Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

Penn State has been bounced from the college football playoffs and James Franklin’s pathetic record in big games grows even worse.

Notre Dame walked off with a 27-24 win in this semifinal Orange Bowl game, and heads to the national title game. Penn State and Franklin head back to State College to lick the wounds of yet another setback in a showdown game.

An ESPN graphic Thursday night noted Franklin has the third-worst record against Top 5 opposition (1-18) since the college polls began in the 1936. It’s not just the losses, it’s the details.

Some thoughts on this latest example:

• I plead guilty to falling into the trap of investing, sports and life in general, that being thinking this time is different. I wrote that I thought Penn State, despite Franklin’s checkered coaching past, would pull out a win over Notre Dame, factoring in the shorter prep time for the Fighting Irish, notable injuries and the fact Notre Dame was hit with a flu outbreak ahead of the game. But I got Franklined.

• Penn State had a 10-0 lead vs. Notre Dame, just as it had in a regular-season loss to Ohio State, but still couldn’t win the games. Inexcusable.

• Franklin apologists were singing his praises after playoff wins over SMU and Boise State, yet when first he met up with another college football heavyweight in the playoffs, the streak ended and that speaks volumes about Penn State under Franklin. The Nittany Lions lost all three of their games with prominent opposition this year. Penn State is supposed to beat the SMUs and Boise States of the world, but also occasionally should beat the Ohio States, Notre Dames, Oregons.

• Anyone else thinking if Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman was coaching Penn State, the score would have been reversed?

• On that 54-yard ND touchdown pass to Jaden Greathouse that led to a 24-all tie with under 5 minutes remaining, why did the Penn State corner and safety both look like bears on roller skates, one falling after a Greathouse fake coming off the line of scrimmage and the other over-running Greathouse and falling as the receiver cut back to the middle of the field?

• The third time was the charm for Penn State quarterback Drew Allar, who had two apparent interceptions erased by calls on the Notre Dame defense. And, on a third apparent pick, Allar committed what ESPN analyst Greg McElroy labeled the “cardinal sin” of throwing late across the middle while under a pass rush. The interception went to a video review, but for once in this game, an official’s call could not bail out Allar. And Notre Dame eventually kicked the winning field goal with seconds remaining.

• One wonders what Penn State was thinking being so aggressive late when Allar was having a poor night in terms of throwing accuracy. It was aggressive to have Allar throwing from his own 28 with 40 seconds or so remaining in a tie game. Good coaching is not asking players to do what they cannot.

• Some thought Allar might win this game and, if he played well in the national championship game, decide to declare for the NFL draft, where some had him challenging to be the top quarterback taken. Unsolicited advice to Allar – stay in school, son.

• Now Franklin can go back to his routine of getting into verbal altercations with home fans after big losses, running up the score on Maryland and lamenting Notre Dame not belonging to a conference.

This year’s college football playoffs, fast becoming an exercise seemingly set on proving bigger is not better, stumbles into its Final Four Thursday and Friday nights.

The starting field of 12 teams has been whittled down to the point that Penn State plays Notre Dame Thursday night in the Orange Bowl semifinal game and Texas meets Ohio State Friday night in the Cotton Bowl semifinal.

How we got here has been a sad stew of questionable pairings, equally questionable officiating and lots of talk about Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) revenues for the players.

Some of these guys will be taking a pay cut when they officially turn pro. If you ask me, someone making millions of bucks because they play college football already is a pro.

Can we be far removed from NIL salary caps in college?

Through it all, Penn State coach James Franklin has come across as the epitome of the apocryphal guy who gets a free lunch and complains it wasn’t a free dinner.

To recap, Penn State lost its two biggest games of the season, a regular season contest with traditional tormentor Ohio State, and a setback to Oregon in the Big Ten title game.

As a reward, Penn State was gifted a home first-round playoff game with overmatched SMU. What followed the predictable win was a neutral field Fiesta Bowl matchup with similarly overmatched Boise State.

Meanwhile, Penn State’s two conquerors this season, Ohio State and Oregon, were forced to play each other in the other half of the bracket in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal round. Ohio State won handily, 41-21, after leading 34-0 in the first half.

