having his “husband” there. It seemed she even paused for effect.

So, why would a leftist Democrat want to make that point, seemingly in a negative way? Perhaps to hope that supposedly homophobic MAGA types would be shocked and outraged.

I’m going to confess right here and now that I didn’t know Bessent is gay. I didn’t care and I still don’t.

And that’s where Trump and his cabinet picks have differed from the Biden Potemkin Village cabinet, which was picked largely for appearances over substance.

This is a common theme of the DEI crowd. Recently Michelle Obama has been displaying her equal opportunity ways, saying she’d pull a daily double by skipping both Jimmy Carter’s funeral and the Trump inauguration. On the latter, Michelle said she couldn’t sit there again and smile when there was not enough diversity on display.

I guess, considering Trump’s election victory, Michelle no longer is proud of our nation.

But, ostensibly she is proud that the Biden cabinet includes a lot of hapless DEI hires. For example, Mayor Pete Butt (something) seems to be the Transportation Secretary largely because he is gay, not because he brings any particular skills to the job.

So it is with DEI hires, long on filling quotas such as being gay, nonwhite, women, or just generally sexually confused, but short on qualifications and production.

The person Bessent is in line to replace, Mother Hubbard Janet Yellen, qualifies as DEI in part because she is a woman. More important, her life has been spent either in academia or in the public sector, where one never has to live with the economic consequences of spewing misinformed tripe. Janet is a complete stranger to the private economy.

She’s made a mess of things fiscally by refusing to go out the yield curve on refinancing U.S. debt, and thereby missing the chance to lock in interest rates before they started what now is a steep upward trajectory. Instead, Mother Hubbard ran cover for Clueless Joe in trying to artificially keep long-term interest rates low by not re-financing debt long-term and instead leaving a flood of short-term refinancing that will be a challenge for Bessent.

At least Yellen isn’t like another poster child Biden employee, a cross-dressing, luggage-stealing guy/girl formerly working in the nuclear energy office.

Bessent, by all accounts, is brilliant. He has been nominated not as a nod to the gay community, but rather because he is the best person available. That he is gay does not enter the calculus, nor should it.

And so it is with other Trump nominees, some of them accomplished and strong women (despite Mark Cuban’s venom), some of them talented non-whites of various ethnicity, and, yes, there are some white men who don’t carry DEI cred by being gay, but who are equipped to do their job.

You want an idea of what this nation would be headed for had Trump not won? Look to California, a DEI dreamland currently in the process of paying the price for putting the unqualified in positions of influence, authority and responsibility.

There but for the grace of God and Trump go we.

Monday can’t get here soon enough.

I skipped Joe Biden’s farewell address Wednesday night. Face it, he’s been checked out for months if not years.

Taking a victory lap after presiding over four miserable years is just further indication the guy has taken complete leave of his senses.

Based on Biden’s history attempting to exit stages or rooms, I’m not sure he’s going to be able to find the White House door without the help of his handlers and maybe some Trump acolytes to boot Scranton Joe in the butt to help him leave.

In a curious bit of timing, Biden is just about gone even as a self-important, largely ineffective group should be heading into the dustbin of history. I refer to Myopia 2025, the group of Johnstown elitists determined to help us heathens too stupid to realize we need their help.

I kick myself for not having broached this subject already. After all, these people did include a year and theoretically a use-by date for themselves.

Yet, although I’ve been making the conscious effort to put 2025 on all checks for weeks now, fully aware it is a new year, I failed to link this to Myopia and that 2025. It took a text exchange with a friend and former co-worker to change that.

There is a bromide about making predictions on such things as investments – if you give a price, don’t give a date. The Myopia types did a good job of keeping promises and goals vague, but they slipped up with the date.

I’m sure Myopia 2025 can and will take credit for many successes. I associate them with failure, like trying to flood the area with Afghan refugees, something that failed under the light of public disclosure, or trying to run one of their own for the state House, yet another failure.

Greater Johnstown remains an area long on crime, but short on economic vitality, presumably things some group like Myopia 2025 would address. Our income levels are pathetic.

But those seem to be a good things when you are fishing around for government grants to pave Central Park or figuratively gild lilies.

I confess to being curious over whether that 2025 part of Myopia 2025 is relevant, so I took the time to check the organization web site.

