Questions About The Long I-95 Emergency

I am struck by news that the I-95 road collapse in Philadelphia “could take months to repair.”

This, despite our Governor Josh Shapiro declaring a disaster so as to dispense with customary governmental red tape.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Butt(whatever) rushed to social media if not to the scene to promise all needed federal aid to get the major highway up and running.

We’re supposing someone awoke Joe Biden to alert him, just for the record. But, since it was a weekend and all that, Joe would wait until his normal few weekday business hours to do anything substantial.

But months? Can we not rush the cleanup, the arrival of repair materials, and around-the-clock labor to reopen a road said to carry a reported 160,000 people per day according to state Department of Transportation data?

It’s not clear if that traffic data has had the Biden vote-multiplier applied to it.

Even if it had, that’s still likely 40,000 or so a day, which is a lot of traffic to be rerouted for “months.”

Even more questions abound.

Will this motivate an even greater number of migrants from Philadelphia to Johnstown public housing to avoid this daily inconvenience?

Will this make it tougher transit for them to our Friendly City?

Will road re-construction be done around-the-clock to speed the process instead of the customary daylight only construction with which Pennsylvania drivers are so familiar?

Will I-95 be restricted to one-lane travel 100 miles or so from the site in both directions, if only to enrich the provider of orange traffic cones?

Will anyone get around, after-the-fact, to quantifying how much this reconstruction cost and how much of that money went to construction firms who are large Democratic election contributors?

Just asking.

Is Trump Taking A Bold Gamble?

I intentionally chose to ruminate for several days before writing regarding Donald Trump’s ongoing legal problems, looking to distance myself from having no better than knee-jerk reactions. It didn’t help.

I can’t get past the glaring inconsistency of our legal system. Yes, Donald Trump is a crass guy. I’m not sure I’d like him personally if we ever met. I also voted for him – twice – because the Democratic alternatives were a do-nothing progressive continuing to bank largely on her husband’s name, or, in the latest instance, a man I wouldn’t trust to get my food order correct as a waiter — or not trip when carrying the food to the table!

To repeat, Trump seems to be far from likable on a personal level. But, the same can be said for Hunter Biden, and he continues to skate on various legal matters.

Hunter’s father, aka “The Big Guy,” fails to be held accountable for scandals ranging from his own mishandling of classified documents, to various doubts about he and his family.

Shillary Clinton had her own classified problem with home computer servers, but, typically, she received no more than a slap on her thick wrist.

Along that line, years-long investigations of Clinton-named foundations just ended quietly.

The list is lengthy of those on the left who never seem to get their date with justice, as long as they further the big lie about who truly runs our government. Some on the right also lack the guts to speak the truth.

Trump’s true offense – never mind what he’s charged with this time – is taking on the deep state in Washington, D.C. Those who wield the power, the same ones making the calls from behind the curtain for our animated cadaver current president, cannot stand up to scrutiny.

If the average Americans can take time from their various navel-gazing diversions and actually look at the big picture, they would/should be disgusted by how our government has been taken over by unelected bureaucrats and their behind-the-scenes puppetmasters.

Trump, for all his foibles real and imagined, shined the spotlight on these roaches. A man steeped in the sham of D.C., Trump political rival and Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer, noted early in 2017, that Trump would pay a price for this. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

Early, clumsy attempts by the FBI that included fudging reports, spying on the Trump campaign and feeding less-than-truthful information to judges to secure surveillance warrants, failed to put Trump’s head on a pike.

If only the FBI would put similar effort into the Bidens, or even providing documentation to Congress without having to be threatened with legal action.

Understand, the FBI and the CIA leadership past and present hates Trump to their core because he’s threatening their hold on power, one that transcends elections.

A legal scholar I have found to be quite insightful, Jonathan Turley, has opined in print that it’s almost as if Trump has invited these latest charges, that he might try his case in the court of public opinion.

Some have suggested that Trump could continue to run for president during any trial, or in its aftermath and, if elected, pardon himself should he be convicted.

If that is Trump’s thinking, he’s taking a huge gamble.

True, if only based on the proven anti-Trump bias of our justice department, this case could be won by Trump on technicalities. But that presumes no continuing interference and manufacturing of evidence, if necessary.

Haul a Biden or two into the courts for legal action and I will regain my faith in our legal system. Until then, not so much.

Social (Insecurity) Media

If only I were a Facebook member, so I could issue an oh-woe-is-me post and bathe in the obligatory sympathy from the hoi polloi.