Yet, Franklin has the cajones to show up for the Orange Bowl and gripe that Notre Dame isn’t in a conference like Penn State, presumably suggesting Notre Dame had an easier road to this point.

I find this thinking hypocritical on several counts. First, Penn State did not play Oregon in the regular season, despite being in the same conference, and had Michigan, which dominates Penn State about as soundly as Ohio State does, off the schedule, too.

One can argue about Indiana’s relative strength, but the Hoosiers were yet another team that had a strong Big Ten season but wasn’t on Franklin’s dance card.

And it would be hard to find a reliable college football analyst who didn’t think Penn State’s playoff path has been soft, including having extra time to prepare for this game compared with Notre Dame, due to the Sugar Bowl being delayed a day after the act of terrorism in New Orleans.

Notre Dame, it could be argued, didn’t face the most strenuous path, either. A first-round home win over Indiana and a battle vs. an uneven Georgia team with a quarterback making his first college start, isn’t the greatest resume.

The winner of the Texas-Ohio State game looks to be Ohio State, unless the Buckeyes have yet another inexplicably bad performance, something for which they have become noted.

Penn State has a lot going for it against Notre Dame. Will that outweigh the Franklin factor? An unlikely duo of USA Today and The Wall Street Journal in recent days ran lengthy stories about Franklin, who has earned the mocking nickname of Big Game James by coaching his teams to a 1-14 record vs. opposition ranked in the Top 5, a 1-10 record vs. Ohio State, and 3-7 vs. Michigan. You get the picture.

The headline on the Wall Street Journal story: “The Football Coach Who Wins Every Game – Except the Ones That Matter.”

The USA Today story mentioned what some see as similarities between Michigan’s national champions last year – including two dominant running backs, a pro level tight end, strong defense, veteran quarterback – and Penn State this year.

Differences noted in the story are Penn State lost two games and Michigan lost none. The story concludes former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh just might have taken Penn State to the national title this season. Can Franklin? Bookmakers give Franklin and Penn State the longest odds against such victory among the remaining four teams.

I’m thinking Franklin pulls a rabbit out of his hat and beats a Notre Dame team that did, after all, lose at home to Northern Illinois this year.

Texas is here after two wins in games it dominated early, but had trouble closing. Only a non-call on an obvious targeting infraction rescued Texas against Arizona State.

If Ohio State and its $20 million NIL roster plays up to form, Texas sees its playoff run end here. A wild card in the game is weather reports, which seemingly change by the hour, but could include uncharacteristic cold and even some snow.

Either way, barring catastrophic injury or other such vagaries, I’m thinking the Texas-Ohio State winner moves on to win the national championship.

Former president Jimmy Carter is dead and the rush is on to share memories, some of them personal. Allow me to join the crowd.

I was a young reporter, working nights at the local Woke Gazette, back when it still was a legitimate newspaper, and the night managing editor decided to give me a learning experience. Jimmy Carter (I presume it was his Johnstown stop during primary season of 1976, but my memory is unclear on this point) was landing at the Johnstown airport and I was told to accompany a veteran reporter to greet Carter, just to see how such things were done.

I still recall the veteran griping on the car ride to the airport about having been sent to interview the “Peanut Farmer from Georgia.”

This veteran reporter was a Democrat and a liberal, which at the time meant he was a lot of things populist Republicans are today, not some far left supporter of illegal immigrants, transsexuals and the general demise of the nation. He kept lamenting the fact that our political writer, typical for the time, worked daylight Monday through Friday, and couldn’t be budged from his home even to report on the arrival of a guy who would go on to be president.

As an aside, this same absent political reporter was a bit of an egomaniac. Years later, when the sports column format began running the names of the writers in huge, 48-point type, this guy went to management and griped to get his name larger, too, on his political columns! As long as he didn’t have to work nights and weekends, as sports columnists did.

Back to our Carter story. We reached the airport and waited. Carter’s plane landed and, in those less paranoid security times, we walked to fence to await him. My veteran reporter mentor still was griping, presuming – correctly – that Carter would identify us as media and rush to talk to us.

Carter flashed his famous toothy grin and indeed rushed to the fence. As I recall, we both shook his hand, there was a brief interview and I was quickly hustled to the car by my guide, who wanted to get back to the office, write something and be done with it all before heading to Brownie’s, the Kernville establishment favored by nightside news people.

