Good thing all the Clueless Joe Biden apologists have moved on to other futile causes, because Joe once again has showed his lack of character and this latest proof of same would be a tough defend.

These liars have assured us for years that all the stumbles, bumbles, brain freezes, getting lost on stage and assorted mis-statements from Clueless Joe in no way indicated he was not fit for the job as president.

Sharp as a tack, Runs rings around the rest of us. Smartest guy in the room. And, toward the end, there was the ridiculous assertion that Clueless Joe deserved a place on Mount Rushmore.

I want some of the stuff these people were taking.

All of this didn’t stop the Democrats from running a coup on the clueless one when it became all too evident to the general public with that pathetic debate stinkfest that he was out to lunch mentally. Amazingly, they subbed in equally mentally challenged Kamala Chameleon, who didn’t even have Joe’s excuse of extreme age to explain her inability to communicate coherently.

Clueless Joe now has proven he’s totally unable to speak and understand English considering that this time he’s pardoned his bad boy son, Hunter, despite vowing over and over again that he would not do so. So did Biden’s mouthpiece Karine Gay Paree, among other Biden sycophants.

And, in the written statement of the pardon, Biden had the gall to stress his commitment to the truth. Clueless Joe insisted it was all the fault of the mean justice department picking on Hunter to get Joe.

That would be Joe’s justice department, the one he put on the persecution path regarding Donald Trump. You explain Joe’s tortured logic on this one. I cannot.

Republicans have got to be holding their aching ribs from laughing at this pile of verbal garbage from the Democrats.

This pardon should be hung around Clueless Joe’s neck, and around the necks of his many supporters and enablers, as a lasting reminder how this tribe will urinate on your head and try to convince you it’s raining. Such is their utter arrogance.

Oh, how they tried to give Hunter a pass. All those “intelligence” types vowed Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation.

Then Clueless Joe’s justice department tried to give Hunter a walk on all other charges if he just admitted to spitting on the sidewalk, or some other ridiculously innocuous charge.

When that gift plea bargain deal was pulled, when Hunter was exposed for the FELON that he is, and very possibly might again become, Clueless Joe stewed and planned the big pardon, even while denying the suggestion.

Oh, how Clueless Joe vowed no pardon for Hunter. Now we’re asked to believe Joe had to do it because life is so unfair.

Talk about life being unfair, how about the child Hunter sired, then denied fathership of, until the courts forced him to do so?

How about Clueless Joe denying the child as a grandchild?

How about Hunter getting all those jobs without appropriate qualifications just because he was a Biden and kicking some back to the “Big Guy?”

Clueless Joe’s legacy already was a mess. This Hunter pardon on the way out the door is the cherry on the top of a garbage sundae.

Way to go, Joe, feckless to the end.

I can only hope that Donald Trump hops on this political opportunity and pardons all the political prisoners, say, from the Jan. 6 protest.

I’d love to hear the hypocritical Democrats whining about that, while defending to the death Hunter’s pardon.

Again, congrats Clueless Joe. You continue to amaze with your ability to limbo even lower with each passing day.

It’s the eve of turkey day, with the promise of joyous family get-togethers to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.

Traditionally, the only downer on this day of thanks is the customarily tepid slate of football on the menu. That is true in spades this time.

But, in 2024, it also is just a few weeks after a presidential election, and the losers are feeling, shall we say, butt hurt.

They are the ones who cannot accept the outcome, taking to social media to shave their heads, promise to deny sexual favors, and run off to some far land, all in sad, futile protest. Be gone, I say to them, on topics of hair, sex and residency.

This is but a small percentage of the far left population, admittedly. Most of them just plan on avoiding on this holiday friends and family who voted MAGA, or, even worse, they will show up at family gatherings to dispense their typical harangues that are long on emotion and short on fact.

My first topic of thanks on this occasion is that the small knot of family who will share our feast numbers exactly zero crazed leftists who voted for Kamala Chameleon. By the way, did you also think she looked a tad off in her recently released video? Has anyone checked the liquor cabinet recently?

There will be no one at my dinner table putting canned goods in socks and wielding them like weapons, as one online video proposes as a way for leftists to show their disdain for Trump and all things MAGA.

I’m a bit sad on that front, because I’d love to give such a person the chance to pay the physical price for such absurdity. But, I digress.

In the past, when I wrote for money, I often would offer up a Thanksgiving column in which I took the liberty of sharing my list of things for which I would give thanks, along with suggesting to others items for which they should be grateful.

Let’s start the 2024 example.

I’m thankful for a loving family and the ability to pay for the meal, despite the 30-percent inflation over four years visited upon us by Clueless Joe and Kamala Chameleon.

