Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

Today’s subject is sports betting. But first there are some thoughts to be offered on the internal conflicts of life as exemplified by dueling platitudes and/or literary references.

Is it absence makes the heart grow fonder, or out of sight, out of mind?

Is it, as written by the poet Robert Browning, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s heaven for?”

Or is it more accurate to cite the line uttered by the Dirty Harry character in the movie “Magnum Force,” that being “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

What this has to do with wagering is, for a guy who spent three decades covering sports, I’m awful at sports betting.

I’m terrible. I know it. I should avoid it – know my limitations so to speak.

Instead, I’m looking for Heaven by trying to have my reach exceed my grasp,

Today, my initial thought was Ohio State would crush Michigan in a college football showdown. But I didn’t like the 7.5-point spread — the victory margin the Buckeyes would need to surpass for me to win my bet. I also checked the weather for Ann Arbor, Mich., which was forecast to be cold and snowy, and liked the line even less.

The decision was made to avoid the game altogether. In hindsight, for the reasons cited, I should have taken Michigan and the points. Alas, I didn’t. I’m terrible at betting, remember.

Instead, I withdrew some money from my Draft Kings account to boost my mood.

How do I have money in the account if I’m so bad at betting? Glad you asked.

I employ the small-ball strategy. I look for promotions, such as bet $25 on blackjack, or roulette, or some other table game, and get incentives such as $5 of free casino credits, or a free $5 sports bet.

When I get two free bets, I bookend a game, taking both sides thereby guaranteeing one win.

Table games such as roulette or blackjack or baccarat, if played correctly in terms of decisions you make, should come out with the player winning just under 50 percent. Then you make the profit with the free credits or bets.

Net $5 here or $10 there a few times a week and it adds up. That’s if you do not give it back with poor sports bets and while I keep betting on sports, I keep it really small – talking maybe $1 a bet, $5 max.

This was turning into a nice part-time job until Draft Kings just about did away with the promotions I like.

So, I’m taking out $140 today and leaving $101.40 in the account. Pay yourself first like the financial planners say.

As I write, Michigan is up by seven points late in the fourth quarter, so even if Ohio State somehow pulls out a win, it’s virtually impossible to cover the 7.5-point spread. And now Michigan has scored again. Game over.

Just to keep life interesting, I do have $1 on the Penn State-Michigan State game, a single-game parlay. I read on ESPN, that a flu outbreak is worsening among Michigan State’s players. This raised the spread from 3.5 points to 5.5, with Penn State favored.

Although I think Penn State’s team and coach are both severely overrated, I took Penn State giving 5.5 and parlayed that with a bet on the combined points under bet of 51.5 for the game.

My $1 wagered would pay $3.60 if I got it right. Likely I didn’t, although that game has yet to start.

I also would have liked to have gotten down on Alabama vs. Auburn, but I didn’t like having to give 19.5 points to take Alabama. I’ll just watch that one and save my buck.

Now, come on Nittany Lions.

We awoke Friday to a strange, Nu world, as in another COVID variation designated Nu and the customary hysteria that this one is worse than all others, possibly immune to vaccines, etc.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Anyone else recall Delta?

I find the Nu timing striking since just yesterday I wrote in celebration of a family holiday gathering that refused to buy into the fear porn being spread about COVID in general. I also had noted how people around the world were getting fed up with restrictions and losses of freedom in the alleged pursuit of COVID protection.

Can it be coincidence that the people operating the levers behind the curtain have come out with a fresh variant to herd the sheep back into line?

Reaction to the latest scare has been predictably nonsensical. For example, gold quickly traded up markedly, to the range of $1,818 or so an ounce. Silver was up to the $23.70 an ounce range.

Precious metals tend to be canaries in the coal mine, indicating problems dead ahead. Their price rises made sense.

Your masters know this and act quickly to stem rallies. Witness today gold crashing quickly to a low of $1,780 before rebounding a bit to close just over $1,790.

Silver was bludgeoned down to $22.90 an ounce before rallying a bit to just about $23.09.