But, alas, I am not. I do, however, receive feedback from those who are addicted to social media and have been told that one anonymous poster – brave fellow or gal – proudly posted it won’t read my blog any longer. I’m betting if we had a dose ready in the old truth needle, this anonymous type could be injected and forced to admit a rush to read any response from me.

Here goes, anonymous one. Unlike the boycotters who have hit Bud Light where it counts – hammering the bottom line – critics of me have no similar means of attack because this blog has no bottom line.

Anyone who visits surely will have noted no ads, no registration, no fees. It costs me money to keep it up and running, not to mention the time spent to write the content.

I’m not going to go all altruistic regarding this. I do it mostly for me, because I like to write and be on the record when things go badly, as they must should we as a society continue on this absurd path.

Readers also will note no provision for reader comments on the blog, the better to avoid having to engage in fruitless debate with uninformed, anonymous gas bags.

Such “brave” types might want to read up on American history. A man with some guts, John Hancock, made sure to sign the Declaration of Independence in his typically large style, making his name synonymous with putting oneself out there and not being afraid to go public with a stance.

Tubs of goo who hide behind anonymity deserve scorn anywhere and everywhere.

I have heard of people creating multiple social media identities under false names and using them to praise the twisted thoughts put out under their actual social media identities. Think of this as a perverse echo chamber. Pathetic, too.

Early in my blog experience, I had some business cards printed because I would run into people who told me they missed reading my articles since I quit, either my real journalism jobs or my multi-year freelancing run at the Tribune-Democrat

Those cards included the following: “Warning Strong Opinions.”

I welcome any who are offended by those strong opinions to keep shuffling their figurative feet and move on. But first, be sure to whine a bit on social media, just to make your existence a bit less pathetic.

Life Beyond My ‘Hood

So much going on and so little time to comment, which means we are due for another installment of news and views.

News: Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson debuted his Twitter broadcast Tuesday and racked up 71.6 million views in less than 24 hours.

Views: I didn’t watch, but something called Taylor Lorenz (in this era we don’t want to chose the wrong sex or pronoun from a mere picture), predictably from the Washington Post, panned the broadcast as not even stacking up against the average streamer or YouTuber. And that speaks volumes about the lack of perspective from leftist LameStream media.

News: Johnstown was courting a high-tech firm from California, Bitwise, in early May and by the end of the month that same firm reportedly was well on its way to laying off 100 percent of its workforce.

Views: But we still can count on Greater Johnstown having a never-ending supply of new pizza and coffee shops, not to mention all those trails drawing massive tourist dollars into the area.

News: CNN head man Chris Licht has been fired after just 13 months on the job.

Views: It was evident Licht’s days were numbered at the Clinton News Network when he went public with the plan to balance the network’s Democrats-always-right, Republicans-always-wrong coverage. There is an abundance of tone-deaf leftist media types to replace Licht. Maybe Taylor Lorenz was auditioning already with its Tucker Carlson diatribe.

News: Clueless Joe Biden, taking a break from falling onstage or hitting his head on the helicopter doorway – both of which he did last week – has drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 40-year low, continuing a 10-week run of extracting oil from the reserve in a political quest to attack oil market prices in pursuit of votes.

Views: This is the same Biden regime that announced in mid-May it would begin refilling the depleted SPR. Go to your calendar and note mid-May has come and gone and still the reserve is tapped weekly to bolster Biden’s already ridiculously low approval ratings.

News: Nearly one-third of Generation Z (ages 18-29) approves of government installed cameras in U.S. households to monitor for domestic violence and other illegal activity, according to a survey by the Cato Institute.

Views: The reality that 29 percent of these cretins are willing to give up constitutional freedoms for alleged feel-good purposes just reinforces my longheld observation that we’re doomed as long as public and private schools, as well as most colleges and universities, are minting fresh misguided Democratic voters.

News: Polling continues to confirm Biden is extremely unpopular among the electorate, that Democrats would prefer another candidate, and yet most will vote for him again because . . .

Views: . . . they are partisan zealots incapable of making an informed choice. See above News and Views installment about domestic surveillance.

News: True to the headline, there was nothing about my ‘Hood in this blog post.

Views: But I would suspect that narcissist Charlie Brown types spent an hour or so moving their lips while reading to make sure.

Climate Zealots And Inconvenient Truths

Climate crazies can’t seem to get their minds around facts.

