There is so much ground to cover and the clock is ticking on my internet service availability. Let’s get started.

President Donald Trump put on a quintessential show yesterday during a televised Oval Office session with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Trump was killing Carney with kindness, calling him a legitimate world class leader and even a great man.

One of the unwashed scibes took this as a chance to pull a gotcha on Trump, asking if Carney was such a great man, how come there had been no trade deal?

Without even blinking, or playing for time to come up with a response, Trump shot back “Because I want to be a great man, too.”

The room erupted in laughter and Trump called a close to the public portion of the event, showing his characteristic showman’s ability to leave on a high note.

As they say on periodic segments on Greg Gutfeld’s show, we don’t deserve him.

But, even the Great Trump cannot accomplish repeated miracles and he’s attempting two at the moment. The first is trying to deal with Hamas terrorists to attain peace in Gaza and the second is trying to deal with organized internal strife fomented by disingenuous Democrats.

First, regarding Gaza. Hamas types are subhuman. That is the unvarnished truth.

Their supporters, well, they don’t have much going for themselves, either.

Hamas, like Democrats domestically, exists to cling to power and when the grip is slipping, they become desperate.

Hamas will string along Trump with vague agreements, hoping to avoid his military wrath, but they are no more to be trusted than your dog with a steak sitting on the floor by its feeding dish.

Too many Democrats, sadly, are not to be trusted, either.

With each passing day, more and more evidence is released regarding Democrats weaponizing the justice system against Trump, from telling lies to get wiretaps on him, to persecuting him and his family on ridiculous charges, to harassing members of Trump’s administrations.

The bastardization of justice is now said to have been extended to spying on sympathetic members of Congress.

Today, former FBI director James Comey, was expected to take a perp walk for alleged sins, but slipped past the waiting public. Typical double standard. Maybe Comey was looking for seashells to spell out a message, or listening to some Taylor Swift songs he professes to know by heart.

Democrats, in the media and in government and in the spotlight, like Rob “Meathead” Reiner, bleat on about the end of democracy under Trump and the dawn of a Third Reich, yet they say nothing about actual Democrat abuses that are more egregious than anything Republicans are alleged – incorrectly – to have done.

Democrats have rushed to support illegal immigrants, assorted scofflaws, violent protesters and those such as Antifa who would take down the nation in pursuit of some sort of nihilistic end.

Given a clear-cut question of right and wrong, Democrats can be expected to come down on the side of what traditionalists would describe as wrong. Every time.

This sort of warped thinking infests our schools, the bureaucracy, the media and the justice system. It is an internal rot as bad as that which Hamas has visited upon Gaza.

As with Hamas and Gaza, there is no painless, easy cure regarding these wayward Democrats, no matter how high the hopes are of President Trump.

This is just a quick, informational post, to explain what I figure will be a paucity of posts in coming days (hopefully not weeks).

Simply put, I’ve had enough of paying champagne prices for beer, in this case weak internet service.

Almost always with Breezeline, it was passed off as a problem on my end, even though many company tech support types have told me they can’t believe my slow signal is still out there. Of late, spotty, glitchy, sometimes nonexistent service was supposedly the fault of my router, which I had purchased in lieu of renting from them. Yes, the latest tech support person said, I’d bought my latest router relatively recently, but it was an old model no longer supported by Breezeline.

This was despite Breezeline having told me specifically at purchase time it was suitable.

Judging by commentary I’ve heard and read, I am not alone in Breezeline problems. My brother, for example, is an unhappy Breezeline customer for TV and internet.

I dropped Breezeline and took a two-week trial with T-Mobile.

It was to cost a bit more than Breezeline, but was much faster – when it worked. And there’s the rub, T-Mobile was more dependable, but still far from flawless. The very first night I used it, the service slowed, dropped intermittently, and generally became almost unusable at about 11 p.m. until after midnight This was a familiar problem time with Breezeline, too.

Just last night, T-Mobile was spotty or gone from about 8 p.m. until midnight, when I gave up and went to bed.

