I guess I’m supposed to be relieved that Italy beat Mexico Wednesday night in the World Baseball Classic, allowing our over-rated and under-performing United States team to slip into the knockout stage of the event through the back door.

In truth, even though I am quite the baseball fan, this matters little to me. I’ve decided to give only passing attention to this Theater of the Absurd, sporting category, that is the World Baseball Classic.

The whole concept, athletes playing for their country, or home territory, is a farce when it comes to the World Baseball Classic.

I understand this sort of thing was true to a tiny extent in the past Winter Olympics, with two American females, a skater and a skier, competing for China because the grass (as in money) was greener there.

That didn’t bother me so much because I was there almost entirely for the men’s hockey, and that USA gold medal winning team had all domestic talent on the roster.

I’m pretty sure every player could speak English, knew the words to our National Anthem, pays taxes to the IRS and needn’t fear if ICE officers were in the neighborhood.

The, shall we say, loose rules the World Baseball Classic has in determining eligibility to play for a given team came to my attention when Lars Nootbaar played for Japan in 2023.

I doubt you’d find many Nootbaars in a Tokyo telephone directory. Research at the time indicated Nootbaar was born in California, to a Dutch father and Japanese mother. Choosing to play for Japan, instead of the Dutch team, just might have had something to do with Japan standing a better chance of winning, which is exactly what happened.

Fast-forward to this spring’s World Baseball Classic and, even though I was paying little attention, I was stunned when I caught part of one game looking for a college basketball contest and saw a Puerto Rico game in which Nolan Arenado was playing for Puerto Rico.

That’s Nolan Arenado, born in California, who played for the United States teams in this event twice previously – 2017 and 2023.

How did this happen? Reports online note his mother is of “Puerto Rican and Cuban descent.” Was that different in previous years? No.

But, according to no less a source than Arenado, as quoted by USA Today, “I wanted to play for the USA again, but I didn’t get the call.”

Puerto Rico did call and, due to those ridiculously loose eligibility rules, Arenado is playing for the island team.

Pitching in that game at the time was Seth Lugo, born in Shreveport, Louisiana, but who could opt to play for Puerto Rico because a grandfather was Puerto Rican.

Fittingly for the purposes of this blog post, the sensation of this World Baseball Classic has been Italy, which stunned the United States 8-6 in pool play. There have been reports since that the American manager incorrectly thought his team already had advanced to knockout play before that game, therefore watered down the lineup, and also that a lot of players partied well into the night leading up to the game.

That setback meant the United States needed Italy to beat Mexico Wednesday evening for the U.S. to advance and it happened, by a wide 9-1 margin.

The announcers were giddy, talking about what a great day it was for baseball in Italy. Not exactly.

Italy’s starting pitcher vs. Mexico was Aaron Nola, who threw five scoreless innings and just happens to have been born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ah, but his GREAT grandparents on his father’s side emigrated from Sicily and in the WBC, that’s good enough (abbastanza buono).

Nola is one of nine pitchers on the Italy roster born in the United States. That means only six pitchers from that group actually were born in the country they represent in this event.

The best split is among the two catchers on the Italy roster, one from the U.S. and one from Italy.

Of the 13 position players, 11 are Americans. There also is one Venezuelan and one Canadian, meaning the Italy roster has ZERO position players who were born in Italy.

A fitting coda to this Italy-Mexico game was the final out for Mexico was hit into by Randy Arozarena, a Cuban-born player who defected to Mexico in 2015 and got around to becoming a citizen in 2022, in part to play in events such as these. I guess he didn’t have any distant relatives from Mexico.

That, my friends, is the World Baseball Classic in a nutshell. Spare me all the talk of national pride.

In the spirit of our times, when online prediction sites allow people to bet on almost anything (but not necessarily be paid off when they are correct) I hear that area types are wagering over which happens first, a house along Bedford Street in Dale Borough collapses, or the Inclined Plane resumes operation.

Inspired by such things, I did some multi-tasking last week while giving my brother a ride to a doctor’s appointment, taking him on a tour of our area lowlights, and there are many.

Picking him up downtown, I noted the Inclined Plane continues in a period of suspended (pun intended) animation.