Some might think I’m paranoid about this. But the evidence is there. Just Google JP Morgan and precious metals manipulation settlements and you will find multiple entries showing the bank paying fines and admitting wrongdoing in the trading of precious metals and other assets.

Basically, bullion banks create false “spoof” sell orders and owing to their massive computing power and co-location close to exchanges, they can withdraw those orders just as you try to act. But this gets sentiment and momentum moving in the direction the bullion banks want, creating selloffs.

Another trick is to have un-Godly large amounts of paper bullion contracts sell in seconds, overwhelming the supply-demand factors and dropping the prices.

The reverse of this is the so-called Plunge Protection Team, which rushes into stock and bond markets in the midst of crashes to buy, buy, buy and stem the tide.

You can Google that one, too. Apparently the decision was made to let the stock indices founder on Friday’s shortened trading session. The boys will be watching intently market action in Asia Monday (beginning about 6 p.m. Sunday our time) and European trading that follows, as well as futures prices for our indices, to decide how much liquidity will be pumped into our markets once trading opens here

Oil was among the commodities hit Friday because of course going forward no one will ever again travel and economies will be put into yet another deep freeze in overreaction to COVID news.

It makes little sense, but panic seldom does.

Even as all this virus-related asset dumping was unfolding, a pair of interesting stories moved that likely will be ignored by the LameStream media.

In one, a New York ER has had to close because so many of its medical employees refused a mandate to get a COVID vaccination. Customarily, such refusals are blamed on uneducated conservatives. But I’m thinking nurses and the like in an ER are educated and have a fairly good feel for potential risks and general ineffectiveness of so-called vaccines, which are really gene therapy.

Also, a whistleblower has come forward with claims of fraud by Pfizer in its vaccine trials.

Recall how any supposed “whistleblower” critical of Donald Trump was to be believed without question, even lionized for bravery in going public.

I suspect the Pfizer whistleblower won’t get the same velvet glove treatment from the Lapdog media.

Bottom line: The psychological operation continues regarding COVID, an early Christmas gift to all of us that we might like to return.

Thanksgiving was particularly enjoyable this year as the extended family gave a collective middle finger to the people who would use COVID-19 to control our lives.

Members of the daughter-in-law’s family drove in from Minnesota, CROSSING STATE LINES as the Rittenhouse critics would scream, to visit for the holiday. Some arrived by plane, also from Minnesota.

A get-together was held in a rented meeting room at a hotel. Food was prepared. Much contact within six feet was observed. Masks were eschewed.

We did all the things that would horrify Clueless Joe Biden and Flipflop Fauci. At least they would express horror for public consumption regarding such get-togethers as ours, while exhibiting maximum hypocrisy by flitting about mask-less and in close proximity to others as long as they felt insulated from public view.

Media cretins, such as those at CBS, would profess horror, too. They were suggesting on the eve of the holiday that hosts should quiz guests about vaccination status and even do rapid tests before admitting visitors to the celebration.

Some members of our family are vaccinated. Some are not. Many of us have had COVID-19, so if you follow the science, we have herd immunity.

It’s both amusing and sad to think that such family gatherings are frowned upon by the powers that be and their media lapdogs. But, increasingly both here and among the traditional sheep-like populaces of Europe and elsewhere, the public is rising up to just say no to arbitrary restrictions on travel and mingling.

Take a moment now to think of all the absolute BS we’ve been fed. First there was a supposed two-week halt in intermingling to slow the spread of the virus. Then there were masks, or multiple masks.

Next up was a vaccine shot. Then two shots. Then boosters. Then papers, please, to prove vaccination to shop, travel, work at your old job.

If you think this will end any time soon, well, check yourself into the gullibility ward.

The details change, but the bottom line is your freedom is being taken from you with each more intrusive escalation of restrictions under the guise of fighting COVID-19.

As we ate, we talked. It was what used to pass for normal Middle-American conversation, but now would have us branded as racist domestic terrorists by the mouthy, radical left.