I’m thankful for the generally good health of the family and friends.

I’m thankful a guy named Trump is headed back to the White House, and that an increasing amount of the population seems to be getting it in that Woke is comatose living, that DEI is DIE, that borders should not be open gates, that committing crime should have consequences and that traditional values upon which this nation was built are not figurative pinatas to be smacked at every occasion.

On a lighter note, I’m thankful I’m not Prince Harry, who’s thrown his royal family under the bus for an attention seeker who now will show him the underside of public transportation with a “professional separation.”

I’m thankful I don’t live in Minnesota, where Tampon Tim has been banished to ruin the lives of those there.

I’m thankful I no longer wager on sports because it would be hard to resist putting a few bucks on the 8-3 Steelers as three-point underdogs vs. the 4-7 Cincinnati Bengals, even if the game is being played on the Bengals’ home field.

I’m thankful I’m not Robert De Niro, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen, Rachel Maddow look alike Mark Cuban, or any number of leftists who went all-in for Kamala Chameleon, berating Trump and his supporters along the way, and now have to look at themselves in the mirror. And, as far as we know, they didn’t come away with a spare $2 million for the exercise as Oprah did.

I’m thankful I never went hunting with Tampon Tim or Dick Cheney and never will.

Now for suggestions to others.

Hunter Biden should be thankful Big Guy Joe is likely to grant him a pardon on the way out the door. Admittedly, if Clueless Joe is successful in touching off World War III, a pardon would be the last of Hunter’s concerns.

Alec Baldwin, while he’s in Italy describing Americans as clueless and uninformed, should be thankful his act of being clueless and uninformed on a movie set (he didn’t know the gun was loaded!) was enough to get him out from under an involuntary manslaughter charge, for now. That dismissal is being appealed.

Hosts of The View should be thankful the ABC lawyers are keeping tabs on them and requiring them to read on-air an ever-increasing list of disclaimers and clarifications to avoid legal redress for their absurd claims.

A lot of prominent Democrats should be grateful that Jeffrey Epstein “committed suicide” five years ago, ironically while under suicide watch. Alas, Diddy lives, and Trump is coming into power, which just might mean some embarrassing revelations will be forthcoming.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now I understand those television commercials in which dolts, often young, are stunned to be informed of the number of subscriptions they have that they are paying for, but are not using.

Today, I discovered I’m a variation of such a dolt, admittedly an elderly one.

As recounted here a few days back in a screed about television, I use DISH for my television signal and had recently called to receive a $40 credit due my signal being unavailable for what turned out to be nine hours, plus or minus.

The DISH telephone agent I contacted then had indicated I would see the credit on my bill in about a day or two. I checked online numerous times since and saw nothing evident and so I called again today to check, this being four days after the fact.

Again, I used my loyalty phone number and again, the wait was minimal. This time, a bubbly sounding female who identified herself as Jo Hanna in Texas (we’re guessing at name spelling, but there was a definite pause between Jo and Hanna) walked me through the web side to some unlabeled, virtually hidden click points that produced a PDF copy of my billing.

She then pointed me to the small paragraphs on the extreme right side of page 2. I discovered, with her guidance, that I was at the end of my 24-month service period, entered into two years back to save some money.

Since I am on automatic billing and automatic pay as it is billed to my credit card, which in turn is automatically paid from my checking account, I receive no hard copy of my bills. And, I confess, I don’t read them word-for-word monthly online to pick up on any looming surprises.

In this case, my billing will be going up about $30 or $40 a month. This is how I missed the $40 credit. It’s been applied to my increased charge, which is delineated nowhere on the billing.

I was pleasant with Jo Hanna, but noted one would think DISH might send out an email reminder to those of us being billed electronically that the rate was changing. Jo Hanna remained bright and bubbly, but didn’t really buy this.

In a case of happy coincidence, Jo Hanna was not only technical support (neither she, nor I was sure why I’d gotten tech support), but also cross-trained in account services. Unfortunately for me, there are no inducements these days in which you lock in a commitment period of a couple of years and are rewarded with a lower rate for your loyalty.

I can, she happily reminded me, get the free upgrade to the Hopper satellite receiver, which in the past I have been told is free for the upgrade but costs more per month than my current dinosaur model. Jo Hanna assured me this is not true – the increased monthly fee.

Regardless, my television status stands at a crossroads. I watch a lot of television, as mentioned in the previous post. So do my wife and my two granddaughters, who are around quite a bit.