Just today, I checked for an update on inclinedplane.org to see where we stand. If I am reading a timeline on the site correctly, work is done or coming close to that, and then we will be beginning a period of various testing and training that is estimated will take 150 days, that being arrived at in two 30-day segments and one 90-day chunk for said procedures.

A note on the timeline pointed out these estimates are subject to change. Color me shocked. Wasn’t this supposed to be done maybe a year ago?

So, it seems the best-case scenario is about 150 days, give or take, from here, which should carry us well into August.

After picking up my brother, we swung up Main Street to check on the progress of Central Park. It’s now a massive mud pit.

Although the numbers regarding cost change frequently, area elites are spending about $7 million to give the hoi polloi something we didn’t really want. They’ve taken what used to be a tiny sylvan setting in the center of our declining downtown and are, supposedly, in the process of turning it into yet another paved expanse.

Why are they doing this? There was grant money available to be garnered and dispensed among friends of the elites.

Denuding the area of grass and mature trees is a problem for which there is no short-term solution, at least regarding the trees. As I pointed out to my granddaughters, who currently are 7 and 8 years of age, respectively, by the time they are as old as I am (70) they might again have trees to sit under in the park.

It was onward from Central Park to Dale, where the collapsing house was found to have sagging roof line resembling the spine of a swayback horse.

The house having survived winter snows, so far, is a point in its favor. But, I wouldn’t want to be living in it currently.

From there we took a tour of various points of interest in Walnut Grove and Oakland, looking at houses we formerly lived in, or spots where such houses once stood, but no longer exist.

A bonus was trips past sites of many former schools we once attended but, again, no longer exist.

The dessert was a drive-by of a Lorain Borough house formerly occupied by our late mother.

By the end of the tour, we both were suffering a bit of ennui regarding it all. For rational types, living in this area is a daily dose of frustration and sadness.

Among the absurdities of our times, ranging from rampant fraud that is enabled and encouraged by the political left, to absolute failure in some locations (New York City, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Boston, etc.) to enforce existing laws, we have our ongoing commercial driver’s license embarrassment.

Simply put, individuals unable to read and sometimes even to speak English, are being sent out on the roadways at great peril to the other drivers, having somehow received a commercial driver’s license. Nary a day passes, it seems, without a report of an unqualified CDL holder killing innocents by driving recklessly, or videos being posted on social media of such errant drivers doing ridiculous things such as driving the wrong way on divided highways or attempting to navigate residential streets with their rigs.

It was with a sense of amazement that I heard a huge percentage of CDL licenses issued by – who else? – California, had no name on said license.

My state of Pennsylvania apparently has gotten in on the action, minting CDL holders without regard to qualification, as long as one is a member of a protected minority class.

It seems the political embarrassment has gotten to be too much for Gov. Josh Shapiro, who aspires to higher office. Log on to pa.gov, search for CDL information, and you are greeted by a yellow box headlined “Changes to non-domiciled CDL product issuance.”

The paragraph that follows blames the Feds for rules dating to the past September that prohibit handing out CDLs like Crackerjack prizes to anyone wearing a turban or otherwise possessing necessary insulation from being subject to both common sense and the law.

For some time this CDL scandal has amazed me, a former holder of a Pennsylvania Class B CDL. I have no experience with procedures of other states, but I can testify from firsthand knowledge the CDL process in Pennsylvania I experienced about 16 years ago was vastly different.

To begin with, there is no way in hell a person could have passed the necessary tests, particularly those administered on computer terminals, without being able to read English. Passing the actual driving portion would have been similarly challenging.

The man who gave me my on-road test would ask me about signs, which would have been tough to read were I not literate in English.

Back to those computer tests, I seem to recall I had to take five on the day I obtained my license. There was a general knowledge CDL test, along with separate tests to receive endorsements to operate a school bus, passenger bus, and display knowledge of air brakes and handling hazardous materials.

The workers at the Walter’s Avenue PennDOT center laughed at me when I said I’d be taking all five tests and reminded me they left for the day in four or five hours.

I took all the tests, in what I recall was 45 minutes, and passed easily. Then I took the driving test and I was certified.

Again, based on my experience, there is absolutely no way – ZERO CHANCE – someone unable to read English could have passed these tests.