I’m headed up to the Galleria later today to turn in the equipment and cancel, not because of the disappointing service, but because the quoted $75 monthly rate is “unavailable” to me and instead I’m expected to pay $166-plus a month.

No sale.

I will be able to continue to do some stock investing using my cell phone, although it is much more cumbersome than with my computer. Posting to this blog also will be more of a challenge.

AT&T has a waiting list to get on its internet service. Other options locally are scarce. For some reason, right in the heart of Southmont, I’m not at a suitable address. Neither is the AT&T guy I spoke with last night, who lives along a street in another part of the borough.

So, I wait for an internet miracle.

The post I am about to write and post shortly after this, might be my last for some time.

I take it all back. Penn State football coach “Big Game” James Franklin is a genius.

Tired of being panned for losing games vs. Top 10 opposition, Franklin has set about lowering expectations. It won’t take many more losses such as Saturday’s 42-37 defeat at the hands of previously winless UCLA to accomplish that.

Franklin seems intent on dropping the Penn State program to the point where any win is cause for jubilant celebration; tearing down the goal posts and rushing the field stuff. To repeat, the man’s a genius.

I was too foolish to anticipate this, and had the temerity to write earlier today that this was a game in which Penn State could name the final score.

Of course, I meant winning by a large margin and quieting the critics. But Franklin has been around long enough to have a 4-21 record vs. Top 10 opposition at Penn State. He knows he could win 16 consecutive games vs. Top 10 foes and still be under .500 for his career in such games at Penn State.

Franklin seemed resigned to it all after his latest big-game failure, losing to Oregon, admitting his shortcomings are not narrative, but facts.

Franklin seemingly has tried everything to remedy that – short of quitting. He’s changed players, assistant coaches, and for all we know pregame rituals. Yet the losses in big games dog him like the current government shutdown is dogging Democrats.

It is so much easier just to go with the flow. Continue to lose the big games, but add in losses to so-so teams, and even the terrible ones.

Lose, lose lose.

It’s not like Franklin doesn’t have job security. His contract runs for about 100 years, being extended repeatedly and his guaranteed salary is mammoth.

I saw some social media types wanting him fired on the tarmac of LA International, with many offering to take up a collection to raise the $58 million or so he still is owed contractually.

Relax, Nittany Nation, Franklin is yours and he’s going nowhere. Now that he’s had this epiphany, to lose as often as possible to lower expectations, you can expect more unpleasant afternoons such as today.

What a way Franklin picked to go on his new course of action. According to ESPN, this is the first time in 40 years a Top 10 team has lost to an 0-4 or worse opponent.

Franklin can’t make history in a positive way, but he has proven he can plumb historic depths.

Again, the man’s a genius. Just ask him.

He even has a new catch phrase for the school: “We WERE Penn State.”

The Steelers have a bye week, Penn State has the equivalent of an off week and MLB has gotten rid of a lot of the wild-card chaff. Let’s try to make sense of it all.

The Steelers are 3-1 and already in great shape in the AFC North standings. Blessed with yet another cake schedule, the Steelers have beaten three teams with a collective 4-8 record. Their lone loss was to the only legitimate team they faced currently with a winning record, 3-1 Seattle.

I had the Steelers 4-0 at this point, so I was a bit optimistic, having presumed that Seattle would not be quite as strong as it has appeared. The rest I anticipated, correctly.

Meanwhile, the entire AFC North is a mess. Cleveland is, well, Cleveland; terrible year after year.

Cincinnati, 2-2, again has lost quarterback Joe Burrow to injury and, without Burrow, Cincinnati pretty much is Cleveland.

Baltimore has played a tough schedule and has the bruises to prove it at 1-3, right there with the Browns. Baltimore has stumbled and bumbled, is compiling quite an injured list, and generally is looking to be in trouble.