Our local cable television provider – which I use for internet access – should have a logo of masked individuals, such is their pricing policy. Also, customer service tends to be, shall we say, lacking. That’s why I’ve been with DISH for about 17 or 18 years.

I have come to this unfortunate juncture just as DISH is in turmoil. How it can struggle financially astounds me, but it seems to be true. As of the end of 2023, the DISH subscriber base was 6.47 million, down almost 1.75 million over the previous two years.

It’s been a long-term decline. DISH stock was about $80 a share in November 2014 and was $5.73 when the stock ceased trading.

That event occurred on Dec. 29, 2023, when DISH was delisted as a stock after having merged with EchoStar.

In recent weeks, there was a proposal from rival DirecTV to acquire DISH and Sling TV from Echo Star.

The price offered was $1, ironically the symbolic amount of the bet between two millionaires that was at the heart of the plot in the movie “Trading Places.” Also, DirecTV proposed to take over approximately $9.8 billion in DISH debt, an amount about $1.6 billion less than the total amount outstanding.

DISH debt holders balked at absorbing the $1.6 billion haircut and so, as of Friday Nov. 22, the deal reportedly won’t happen.

In the past, I have checked in on DirecTV and its offers paled in comparison to those offed by DISH. Maybe that is why DISH failed/is failing. Perhaps I will check in again with DirecTV, or hold my nose and call the cable people to find out if some sort of bundling of internet and television might save me money. Or maybe the TV just does dark?

Help!

Recent events have me turning introspective regarding my consumption of traditional television programming. I find, as increasingly has become the case in many areas, my age group can be characterized as dinosaurs on the matter.

This is nothing new, across the board. At 69 years of age, I’ve seen oh so many changes in the audio world. Just the other day I was explaining to two granddaughters that the falsetto chipmunk songs were the result of playing 33 rpm records at 45 rpm.

Albums, the big vinyl discs played on turntables, used the 33 rpm speed. Smaller discs, with one song on each side, used 45 rpm. Many an hour was wasted in my childhood playing records at the wrong speed.

And then there were people who actually played the records backward looking for hidden messages. I did not indulge in this.

Over the course of my life, I’ve had to change my listening library storage method from vinyl, to 8-track tapes, to cassette tapes to CDs.

No, I’ve not moved on beyond CDs because, at this point, I’m tired of paying for the same music over and over and over again. Trust me, you will become tired, too, eventually.

Let us move to television. A recent story from statista.com, posted on zerohedge.com, notes that young people watch precious little traditional television (broadcast or cable). A full 50 percent of those 18-24 say they watch zero traditional TV.

This is the same sort of bad demographic news I noted decades back as being a death knell for newspapers.

Younger people watch podcasts and various other nontraditional entertainment such as streaming services. Repeat, the younger they are, the less they watch traditional broadcasts or cable outlets.

Meanwhile, oldsters such as me, defined as those aged 65 and above, watch about 10 times as much TV as the young people.

But, increasingly, that’s becoming an ordeal. For example, I subscribe to satellite television – DISH – because Johnstown area cable TV is so overpriced.

One of the tradeoffs is where once satellite dishes were huge, maybe 16 feet in diameter, now they are small, at maybe 3 feet. Size does matter when it comes to signal acquisition.

That means signals are lost in periods of heavy weather (thunderstorms, snowstorms, even very high wind with thick clouds) and one gets the dreaded blue box of total signal loss.

Because they are overly bold. DISH managerial types have come up with a signal guarantee. Lose your signal and call them for an account credit.

I don’t usually do this. But the past Friday (perhaps you remember big snow in the Johnstown area) I was five hours into an outage when I called. Using my special loyalty phone number, my wait was short and eventually I was told I’d be receiving a credit. The signal returned after about 9 total hours of being AWOL.

Saturday was spent watching copious amounts of sports. Shortly after 11 p.m. I was killing time awaiting the late night Formula 1 race from Las Vegas by checking in on the UCLA-USC football game. This was on the area NBC outlet that thinks it’s located in State College.

Imagine my surprise when they went to a commercial – United Airlines, I believe – and the screen froze on a guy in the ad grinning like he’d just won the lottery.

When I went to bed four hours or so later, after Max Verstappen had secured yet another World Driver’s Championship, grinning guy still was frozen on Channel 6. I emailed a cousin who awakens much earlier than me, and appreciates these Channel 6 funnies, to alert him

Said cousin would go on to email me periodic updates, noting the channel still frozen on laughing boy.

His last missive noted that as of 11:15 a.m. Sunday, still smiling.

I checked at 12:12 p.m. and, voila, regular programming was running, Predictably, it was an infomercial.