And yet, Pennsylvania has been certifying such types as CDL worthy for years – until the federal government under President Trump re-injected sanity into the process just last September.

Rest assured, this institutional bastardization of the laws, enabled by left-wing politicians and their entrenched bureaucracy, is yet more evidence of a cancer too long ignored that Trump is attempting to cut out of the system.

Is it really that much of a reach to think a Democrat party eager to aid and abet such lawbreaking, as well as immigration tomfoolery and other manner of fraud, would draw the line at manipulating elections?

The aptly named SAVE Act is perhaps the last chance to stop future Democrat election steals by requiring voter ID and limiting the absurdity that mail-in voting has become. Republicans, as usual, are asleep at the switch.

A daily escapism for me is to indulge in some old television shows, from an era when political correctness and Woke ideology would have been considered a form of insanity. I find it relaxing in a nostalgic sort of way.

Back then, the casts were not required to “look like America,” nor were they mandated to have a dozen or so non-binary types featured prominently, or to have plots “ripped from the headlines.”

Against that backdrop, a half-hour comedy called The Andy Griffith Show, set in the fictional hamlet of Mayberry, N.C., could enjoy a run of eight seasons and 249 episodes on CBS.

Ironically, star Andy Griffith (Sheriff Taylor) and his TV son Opie (Ron Howard) have since gone very public as two prominent members of the leftist Hollywood crowd. But, watching the show, we’d never have known about the politics. Their politics (admittedly Opie probably had none then; too young) weren’t shoved in our faces as part of the experience.

Just the other day I was covering this ground in a call with my cousin, singing the praises of the separation of politics and entertainment we once enjoyed.

Alas, while watching an Andy Griffith Show rerun Monday night, I was reminded that even back in 1961, when the episode in question aired, they were manipulating the message.

The plot of this show had Opie being bullied daily on his walk to school, surrendering his 5 cents in milk money. Man, I actually remember when we paid 5 cents a day at school for a half-pint carton of milk.

In fact, one of the neighborhood rumors in my former haunt of Oakland, was how a juvenile delinquent “allegedly” burned down the school, either intentionally or intentionally, while trying to rob said milk money after hours.

Back to the TV show, Opie compensated for the bullying by getting an extra five cents from Aunt Bee, or Deputy Barney Fife, so he didn’t have to choke down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without a drink. The bully suggested he drink water, but Opie parroted Aunt Bee in noting he needed the milk to make his bones strong.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that growing up, well, I could have bought a lot more milk.

Eventually, Sheriff Taylor got wind of the extortion and, while fishing, maneuvered Opie into standing up for himself without directly confronting him or addressing this situation.

Sheriff Taylor told Opie he recalled when he was in school how a bully tried to steal his favorite fishing spot. But, the Sheriff added, he also recalled having learned a lesson in school about someone in the early days of the country saying “millions for charity, but not one cent for tribute.” Translation: Don’t pay off bullies.

At this point, I was screaming from the comfort of my chair. The quote had been altered, likely intentionally.

The actual quote is “Millions for DEFENSE, but not one cent for tribute.”

It expressed an impassioned position of the upstart United States not to pay protection money to foreign governments or freelancers such as the Barbary Pirates.

I called the cousin to share this and point out it was likely unpalatable to someone in the operation, perhaps even Griffith himself, to pay homage to defense, and thus the word “charity” was substituted.

So, even then they were massaging the message. But, at least they were subtle, a far cry from the didactic and pedantic messaging of the moment.

For that I am grateful and so am willing to overlook this small example of such indoctrination from 65 years back, but not without first duly noting it here.

The Panicans are back, in full-throated doomsaying.

Have you heard, America is losing this military confrontation with Iran? That’s what the Panicans are selling and, a pathetic number of simpletons among the public and in the LameStream media are buying it, or simply feigning belief for political reasons.

Never mind that Iran missile and drone retribution attacks have dwindled about 90 percent in less than a week.

Never mind that anyone near the top of the Iranian pyramid of political power has been transported to the afterlife.

Never mind that Iranian expatriates around the world are celebrating in the streets and dancing a la President Trump to the YMCA song.