Add in the hamstring injury to quarterback Lamar Jackson and the Ravens are a long way from the supposed Super Bowl contenders they were painted to be. Jackson, pre-injury, already was providing more of the same, spectacular plays punctuated with spectacular gaffes, so even with him, they likely were not destined for the Super Bowl.

Bottom line: The Steelers are making the most of an easy schedule and their division competition is imploding.

If ancient Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers can avoid injury, the Steelers are a virtual playoff lock. Once there, they will do little, as has been their recent history. But, enjoy the rest of the regular season.

Speaking of doing little, Penn State and its coach Big Game James Franklin are back in their collective comfort zone, playing a pathetically easy opponent — in this case UCLA.

Once, UCLA was a proud program. Now, not to much. The Bruins are 0-4 and ranked third in ESPN’s Bottom 10 of worst teams in college football.

Not only has UCLA lost every game, it’s lost those games to similarly pathetic opposition and fired a coach along the way.

Penn State can name the score today, just the way Franklin likes it. As one Penn State player said in the wake of the loss to Oregon last weekend, now the team can get back to doing what it expects, which is beating bad teams while waiting for the next good team to show up on the schedule and claim a Nittany Lion scalp.

As for MLB, Los Angeles didn’t dominate the regular season as expected, but the Dodgers sure did make short work of wild-card pretender Cincinnati.

Boston-New York was interesting, with the Yankees prevailing.

Chicago took care of San Diego in three games and Detroit got the best of Cleveland in a three-game series both teams looked like they didn’t want to win.

Nothing really has changed from my assessment of things before the MLB postseason began. The eventual winner will be one of the payroll heavyweights, with teams such as Cleveland, Cincinnati and even Milwaukee, inexplicably the team with the best regular-season record, there mostly to flesh out the field.

It will be interesting to monitor the Philadelphia-Los Angeles series. Forced to pick, I’d take LA.

Toronto vs. the Yankees has some spice. Again, forced to pick, I’d take the Yankees.

Milwaukee enters its series with Chicago needing to erase a stretch of playoff futility in which the Brewers have not advanced past the first round since 2018. This series should be close and could go either way based on a break or two.

Finally, I’d be amazed if Detroit, which backed into the postseason and almost disappeared in the wild-card round, could get past Seattle.

Enjoy.

In these uncertain times, it is somehow comforting that there are some things upon which we can count — day-after-day, year-after-year – like the Pirates missing postseason play in Major League Baseball.

Those postseason games begin today and yet again the Pirates are missing. And it is a familiar reason – terminal cheapness.

MLB circa 2025 is an economic caste system. If you want to make the postseason, and compete to win the World Series once there, you have to spend huge on salary. If you just want to have a franchise, sell tickets to your fans coming to watch stars on the other teams, you go the Pirates’ cheap route.

I know, the Pirates do have a star pitcher in Paul Skenes, among the best, if not the best, in the league. Rest assured, though, that Skenes will pitch for the Pirates only until he qualifies for free agency or the Pirates make a pre-emptive trade of Skenes for a bag of magic beans.

The Pirates never will spend enough to compete, and their organization is not clever enough to overcome that (see a list of those franchises who can and have done such later in this story).

The playoff field, with the notable exception of the New York Mets, is a celebration of payroll.

The defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers are back, with their reported payroll of about $347 million, highest in the league.

The Mets, who spent a reported $340 millon this year to challenge the Dodgers, instead find themselves on the outside looking in due to a monumental collapse in the closing months of the season.

So, the No. 2 payroll didn’t make the big show. But No. 3 (New York Yankees, ($298 million), No. 4 (Philadelphia, $290 million) and No. 5 (Toronto, $254 million) are present.

Most of the field mirrors this truth. But, there are a few outfits who spent what are comparatively frugal payroll numbers and still have made it.

Begin with Milwaukee, which had an MLB-best 97 wins this season. Yes, incredibly in this era of huge payroll numbers, there was not a single 100-win team for the first time since 2014. Several teams, most notably Detroit, staggered into the playoff field on sustained stretches of futility. Even the hapless Mets almost made it.