What amused me by all this is the problem with a frozen Channel 6 signal seems to have created little in the way of a fuss. Where once such an occurrence would have had neighbors in the streets comparing notes about the malady, there was nothing of the sort as far as I could tell.

Even worse, as noted by my cousin who partakes of social media, the station’s Facebook page had zero comments early in the morning.

Could it be no one missed them? Was this the electronic equivalent of the philosophical chestnut asking if a tree fell in the woods and no one was around to hear it, did it make a noise?

In this case, I guess not.

The common element to investing, sports and life in general is human emotion. Simply put, the emotional pendulum in each example spends precious little time at the point of equilibrium.

More often, that pendulum is to the right or left, which represents periods of excessive pessimism or optimism.

Witness events of recent days.

Begin with sports. In the span of a few days, the Steelers and their partisans went from extreme highs to extreme lows, having beaten Baltimore, then somehow losing to lowly Cleveland.

We’d addressed the subject of the Steelers earlier this week, noting they were on the rise with an asterisk, that asterisk having to do with inconsistent offense. While the Steelers attack eventually did find the end zone on a snowy night in Cleveland, it was relatively late in the game.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin displayed yet more curious clock management. The Steelers defense almost bailed out the offense with two late takeaways. But it added up to unexpected defeat.

What does it all mean? Not as much as some would think. The Steelers still are a 93 percent pick to make the NFL playoffs according to metrics from the New York Times – even after the Cleveland loss.

What was reinforced by this setback in Cleveland is the take expressed here previously, that while the Steelers will make the playoffs, they are not likely to thrive there.

Emotions have been hitting extremes elsewhere.

The annoying hosts of The View have plunged from outrageous Kamala optimism to crushing, Donald Trump-induced pessimism. Along the way, the panelists’ screeds against Trump’s cabinet nominations have prompted the adults in the room – ABC’s legal team – to force misnamed Sunny (looking like her dog had just died) to read disclaimer announcements several times on-air noting that the people the crew had defamed were not really guilty of the charges.

Can legal action from a certain bakery, or yet another public mea culpa, be far behind?

Meanwhile, leftist cable outlets were orgasmic that Matt Gaetz had withdrawn his name from consideration to be attorney general.

Trump was quick to sub in former Florida AG Pam Bondi, an impressive person as judged by her record and some TV appearances that I’ve witnessed. A bit of sanity was introduced to the MSNBC celebration by a panelist who informed his crew they should “fear” Bondi since she’s “competent” and “actually knows how to do this job.”

Simply put: Perhaps the leftists were spiking the football prematurely celebrating the Gaetz withdrawal.

Here in Pennsylvania, systemic over-reach hit a peak in Bucks County when an elected official proudly proclaimed she would be ignoring election law. Leftists celebrated.

Then the Pennsylvania Supreme Court weighed in – again – and pointed out these petty dictators cannot ignore the rules. The chastised egomaniac was forced to get off her emotional high and admit to reality.

Soon after Robert Casey got the memo that illegal votes were not being considered in the recount, he belatedly conceded the Senate race to David McCormick.

The left had hopes of 2020 redux, when demands to count “all the votes” didn’t specify that the votes be legally cast examples. They were optimistic briefly, then plunged back into despair.

Finally, imagine the emotional swings of a prosecutor in the office of far-left New York district attorney Alvin Bragg. Presuming all such types in that office to be far left, we can only speculate about her joy at how her office has dragged Trump through a sham trial.

Perhaps she had joked that criminals roam the streets freely while the man about to resume the presidency had been persecuted in their bailiwick.

Emotions would have been different after that prosecutor reportedly was robbed and subjected to a “lewd act” by an import from Venezuela, one left to prey on the New York City innocent despite SEVEN!!!!! arrests since arriving in this sanctuary city a few months back.

Ah, but this time the alleged attacker is being held without bail. It couldn’t only be due to him having allegedly attacked a member of the politically protected class, could it?

And I wonder about the mixed emotions leftists must be feeling since this time one of the questionable immigrants they defend to the death has dared to attack one of them.

To these people I say, that’s life.

One of the grifts that keeps on grifting arising from COVID-19 hysteria is working from home. But the bloom is coming off that rose.

Take note, you 1.3 million federal workers who, according to CNN, are approved to “telework” – translation: avoid the office.

The same petty bureaucratic dictators who brought you six-feet social distancing (just because) and masks (same reason), who shut down the nation with the aim of hamstringing Donald Trump’s re-election prospects in 2020 by tanking the economy and opening the Pandora’s box of massive mail-in voting (these met desired aims) and shut down schools (never mind the consequences), along the way shamed employers into allowing employees to work from home to stem a pandemic not a whole lot more dangerous than a common cold or the flu.