Under the FAQ (frequently asked questions) area I found it all got started in 2014 or was it 2025. The goals included some of what I presumed earlier.

But, the chilling part is that, despite that 2025 year being included in the group name, this creature plans to live on indefinitely. The words, taken from the web site, are: “There is no end point, per se.”

Imagine if Biden had stumbled to the microphone and said, “Hey, you dog-faced pony soldiers, no joke, I’m not leaving. My term has no end point, per se.”

It seems Myopia 2025 is our equivalent of those Soviet five-year plans of my youth, that accomplished little, other than to spawn more five-year plans.

Maybe there will be new names for the same old stuff down the line? Cataracts 2030? Glaucoma 2035? Astigmatism 2040? Amblyopia 2045?

The underlying mission seems to be unchanged – keeping unelected elites pulling the strings of local power from a base in nonprofits, not for profits, foundations and charities.

Yes, Myopia 2025 is a nonprofit. Surprise.

If we raise a big enough donation, do you think they just might disband?

Better yet, let’s suggest they take their community help elsewhere.

From California to Ukraine, Canada to Mexico, Greenland to Panama, the possible landing places are many.

Anywhere beyond Cambria County would be nice.

I’m taking a break from watching another one-sided NFL playoff game Monday night to contemplate what all the alleged college football experts would say about this.

I mean, the LA Rams are up 24-3 at the half against Minnesota. So, the Vikings obviously don’t belong in the playoffs, right?

That has been the sort of continuing mantra heard from the people who sit at those pre-game, halftime and post-game tables, sometimes ridiculously placed at the end of the playing field, and turn thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the worthiness of competing college football teams, largely based on the score.

They are the people who told you, after the fact, that teams such as SMU, Boise State, Indiana, didn’t belong in the 12-team college football playoff field. Those teams lost by 28, 17 and 10 points, respectively. Curiously, when SEC team Tennessee went to Columbus and laid a 25-point loss egg against Ohio States we heard crickets.

Of course Tennessee belonged because, well, it’s an SEC team. Forget the way the Volunteers put up, shall we say, limited resistance.

As an aside, zero SEC teams remain in the college playoffs. Our next national champion is going to be either Ohio State of the Big Ten or independent Notre Dame, the latter of which rankles Penn State coach James Franklin, who could better spend his time figuring out to beat tough competition for a change.

The college experts were struck similarly mum when Ohio State dominated Oregon, 41-21. That would be Oregon, No. 1 for much of the season, unbeaten until that loss to the Buckeyes. But the Ducks lost by 20 points, so obviously they didn’t belong here.

Neither, apparently, did Georgia, which dropped a 23-10 decision to Notre Dame. And so it goes.

Back to the NFL. Through five games completed thus far this weekend, there has been only one with a margin of victory under 12 points. That was Washington’s 23-20 win over Tampa Bay.

The other games were decided by 24, 20 and 14 points in the AFC and 12 and in the NFC. It didn’t look like the serial choker Vikings were going to be competitive in the second half of this ongoing game, either. They weren’t and ended up losing, 27-9. Yet another blowout.

But, nary a word is heard that all these overmatched teams didn’t deserve to be in the NFL playoffs.

Why?

In a curious common feature, the seedings have been off-kilter both in college and pro playoffs. Technically, the Rams were the host team in the Monday night game, although it was moved to Arizona due to Los Angeles wild fires. But the Rams got the home call based on winning their division, despite a record of just 10-7. The Vikings, second-place finishers in their division, traveled despite a 14-3 record.

As whining Franklin would say, we need to have everyone in conferences so we can make assessments and get seedings correct. But all NFL teams are in divisions, conferences and the same league. And still we get this.

Washington (12-5) also got to go on the road for its first-round game against Tampa Bay (10-7) Sunday night. Tampa won its division and Washington did not.

Stuff happens. Just play the cards you are dealt and win the games.

All the college teams whose coaches, fans and media sycophants whined about their playoff exclusion, could have made it by winning just one more game. Whine about that, guys, while looking in the mirror.

It’s both unfair and unintelligent to presume to determine the relative worth and legitimacy of teams based on a single outing, something the NFL playoffs are proving in spades. Are you college gurus paying attention?

