Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

Dave Ailes, one of my late, great former sports editors, had some pet phrases to express disdain for an event.

He might say that if it were being held in his backyard, he would pull down the blinds.

Other times, he’d say he was too busy to do something because he had to wax the cat, which curiously has come to be a euphemism for removing pubic hair or, according to an urban dictionary online, giving someone an outlandish excuse to avoid dealing with them.

Ailes was ahead of his time.

Were he still with us, dispensing his bon mots, Ailes would be pulling down the blinds regarding tonight’s presidential debate. And I’m right there with him.

First, these so-called presidential debates are jokes in general, with “moderators” who often are pushing an agenda via their questions.

I certainly expect that to be the case with tonight’s CNN example. The so-called Clinton News Network long ago ceded any semblance of impartiality, and with that, most of its audience.

And so we come to tonight’s debate on CNN, with Jake Tapper and the aptly named Dana BASH running the show.

That Trump even agreed to this venue seems to have been a mistake, not that debates on other networks promise much more in the way of even-handed treatment due to overwhelming mainstream media bias and/or ineptitude.

Perhaps realizing the error, Trump and his surrogates have been out ahead of the event attempting to note the biased moderators, particularly Tapper.

One Trump proxy even appeared on a CNN interview and promptly had her microphone cut off because the host didn’t approve of pointing out the biased nature of the debate moderators.

Understand that, as reported by the New York Post, Tapper has likened Trump to Hitler, called him a “desperate electoral loser,” a spreader of “Russian propaganda” and accused him of trying to ‘kill democracy.”

All of these are straight from the Democratic Party playbook.

As for BASH, she’s far from a down-the-middle political person.

Expect the debate to unfold on an uneven basis with Biden being asked to talk about his favorite flavor of ice cream, or the great success of his regime (all with straight faces on the mugs of the moderators).

Meanwhile, Trump will be challenged to prove he’s not Hitler, not a desperate electoral loser, not the would-be slayer of democracy.

As a side note, Trump wants the debate contestants drug-tested beforehand. The Biden camp, predictably, says no way, Jose.

Expect Clueless Joe to be hopping around like a racehorse, perhaps fueled by Adderall, which would show up on a drug test.

Bottom line, I will pass on the live event and take my cues from trusted analysts and pertinent video clips sure to be available after the fact.

Amidst these times of political correctness run amok, utter disregard for traditional values, and general bizzarro world behavior, we try to address the situation with another installment of news and views.

NEWS: The Texas Rangers are the only Major League Baseball team not to have a pride night this year, those ubiquitous homages to all things gay.

VIEWS: While the Rangers are not doing so well in the MLB standings this year, they’re atop my list of teams for having the courage to just say no to these lavish examples of style over substance; to celebrating those making an alternative lifestyle choice as some sort of heroes.

NEWS: The Woke Queen of Oakland, Mayor Shen Thao, had her house raided by the FBI, which reportedly was looking into claims of illegal campaign finance, among other failings.

VIEWS: Her honor, who also has presided over significant leaps in violent crime, is blaming it all on “radical right wing forces.” It’s better than insisting that the dog ate her homework.

NEWS: The brain donors who run Kenya decided now was a good time to tax the citizenry into submission with measures that included price increases on necessities such as diapers, in an effort to be environmentally friendly.

VIEWS: Residents responded by storming the parliament building, setting it afire and moved to rioting in the streets. The Democratic morons who hyped Jan. 6 protests in Washington, D.C., into “insurrection” ought to be paying close attention. Coming soon to a national capital near you, real insurrection.

NEWS: Leftists in the media are attacking Federal Judge Aileen Cannon for attempting to hold Trump accusers to legal standards in his Florida classified documents case.

VIEWS: Many of these stooges were outraged that people questioned the Colombian-born judge handpicked to try and, to turn into a circus, Trump’s New York City trial on so-called hush money, yet they feel free to go after Cannon relentlessly. Again, these stooges didn’t even seem to care that Judge Cannon ruled against the Trump legal team regarding the legality of the Mar-a-Lago search. And, finally, the stooges fail to note Cannon is a judge confirmed in a bi-partisan manner by Congress while Senor Colombia became a judge due to an appointment from then-NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg. Yes. Bloomberg is a Democrat, just as is Judge Colombia.