It was the greatest ever real-world example of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The scam was perpetuated because of government lining up with all-powerful social media to crush anyone who had the intestinal fortitude to note the emperor was, in fact, naked.

This was the cornerstone outcome that set the inept Biden-Harris regime on its path to massive over-reach. The tone-deaf duo, and their elite puppetmasters, presumed that if the American populace was gullible enough to hand over constitutional rights for this COVID panic, they’d bow and scrape also on matters ranging from wide-open borders, illegal immigrants enhancing Democrat voter roles, transgender indoctrination and a general agenda somewhere to the left of Chairman Mao on the political scale.

I confess to having despaired that the genie was out of the bottle, the toothpaste was out of the tube, whatever metaphor you want to use to describe a situation that has reached critical mass and therefore was/is unstoppable.

Today, I’m happy to admit that I have come to believe that I was wrong. The left went too far and Donald Trump was just the man to cobble together a populist coalition intent on taking back control of the nation.

We won the election and we’re going to win the fight to drag the United States back into a state of reality.

This feeling was fortified at a luncheon arranged Wednesday to touch base with former co-workers. In all, eight of us (my son joined the lunch) convened at Main Moon Restaurant, discussing the state of our former (for some current) employer, The Johnstown Woke Gazette, and the national mood in general.

The topic turned to working from home. After I had left the local Woke Gazette, to work for Tribune-Review Publishing, I came to cover Penn State sports and often worked from home two days a week during football season.

It was very easy for my bosses to know I was not leaning on the oars despite being out of their immediate eyesight. All they had to do was look at the stories I composed. In the strange world of writing for newspapers, that output might not just include the items that ran the next day, but also weekend stuff for Saturday and Sunday editions, which often are put together in advance.

I actually worked longer hours from home – at least during football season – because the demands were such that it was necessary.

The Washington Post recently angered even more of its whiny, leftist staff by telling them that going forward they would be expected to show up at the office for work shifts. This after the paper refused to endorse Kamala Chameleon, producing the expected level of outraged whining.

The Post ownership did give the staff the option of resigning if they found the office demand too strenuous. Ironically, the Post edict comes hard on the heels of similar action from Amazon, which is owned by the same guy.

Working from home has failed for the same reason Communism fails wherever tried. That would be human nature. Some people work just fine without supervision and peer pressure, or the prospect of being rewarded for working harder than the rest of the staff. An unfortunately high percentage does not.

There also is something to be said for being around co-workers in that ideas can be kicked around, trends can be discussed, sources and methods can be shared.

Working in virtual isolation at home doesn’t provide this sort of interaction. It does, however, present the distractions of life.

I presume state workers get the same ability to not show up at the office as federal workers, and that could help explain why dealing with the state bureaucracy has become such an ordeal.

It certainly is true with the federal government. Try getting in touch with someone at the IRS, for example.

Trump’s Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, warms the cockles of my heart. I’m tired of hearing stories of $200 hammers or $70,000 conference tables bought on the taxpayer dime and just laughed off in the vein of what-can-you-do-about-it?

Here’s what you can do about it, lop off some heads. Musk very famously fired about 80 percent of Twitter staff when he bought that social media outlet and re-instated free speech. Cue the screaming and dire predictions. But it seems there was a lot of dead wood acting as censors, because Twitter continues to thrive – with about one-fifth the staff.

I suspect the government could be leaned down similarly, without any negative results.

Merely demanding workers return to work could prune the staff without the need to fire people. These entitled types likely would quit rather than having to resume giving an honest effort each and every work shift.

This is much the same as reports making the rounds that some illegal immigrants, shocked into reality by promises to deport them, are heading for the nation’s exits on their own.

We don’t care how it gets done – whether trimming government waste or sending illegals packing – just that it gets done.

As an aside, some of us lingered in the parking lot after lunch Wednesday, talking and inadvertently blocking two people looking to back out of their parking space.

All three of us – retired Woke Gazette employees, not present ones – were wearing MAGA hats and I had on a bright red Detroit Red Wings jersey one might have mistaken for something MAGA.

The man and woman in the car, apparently Chinese, rolled down the passenger side window as they backed out, smiled and told us, “Thank you for making America great again!”

We voted for Trump, expecting him to make good on campaign promises and do exactly that. I’m encouraged that he looks to be hitting the ground running.

It was late October when last we took a look at the state of the Steelers, as well as the then-unbeaten football teams at Penn State and Pitt.