Through the years it was determined that Carter, while a decent man, was a bust as president. Ronald Reagan sent Carter back to Plains, Georgia, in a 1980 landslide win. Carter presided over high energy prices, high inflation and the decline of the American image abroad. The populace couldn’t wait to get rid of him. Sound familiar?

In later years, I developed a friendship with Dr. Robert Hartnett, who was active in local sports, including running for years the local Junior Baseball League, which provided the Johnstown team or teams for the AAABA Tournament.

Dr. Hartnett knew that I fished, but did not fly fish and he was determined to change that. It was like the night news reporter who insisted I try golf. We went to Richand Greens, hit a bucket of balls at the range, then I shot some high number for nine holes. I never again played golf.

Dr. Hartnett owned a “cottage” on Spruce Creek, which is to say probably a $200,000 house. One of Doc’s selling points was this was the creek frequented by Carter as a fly fisherman. I drove over to the cottage one afternoon. I fly fished at or near where Carter had fished – me unsuccessfully – and came home. Like my golf experience, I never again picked up a fly rod.

But it was entertaining to see the “trained trout” rise as the caretaker threw pellets of food into the creek after we were done fishing. I am confident Jimmy did better on his fishing trips to Spruce Creek.

RIP, James Earl Carter.

A snowstorm has hit Washington, D.C., on January 6 no less, and rumors are flying that Jamie Raskin is about to allege insurrection – by Mother Nature.

Jack Frost, Suzy Snowflake, Elsa and Anna of Frozen fame, are among the countless expected to be charged, too. They are just so much right-wing filth to be locked away in prison and forgotten even as illegal immigrants run rampant, at least for a few more weeks.

Prominent Democrats will rush to microphones to proclaim that democracy will not die, despite their efforts to stab it in the back with election rigging, running a coup on a sitting president on their ticket for re-election, and ginning up (pun intended) a replacement for that would-be candidate largely by finding someone who checked several DEI boxes.

AOC will claim to have trauma from yet another incident she witnessed from afar.

The FBI and Department of Justice will move prosecution of the insurrection case to Manhattan, because that’s a jurisdiction that has a proven way to twist and distort. It is in Manhattan that Jesus would have been convicted for paying hush money to Mary Magdalene and/or committing fraud by claiming to have fed 5,000 with just five loaves of bread and two fish.

I mean, the guy was a carpenter, which is almost a builder, which is a quick hop, skip and a jump from being a real estate developer. Guilt by association.

Of course federal offices were closed Jan. 6 due to the snow. That’s largely inexplicable since almost all federal employees now work from home and need not travel. Presumably their phones and computer connections still are up and they might do the nation’s business from the comfort of their homes.

As I write this, we are little more than an hour away from Trump being certified in Congress as our next president.

Unless some clueless Democrat pulls a fire alarm “trying to open a door,” or a member of the Capitol police shoots an unarmed protester, just because, by late this afternoon Trump will be certified and Democrats can move to impeach Trump and prosecute Mother Nature.

Think of it as a left-wing daily double.

Make it your New Year’s resolution to avoid extremism, in any area.

Think for yourself. Question blanket statements. Don’t allow your emotions to ratchet up to a point where you take your rational brain out of the equation.

It’s a natural tendency for people and events to be skewed in one direction or another. Think of the pendulum that spends precious little time at the point of equilibrium.

But, unlike a pendulum which is hostage to physics, you have the opportunity to correct for distortions.

Events of recent days have brought this subject into focus.

We’ve had at least two terrorist incidents, both of which are reported to have been fomented by veterans of the U.S. Army.

We owe a great debt to our servicemen. There have been many in my family, including my late father. The vast majority of veterans were or are good people. But we also owe it to society to admit that not all veterans are beyond reproach simply because they once wore the uniform.

Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols both had military backgrounds. I was recently reminded of a tragic story, reported by many outlets including The Guardian in a Sept. 8, 2010 post, about 12 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan killing civilians at random and cutting off their fingers to keep as souvenirs.

Extreme actions in general are relayed to us almost daily.

An assassin executes an executive of a health care provider on a Manhattan street and people take to social media to praise him as some sort of hero, even raising money for his legal defense.