No one saw this coming. Milwaukee’s reported payroll for 2025 was $115 million, 24^th lowest in the game and about one-third of what the Dodgers spent. For even more perspective, the current Brewers owner bought the FRANCHISE in 2005 for $223 million, less than twice what he spent just this season in payroll.

The Cincinnati Reds, at $116 million are another playoff bargain. There must be something in the Ohio water because it is Cleveland, with a $99.6 million payroll, that provides the salary floor among the 2025 playoff field.

The Pirates are credited (blamed?) with spending just $90 million in 2025.

I don’t expect Milwaukee (despite that record), Cincinnati or Cleveland to go deep into postseason play. But, I do celebrate them for making it.

Those three bargain basement teams have weaknessess that show up in a playoff series. Cincinnati and Cleveland, for example, have an abundance of pitching and severe deficits in terms of offense.

In the end, a big-money franchise will win the World Series, another dependable outcome.

Let’s play word association.

James Franklin.

Tractor.

Why tractor? Because of the famous sports quote: (someone) is so tight, you’d need a tractor to pull a pin out of his butt.

Fortunately for Penn State coach Franklin, bucolic Centre County has no shortage of tractors.

The reason Franklin might be as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full or rocking chairs is because this very night Penn State officially opens its 2025 season. Previous games with overmatched teams such as Nevada, Florida International and Villanova were mere glorified scrimmages; home games to ring the cash register without risk of loss.

Tonight, Penn State, No. 3 in the AP rankings, faces No. 6 Oregon. Both teams share the distinction of being unbeaten, untied and untested this season.

If we look at history, Oregon knocked off Penn State in last year’s Big Ten title game.

If we look at Franklin’s history, there is much more of the same. Detractors call him “Big Game James,” a sarcastic nod to Franklin’s ability to roll up wins vs. the dregs of college football, but fail with great frequency against legitimate opposition.

Just last season, even as Penn State ran rather deep into the playoffs, Franklin’s record vs. Top 10 opposition was 1-3, with the annual loss to Ohio State, not to mention defeats at the hands of Notre Dame and Oregon.

Franklin’s lone Top 10 win was vs. Boise State, which you might recall doubters thought was a bit over-rated.

During his career at Penn State, Franklin’s teams have gone 4-20 vs. Top 10 opposition.

But, from the category of even blind squirrels finding the occasional nut, or stopped clocks being right twice a day, this is a great opportunity for Franklin to get a signature Top 10 win.

It all has been crafted to tip the scales in Franklin’s favor.

Consider, not only did Penn State have three non-testing warmup games, all at home, the Nittany Lions also got a bye ahead of this game, the better to rest and gameplan.

Meanwhile, Oregon played last week vs. in-state rival Oregon State (think of Pitt-Penn State back in the day) . Oregon already has been on the road once this season.

Oregon also faced a flight across three time zones for this game, which adds to the challenge.

To recap, Penn State gets to play one of its biggest games of the season at home, having had a bye week ahead of it, against a team that played an emotional rivalry game last week and has to travel across the nation for the contest.

This helps explain Penn State being a 3.5-point favorite, even with Franklin’s track record of Top 10 failure factored into the computation.

This is a game Penn State could, and should, win. If Franklin manages to blow this one, despite all the built-in edges, warm up the tractors.

As a long-time subscriber to DISH to be my satellite television provider, I’ve become accustomed to periodic channel losses for contractual reasons.

Some linger unresolved, like the years-long beef with AT&T Sports Pittsburgh. Because the Pirates are perennial sad sacks, and the Penguins have disappeared from the NHL playoff radar, this doesn’t bother me. I’d rather have DISH hold the line on costs and not charge me more per month just to view Pittsburgh regional sports.

As an aside, the first DISH sales people who decades back showed up at my door, misrepresented to me that being a DISH subscriber would give me the ability to watch all these regional sports networks as part of my monthly fee. They fibbed!