Never mind that Iran’s Arab neighbors are not reacting well to the flailing missile and drone incursions from Iran into their territory, presumably in search of Americans serving in those locales.

I mean this thing’s been going on about a week now. Another endless war!

Again, we’re losing! Can’t win! Hopeless cause! Drastic mistake!

I remember the pathetic Baghdad Bob from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi mouthpiece who insisted all American soldiers would die (they didn’t) and was denying any U.S. progress even as our troops were taking Baghdad outside Bob’s broadcast point.

We laughed at Baghdad Bob as a clueless buffoon, but he’s getting the last laugh. He has many, many domestic imitators these days, equally detached from reality.

The Panicans are afoot in financial media, too. The same discredited fools who said President Trump’s tariffs would send the world into full-blown financial panic and economic depression, that he would, “stop the motor of the world,” to borrow from the line of character John Gold in the book “Atlas Shrugged,” are back

It didn’t happen. It didn’t come close to happening.

These same purveyors of doom porn, far from being humbled, have shifted their focus to the Iran conflict which — see if this sounds familiar – they insist will result in full-blown financial panic, economic depression and World War III. I think some had World War III in their tariff doom, too.

Admittedly, crude oil prices are up big, and predatory providers of gasoline have rushed to raise pump prices immediately, despite, as we noted here the other day, the trip from being oil to gasoline is about a month-long process. So, the gasoline you are paying more for now, cost the provider a whole lot less.

Beyond that, stock and bond markets supposedly have been as bombed out as Tehran. But, if you check the major stock averages, they were down about 2, 3 or 4 percent this week, depending on which you index pick.

Interest rates rose, but not as much as the Panicans imply. The yield on a 10-year treasury bond is 4.138 percent. It was a bit below 4 percent in November 2025. A 30-year fixed mortgage has an interest rate of 6.17 percent today, up from 6.03 a week ago.

Crash? Collapse? Skyrocketing rates?

I don’t think so.

Dare I suggest this is being fueled by yet more Trump Derangement Syndrome?

The media, the Panicans, they can urinate on your head and tell you it’s raining. But, you don’t have to believe them.

When the news flow is huge and time is short, our response is an installment of news and views.

NEWS: Jasmine Crock Of It lost the Texas Democrat primary for U.S. Senate Tuesday and was sent to the kids table to wait out the likely end of her political career on a national basis.

VIEWS: Crock Of It’s response was to scream voter suppression because, she alleges, her confused voter base needed more time to cast their ballots once they figured out where they should vote. Imagine, an election denier in a DEMOCRAT primary. And, if you’re keeping score, Cackling Kamala came up a loser again as a strong supporter of Crock Of It.

NEWS: Crock Of It lost to James Talarico, who’s been described as a straight Pete Buttigieg.

VIEWS: Democrat establishment types desperately wanted Talarico, presuming he is more electable in a general election than Crock Of It. As the undertaker said, remains to be seen. Talarico is a cocktail of contradiction, citing his Christian faith while pushing universal healthcare, gender-affirming care for children, the gay agenda and a southern border as a front porch with a “giant welcome mat.” There’s more, but you get the picture. If Talarico can win the Texas Senate seat against any credible Republican opposition, it’s time to turn out the lights.

NEWS: According to a poll put out by CBS News, President Trump is on the clock in terms of approval of his actions vs. Iran. If he gets it done in days/weeks, his approval is plus-52 (76-24). But, if that lingers to months (plural) that falls to negative-8 (46-54).

VIEWS: This American lack of patience is nothing new. I recall (and looked it up to test my recollection) that way back in 1982, when the United States was involved in Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union there was no instant success. Negotiator Edward Rowny noted that Russians play chess and were “deliberate.” On the other hand, he continued, “We in the West like to play (instant-reaction) Pac-Man.” These days, Rowny might cite our social media addiction to reinforce that point.

NEWS: The Iran action has sent crude oil prices rocketing upward and with that, gasoline prices.