NEWS: Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has declared gun violence a public health crisis.

VIEWS: Well, duh. Murthy has the usual mealy-mouthed solutions, such as disarming the populace in general by making LEGAL gun ownership onerous due to over-regulation. A web site cited in the U.S. News and World Report story on the matter (gunviolencearchive.org) has removed suicides from its statistical trove. The site blames bad available data, which probably has something to do with suicides annually dwarfing other gun death totals. Also, banning so-called “assault rifles” which as available to the populace do not fit the term, and magazines for guns with capacities over some arbitrary figure, won’t cure gun violence. Harsher penalties and prison sentences for gun-wielding criminals instead of our catch-and-release justice system would help. Also, if someone really wants to kill another, guns are but one method. Just last week, the Johnstown Daily Bugle had not one, but two stories on the very same page about area people allegedly shooting other people and killing them with, wait for it, crossbows. No doubt Murthy soon will see crossbow violence as a public health crisis.

The hot mess that is Joe Biden stirs the imagination regarding what it would be like to have a direct conversation with the man, perhaps over a morning brew. No doubt it would be surreal, and confirmational of his declining mental state, not that further evidence of Biden’s mental failings would make any difference to his deaf, dumb and blind supporters

I’m thinking it might go something like this.

Me: So, Joe, how about this heat wave?

Joe: It’s not hot. You’re just like the people griping about inflation and the economy. They’re clueless, too. Things are great. It’s your imagination about the heat, too. It’s cool, man. You’re just a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.

Me: Moving on, you or your people, recently put out a social media post claiming zero inflation currently and you also told CNN in May that inflation was running 9 percent when you took office. Actually, inflation was 1.4 percent on a year-over-year basis back then, and the current annual inflation rate in the U.S. is between 2 and 3 percent, depending on the specific measure used.

Joe: Come on, man. It’s just like I was telling the president of Greece, Zelenskyy, the other day, people need to just relax and enjoy how great things are here. It could be a lot worse. They could be living in Ukraine. Zelenskyy even told me he’s grateful he’s living in Greece, not Ukraine.

Me: OK, I think. Lately there have been a lot of videos of you at public events staring blankly, wandering off and in many cases needing someone other than your usual handler — DOCTOR JILL BIDEN — to lead you around. What’s going on?

Joe: Did I ever tell you about the time I made Corn Pop back down? He was a bad dude, man. But he was/is black, so no doubt he voted for me, maybe more than once, and even if he’s technically dead. You know how those gang thugs don’t have a long life expectancy.

Me: But the videos?

Joe: Look, that Juneteenth thing, I thought Kamala was doing enough jumping around for the both of us. Obama was just trying to get a little air time when he grabbed me and walked me off the stage in Hollywood. That Group 7 deal, I was just going over to shake the hand of that 7-foot tall white rabbit – Harvey. And D-day, there really was a chair I was looking to sit on. You just couldn’t see it. Stealth technology.

Me: I see, or I don’t see, I guess. Something a lot of people saw – and can’t unsee – is the way you rubbed foreheads with Pope Francis the other day. He didn’t seem to like it. What was going on there?

Joe: Look, that’s just Joe Biden being Joe Biden. Maybe you’ve seen me standing uncomfortably close to young females, or smelling the hair of women near me in public settings. Well, the Popester is a guy and he’s bald, so I couldn’t smell his hair, could I? Rubbing my forehead against his was the next best thing.

Me: On that note, I’ll let you go since I guess you have a lot on your agenda . . .

Joe: Nope, this is it. Maybe a phone call from Hunter later – loves to keep The Big Guy in the loop – but nothing concrete except my nappy, watching some Brady Bunch reruns and then early to bed.

Me: Well, I do have some things I need to do . . .

Joe: Let me give you a little parting advice. The coffee was OK, but you ought to have something around for guests to munch on. I’m so hungry, I could eat Uncle Bosie if those damn cannibals hadn’t beaten me to him.

Amidst yet another wondrous Father’s Day I find myself pondering how the others handle days such as this, or Mother’s Day for that matter.

I speak from experience when I tell you that nothing surpasses the joys of fatherhood and presumably motherhood, although being a grandparent is a close second.