With our national debt above $36 trillion, and our friends at the federal government having overspent by $85 billion in December alone, worries about the nation’s fiscal picture are growing.

But forget DOGE and other plans to attack the spending. We have the answer to our fiscal woes sitting in Congress, which has a number of absolutely phenomenal stock traders judging by their 2024 returns.

Tell them to forget bickering over legislation and instead invest on the behalf of the United States. We could be solvent again after a few more of their good years.

I mean, these people are uncanny when it comes to investing their money.

The year 2024 was a good one for stock investors in general, with the S&P 500 rising 24.9 percent. Chump change, say I. More than 20 members of Congress made about double that with their stock trading and the Top 5 among those ranks increased their portfolio by more than 100 percent.

You wonder why these investment geniuses are wasting their time in Congress. Or maybe, as cynics suggest, they are taking advantage of their time there.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was among the best yet again, with a portfolio increase reported at unusualwhales.com of nearly 71 percent.

David Rouzer was reported by that same site to be at the top of Congress with a 149 percent gain last year and Debbie Schultz was second, 142.3 percent.

Dan Crenshaw, who was credited with a 61.3 percent gain in 2024, was quoted on the site defending Congress members trading stocks, despite the possibility of possessing inside knowledge due to their work on legislation or contracts that just might affect individual companies.

Crenshaw as reported on the unusualwhales.com site, rationalized trading as a way to make money for members who “haven’t gotten a pay raise since 2008.”

I repeat, let these people trade for themselves. But create a fund of $3 trillion or so for them to trade on behalf of the country.

Getting those 140 percent gains, and starting with that $3 trillion, they could have the debt covered in five years or so, a year less than a Senator’s term. Eat your heart out, DOGE!

Instead of limiting the stock trading, which has been the subject of a bi-partisan attempts in recent years, turn these people loose to help someone beyond themselves. I’m sure they’d be happy to do it, as long as they can keep their profit machine going, too.

Pssst, the Steelers lost again in the playoffs Saturday night, pass it on.

I’ve read reports that this happened, by a 28-14 score at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens, a game whose television footprint was in the relative obscurity of Amazon Prime. I didn’t watch, but I’ve seen enough highlights posted on various Internet sites to concede this is true.

It wasn’t even as close as the final score.

The Steelers ended the season 10-8, losers of five consecutive games. But optimists and apologists alike will note the playoff appearance and the fact that coach Mike Tomlin continues his run of never having presided over a losing season.

That’s sure to thrill the cockles of the hearts of Steelers fans more attuned to thoughts of Super Bowl trophies, of which the franchise has six, rather than being content with stringing together winning seasons and failing miserably in the playoffs.

Tomlin qualifies on both counts, his teams not having won a playoff game since 2016.

By avoiding losing seasons, specifically the sort of lost seasons that provide lofty draft position as compensation, and with it the opportunity to pick future stars, the Steelers continue to deal in mediocrity.

Creative minds, such as those on si.com, are suggesting a trade – for Tomlin.

They note that as recently as 2023, Denver acquired head coach Sean Payton from New Orleans for first-, second- and third-round picks.

Surely Tomlin might be worth similar return in the coach trade market.

It would be a notable irony of sorts. Once upon a time, the Pirates acquired a manager, Chuck Tanner, in the trade market, sending catcher Manny Sanguillen and $100,000 to the Oakland A’s following the 1976 season in exchange for Tanner, who would lead the Pirates to their last World Series appearance and victory in 1979.

Some would argue it’s better to keep Tomlin and wait for him to regain past playoff success. History, including that of the Steelers franchise, suggests this will not happen.

Chuck Noll coached the Steelers to four Super Bowl wins in a six-season stretch from the 1974 through 1979 seasons.

The Steelers made the playoffs just four times in the next 12 seasons, with Noll retiring under the weight of it all following the 1991 season.

The Steelers had gone 2-4 in those four post-Super Bowl playoff appearances, which means even though he suffered losing seasons, Noll never suffered the sort of playoff win drought Tomlin has currently.

Banking on Tomlin getting the Steelers back to Super Bowl status is a stretch. Trading Tomlin is no guarantee to change any of this. But, it would be a start.