VIEWS: Gasoline prices increased almost immediately at outlets near me. This, despite the fact that, depending on various factors, the average time it takes for a barrel of oil to be turned into gallons of gasoline is about a month. We should be paying higher prices in a month, not now. A television report I heard while typing this indicated we might be looking at 30 or 40 more cents in increases per gallon. There is even a rocket and feathers analogy to explain this: Gasoline prices rocket up when oil prices increase, but fall softly like feathers when oil prices plunge. Simply put, it’s price gouging, sort of like the way precious metals dealers always charge a substantial premium above spot price when you buy, but were undercutting that spot price by huge amounts with their offers when you tried to sell to them during the all-time high price spikes of gold and silver in January.

NEWS: A native of Senegal, who reportedly became an American citizen in 2013, committed a mass shooting in Houston early Sunday that killed three and injured 13.

VIEWS: Likely you have seen pictures of the deceased shooter, with his Property of Allah hoodie and T-shirt underneath that seemed to bear the image of an Iranian flag. A search of the shooter’s home is said to have discovered Iran flags and pictures of Iran leaders. Yet, the FBI can’t say this is terrorism and is looking into that possibility.

NEWS: Looking to head off possible terrorism, officials ask citizens who see strange activity or behavior to “say something.”

VIEWS: I ask, to whom should we say something, and will any actions be taken if we do say something? Too many of these criminals have been brought to the attention of authorities beforehand and nothing happens. Even if there are arrests, think of how many criminal acts in general are committed by people with lengthy arrest records and pathetically short periods of incarceration. If I say something, then do something.

NEWS: The New York Post reports that tampons in the men’s room at Netflix helped torpedo that firm’s attempt to take over Warner Bros. Discovery.

VIEWS: Netflix, with the reputation of using its streaming platform to further far-left agendas, was trying to convince legislators and regulators it was really mainstream, despite all the evidence to the contrary. However, when a Republican legislator who was part of a delegation visiting the Netflix headquarters found a basket of tampons in the men’s bathroom, that spoke volumes. Netflix officially pulled out (pun intended) citing not wanting to get into a bidding war with another would-be acquirer. However, the takeover would have required approval from regulators and perhaps Congress, which likely would not have been forthcoming following the tampon disclosure. First, I didn’t know Tim Walz was a Netflix executive. Also, can this be described as an attempted streaming buy sidelined by a streaming story?

Revenge, it has been said, is a dish best served cold. The point is that getting back at someone is more enjoyable after a period of reflection and planning by the aggrieved party, a passage of time which also allows the offender to suspect no retribution is coming before getting the surprise of his/her/its life.

We awoke Saturday morning to word that Israel and the United States had exacted revenge on Iran by killing plenty of leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to address ongoing wrongs which date more than four decades into the past. (Editor’s note: If you see the guy’s name spelled differently elsewhere, that’s due to a phenomenon called transliteration. When languages use different alphabets, spelling is a matter of choice as to how it sounds).

Regardless, this Ayatollah was yet another elderly guy with a scruffy beard, often seen in black garb with a towel wrapped around his head, a theocratic sort committed to keeping his country living in the dark ages and treating women like cattle. I can’t wait for the U.S. women’s hockey team to weigh in on all this.

The late Ayatollah and his ilk have been spreading terror for multiple decades and, truth be told, a lot of Iran’s neighbors are fed up with it all. Reports of cheering Muslim precincts in the aftermath of this action have been mixed with stories of protests regarding the killing and a red revenge flag being raised above at least one mosque.

With a few notable exceptions, led by Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, response from our political left has been to side with Iran. It’s all too predictable. Remember, these people refused to stand during the State of the Union address just a few days back to demonstrate solidarity with American citizens vs. illegal immigrants.

The problem with Iran is one mainly with its ongoing leadership by Islamic madmen. Iranians in general had been moving hard to a western style of life prior to the 1979 revolution there, which removed Shah Pahlavi.

In the interest of candor, most agree Pahlavi had been installed in a 1953 coup aided and abetted by our CIA, British intelligence and some homegrown Iranians eager to see the country progress.

We’ve been riding the revenge train ever since. Iranian revolutionaries deposed the Shah, who ended up in the U.S. for medical treatment. In November 1979, protesters seized the American embassy in Tehran and took 52 hostages, demanding the Shah be extradited, and not for cancer treatments.