Much has happened in the interim, including Donald Trump being picked as president No. 47 and the political left losing its collective mind as a result. In a curious melding of politics and pop culture, Trump dances have come into fashion in the football world to celebrate successes.

The progress of the three football teams cited earlier has been a mixed bag, sometimes meriting Trump dances and sometimes not so much.

The Steelers are on the rise, but with an asterisk. They came out of their bye week to beat good Washington and Baltimore teams back-to-back, albeit by a combined victory margin of just three points.

The Sunday win over the Ravens, an 18-16 affair, was aided and abetted by ridiculously poor play by the losers, beginning with quarterback Lamar Jackson, who now is 1-4 in his career vs. the Steelers. Jackson’s reputation for coming up small in big games is deserved judging by that Steelers record, along with Jackson’s career 2-4 playoff tally.

The Steelers won vs. the Ravens on the strength of six field goals and now sit atop the AFC North at 8-2 facing two games vs. the pathetic Cleveland Browns sandwiched around a game with the stumbling Cincinnati Bengals.

The record likely will be 11-2 three weeks hence and the thoughts of Steelers fans will turn to the Super Bowl. I’m thinking 9-1 Kansas City, which lost Sunday for the first time this season, might have something to say about that despite an offense short on weapons. Buffalo (9-2), the conqueror of Kansas City, also is looking strong.

Others meriting consideration to make the big game from the American Conference are the Los Angeles Chargers (7-3) and Ravens (7-4).

In the mid-1970s, the Steelers won a couple of Super Bowls based on a dominant defense and a so-so offense. This defense is not as good as that 70s version. The 1974 unit allowed an average of 13.5 points in each of 14 regular-season games and had another gear for the playoffs, dropping that average to 11 points allowed in each of three games.

This season’s Steelers defense yields 16.2 points a game.

The 2024 Steelers offense is arguably a bit better than its 1974 counterpart. But the league is different and I can’t see the Steelers as a Super Bowl team with their current level of play on offense.

Penn State was 7-0 and ranked No. 3 in the AP Top 25 when we checked in on them. The Nittany Lions now are 9-1 and ranked No. 4.

Penn State is about what we expected, having lost yet again to Ohio State, then rebounding to hammer so-so Washington and pathetic 1-9 Purdue. The Nittany Lions almost assuredly will coast into the 12-team national championship playoff field.

The Nittany Lions then would host a playoff game, in the days just before Christmas. Some bracket projections have Penn State hosting SEC, warm-weather teams such as Ole Miss or Georgia.

Considering Tennessee wide receivers were whining about their heated bench not working Saturday, with the temperature 55 degrees at Georgia, I’m thinking a brutally cold day up north would be an edge for Penn State vs. a southern team.

Whether it would be enough to overcome the James Franklin, can’t-win-a-big-game factor is open to debate. Even if it is, the Penn State ride likely would end in the next round.

Last, we have Pitt, 7-0 and ranked No. 18 when previously discussed here.

Since then, the Panthers have reeled off three straight defeats and disappeared from the rankings. This is not particularly surprising since that 7-0 record had more than the expected number of great escapes when the Panthers trailed, yet somehow found a way to win.

These days, Pitt finds ways to lose. Saturday’s home setback vs. Clemson, played before the customary scene of garishly yellow empty seats, was a stellar example.

In the first half, the Pitt defense managed to jump offside not one, not two, but three consecutive snaps.

Hard to believe, but things got worse in the second half. During an offensive series from the Clemson two-yard line, Pitt got hit with an illegal formation call, following a Pitt timeout! Then there was a delay of game call, followed by an illegal procedure call against the Panthers, who went from threatening to score a touchdown to having to salvage a field goal.

It was horrendous and that’s not just my assessment. Greg McElroy, the analyst on the broadcast, was horrified by it all. “It cannot get any worse than what I’ve just seen the last few plays, “ he said. “Unbelievable. Inexcusable. Can’t happen.”

But it did.

Amazingly, Pitt was up 20-17 late, but surrendered a game-winning 50-yard touchdown run by the Clemson quarterback to lose yet again.

This Pitt slide was entirely predictable.

Let’s see how our Steelers and Penn State assessments play out down the line.

Quick, hand me the duct tape lest my head explode. Another leftist is torturing both language and reality.

In this case, we speak of New York governor Kathy Hochul, who just this past September had a former top aide of hers arrested for acting as a Chinese secret agent here.

We pause at this point to ask, what is it with so many on the left and their improper business/sexual relationships with Chinese communists? From Big Guy Clueless Joe Biden, to failed VP pick Tim Walz, to Eric Swalwell, to Dianne Feinstein, and on and on. Do an internet search with each name and Chinese scandal if you want details.