Oh, they cite temperature studies in their zealotry, but ignore them when they don’t fit the narrative. They even have tacitly admitted their misguided stance by changing their cause from fighting “global warming” to combating “climate change.”

This way any change in climate, which is proven historically to have been a fluid thing even before man was releasing carbon into the atmosphere, can be cited as proving their case.

The climate zealots make dire predictions that never seem to come to pass, examples being all U.S. coastal areas were to be underwater by now, farmlands were to be nonproductive dust bowls, and polar ice was to have all but disappeared.

If any of this has happened, I’ve missed it. And I usually follow current events.

The typical climate alarmists are comfortable with killing, too. They believe there are way too many humans on our blue orb, but have stopped short of announcing definite plans to thin that herd.

This is not true for farm animals – pigs, cows and the like. The climate zealots are looking to score a daily double here, killing these animals to reduce their gaseous emissions, while also shortening the supply for those of us who still enjoy the taste of meat.

There is an unholy alliance between climate crazies and vegans.

Climate extremists also want to kill the internal combustion engine and, by extension, the fossil fuels industry.

It is here that their warped view of reality fails miserably. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of electric vehicles.

But even before we discuss that, consider the ethanol now part of the gasoline you pump into your car, which also is billed as helping save the planet.

Never mind that a 2022 scientific study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Wildlife Federation has gotten around to admitting that is a farce. Actually the 15 billion of gallons of corn-based ethanol, mixed annually into U.S. gasoline supplies by government mandate, is concluded to be adding to “climate change.”

This cannot deter the climate crazies. There is nothing wrong with this world, they believe, that banning gasoline burning engines in vehicles can’t right.

Here they are ignorant on so many fronts.

Begin with the nation’s creaky electrical grid, that certainly could not handle the entire population’s fleet charging daily, or even weekly. Already outbreaks of cold or warm weather bring pleas from providers to defer electric usage, lest the grid fail.

This also neatly ignores that electricity, despite the dream of genius inventor Nikola Tesla, is not readily harvested free of cost from the Earth or its atmosphere. Electricity must be generated, often using fossil fuels. Hopes of solar power and wind farms being acceptable replacements are mostly exercises in providing power that works only if heavily subsidized by the government, and with intermittent periods of low or zero production.

There also is the, to borrow the phrase of opportunists like Al Gore, “inconvenient truth” that the manufacture of electric vehicles is not climate friendly due to their outsized need for various common and rare minerals, which must be mined.

The Wall Street Journal addressed this recently in an article regarding the “nickel pickle,” explaining how nickel is much-needed in electric vehicles and mining nickel is decidedly environmentally unfriendly.

There are other realities regarding electric vehicles that are not discussed in polite company, including, but not limited to, the reality that charging stations continue to be hard to find, prices are uncompetitive with internal combustion rivals unless generous government tax credits are provided to EV purchasers, and manufacturers still mostly manage to lose money on each unit they sell to the public.

This is the reality of the situation, one readily ignored by zealots and their enablers both in government and the media.

The Good Of Southmont As Demonstrated By The Fireman’s Jubilee

Along the line of starve a cold, feed a fever, I’ve had a minor epiphany about the narcissistic drama queens of life and the best way to deal with them, that being to ignore them.

Let them rant, threaten and lament the fates to an audience of one. Out of sight, out of mind.

And that leaves more time to recognize the good in the community, like the ongoing Southmont Volunteer Fire Company Jubilee, billed as the 50th such event. I’ve lived in the borough for about 37 of them and recall coming even before that.

The Southmont Jubilee, which too often in the past has been the equivalent of a week-long rain dance, has been blessed with great weather so far in 2023. Not only isn’t it raining, it doesn’t even threaten to do so. Magic.

I was discussing this Thursday night with a veteran member of the organizers and he seemed to recall a good week of weather a few years back. For the life of me, I can’t recall that.

My memories are more along the line of slogging through mud on the midway and the time they brought in some pretty odoriferous hay/straw that led to me throwing away the shoes I wore that night.

But we try to support the Jubilee annually because the firemen deserve it. Are there more selfless individuals than volunteer firemen? I can’t think of any.

They devote long hours to mandatory training, only to work for free to benefit the community. They constantly are forced into fund-raising roles, too, because, despite the fact that they provide a tangible benefit – just check what your homeowners insurance rates might be if there were no firemen handy – there are not enough allocations of funds or various grants to keep the whole thing going.