Those hostages were held for 444 days, through a bumbling attempt by President Jimmy Carter to rescue them. Iran gave them up only when Ronald Reagan arrived in the Oval Office and took out the big stick of sanctions to isolate Iran. Sort of sounds familiar.

We are at this point in part because in 2016 Barack Hussein Obama bribed Iran with about $2 billion in cold, hard cash to release four prisoners and because Joe Biden was a feeble caricature of a president. Understand, in the Middle East weakness is perceived as an invitation to take advantage.

For his part, President Trump has told Iran repeatedly that its bad behavior, up to and including development of nuclear weapons, would not be tolerated. Hard to believe Iran leadership missed that prior U.S.-Israel bombing run that leveled various nuclear facilities.

More recently, Trump had been very public about demanding cessation of nuclear activities, not to mention all the threatening bravado from Iran about punishing Israel and the United States.

It’s fair to ask what now? Reports of some deaths and injuries among U.S. troops have come out Sunday. Also, wild missile strikes against neighbors by the Iranians have been reported. Claims by those Iran spokesmen that their missiles had struck an American aircraft carrier have been found to be false.

Rest assured, there will be further wild retaliation by Iran. Sleeper cells of terrorists figure to be activated here and elsewhere. There will be random missile attacks and various other forms of attempts at exacting revenge on the United States and Israel.

Unfortunately, this is the cost of doing business with terrorists, or their sovereign backers.

You will hear some, particularly in our increasingly unhinged political left, decrying Trump’s actions. They will argue we should just have ignored it all rather that stir the hornet’s next.

To them I say, Iran is and has been a cancer on civilization for more than half of my life. Trump is giving that once-proud nation a hard dose of chemotherapy looking to cure the problem.

Such things are not easy, but they are necessary.

It’s time to send the U.S. women’s hockey team to the penalty box — double minor, two minutes each for hypocrisy and embellishment and a 10-minute misconduct for running their mouths interminably about it all.

I mean, these sweet young things were traumatized by an offhand joke from President Trump, which has been lamented ad nauseam as being demeaning to them and women in general. These women hockey players blew off a State of the Union Address invitation due to their anger and are noncommittal about a future White House visit to celebrate and honor their winning of the gold medal in Italy.

Fair enough. But, if you are going to stand up for women and take major offense at a joke, then none of your squad should agree to go to a Las Vegas party hosted by rapper Flavor Flav, a guy who’s been arrested multiple times on domestic violence charges. Yet, reports are they’re going.

Let’s review the facts, the sort of perspective you won’t get from hyperventilating libtards posting on social media, or YouTube, or leftist media members always eager to stir the pot and omit perspective.

To recap, Trump, in a phone call to the American men after their gold-medal victory, invited them to the State of the Union speech and the White House, adding that they had to realize he also would be required to invite the women or he’d be impeached. Some of the guys laughed and the Trump Derangement Syndrome types rushed to their keyboards to express outrage, both at Trump and those players.

The women’s hockey team, fittingly, was passive aggressive about it all, with spokespeople citing scheduling and academics as reasons for turning down the invite to Washington, D.C. Players failed to comment directly at first, but waited eagerly for the first media toolbag to ask them about the remarks so they could spew.

Now, they can’t be shut up about it. Begin with captain Hilary Knight, who found Trump’s joke “distasteful” and “unfortunate.” She lectured how it was a teaching moment about being more respectful and celebratory about women’s achievements.

I don’t know much about women’s locker rooms, male sports writers not hanging around them back in my day for reasons that used to be apparent. But, I know from more than three decades spent covering sports, men’s locker rooms are the scene of some cutting barbs and jokes – among teammates. Thin-skinned types do not survive.

If you are a world-class athlete who can be cut to the quick by a joke, well, color me amazed.

As an aside, I knew several area coaches who at one time or another in their career, had the occasion to coach both high school boys and girls basketball teams.

Those coaches used to tell me that coaching the females was the greater challenge. The male athletes might hate each other, but they could put that aside on the court in the interest of winning. Girls, on the other hand, were cliquish and breaking that down was next to impossible.

But, let’s deal with what we can quantify.

Generally speaking, women’s sports pale in comparison with the popularity of men’s sports.