We just had a presidential election in which Democrats labeled the opposing voters as garbage, deplorables, racists, idiots and various other uncomplimentary terms.

There are extremists on the right, too, but the political left seems more eager to attract and endorse such lunacy.

Few are nuttier than climate change crusaders who are long on predictions and short on accountability when those predictions are 100 percent wrong. Al Gore has made a fortune off the “cause” and, along with fellow climate extremists, has proclaimed, among other things, extreme rises in ocean levels due to melting and snow and ice.

The Arctic, in particular, was predicted to be ice-free by 2013. Instead, the most recent survey finds there is 26 percent more Arctic ice than there was in 2012.

Climate alarmists are willing to starve people by banning carbon fuels used to run farming machinery, or banning cows due to them farting.

The most extreme views have taken over the movement, sort of like the Democratic Party. If the climate activists did have a point to make, it’s lost in their hyperbole.

Ironically, terrorists in the New Orleans and Las Vegas examples would be celebrated as being environmetally friendly due to them using electric vehicles for their mayhem.

One of the basic tenets decades back, when I was being taught traditional journalism, was to avoid the use of absolute statements such as no one does this, or everyone does that.

To refute such exaggeration, all someone would need to do is find just one person who didn’t follow the rule. It was an important point.

Such lessons in moderation would be particularly timely now. Unfortunately, they would be largely ignored.

Don’t ask me why I’ve been continuing to watch college bowl games this month. My only defense is some sort of social inertia — I do it because I’ve been doing it most of my life.

It can’t be the games. They are just so many jokes. Rosters of backups – underclassmen or seniors without prospects – battle before mostly empty seats for garish trophies that might look good in the trophy case, but really mean next to nothing.

Talented players opt out of playing lest they be injured and harm their pro prospects. Oh, many of them show up on the sidelines, even wearing their jerseys, in some sort of ridiculous show of support for the teammates they have forsaken.

But they don’t play.

Others, like Miami quarterback Cam Ward, take a hybrid approach. They play in the first half, to pad their career TD pass numbers and break the record, only to retreat to the sidelines for the second half and watch their team to go down to defeat due to offensive ineptitude.

And then there are those not here for bowls due to being in the “transfer portal” which sounds like something we might have explained to us on the latest episode of ‘Ancient Aliens.” But there is nothing otherworldly about this. Instead, it allows some college programs to use lesser programs as their feeder system.

Go to Inferior U and do well and we will reach out to you to join our big-time program, where Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) revenue falls like rain from the skies, we’re always on national TV, and you have a real strong chance of playing for a national championship.

Former Steelers coach Chuck Noll used to have a saying about envying the opposition talent. He advised, “though shalt not covet your neighbor’s goods.”

These days, it’s encouraged.

It’s gotten so bad at UConn, which just completed a surprising 9-4 season, that coach Jim Mora was moved to take to social media to warn coaches about trying to poach his talent. Mora promised legal redress for any such violations.

Good luck, Jim. This is the state of college football as 2024 rolls to a close.

The national championship playoff, now expanded to a 12-team field to start, has rendered most bowls as beyond irrelevant.

Last year Alabama and eventual national champion Michigan met in a much ballyhooed semifinal game.

Fast-forward a year and the two are matched up again on New Year’s Eve in Tampa’s Reliaquest Bowl. Both teams have copious amounts of players either opting out to avoid injury ahead of their pro careers, or not playing due to wishing to leave via the transfer portal.

Alabama had three turnovers in its first 10 offensive plays, and lost the ball once on downs during that stretch. Meanwhile, Michigan struggled to cash those breaks in for points and led just 19-10 midway through the fourth quarter, according to ESPN.com. Michigan eventually won. Yippee.

I quit watching at halftime because, well, it’s a bit of a joke.

Later tonight the meaningful championship bowls resume play, with Penn State meeting Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.

Many people think Ohio State, with its reported roster “payroll” of $20 million in NIL money will win it all in the long run.

As reported here previously, Texas has a backup quarterback making $3.1 million dollars in NIL, more than the $1.4 million the starter is reported to receive.

Meanwhile, a CBS Sports story ranked Penn State 6^th in NIL income among the remaining playoff teams. Opponent Boise State is eighth, dead last.