Example: There was agreement Kyle Rittenhouse deserved his exoneration in court. Also there was agreement that the killers of Ahmaud Arbery got what they deserved in the form of guilty verdicts.

In each case, we believed that the legal system had worked. Now, in one example, that hadn’t been enough and protests erupted to dispute the outcome.

In the other case , as far as we know, there has been no violence from those who would deny that justice was done.

This speaks volumes about the partisan divide of this nation, one leadership from the likes of Biden, Fauci and lapdog media only helps to widen.

Dare we dream that by next Thanksgiving these purveyors of fear porn will have been rebuffed totally by a populace fed up with their propaganda?

It is with amusement that I observe the national penchant for demonstrating bad attitude has spilled into online selling.

I am aware of this because in the past year and change I’ve bought three cars that I first saw listed online (all three on Facebook Marketplace although I also check Craigslist religiously). While my experience with these three sellers has been good, I’ve also had a run of inquiries regarding other cars that produced bizarre results.

And while I haven’t contacted directly some of the other, most moronic posters that I’ve seen, I can deduce from their listings that they would be trouble with a capital T.

A common ad from those with attitude cramps runs something like this: I’m selling the car, but don’t ask for specifics. I know what it’s worth (despite reputable online pricing sites such as Kelley Blue Book quoting a much lower price) and won’t give it away. To repeat, don’t ask me a lot of questions (Such intrusive inquires as service records, ownership history, any known problems are out of bounds.) If you message me, I might get back to you. Or I might just ignore you. But if you show up and force the money into my face, I might be willing to sell you the car.

Another variation goes like this: Yes, I’m listing the vehicle for sale, but I’m just testing the waters to see if anyone is interested and what they will pay. I don’t need to sell the vehicle. I’m just curious. Don’t lowball me. Don’t waste my time asking a lot of questions about the car. If you show up with cash and ask pretty please, I might let you sniff the exhaust. Or I might slam the door in your face. You have to take your chances.

And then there is this variation: No joy rides. Won’t even talk to you unless you have money in hand. I know what I have and what it is worth, so bring stacks of hundreds and we might talk. Did I mention you need to bring piles of cash?

I wonder, and perhaps you do, too, about someone who proposes a potential sales situation with such attitudes.

Asking questions about the car’s history and usage is perfectly reasonable in an arms-length transaction such as buying a used car. Also, insisting on someone showing up with thousands of dollars in cash to meet a total stranger demands trust from them that you are obviously not willing to reciprocate.

There also is the matter of routinely withdrawing and possibly redepositing large amounts of cash in one’s bank accounts raising the antenna of our friends at the federal government and flagging you as a potential criminal.

I missed some warning signs in trekking to the extreme southwest part of West Virginia (Nitro) to look at a Mustang. The car was listed by a female for her older parents.

The give and take over the phone with the parents was difficult, but eventually I made arrangements, rounded up my son and we drove down to look at the car. It had charging codes in the electrical system that the owner had understated, making it a coin flip as to whether we’d be able to drive it home successfully.

But the kicker was, when I eventually decided the risk was not worth taking, the guy celebrated because he hadn’t wanted to sell the car anyway and was only listing it to keep peace with his wife.

That hadn’t come up in our conversations, or I might have saved myself a considerable trip,

I’ve also inquired about car listings and had people tell me they were busy so I couldn’t come and look at the car that day, only to check back the next day and find they’d sold it the previous night.

Me being me, I found myself obliged to point out what poor form they had displayed.

I’ve also had people blatantly misrepresent the car’s history, which sometimes can be checked for free online and otherwise can be confirmed with paid services.

There have been times I’ve driven to look at cars only to find them in much worse condition than represented. I’ve also arrived only to have the seller refuse to let me drive the car.

I bought one of my Mustangs from such a guy, but only after I told him no dice on the no drive and he decided I could drive the car after all.

Only once in my life have I bought a car, new or used, without first driving it. And that was because I trusted by brother to look at and purchase a 1967 Mustang fastback for me in 1979 because I needed to work that night.