But what about the people who never have the opportunity?

Some cannot, having been denied by cruel physiological fate despite their fervent desires to be parents.

I feel for them.

It is the others, however, who prompt the most speculation on my part.

An anagram – DINK – was coined years back for people who got married, both worked, yet didn’t want to spend money on progeny, and so live out their lives as perpetual adolescents. DINK means dual income, no kids. It was and is a lifestyle choice.

All the while, their biological clocks keep ticking. I wonder, do they reach a point when it is too late that they regret the decision to indulge themselves and forego raising a family?

Such choices have long-term, rippling consequences. No children means no grandchildren. No great-grandchildren.

No memories of first steps, first words, first day of school, first date, marriage and the like.

I have heard others say they can live the experience vicariously through the children of friends or relatives. With all due respect, that’s like saying watching someone else eat a cherry pie is as enjoyable as consuming the treat yourself.

And then there is the matter of those who abort children. While we constantly have pro-abortion types trumpet about having the right to abort conception due to rape or incest, that is the tiniest part of the abortion spectrum. Most abortions are, to borrow a phrase from earlier in this piece, the result of lifestyle choices.

Economic woes, no relationship with the father, just not the right time, are among the more common reasons for abortion.

That leads us on another tangent. Not all men who have fathered children deserve celebration on this day. Too many are hit-and-run artists, who leave the woman holding the bag, figuratively speaking. For them, today should serve as an annual reminder that they dropped the ball.

They know not what they have tossed away.

I got a laugh at having two of my granddaughters present today, watching them make faces regarding the food choices, then end up enjoying the shrimp (barbecued, in butter or cold with cocktail sauce) that was part of the feast prepared by my wife. They passed on the steak, but loved the hot dogs and corn on the cob. And, oh, the desserts.

Maybe someday these girls will enjoy Mother’s Days, or Father’s Days with their eventual husbands.

At least, that’s where I hope things will go. I’d hate to think of these young girls falling into the DINK category.

Weather forecasts are calling for brutally hot weather in the coming week, but I’m not afraid. My electricity supplier emailed me that all is well.

That supplier is FirstEnergy, which proclaims in the email that its system stretching from Ohio to New Jersey, is ready to meet the challenge.

Staffing has been adjusted and any planned outages have been rescheduled.

Sounds good, until the second paragraph promises that any local outages caused by excessive heat will be handled promptly.

What happened to the promise in the first paragraph that FirstEnergy is prepared to meet the anticipated demand from the heatwave?

The email concludes with the usual no-kidding list of things one can do to improve efficiency, things like caulking windows, etc. This is the sort of stuff that is the staple of TV news reports regarding weather.

When it’s cold, they advise us to dress in layers and limit exposure. When it’s hot, they encourage us to drink plenty of fluid and take breaks.

I doubt many will be rushing to caulk windows in advance of this bit of heat. I won’t.

I’m thinking (hoping) we will get through this because FirstEnergy has assured me the company is ready.

It is disconcerting, however, to recall all the news stories about people elsewhere being asked to conserve during warm or cold periods, because the creaky electrical grid just can’t handle the load.

And I think if all the electric-car wet dreamers had their way and we all were whirring round in EVs how bleak things would be. That would be electrical vehicles needing recharging virtually daily. No less an authority that Mayor Pete Butt (whatever) our secretary of transportation, has been forced to admit during Congressional testimony that each EV requires the annual electricity consumption equal to a person running 25 refrigerators.

I am willing to bet that if all of us ran out and bought 25 refrigerators and plugged them in prior to this heat wave, the FirstEnergy promise would not be fulfilled.

This is something you might think about as you sit around in your air-conditioned home in coming days, looking to avoid the heat and trying to follow all the no-kidding advice from the media about how to do so.

Now imagine those air-conditioners not running because the electrical grid has crashed due to EV recharging demands.

Enjoy.

Today is Flag Day. I mention this because it’s a virtually unforgotten holiday.

Most workers don’t get the day off and it has not been shifted around to provide yet another of the three-day weekends that are the bones tossed to the masses hoping to keep the declining percentage of the population still interested in working maintaining that tendency.