Apologists for Penn State coach James Franklin maintain his first-round playoff win over SMU, an eight-point underdog in a game played at Penn State, rendered null and void his reputation for losing big games.

Wrong. And beating 11-point underdog Boise State wouldn’t really change that reputation, either. For reasons of talent and NIL payments, Penn State should win this game. If Franklin finds a way to lose it, that’s the real story.

Until Franklin actually beats a team with similar talent and payroll, in a meaningful game, his reputation of a big-game loser remains.

Meanwhile, the whole college sports scene is taking on the stench of losers.

God Bless the Republicans, always eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Led by Donald Trump and his unwavering strength in the face of lawfare, assassination attempts and even disloyal RINO Republicans, we stand in a position to right many wrongs. Trump won the presidency, helped give Republicans control of the Senate, and aided in the maintaining of an admittedly slim Republican edge in the House of Representatives.

How do ungrateful Republicans reward this strength? They do so by being petty morons, looking to make names for themselves at the expense of the big picture.

Just a reminder, that big picture is saving the nation. Period. Democrats have put us on the precipice of losing all that is near and dear to us. Trump stands in the breach. But he needs help.

He needs to have a Speaker of the House and he has endorsed Mike Johnson. Is Johnson perfect? No. Is he the only viable choice at this time? Yes.

We need a functioning Speaker of the House to help grease the procedural path to Trump actually assuming the office he won, despite efforts, both legal and illegal, of his opponents.

But some pompous types in the House, one whose last name appropriately rhymes with Assie, say no to Johnson.

The possibility of ridiculous political moves that could derail Trump taking over as president is why my Trump signs remain in my yard. Until he officially is in office, they stay up as a reminder that it’s not a done deal.

As if this is not enough, fool Republicans want to start a civil war over H1B, a visa program, not the latest virus to be used to create ridiculous panic and governmental overreach.

They are going to die on a hill of not wanting to allow PRODUCTIVE immigrants to come here to WORK! Better, of course, to have an open door policy for criminals and bums from other lands. The two extremes are readily apparent, yet Republicans want to quibble. Of course.

Trump wants to cut off the influx of illegal immigrant scum and Republicans want to fight about qualified professionals coming here.

Jesus, spare me.

Give the Democrats credit, they know how to cleave to the party line. If Hakeem and Chuck, Nancy and Barack tell them to back utter insanity, they do so with nary a complaint. Remember, Biden was sharp as a tack? Sure you do.

Meanwhile, Republicans are being asked merely to do something smart and totally sane, yet they want to be rebels and make the rounds of the Sunday news shows to boost their massive egos.

We are at a moment in time when we need all hands on board in the daunting attempt to preserve this nation as we have known it.

That these egomaniacal fools are willing to throw that chance away speaks to the presence of too many utter morons in the Republican Party.

GoFundMe has shut down repeated attempts to use its platform to finance the legal defense of alleged healthcare assassin Luigi Mangione.

Meanwhile, another such site reportedly remains open to it all, having seen the misguided contribute $132,000-plus to the cause in a continuing campaign.

And so it goes in the online begging community. It’s hard to find a definitive source on how often such efforts ever go toward funding miscreants less high-profile than Mangione, or if the funds raised in general actually are used for the advertised purpose instead of, say, someone asking for help with medical bills and instead spending the windfall on vacations or cars.

After having taken a brief holiday break, I’m back with a Christmas carol update on the matter. Sing it to the tune of Deck The Halls.

Shake the bowl just like GoFundMe

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Make the fat the more rotundly

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Send your cash to shaky causes

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Makes you feel like Santa Clauses.

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Holidays they call for gifting

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Even if it’s more like grifting

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Seeing this it makes me sick

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

That you think you are St. Nick

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Begging bucks is now a pastime

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Without reason — even rhyme

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

All should hang their heads in shame

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Over this insane fund game

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Bless the lottery, not only for the fun it provides those who slavishly throw money at it, but also to us who mostly sit on the sidelines chuckling.

Case in point, the Mega Millions operation went without a big winner again Tuesday, meaning Friday’s drawing will be more than $1 billion. Now that would be a very merry Christmas.

There were four players, including one in Pennsylvania, who won $1 million each Tuesday by matching five white balls, but not the pivotal gold ball. Chump change, some lottery players would say.