Case in point: The average viewership for the U.S. women’s gold medal win over Canada was 5.3 million, with a peak of 7.7 million. Hey, I even watched most of it.

The U.S. men’s gold medal win, also over Canada, AVERAGED 18.6 million viewers and peaked at 26 million. Incidentally, that game was an early morning start and set records for a sporting event with a pre-9 a.m. start east coast time.

Here’s the cruelest fact of all. Since populations tend to be split about evenly between men and women, those numbers suggest that even women were more interested in watching the men’s game.

You might read in some spaces that interest in women’s sports is growing faster than men’s interest. Be careful about such percentage comparisons, where starting from a large base is a disadvantage.

Consider if I had a company making $1 billion in profit a year and bumped that to $2 billion the next year. Pretty impressive stuff, a double. But, if your company made $1 and you increased that to $10 (dollars, not billions of dollars), you’ve gone up tenfold and blew me away in terms of growth rate.

Were I Trump, I’d tell the U.S. women never mind that Washington visit, no hard feelings. And enjoy partying with a guy who is reported to have pleaded guilty in 1991 in New York to assault on his then-girlfriend and mother of his three children, pleaded guilty again in 2014 in Nevada, for domestic battery and had to attend domestic violence counseling, and more recently in Nevada was arrested again for domestic battery. That charge was dropped, according to Wikipedia, when he pleaded no contest to coercion.

At least Flavor Flav didn’t tell any distasteful or unfortunate jokes; as far as we know.

Back in my days writing for what has become the Johnstown Woke Gazette, a local sporting type fibbed to me. I got the truth from someone else and put it into my column, along with the untruth that made it clear who was lying.

The next day, I arrived at work to a message on one of those pink, while you were out sheets. Said liar’s message for me: Thanks for making me look like an asshole.

I called him up and pointed out he’d made himself look like an asshole by lying to me and I’d just spread the word in my column. I told him it would keep happening if he didn’t clean up his act. As far as I know, he never again lied to me.

I thought of this while watching the State of the Union speech Tuesday night, during which President Trump gave Democrats multiple opportunities to make themselves look like assholes and more often than not, they eagerly did just that.

Most notable was when Trump challenged anyone present who thinks the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal immigrants, to stand. The Republicans leapt to their feet. The Democrats? Maybe some stood, but it was not evident.

No, mostly the Democrats were glued to their seats as the Republicans stood and cheered for what must have seemed like an interminable stretch for those hate-America leftists.

Imagine, given the chance to pick a side, either their fellow citizens or illegal invaders who too often commit crimes and live on the public dole, Democrats virtually unanimously, if not entirely unanimously, sided with the illegals.

It’s not clear if Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, uncharacteristically actually wearing a suit instead of shorts and a hoodie, stood. If he did, he was a lonely man.

But, consider the temerity of Democrats, giving a middle finger to the U.S. citizenry during a nationally televised address and then expecting you to vote for them. If you still vote for Democrats in the wake of this, you probably should be living in a group home, with more rational types helping manage your affairs.

Earlier in the evening, many Democrats had stood to acknowledge the presence of the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team, which claimed gold in Italy. This surprised both Trump and me. I thought, maybe these fools are developing some perspective. I was wrong.

Later in Trump’s mammoth address, Democrats routinely refused to stand and cheer, including for the mother of a slain woman who escaped war in Ukraine only to be killed on a North Carolina train by a man with 14 prior criminal arrests. He was out due to that Democrat affinity for criminals.

Trump, in a blessed moment of brutal candor, took in the scene of Democrats refusing to commiserate and said, “These people are crazy, I’m telling you. They’re crazy.”

There was other ample evidence of this, from last year’s disruptive pimp-looking member getting thrown out again early, to a couple of Squad members shouting at Trump from their seats and coming off as petulant adolescents.

Maybe they should have gone to the protest outside, which might have swelled that turnout to triple digits.

Trump was masterful Tuesday. It was a speech of record length, but he had a lot to stay, a lot of people to honor and recognize, a lot of salient policy points to make on what separates Republicans from Democrats, which is a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon.

Trump drew a distinct contrast on that last point. If Republicans aren’t cutting campaign ads with that moment when Democrats picked illegals over citizens, they are asleep at the switch.