Last week, local ABC affiliate WATM showed up as unavailable on the channel guide. You guessed it, contractual problems.

This was only a potential problem in that there was some college football I wanted to watch on the weekend on ABC, and the Major League Baseball playoffs loom with some ABC telecasts. Apparently, a deal was struck by the past Friday and, voila, WATM was back just in time for weekend college football.

These things make me nostalgic for my youth, when access to a television station’s signal was a co-function of signal strength/geographic proximity and the quality of one’s antenna. Living in the Stonycreek Township section of Johnstown, along Bedford Street, we had the ability to pull in WJAC, WARD and, on good days, Altoona’s WFBG and maybe a few Pittsburgh outlets such as KDKA.

Our big antenna was in the attic, connected to the living room (only!) TV via 30 or 40 feet of 300 ohm antenna wire, what you oldsters might recall was two covered wires with a stretch of flat plastic between them, looking sort of like a very miniature length of Hot Wheels track.

Because I’m wired (pun intended) the way I am, this got me to musing about TV and radio call signs, and embarking on an email exchange with a cousin, who is similarly inclined when it comes to matters others might consider mundane.

Some of what follows is gospel, at least as gospel as something backed up by internet research can be. Other stuff is just the collective knowledge of a couple of guys in their 70s who are lifelong residents of the area.

Let’s start with WATM. I suggested that call sign might be a clever play on words referring to a TV station’s ability to make money W-Automatic-Teller-Machine!

This was based on a great moment in WJAC-TV history. Back in the day, stations used to have live announcers onhand to do such things as periodic station IDs. WJAC’s catch phrase was “Serving Millions From Atop The Alleghenies.”

One time, an announcer decided to have some fun and amended it to “Making Millions From Atop The Alleghenies.”

Rumor has it, he shortly after was unemployed.

Back to WATM. My cousin tells me — and who am I to doubt him? – it stands for W-Altoona-Television-Market.

During my early years working at the Johnstown Woke Gazette, the same company owned the newspaper and WJAC television and WJAC AM and FM radio stations.

Before the TV station relocated to its sumptuous digs on Old Hickory Lane, it operated out of a non-descript office along lower Main Street. Before that, it was in a building at the corner of Johns and Main streets, which gave birth to the WJAC call sign.

W-Johnstown-Automobile-Company.

Again, with my cousin as a source, he recalled a time, perhaps in the 1960s, when there was an attempt to change the WJAC call sign to WKAS, as an homage to Woke Gazette publisher Walter Krebs and WJAC-TV honcho Al Schrott.

This would not be unfamiliar ground regarding vanity call signs. The main Altoona TV station, channel 10, formerly was WFBG, said to honor department store owner and station founder William F.B. Gable.

The current call sign for Altoona channel 10 is WTAJ. My cousin notes and the internet confirms, this call sign stands for We’re Television for Altoona and Johnstown.

During the stone age TV period I referred to earlier, VHF (very high frequency) provided channels 1-13, while higher channels operated in the UHF (ultra high frequency) band.

Johnstown’s WARD-TV was channel 56. My cousin’s father, my uncle, worked as an engineer there before shifting to WJAC radio.

What did WARD stand for? Neither my cousin, nor an internet research, can answer that.

I can recall from my memory that the whole WARD radio-TV group was bought in the early 1970s by Jonel Construction, with a subsequent change in call signs to WJNL.

It seems radio/TV call signs were/are the high-buck version of vanity license plates.

I’ve pulled the plug on CNBC’s “Fast Money” program and now I’m wondering what took me so long.

I guess it was a form of intertia, in that it was easier just to keep watching as usual, rather than make a decision to stop.

As a side note, I long ago had taken to DVRing the show, the better to fast-forward through elongated commercial breaks, recurring hero worship of Apple, and more recently Nvidia, and the growing number of segments that devolved into mindless politics, obscure rock music or movie references, or a combination of both.