These jubilees are fading fast, too, because rising costs are limiting the net revenue. Fire departments are finding it easier to have a variety of other fund-raisers that don’t require the coordination, planning, cost, and volunteer manpower to man food booths and the like.

Oakland, the area of my early youth, long ago gave up the ghost on its fireman’s carnival. Ferndale, a traditional big event, has been toying with the idea of throwing in the towel in recent years.

But these affairs have a benefit beyond raising funds for a worthy cause. They provide the chance for community interaction, both for residents of the boroughs, and also the surrounding areas. I had some great conversations with friends at the event Thursday night.

My wife and I took two granddaughters and they enjoyed the parade, but requested next time I remember to bring ear protection for them to deal with blaring sirens.

Our fire company also has Santa ride through the neighborhoods before Christmas and if I’m around on that night, I try to slip them a donation by way of a check.

That reminds me, I’ve been late to submit a check for the fund-raising tickets I got not that long ago. But time remains and I’m not really counting on winning the money.

What I am counting on is these events continuing and people showing some generosity toward their local volunteer fire departments, who deserve all the support they can get, and more.

Let’s Talk Sports For A Change

Time to write anew about uniformed emotion, overdone self-interest, and anonymous carping. Yep, we’re talking sports — a two-pronged observation on racing’s Memorial Day weekend and the coming back to Earth in May of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

First, the racing.

The Indianapolis 500 ended in dramatic fashion Sunday, traditional Memorial Day, with a last-lap pass after yet another red-flag stoppage due to an accident, that saw American Josef Newgarden edging out Swede Marcus Ericsson for the win.

Ericsson, the defending Indy champion, believed race officials should merely have run out the race under caution instead of stopping it to allow time for actual racing to the finish, not exactly an altruistic thought since Ericsson was leading at the time of the last red flag.

But Indy, which did a similar thing last year, throwing a late red flag to give the fans a green-flag finish, only repeated history. Last year, when Ericsson held the lead, that red flag was OK.

This year, when Newgarden was able to overcome Ericsson’s weaving and blocking to pass him, the Swede spewed sour grapes about it all being “unfair.”

So, last year, when Ericssson won, it was fair. This year, he didn’t win; unfair.

Not everyone agreed with that assessment.

Fellow driver Santino Ferrucci, who finished third driving for the team of legendary A.J. Foyt, the team’s best Indy finish since 1999, was quoted as having no problem with red-flagging Indy races late, and restarting them for a green-flag finish, either last year or this.

And Tony Kanaan, who won Indy in 2013, a race finished under the yellow flag, also was quoted as agreeing that finishing races under the green flag was the way to do it: “I think it was perfect.”

I did see at least one story which panned the finish, but didn’t bother to get anybody on the record. An unofficial canvass of social media indicated that finishing a race under green-flag racing conditions was popular, imagine that.

Rain scrambled NASCAR’s scheduling, sort of like many traditional celebrations in this area often are – but not this year – forcing the Coke 600 to be run Monday.

Along the way, Chase Elliott appeared to wreck intentionally fellow racer Denny Hamlin, prompting Hamlin to label it a “tantrum” in an interview after the event and call for a one-race suspension for Elliott.

There was no word whether Hamlin planned to park his team’s car transporter trailers in front of Elliott’s house to get even for the affront.

And fan video showed an incident earlier in the race involving Bubba Wallace and Aric Almirola, According to Almirola, Wallace, who was not reprimanded by NASCAR for giving the finger to someone during a live TV interview the past race, gave the finger to Almirola in Monday’s Coke 600,

During a red flag stoppage later in the race, Almirola approached Wallace in pit lane and, again according to Almirola, he shoved him because of the combination of the vulgar gesture and some “cussing” Wallace did during their pit-lane chat.

Now, about the Pirates, who inexplicably began the season 20-9 through April, but have gone just 6-18 in May. Their 14-4 loss to San Francisco Monday put the Pirates’ record at 26-27, the first time they’ve been under .500 since the third game of the season.

And I’m reminded of a fan discussion between a man and woman overheard at a bar-restaurant on opening day.

The man was talking the postseason for the Pirates and the woman, citing recent history, was questioning his sanity. This amused my wife, and I told her, as a guy who did this for a living for 35 years or so, the woman most likely was right.

When the Pirates were winning at a 69-percent rate through April and on pace to win 112 games for the season, I was questioning my sanity. Maybe my wife would have been, too. Fortunately she pays little attention to sports.