At that time, the car was listed in a newspaper classified, which meant the owner had paid to advertise it and wasn’t just checking the market or looking to placate his spouse, but not really looking to sell the car.

With each fresh search of the online ads, I find myself getting a tad nostalgic for those days.

Hundreds of years ago, which most will concede was a less sophisticated time, author Jonathan Swift stirred the masses with an essay entitled “A Modest Proposal.”

Swift even then had the good sense to publish this tome anonymously, unlike the current-day twits who rush to prove their idiocy with offerings on social media, then duck the blowback by attempting (too late) to delete the foolish posts.

Swift specifically wrote that starving Irish might sell their kids to rich English who could eat them, thereby giving money to the Irish and lessening their financial burden.

Swift’s intent was satire, making a ridiculous assertion to illustrate a problem, that being starving Irish.

Satire continues to be used widely today with purveyors such as The Onion enjoying both acclaim from those who get it, and ridicule from those who do not recognize satire when they read it.

In defense of the latter group, it is getting harder and harder to separate actual news from tales of ridiculous exaggeration used to make a point.

Consider the revelation today that Penn State University, apparently not satisfied to keep donating millions to victims of the school’s sexual abuse scandal, will gift head football coach James Franklin with a 10-year contract extension worth $7 million or so per year.

Franklin critics, and they are many, can be forgiven for thinking this is all just a big joke. Franklin has won exactly none of the past nine games in which his teams have played Top 10 opposition.

The combined Penn State record of last year and this is 11-9. As hot properties go, Franklin would seem to be a bowl of lukewarm mush.

But Penn State feared someone might steal this prize coach whose teams can’t win big games, or barely win any games at all as it turns out.

For the sake of comparison, Alabama coach Nick Saban, he of seven national college football championships won, makes about $8.7 million a year.

Call me crazy, but I’m thinking Franklin might be worth $2 million a year. Or maybe Saban should be getting $14 million a year based on Franklin numbers.

Even as Penn State was donating to Franklin, Clueless Joe Biden stumbled to the microphone to bumble through his teleprompter cues and eventually announce a plan to release 50 million barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve.

That release is presuming other countries can be convinced to lubricate the oil market with similar amounts.

In a comical moment afterward, a reporter asked Clueless Joe’s energy secretary what the daily U.S. oil consumption might be. She didn’t have the numbers at hand. Why she didn’t know offhand, considering her title, is a legitimate question.

Well, it’s easily found on the internet that the usage is about 18 million barrels a day, meaning that 50-million barrel release would make up for three whole days of oil consumption, give or take.

If you are thinking that will meaningfully lower the price of oil, you probably believe Franklin deserves $7 million a year.

And finally, likely you have noticed that Biden policies of hamstringing domestic oil production as a way to kiss up to climate change types, then begging OPEC to pump more oil to make up for it, has resulted in gasoline prices rising more than $1 a gallon domestically during the Biden reign of terror.

Despite the ridiculous announcement today of the possible SPR release, U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate closed up at $78.50 a barrel, as did international benchmark Brent, which was up to $82.31 a barrel.

Warning, this next item is not satire, but brutal fact: Investment guru Marko Kolanovic was quick to rush out today with analysis that those skyrocketing oil prices actually are cheap on a historical basis.

According to Kolanovic’s calculus, prices could rise to $300 to $500 a barrel in the not-too-distant future and merely be in line with traditional norms.

I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous – almost as ridiculous as Franklin getting a 10-year contract extension at $7 million a year.

Let us engage in a role-playing experiment today, adopting the intellectually and morally bankrupt ways of the lunatic fringe left.

Even as the body count was rising in the Wisconsin Christmas parade massacre, the cretins at CNN were running with an editorial warning that “there’s nothing more frightening today than an angry white man.”

Would it not be freeing to be able to ignore reality and push agendas with such foolish timing?

Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good harangue.

Pictured was Kyle Rittenhouse. His sin was using a gun to defend himself against those who were eager to tell all at the time that they would like to have killed him.

Social justice warriors among the LameStream media need to have their vision re-calibrated. How easy it would be to practice their particular brand of blindness to the truth.