The holiday commemorates the adoption of the U.S. Flag way back in 1777, a time when men were men and women were women and there were not thousands of madeup genders in between.

Traditional celebration of Flag Day involves displaying the Stars and Stripes.

The American Flag is on display at the front of my house, as it is on most days, holidays or not.

A quick visual scan of the street showed a total of four American Flags flying today, clustered in a knot of seven houses near the middle of the block.

Beyond that, it was just the usual potpourri of political statement (a pride flag) and decorative banners flown simply to dress up a house’s external appearance.

As a young man, the numbers I saw would have been much greater in terms of houses displaying American Flags.

This is a metaphor for the ennui that grips our divided nation even as Clueless Joe is in Europe wandering aimlessly away from his peers at a ceremonial display and having to be reined in by other political leaders much in the way parents steer toddlers away from trouble in public settings.

Patriotism, particularly that born of knowledge of the nation’s history, is all but dead. School children are taught a leftist stew of guilt, blame and disdain for such formerly basic principles as religion, family and critical thinking.

Just the other day, a story was reported that our friends up north in Canada are making tentative plans of how to deal with the disruption that would follow the outbreak of a Civil War in these United States.

Maybe their flaming liberal dress-up leader could alternate public appearances wearing uniforms of the opposing sides just as he has been photographed in the past clad in the garb of Arabs or Indians, the former including brownface makeup.

This would be as helpful as most of his decisions. Trudeau is Clueless Joe, without the excuse of slipping mental faculty to explain his bizarre actions.

Regardless, celebrate the remainder of this holiday, and consider just how much worse things might be when next the holiday rolls around – presumably if it is allowed to be celebrated in 2024.

Pirates rookie phenom pitcher Paul Skenes got an ovation from the fans when he was pulled from a Tuesday game. Nothing unusual except it was in St. Louis, with fans of the Cardinals recognizing the special nature of a visiting player’s performance.

Skenes, the first pick overall in the 2023 draft, has been nothing less than a revelation for the Pirates. In a month of Major League play, Skenes has started six games, going 3-0 with a 2.43 earned-run average.

His velocity routinely hits triple digits. He has a five-pitch repertoire and is only beginning to display that at this level.

Simply put, Skenes has given downtrodden Pirates fans a glimpse of greatness and hope that this moribund franchise might somehow return to the time when it won six division titles and two World Series titles in the 1970s, or three consecutive division championships in the early 1990s.

But the track record of the Pirates franchise in recent decades Skenes tells us will be elsewhere in 2030, when he becomes eligible for free agency, if not well before.

This reality was rammed home by watching the Los Angeles Dodgers play the New York Yankees over the weekend in a matchup many believe was a preview of the season’s eventual World Series pairing.

These are thought to be two of the best teams in the majors, and both have former Pirates pitchers on their rosters.

The starting pitcher for Los Angeles in one game was Tyler Glasnow. During the broadcast of that game, injured Yankees hurler Gerrit Cole, another former Pirate, was shown in the dugout.

The Yankees won one game, and Clay Holmes, yet another ex-Pirate, got the save.

The message is clear: The Pirates draft and/or develop talent, then send it elsewhere once the cost of retention becomes too steep.

Yes, the Pirates gifted Skeenes with a record $9.2 million signing bonus, but that number pales compared to the average $36 million a season Cole is scheduled to earn in his current 9-year contract with the Yankees.

The Pirates can’t be a consistent contender without spending a lot more money on payroll. That’s the truth, one proven by results since that last run of sustained Pirates success more than three decades back.

It can be argued whether the Pirates are frugal by choice or by necessity, but that doesn’t change the reality that they don’t spend enough to win.

The Pirates traded Cole to Houston after the 2017 season because they couldn’t afford to re-sign him.

One of the players the Pirates received in the deal was pitcher Joe Musgrove, who they traded to the Padres after two seasons.

Jameson Taillon, currently with the Chicago Cubs, is another Pirates castoff, one in some ways similar to Skenes. Taillon was the second overall pick in the first round of the 2010 draft. After several injury-plagued seasons with the Pirates, he was traded to the Yankees, a team that can afford to take chances on talented players with injury problems.

Taillon had two strong seasons with the Yankees, parlaying that into a four-year $68-million contract with the Cubs.