Trump did what he needed to do Tuesday night and the Democrats fell into the trap. Now, Trump and the Republicans need to press the issue right on through mid-term elections.

It is fitting that President Trump has invited our gold-medal winning U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team to tonight’s State of the Union address. Just like their championship hockey game, this figures to be riveting television.

Recall last year how Democrats seemed bound to plumb the depths of civil discourse during Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, beginning with an apparent pimp impersonator waving his cane and needing to be removed, and moving on to failing to cheer a child cancer survivor who was made an honorary member of the Secret Service.

Those were just two notable lowlights. Democrats also waved ridiculous signs that looked like bidding paddles from an auction, and jeered and mocked any Trump attempt to acknowledge victims, mainly of Democrat policy.

Talk about Nazi tactics. The over-the-top rhetoric of Democrats toward Trump and his supporters has helped birth three assassination attempts on him – thankfully all unsuccessful. Charlie Kirk was not as fortunate.

There have been reports many Democrats will skip tonight’s event. Good riddance. But, being the desperate attention seekers that they are, many will show up and make asses of themselves before a national audience.

It’s what they do. Recent examples include AOC umming, and liking, and you knowing her way through an attempt to answer a foreign policy question, and California Governor Gavin Newsom telling a largely black audience he is one them because he can’t read and got a low score on his college board test.

Democrats chip as many teeth by inserting their feet in their mouth as U.S. Olympic hero Jack Hughes suffered at the hands of a stick-wielding Canada player.

This would be laughable were it not for such a large slice of the populace that votes Democrat due to being too stupid to make a good choice, or too lazy to check out the distortions being spewed by their chosen representatives.

You think it gets a little dirty in those hockey scrums, that pales compared to the dirt of politics.

At least people tend to know and obey the rules in sports, other than the vanquished Canadians, who now think 3-on-3 overtime play is absurd and not really hockey because they lost to the United States. When they beat Czechia in 3-on-3 OT previously in these Olympics, it was fine. When Sidney Crosby scored an Olympic game-winning goal vs. the United States in a 4-on-4 OT years back, that was great, too.

Hope the people up in Snow Peso land enjoy their sour grapes whine.

Some have written that Democrats plan an attempt to embarrass Trump by bringing Epstein survivors to the speech tonight. Have these dolts failed to note that quite a few more prominent Democrats than Republicans hobnobbed with the perversion king, and that Trump was on the record as early as 2006 outing Epstein to the law?

Look in the mirror, Democrats, when it comes to Epstein, or being in bed with Big Pharma and Communist China, or exhibiting while in office the stock trading acumen of the world’s greatest investors, yet never showing that before, or after being in Congress. Quite the coincidence, I’d say, Nancy.

Democrats as a party stink like week-old fish and it is disheartening how many brain-dead foot soldiers they have. New York City Mayor Mamdani the Commie lost the Democrat thread this week. He required ridiculous amounts of documentation for people to shovel snow and got precious few takers. But I’m sure no such paper trail is required of the left’s rental protesters that show up on command to cash a check and foment mayhem in leftist cities.

Maybe Mamdani could advertise an ICE protest and hand them shovels when they get there. Just let some Soros-type shadow funder pick up the tab.

I would expect Trump during tonight’s address to note this dissonance of a prominent Democrat heading a sanctuary city requiring five forms of ID to shovel snow, even as Democrats say any ID requirement to vote is the depths of racism and voter suppression.

Mostly, Trump tonight should emphasize his sealed border, the record low numbers of crime, and generally strengthening economic data. Even despite the Supreme Court having jumped into the fray in an attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory regarding tariffs, Trump will get it done economically given the chance.

His problem is the clock is ticking and the electorate, with an attention span of nanoseconds, and precious little intellectual curiosity to question absurd claims made by leftists, could grind Trump’s agenda to a halt with Democrat wins in this fall’s mid-term elections.

Trump needs to be on the offensive tonight, touting accomplishments and outlining what he still has on his plate to benefit taxpayers.

Democrats, you see, don’t really have a plan, beyond being pro-illegal immigrant, pro-socialism, pro-criminals and anti-traditional American values.

That point cannot be made too often. This is Trump’s night to do just that.