The suspect in the Waukesha massacre sure looks to be black in his mugshots, dreadlocks and all. His weapon was an SUV, which he is charged with using to kill and injure many more than Rittenhouse took down with his AR-style weapon.

Prepare for a wave of cries to ban SUVs, them being the deadly weapons that they are. Or not.

More to the point, the Waukesha suspect was not acting in self-defense. He also, unlike Rittenhouse, is a career criminal, a fact the LameStream media will be sure to ignore.

If the political right acted like the political left, the media would be full of cries about the dangers posed by young black men, with ridiculous suggestions about how to address the festering problem. It would continue for months.

Social media would be rife with similarly vacuous commentary.

It is there now, but from the left.

In a prototypical example of the brain-dead left using social media (megaphone for morons) to comment, one simpleton identified with the Illinois Democratic Party called the Waukesha massacre “karma” for Rittenhouse’s acquittal and “probably just self defense.”

Images of this individual, who rightly could be called a true testimony to idiocy, seem to show a woman with the face that looks like the south end of a northbound mule.

Were those on the right as simplistic as the left in their commentary, there would be armchair psychoanalysis about her obviously harboring feelings of inadequacy and lashing out due to having been shortchanged on the matter of appearance.

Blanket statements would follow: “There’s nothing more dangerous these days than ugly left-wing women.”

Idiot-in-Chief Joe Biden finally got around to acknowledging the Waukesha Massacre today. Biden condemned the deed in the most general terms, but reserved specific commentary because he and his handlers still are gathering facts.

Rest assured, based on Clueless Joe’s track record on matters such as Rittenhouse, had the perpetrator been white and the implied motive fit into the Democratic playbook of ridiculous accusations, Biden would have been eager to try and convict the guy in the media.

All of a sudden, Biden is waiting for facts.

While he waits for the facts, the rest of us can wait for some indication that the crazed leftists ever will return to some semblance of emotional balance. Good luck with that.

As my late, terribly politically incorrect father would have observed, don’t hold your hand over your butt waiting for the leftists to get religion, or you might die of constipation.

Evidence continues to mount of societal breakdown, coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

For now, the left coast seems to have a headstart on widespread lawlessness. Whether you’re talking yet another riot in Portland, Oregon, to a series of incidents in and around San Francisco where upscale retail outlets were raided by thieves emboldened by the decriminalization of such heretofore anti-social behavior.

Price inflation grows with each passing day, leaving the socialist apologists who dominate the media to attempt to put a positive spin on the debacle their patron saint Clueless Joe Biden has wrought.

The left-wing geniuses at The Washington Post were out with many suggestions to reduce the cost of the traditional Thanksgiving feast, including serving a smaller bird. That should go over well with the people left to suck on the wishbone when the white meat runs out.

I’m sure White House mouthpiece DisinJenuous Psaki will take to the lectern Monday to chastise any who would whine about not being able to afford the traditional Thanksgiving feast. Aren’t they grateful for free vaccinations and all the handouts being given to illegal immigrants?

The average American family should be thankful it doesn’t live in Illinois, which reached a significant milestone in recent days. The state’s governmental pension shortfall has hit $530 billion. That’s $110,000 per Illinois household.

I’m thinking not a lot of Illinois households have a spare $110,000 to kick in to keep public pension hogs feeding at their troughs.

But Hunter Biden’s ability to monetize the family name continues, with yet another deal made with the ChiComs. I’ll bet he’s not downsizing his Thanksgiving turkey this year.

Meanwhile, as many American sheep continue to buy the COVID-19 vaccination claptrap, often-violent riots broke out all over Europe this weekend and those citizens told their governments where to shove the shots.

And, most recently, a Christmas parade in Wisconsin was marred by a lunatic driving into the crowd Sunday, killing some and injuring many.

It sickens me to think how the LameStream media will spin this, depending on the eventual identity of the driver.

We observe Thanksgiving in a few days, with little to feel grateful about as far as the state of the nation goes.