The point is we all ought to be screaming China, China, China, to trash the leftists in politics, just as they scream Russia, Russia, Russia regarding Donald Trump. The difference is, these leftist Chinese associations and allegiances are documented and proven. They are not some Shillary political operative’s wet dream fantasy, as was the case with Trump and Russia.

But wee Adam Schiff was out yet again on the weekend propaganda shows flogging the Russia hoax.

This pales with a bit of ridiculous logic from Hochul, who noted a planned $9 get-into-Manhattan commuter fee was actually saving commuters 40 percent because it was not the originally planned $15.

So, I punch you in the face with my fist and you should be grateful it wasn’t a hammer used to hit you? And that neatly summarizes the warped world of leftists.

But there is daily evidence of this as Trump’s picks for cabinet and other posts in his administration are flayed by leftists as unqualified and inappropriate.

Where were these righteous voices when Clueless Joe was stocking his administration with gender confused individuals, incompetents, or often a combination of both attributes?

A post on zerohedge.com was a summation of this. Remember, Clueless Joe gave us former guy now a gal Rachel Levine in Health and Human services and cross-dressing and accused luggage stealer Sam Brinton in nuclear energy as nods to LGBTQXXXXXXXX interests.

Add to that cast, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who had no transportation background, but was a smalltown mayor and is gay, so that ticked a box or two. Pete’s absence anytime he was needed to do his job during this regime speaks to his quality.

Jared Bernstein, chair of the council of economic advisors, is not an economist, but he does have degrees in music and sociology.

Xavier Becerra, head of Health and Human services, is no more a doctor than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for the post. Becerra is a lawyer and ex-California attorney general, yet you heard not a peep from people when this appointment was made. He is, after all, Latino

The list is long. Jennifer Granholm, energy secretary, no energy background, but was a leftist Michigan governor. And she is a woman — so far.

Gina Raimondo, commerce secretary, another lawyer and politician. Also another woman, so far. She’s most notable for saying in September — on MSNBC of course — that voters should “extinguish” Trump. Previously, while being interviewed at the Democratic National Convention, she said a report of job numbers being revised downward by more than 800,000 was a Trump lie. When the questioner showed some guts and noted it was a statistic from the Department of Labor, Raimondo played the Sgt. Schultz “I hear nothing. I see nothing. I know nothing” defense by now claiming she was not familiar with the statistic.

Alejandro Mayorkas, homeland security, is yet another lawyer and political activist who rose through the ranks leveraging one appointment after another until he reached a level where his lack of proficiency was shown to the world. This was via our wide-open southern border which Mayorkas insisted – repeatedly– was secure and closed.

You wouldn’t trust Mayorkas to watch your car in a bad neighborhood, let alone protect our nation.

And you can’t trust LameStream media and leftist operatives any further than you could throw Whoopi Goldberg and her ample butt.

Keep this summation of Biden picks in mind the next time you hear about Trump’s all-time worst nominations.

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More Donald Trump cabinet nominations have been announced, producing typical hysteria among Democrats and their lapdog pals in the LameStream media.

You might have heard that Trump wants Pete Hegseth for his Secretary of Defense, and the usual suspects went crazy that Trump had put up a Fox News host to hold this vital role.

Typical of the ridiculous hyperbole, and omission of pertinent information, was that spewed by stereotypical whiner panelist of The View, Whoopi Goldberg.

Remember Whoopi for her recent absurd assertion that she understands problems of the working class and she works only because she needs the money. This from a Hollywood type estimated to have a net worth of $36 million.

I guess Whoopi spends like the Kamala Chameleon campaign, which turned $1 billion in contributions into a $20 million deficit by the time the election was held. Or could Whoopi be exaggerating her need to work?

Regarding Hegseth, the seldom-amusing Whoopi tried to make hay of Hegseth being on a “weekend” show, insinuating he was not even good enough to be a first-teamer for Fox.

What Whoopi and her fellow leftist sycophants don’t bother to tell you is that Hegseth is a decorated combat veteran, having been awarded not one, but two Bronze Stars.

Unlike Tampon Tim Walz, Hegseth did face enemy fire. The Bronze Star requires having been involved with “military operations against an armed enemy.”

Also omitted from the Hegseth story is that he’s a graduate of Princeton and Harvard. He’s been a veterans’ advocate for many years.

I would much rather have Hegseth in this Secretary of Defense role than some of the political animals who have held the post recently.