Me? I pick up pennies on the sidewalk. And I laugh when people who have a net worth in the negative category find $1 million jackpots not worth their effort. This seemingly common sentiment is why, as years have passed and would-be ticket purchasers have become somewhat jaded, games have been re-jiggered to produce larger payouts.

But there is no free lunch in the lottery game, so the ticket prices have increased, and the odds against participants winning have been elevated greatly.

Back in the era of the Lotto game in Pennsylvania, in which players needed to pick six numbers out of 40 to win the big one, my wife made the mistake of creating a play list of of numbers based on family birthdays.

Those numbers were 5 8 9 15 25 28. I remember them well because, as I told my wife at the time, I was now bound to buy tickets for every drawing lest those numbers would be picked with me lacking an entry, me knowing I’d missed out on $1 million, and then me having to find a quiet place to off myself.

Fortunately, the game went to the lottery trash heap, to be replaced by an ever-increasing list of state number games, not to mention the scratch-off tickets.

My late mother somehow had a gift for buying scratch-offs and netting a modest profit. If she bought tickets for you, not so much.

But we did have a minor Christmas lottery miracle in the household this year.

My wife, easily the nicer person in this marriage, does things like save newspapers for someone from another part of town who noted online the need for same due to their dog using them for toilet matters.

When my wife left the house last week to drop off papers at the meeting spot, she was on foot due to her car being worked upon at a nearby garage. As she left, I noticed she had a plate of Christmas cookies to be given to the paper person.

As an aside, my wife blankets the neighborhood with gift cookie trays and, until my former union brothers decided to cut off retirees at the annual Christmas party, her cookies were huge favorites in the ticket-bag raffle at those events.

I was astonished she was giving cookies to virtual strangers for whom she already was doing a good deed and told her this. That’s my role. Her role was to return and note they’d given her a scratch-off lottery ticket as thanks.

Said I: It would have been better if they’d just given you the $5 bucks. At least then you could have bought yourself some coffee.

Later that night I was informed that the ticket was a $100 winner. There was one symbol in the main area providing for a five-times payout of the number beneath, which was $5. Then, on the bonus portion of the card, there was not one, not two, but three winning symbols worth $25 each.

Now if only I can get them to buy her a Mega Millions ticket.

I will leave with a lottery story from decades back, when I still worked in sports at the local Woke Gazette. I was covering what I recall to be a night Steelers preseason game with Cleveland (the original Browns, not the current replacement team of that name).

Ohio had begun a Lotto game and after numerous drawings without a winner, the jackpot was big. I can’t recall the number, but I’m thinking something like $10 million might be right.

There were lines at all the ticket selling locations. Some Steelers assistant coaches, short on spare time, gave sportswriters money to buy tickets for them.

There was a huge crowd in ancient Municipal Stadium for the game. I still remember the scene, the dull roar of a crowed anticipating a football game and then the numbers were drawn and given out over the stadium PA system.

You could hear the collective groan, both from the crowd and the press box. The game had become an afterthought.

It turns out, inexplicably, each one of us ticketholders actually thought we’d had a good chance to win, and that is the magic of the lottery.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the nation,

The people were struggling with Biden’s inflation;

Prices were high and stockings weren’t filled,

But soon there’d be hope if the border got sealed;

Illegals would be grabbed from their snug little beds,

Sent packing by Homan and all his good Feds;

MAGA mamas and daddies had given their backing,

For Donald J. Trump to hand out this shellacking

Yet Kamala’s team was not taking this well.

Whining and griping and threatening as well;

Still Trump and his troop have a plan for this crew,

With turn after turn of a punishing screw;

Now Vivek and Elon, now Pete H. and Kash,

On RFK Jr. to deal with our rash;

The swamp will be drained by this undaunted crew,

And we might get a hand from some Democrats, too;

Leading the way will be all-conquering Trump,

Tossing the bureaucrats into the dump;

The man has four years to rescue this land,

Not a second to spare for he and his band;

But Trump he can do it, of that I am certain,

Keeping his promises ere down comes the curtain;

And we’ll hear him exclaim as he jets out of sight,

Fight. Fight. Fight, all you must, to preserve what is right.