Joe Biden’s colonoscopy Friday was a failure, with doctors unable to pull the Pathetic President’s head from his nether region.

How else to explain Biden’s rush to double down on his confused, doctrinaire assessment of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial?

To recap, Rittenhouse, who somehow had been charged with multiple crimes simply for protecting himself against crazed protesters, was acquitted. It was the only reasonable result.

But it’s not reasonable when you’re Clueless Joe Biden, beholden to left-wing zealots in your party, and wholly unable to make an informed decision due to declining mental faculties.

Biden, walking in the steps of his hero Barack Hussein Obama (who once said if he had a son, that son would be a hood, or words to that effect), had rushed to judgment pre-trial, branding Rittenhouse a white supremacist and other such inflammatory terms.

A rational individual, having seen footage of Rittenhouse being shot at, assaulted with a skateboard and chased through the streets by mob members, might have backed off a tad on this assessment. A sane individual might have listened to testimony that rioters were aggressors and Rittenhouse acted in self-defense.

But it’s been quite some time since anyone could use rational, or sane to describe Joe Biden.

Biden professed to be “angry and concerned” by the Rittenhouse verdict. Translation: It doesn’t comport with the leftist view of the world, so facts be damned, the guy should have been fried!

The reality for anyone willing to check their partisanship at the door, something too many news outlets cannot manage, was that Rittenhouse was more victim in this case than criminal. If we’re going to cede the streets to rioters and pillory any who would stand up to them, this nation is on the verge of Civil War II.

If, instead, we’re going to respect the law, then Rittenhouse stands as an example of the legal system getting it right, even though it took an inexplicably long time to get there.

People who should know better spent a lot of time mis-stating this case for public consumption. I cannot confirm from personal observation, but my son noted the usual suspects were all over social media in the wake of the verdict proving again that outlets such as Facebook and Twitter are the megaphones for morons.

The less inhabitants of social media know about a topic, the louder and more strident their views. These digital fools railed about the Rittenhouse acquittal.

Threats of more violence have been made. I’m counting on Biden and his crew to give tacit approval to such lawless actions by declining to demand civil order or prosecute those who riot.

Apparently, the Rittenhouse haters were unbothered by attempts to injure him that night, or since to deny him various rights guaranteed in the Constitution – not just guaranteed to those on the fringe left looking to take down this country.

And now we await the trial aftermath, with opportunists ready to take to the streets and loot stores in the name of “justice.”

For any would-be Kyle Rittenhouses out there, stay home and don’t waste your time trying to go out and protect the rights and property of others. Wait for the rioters to reach your home, observe their forcible entry, then show them the door the hard way.

Let’s Go, Brandon!

Forgive me, I’m in the mood to rant. A lot!

I live in the Greater Johnstown Area, where for five or six years getting from Point A to Point B has involved dealing with road delays due to sewer work.

Simply put, our genius public servants ignored a sewer treatment problem until the Feds arrived with heavy-handed, shoot ’em all and let God sort them out remedies.

The Federal government is great at making wide-ranging declarations and leaving it for the local citizenry to figure out a way to pay for it all.

This has been a boon for contractors large and small. Demand has been created, whether it be working at tearing up basements inside houses, or tearing up streets to replace main lines.

The homeowners keep a lid on things because they don’t have unlimited funds. Crews don’t qualify for retirement there without ever completing the job.

But at the municipal level, there’s a whole lot of money being spent and not a whole lot of progress being made. My son’s municipality had the original contractor botch things so badly another contractor is redoing the work. I’m sure that’s not costing anything extra.

And so if I drive a mile in any direction from my house I’m treated to the repeated sight of four or five guys standing around an open hole looking into it as intently as if it were a strip show.

Rain, sleet, snow, sun, it doesn’t matter. They stand there and stare at the holes as if expecting them to magically finish the job on their own.

These hole watchers seem to be happy sorts. The other day I actually saw one guy move onto a truck, grab a rake, and laugh uproariously before putting it down.

At this rate, our national “infrastructure” bill, once it’s done donating to illegal immigrants and to various social misfit causes, might be able to get a block or two of sidewalks put in. Maybe.