Even as the Hegseth nomination was drawing fire in a metaphorical sense, Trump further poked the hornets’ nest by proposing Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

Allow me to repeat what you already likely have heard, that being Gaetz was investigated for sex trafficking a minor girl.

This would be by the Federal Department of Justice, the same fine folks who have persecuted Trump even before he was elected the first time. And, to no one’s surprise, after two years spent investigating Gaetz ZERO charges were filed.

Gaetz still has an ethics investigation open in the House, which could be a moot point since he has resigned his office.

Regardless, the Gaetz allegations will be trotted out to impugn his legitimacy to head the department that once conducted one of those familiar political witch hunts against him.

Curiously, Democrats are not similarly offended by sex scandals in their party, from Bill Clinton and Monica,, to the more recent U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell being removed from the intelligence committee due to reports of a dalliance with an alleged Chinese spy in his campaign.

Proposing Gaetz as attorney general is a prototypical in-your-face move by Trump. Whether Gaetz can be approved for the post is but one aspect of the matter. It is more important that his nomination is the first move of a political chess game.

First, some are speculating that Gaetz could be put into office by an appointment while the Senate is in recess. According to a Newsweek article, Barack Obama made 32 recess appointments, George W. Bush made 171 and Clinton, 132.

Second, some have suggested that if Gaetz is not confirmed for attorney general, Florida governor Ron DeSantis could appoint Gaetz to the Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio, who is likely to be our next Secretary of State.

It’s your move, leftists.

Politics and cannibalism are unlikely bedfellows, yet the association has been with us for months. And it continued today as Republicans picked Donald Trump-hating John Thune as the new Senate majority leader.

Flash back to April of this year, when Clueless Joe Biden, still the Democrat president and candidate to run against Trump, told people at two Pennsylvania stops about his uncle Ambrose “Bosie” Finnegan supposedly being eaten by cannibals in Papaua New Guinea during World War II.

Outrage ensued after this due to the bumbling president providing more evidence that he wasn’t firing on all cylinders mentally.

There were basic factual errors, along with the usual Biden hyperbole. Bosie had joined the military the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, not the day after the allied D-Day invasion of Europe, as Biden said.

Bosie was riding in the plane, not piloting it as Biden implied.

Remains were not found, which is how Biden made the leap to Bosie having been eaten. By that logic, we must presume Amelia Earhart ended up on some native chafing dish, too.

Democrats were mortified that Biden had glitched publicly yet again. It was another example of why they’d kept him hidden during the 2020 campaign. Yes, even then, Democrats knew Joe was not all there.

Notable, however, is the fact they were not sufficiently taken aback by the 2020 reality, or continuing evidence such as this cannibal flap, to do anything about the situation. It was not until Clueless Joe melted down in a debate with Trump and all hope seemed lost for the pending election that action was taken.

It was then that the Democrats ate their own, by throwing Biden into the cooking pot and installing Kamala Chameleon as the candidate. I’ll bet her throat now is sore from nervous laughter, watching over her shoulder for the Democrats looking to put her on the dinner menu, too,

Political cannibalism is a bipartisan issue.

Trump is filling his administration with many Republican bright lights who currently are serving in the Senate or House. Yes, they are in states where a Republican will be picked to replace them, temporarily. But special elections will be held and the Republican majorities in the Senate and House are not such that they can withstand massive depletion.

Fortunately, word has come that Trump plans to stop cannibalizing the ranks of Congress for administration posts.

The latest case of cannibalism is establishment Republicans, the Republicans In Name Only (RINO) types who cannot stand that Trump is the face of the party and the only reason this ridiculous band of petty tyrants still can win national elections.

Without Trump, Republicans are toast when it comes to winning the presidency. Their revenge is to vote in Thune, whose history of Trump hatred is a matter of public record.

These RINOs are eating their own leader (Trump) in a show that the D.C. Swamp of which they are a part, intends to fight for its survival.

It stinks to high heaven that the Senate Republicans held a secret ballot on this, first dumping Trump loyalist Rick Scott from the leadership election, then going with Thune in the final head-to-head contest.

Moves like this will allow the dysfunctional Republican party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Expect Thune to do his best to throw sand in the gears of the Trump machine, which won the presidency, House and Senate. That’s a Republican mandate, if a person could expect the party to act in good faith.

If Thune is as bad as anticipated, just two words for him: Liz Cheney. That RINO Trump hater got her butt booted out of her House seat – losing by 30 percentage points or so in a PRIMARY election.

This reduced Liz to making the scene promoting Kamala Chameleon, and coming up a loser again. I wonder which Democrat Thune will be supporting in 2028?

Thune would do well to note that karma is a female dog, and revenge is a dish best served cold.