But the great thing about the 162-game baseball season is it eventually separates contenders from pretenders and this is far from a great Pirates team.

The franchise’s top win total ever was 110, which came in 1909, during a 152-game schedule, not the current 162 games. Those Pirates would go on to win the World Series.

The 1979 Pirates, also World Series winners, went 98-64 during the regular season. And the 1960 World Series winning Pirates were 95-59 in the regular season.

Pirates fan sites were replete Monday night with anonymous keyboard warriors giving up and walking the plank regarding the season.

“Nice while it lasted” wrote one.

But the Pirates are blessed to play in a weak NL Central Division and despite this swoon, are in second place, just two games behind the Milwaukee Brewers.

By way of comparison, all five teams in the AL East have better records than the Pirates and the Pirates would slot in fifth place in the AL West and fourth in the NL East and NL West.

There is hope for the Pirates based on their division. But expecting results like April to be repeated is extremely unrealistic.

Woofing In My ‘Hood

Bark. Bark.

That’s my dog in the neighborhood “fight” sounding off on the matter. Down, boy. Down.

My son emailed me a screenshot of some Facebook commentary regarding a post I’d written Friday that focused on the battle between competing visions of personal rights occurring one street over on Dahlia.

The point of my blog post was, and continues to be, that only selfish individuals ignore laws and standards of common decency in pursuit of self-gratification or petty revenge, or maybe both.

Most of us outgrew this long ago, at least by the time we had moved out on our own. But some have not. And this is why communities must have zoning rules, because there always will be some who choose to mock convention and dare anyone to call them on it.

In an irony that is commonplace, some of the biggest lamenters over needing to be compelled to do the right thing have the most skeletons in the closet, at least as measured by a search of the Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System portal, a ready digital repository of misdeeds one can access by searching by name or case number.

Speaking of which, my name is readily attached to anything I write. Congrats to the social media types who use their names on their posts. Those who hide between silly made up names prompt legitimate inquiry as to why they feel the need to do so?

And now I think I will let the neighborhood fight dog out to defecate on someone else’s property, in the spirit of the times, and then go to bed.

My ‘Hood Ponders John Stuart Mill And Charlie Brown

Philosopher John Stuart Mill generally is credited with defining the so-called Harm Principle as “people should be free to act however they wish UNLESS (emphasis mine) their actions cause harm to somebody else.”

A more coarse definition is: Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.”

Either way, it’s an important distinction that one’s exercise of personal liberties and self-expression cannot come at a cost of causing harm to others. But how to judge harm? There’s the rub.

The modern day ethos is heavy on proclaiming rights and quite a bit lax on the matter of accepting responsibilities and limits. Too many perceive themselves as the center of the universe and so all else exists only to honor their whims.

This brings me to an update on my ‘Hood and a minor drama from another street playing out, naturally, on Facebook. There is a reason I refer satirically to social media as the megaphone for morons.

To be clear, I’m not saying everyone on social media is a moron, merely that it attracts the sort who, when I was young, would have their strange rants and opinions ignored by all who knew them. But, on social media, the audience is widened and such an individual can present one side of a discussion, paint themselves as victims, and get a ration of encouragement from the uninformed.

At this point we will engage in a prolonged exercise of what former Steelers coach Bill Cowher was fond of dismissing as the “What if? game,” his catch-all term for refusing ever to entertain a hypothetical question – unless it was a subject he was eager to address to make a point.

That doesn’t negate the value of What if? in terms of being an effective thought experiment.

What if a neighbor seems to have parked not one, not two, but three trailers on the street in front of your property, including one with a California license plate, and left them there unmoved for a lengthy period?

What if, as I’ve been told by an informed source, the police refuse to enforce the 72-hour limit ordinance on such parking because movement of a mere centimeter restarts the clock?

What if the same neighbor dragged a decrepit car, weeds hanging from the wheels, into position and parked it there?

What if the same neighbor had a handicapped parking space sign installed, yet seldom is a vehicle to be found parked there?

What if this neighbor has a Jeep, an apparent hard top for that vehicle, piles of tires, a quad, what might be barrels and all manner of other eyesores displayed prominently in the front yard?

What if this person goes on social media to claim he’s only pursuing happiness and his mean neighbors are infringing on his rights?

What if this person claims to be putting the house up for sale to leave the neighborhood, ignoring the reality that prospective purchasers might be as turned off by the scene as current neighbors are?