Even the Yankees can’t keep – pay – everyone. But teams like the Yankees and Dodgers do more than their share of spending.

The Pirates do not. The message to Pirates fans is enjoy Skenes while he’s here, because that sound you hear is the unmistakable ticking of the clock on his career in Pittsburgh.

First my wife sang out the news as delivered by her smart phone Tuesday, and then a cousin emailed the revelation. Hunter Biden guilty on all counts.

No doubt Clueless Joe henceforth will not refer to Hunter without the “convicted felon” tag so liberally applied to one Donald Trump.

I can just see the campaign ads with Biden and his “convicted felon” son.

No? Clueless Joe and his tribe of sycophants would be disingenuous on such matters?

Of course there are differences between the convictions. Trump was found guilty of felony charges that were escalated from misdemeanors after the statute of limitations had expired. This by a jury instructed it needn’t agree on what Trump supposedly had done wrong to convict him, and after a trial presided over by a judge more fit for a scene in a Three Stooges short.

Order, order, order in the court.

I’ll have a pastrami on rye.

Hunter, on the other hand, came a cropper in federal court for mixing gun ownership with being a crackhead, fibbing to the Feds about it all, and having his former sister-in-law turned lover throw away the gun due to concern about Hunter’s mental state, and neatly cataloging all this in text messages.

Hunter’s crimes were felonies, not technical violations ramped up due to some overzealous left-wing district attorney. The statute of limitations had not expired on Hunter.

Allow me to admit right here I’m surprised Hunter was convicted. It wasn’t for perceived lack of evidence, but more because evidence doesn’t seem to outweigh politics in court decisions these days.

Reports indicate Hunter could face as much as 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000.

But, before you indulge in orgies of celebration, I’m thinking there’s still room for a sentencing reprieve. Along that line, if Hunter serves more than a few days, or even less time behind bars, I’ll be stunned.

As to the fine, even if it’s $750,000, all Hunter needs to do is hurl some paint at a canvas to produce more of his kindergarten level art to be gobbled up by some Biden and Democrat cronies posing as art collectors, just to tamp down any appearance of anything not completely above board.

Any of Hunter’s art pieces could fit under the category of dog’s breakfast, a British term for a confused mess.

Beyond the gun convictions, it’s fair to ask why Hunter continues to skate on accusations of association with sex trafficking of minors, not to mention carving out percentages of his “business” deals for “The Big Guy”

Don’t forget, until a righteous judge intervened, Big Guy Joe’s justice department was offering Hunter a plea bargain that would have made the gun charges and a tax beef go away.

Now Hunter has gone down on the gun part, but still faces court on the allegations of failing to pay income taxes.

Of course, Clueless Joe and DR. JILL BIDEN, who expressed pride today over Hunter, will be equally proud if a guilty verdict follows on tax charges.

And they will be similarly proud when the consequences of Hunter’s misdeeds amount to a light slap on his money-grubbing wrists.

Seeing them forced to embrace publicly their beloved convicted felon brings a smile to my face. Maybe they might want to adopt Trump?

I passed on writing my typical D-Day post yesterday, in part because of the way our president politicized the 80^th anniversary of this historic event and turned it into a Ukraine pep rally, which made me want to vomit.

You’d expect as much from an obviously addled sort who thinks, despite all available evidence, that his relative was eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea during World War II, and more recently twice noted in an interview that he has known Vlad Putin for “over 40 years.”

Now that’s a Russian collusion tale worthy of investigation by the Biden Secret Police considering back then Putin was a relatively unknown KGB officer. So what was a minor league U.S. Senator, which Biden was at the time, doing consorting with a KGB agent?

I’d love to hear that explanation, other than the stereotypical Joe is losing his mental faculties and we can’t hold him accountable for things like mishandling classified information because of that.

We also can’t, presumably, hold Biden accountable for anything that happens during his watch as president. We can, however, blame his predecessor, Donald Trump, for all Biden calamities, including a southern border only slightly less porous than Ukraine’s ground defenses.

But Biden and his brain-donor supporters aren’t alone in claiming long-term residence at the irrational hotel.

Today’s major dose of irrational behavior centered on the monthly jobs reports, an exercise in reading goat entrails that no one should take seriously, yet investment professionals do month after month.