The infrastructure idiocy is rampant in my hometown. Streets that were ripped up and left like the Ho Chi Minh Trail, after the B-52 bombers were through, finally have been put back into passable condition.

This is just in time for the spray-painting morons to wield their cans marking up the new pavement for fresh rounds of surgery. Incredible? Yes. True? Sadly, also yes.

Along that line of the left hand never consulting the right, the athletic field in my home school district is under some sort of major construction. The field is near a relatively new school, that had a new playground installed when it was built.

Guess what happened to that new playground? Torn town and trucked away for this latest project to unfold.

Thank you, morons. I’m sure that didn’t cost any extra money or waste any dollars for the school district whose taxpayers already shoulder the highest tax rates in the county.

Our local hodgepodge of waste and misuse of funds is indicative of a nation short on common sense and traditional values.

Clueless Joe Biden’s nominee for a top bank regulating position is a Marxist academic with a shoplifting record who is on the record wanting to bankrupt banks and energy companies in some delusional screed against our nation.

But if you criticize her, you are some kind of misogynist racist because Lefty Lucy is an Asian woman.

Are they nominating free-enterprise capitalists for positions of prominence in either the Chinese or Russian governments? I think not.

Meanwhile, we have a young man on trial in Wisconsin for doing no worse than using a gun to defend himself against people trying to kill him, as evidenced by videos and even testimony from some of the assailants. The not-guilty verdict should have been in within minutes. Instead we are days into the deliberations.

It’s clear the same brain-dead types making a career out of sewer work in my area also are staffing the criminal justice system, are running the federal and state governments, and are getting together at night for orgies of self-congratulation over their successes.

We are doomed as a nation as long as this ridiculous behavior is tolerated and I’m not optimistic anything will change.

Rant finished.

The Biden regime was out with more bad news for the citizenry Friday, a predictable bad news dump just ahead of a weekend.

The thinking of these Friday releases is that the simple sheep will have moved on to something else by next week and the negative blowback from yet more bad news will be minimal.

In case you weren’t paying attention, Pal Joey’s Gang announced that Medicare Part B premiums will rise 14.5 percent in 2022. Also going up will be Part B deductibles, as well as various Part A deductibles and copays.

It was big news a while back when it was announced that Social Security benefits would rise 5.9 percent next year as a nod to inflation. Well, a 14.5 percent increase in the cost for Part B coverage is more than two and half times that supposed inflation rate.

What happened? Rising drug costs, said a Biden mouthpiece.

Economic reality continues to intrude on the Biden Fantasy. He limits domestic production of energy, shuts down pipelines, then jawbones OPEC to produce more oil. OPEC tells Jolly Joe to go pound salt and your costs at the gasoline pump skyrocket.

Pity those who heat their homes with oil, or who were not smart enough to lock in their natural gas costs when prices are artificially low.

Consumer confidence surveys are picking up negative feedback from the masses, who find prices rising across the board and aren’t encouraged when elitist tools in the Biden regime tell them they’re just going to have to suck it up and pay the increasing costs.

Some NBC dweeb was out over the weekend noting that while people gripe and moan about rising costs, they can afford to pay more.

Sounds a lot like Marie Antoinette Pelosi doing a network piece about roughing it at home during COVID lockdowns eating $14 a pint ice cream from her $25,000 freezer.

Can these leftists morons truly be this out of touch? Why yes, they can.

Congratulations to all you smug and arrogant Biden voters who visited this idiocracy on our nation. You must be so proud!

Biden and his inept regime seem determined to plumb the depths of reason. To them up is down, left is right, black is white. Their moron minions back them up.

The economy is running on fumes, the supply chain is tied up in knots, inflation is on the verge of breaking out across the board, but the clueless one keeps raining more and more unconstitutional decrees upon the populace designed, ostensibly, to solve a COVID crisis that no longer exists, if it ever really did.

Things are bad. If you have been paying attention, you already knew that. Rest assured, they can and will get worse.

Let’s Go Brandon!