What if the social media post regarding the supposed property sale, one which I captured via screenshot lest common sense prevail and it be deleted, included the following: “Please take absolutely no offense to this but we would prefer to sell it to a family that doesn’t have white skin if at all possible . . . We will give a break to any felons, particularly Megan’s Law offenders and those with a violent criminal history?”

I have heard, and it’s been posted on social media – at least part of the story – that this stems from another neighbor needing access to their property through a so-called “paper alley,” one on the maps, but not improved.

As an outgrowth of that, there supposedly was court action and the takeover of the street by parking it up with vehicles who sit idly for weeks or months is retribution.

Supposedly people had taken care of the alley right of way through the years and somehow thought that meant de facto ownership.

Consider this: I own neither the sidewalk that runs in front of my house parallel to the street, nor the strip of grass that separates the sidewalk from the road. Still, I am required to shovel snow to keep the walk clear in the winter, mow the grass in other months, and generally maintain the sidewalk in a safe condition.

Despite all that effort on my part, I cannot block the sidewalk, bar you from using it, or erect some structure on it or on the grass strip. As a functioning member of society, I accept this.

An enlightened social media poster weighed in that just mowing grass in a “paper alley” does not give you ownership.

This attempted retribution for that reality having been enforced, seeking to be a thorn in the side of neighbors, then claiming victimhood when called on it, recalls the song “Charlie Brown” by The Coasters.

Charlie of the song played craps in the school gym, perhaps set fire to the auditorium, wrote on the walls, threw spitballs and the like, then had the temerity to ask plaintively “Why’s everybody always picking on me?”

You really have to ask?

RFK Jr. Doesn’t Recognize His Democratic Party

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running for the Democratic nomination to be President and his outsider status speaks to the current deplorable state of his party.

His late uncle, John F. Kennedy, was the last great Democratic president who, if he were trying to run today, would be more at home with the Republicans. JFK would be shunned by Democrats for not appealing to enough of the fringe leftist elements who have taken control of the Democratic Party.

It was JFK who, in accepting his party’s nomination in July 1960, spoke of a “New Frontier . . . of unknown opportunities and perils.”

JFK in that acceptance speech called for sacrifice by the citizenry to meet these goals and challenges, a call he repeated many months later in his inaugural speech by issuing the challenge: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

These days, we have Clueless Joe and other Democratic figureheads trying to bribe voters with handouts. They ask simply how much it will take to secure your vote, the country be damned.

Somewhere between JFK and the present, we’ve become a nation fixated on equality of outcome instead of merely equality of opportunity. It simply goes against the laws of nature to expect everyone to achieve equally academically, financially, spiritually, even athletically. You provide the opportunity and then it’s up to the individual’s merits and work ethic to produce either success or failure.

But, in this era of we’re-all-winners, the reality has been obscured by psychobabble.

Every staff picture can’t “look like America,” despite the fact that we have inept political and educational leaders insisting this must be so even as they show themselves to be more interested in popping up for photo ops on every running trail, or cutting cakes to celebrate yet more ginned up “achievements.”

The Democrats have locked up the media, the education system and, increasingly, leftist billionaire supporters, not to mention weaponizing supposedly nonpartisan government operations such as the IRS, FBI, CIA and the Department of Justice in general to persecute political opponents.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attempted to inject reality into this bastardized world, challenging Clueless Joe for the party’s nomination and pledging to “end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism on our country.”

He promises protection of civil liberties, economic revitalization and governmental transparency. This is a Democrat for whom I could vote.

RFK Jr. also sounds a lot like former Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who, in his farewell address, warned of the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.”

The Democratic spin machine already is hard at work, painting RFK Jr. as an anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown nut (even though this stance has been proved to be correct in the case of COVID responses).

RFK Jr. is anti-censorship and pro freedom of speech.

He’s an environmentalist, but not to the degree that humans should be eliminated to make this a more pristine world, as the child autistics currently leading the discussion seem to prefer.

RFK Jr. also wants to rein in deficit spending and get the United States closer to an even footing where international trade is concerned. And he doesn’t think the U.S. should sacrifice lives and national treasure trying to fight wars for everyone else.

Bottom line: RFK Jr. doesn’t have a snowball-in-hell chance of winning the nomination, just as his uncle JFK wouldn’t thrive in this era of the far-left Democratic Party. And that speaks volumes regarding our nation’s decline.