Understand that these days government statistics tend to be guesses and results issued by statistical models, which are themselves mostly guesses, seasoned with a bit of research.

If you made observations based on similar models, a neighbor buying a new car might cause you to state that car sales are going through the roof, and we might be in for a record sales year.

Government inflation reports are excellent examples of useless numbers. Some exclude “volatile” items such as food and energy, which just happen to be two elements necessary to life as we know it.

Our Federal Reserve, still trying to meet its target of reducing inflation to 2 percent annually, loves an inflation measure which does not include housing costs. Understandably, this might be accurate if all residents were Section 8 types or illegal immigrants, not responsible for paying their housing costs. For the rest of us, housing is a cost just as essential as those for food and/or energy.

Today’s job report roared past estimates, to a reported 272,000 more on payrolls.

Of note, the “job” numbers don’t differentiate between full-time and part-time. I lose a job paying $60,000 a year with good benefits, and two kids down the street get hired on to cut grass part-time during the summer for $10 an hour and that’s a net gain as far as the government is concerned.

Similarly, if I lost the above-mentioned job, but took down two of those part-time jobs, again a net gain on the payroll report.

Further complicating things, the 270,000 gain was from the so-called “Establishment” report, that deals with feedback from businesses and adjusts it all with the birth-death model to smooth the numbers.

The births and deaths refer not to workers, but to businesses who employ people. It is ESTIMATED how many of these companies have opened or closed (were born or died) during the month.

Meanwhile, the household survey, which talks to people and extrapolates based on that, came in at a DECLINE of 408,000 workers.

And, just to spice up the statistical sundae, the unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent, which would seem to indicate fewer, nor more jobs.

There is a difference of roughly 9 MILLION between jobs numbers the establishment survey reports. vs. the numbers of the household survey, with the establishment that much higher.

Based on this ridiculous statistical soup, billions of dollars were made or lost Friday.

Next week, we get the monthly Federal Reserve meetings and interest rates announcement, usually good for more unwarranted volatility in financial markets as the irrational react and overreact on vague, generally meaningless numbers.

Meantime, we can amuse ourselves with more absurd Biden musings, of which there almost certainly will be many.

At first blush, it seems odd in the extreme that the U.S. and its European allies are so eager to provoke war with Russia.

The state of the Russian army, as to its ability to stand up to NATO forces on the ground, is open to debate. What is not open to debate, and has been pointed to directly and repeatedly by no less an authority than Vlad Putin, is that Russia possesses enough nuclear weaponry – and the means to deliver same – to turn our world into a smoldering cinder.

Surprisingly, all the climate alarmists who have been predicting incorrectly this outcome for Earth from natural forces for maybe 40 years, are some of the same leftist morons encouraging more attempts to provoke the Russian bear.

This all makes no sense unless you realize how desperate things are in many of these nations and for the leaders.

Clueless Joe may be able to unleash his Soros-anointed petty dictators in the form of local district attorneys to harass one Donald Trump, but polls indicate a sizable majority of the populace, as many as 75 percent in some examples, think Biden is inept, doing a poor job of stewarding the country, and needs to be gone yesterday.

Similar heads of state, such as France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz, are just as unpopular if not moreso than the Clueless One.

A major foundation for this unhappiness is inflation, producing declining standards of living. The U.S., France and Germany also have varying degrees of internal instability due to out-of-control immigration.

The U.S. and France also have massive debt problems, as in obligations that cannot be repaid or delivered upon.

Facing elections and a wrathful populace, it is in the best interests of these proven demagogues to devolve into the ultimate misdirection. So they start World War III. At least they will still be in charge before succumbing to the carnage they have unleashed.

And, make no mistake, for these left-wing sickos, being in charge is all that matters. Damn the overall good of the people, even their survival.

History will record – if there is any history written after the fact — that Clueless Joe led us bravely into war just so you wouldn’t be able to pay attention to his many failings.

Same for Macron and Scholz, the latter of whom heads a country that reportedly has begun to draft 60-year-old men.

Can’t happen here? Don’t kid yourselves.

And if you think the West’s leaders will blink before leading us to nuclear Armageddon, that’s far from a certainty. Remember that desperate people do desperate – and stupid – things.