It got to the point that I could blow through a 60-minute show in maybe 10 or 15 minutes of content that interested me.

There also is the case of the host, who is only about an even bet to actually show up, sort of like a latter-day Johnny Carson.

After Monday’s mindless episode, I went to the DVR and deleted the timers for the rest of the week. I’m calling it a success.

Back in the early days, when the show was new in 2006 and only a once-a-week or less format, it was a welcome exchange of ideas. I remember often being on the road, rushing from the airport to my hotel room to watch, taking notes during the broadcast.

Dylan Ratigan was the original host, with original panelists Jeff Macke, Tim Strazzini, Eric Bolling and Guy Adami, each with a nickname such as Macke’s “Lone Wolf.”

All but Adami have moved on to better things and the show has deteriorated. There is one current regular panelist, a guy whose nose suggests he’s been in and lost a lot of fights, who can’t help himself from making virtually every segment a hit on President Trump, Elon Musk, or other assorted figures on the political right.

We get it, potato nose, you are on the left. Now, can we talk investing?

And this is where the decision to avoid comes into the calculus. Why risk breaking my television with a thrown object, or sit in the recliner muttering to myself about the insanity? Why not just avoid?

This has been a simple tenet of my existence for years. When out-of-control dogs – and their idiotic owners – made walking in certain neighborhoods annoying, I changed my walk routes.

When taking one of my hobby cars out for a hoped-for relaxing drive, I gravitate toward the Somerset Pike because it tends to be a serene, low-traffic, low-stress exercise.

Moving to the topic of network TV series — be they dramatic or comedic — that have been turned into left-wing propaganda, again, simply ignore. Can we have a show without several gay, left-wing types preaching to the world?

Apparently not. The solution is just don’t watch the shows.

You don’t like a cable news channel, don’t watch.

You prefer not to see the latest leftist host (who all seemingly shop for their black-rimmed glasses at the same outlet, be they male or female), change the channel.

If you tire of CNBC going full libtard with a show designed to provide investing insight, stop watching.

I’ve switched to Charles Payne on Fox Business, a 2 p.m. island of sanity. Imagine this, Payne has guests who provide insight and investing ideas. They don’t take cheap shots at Trump. They don’t try to dazzle us with their knowledge of obscure pop culture.

They don’t feel the need to flatter the host, and each other, incessantly, to the exclusion of providing investing wisdom.

By the way, “Making Money With Charles Payne” on Fox Business Network has ratings that are up 22 percent from a year ago, averaging 167,000 viewers, so I’m not alone in liking his show.

I’m also not alone in tuning out “Fast Money.” According to ustvdb.com, the show’s ratings for August were down 39 percent from July 2024, averaging 95,000 viewers. Meanwhile, a similar noon show on CNBC that has stayed more faithful to the formula, “Fast Money Halftime Report,” has growing ratings, averaging 163,000 viewers

Goodbye, “Fast Money.” Be sure to turn out the lights when the last viewer flees.

Donald Trump went to the United Nations today and some would say he was an ungracious guest by critiquing that citadel of leftist efforts funded by other people’s money.

I’d say Trump was not exactly a guest. He was still on U.S. soil. The United States pays a greater share of U.N. costs than any other country, and for that we get to endure representatives from nations that are mere pimples on the ass of the world lecturing us.

Trump didn’t wait for the lectures; he went on the offensive. Climate change and green energy are scams. Open borders are a recipe for national suicide. Buying oil from an enemy and funding its war machine is sheer idiocy. Etc., etc., etc.

And, ahead of that Trump quadruple shot of reality, in what could only be considered an extreme set of coincidences verging on the statistically impossible, Trump had to deal with an escalator that failed as he stepped onto it, with a teleprompter that quit as he began to talk, and translations that failed when he was able to carry on after the teleprompter incident.

We’ve not seen such juvenile behavior since the Clinton gang exited the White House ahead of George W. Bush’s arrival, taking with them the W keys from typewriters, a presidential seal, antique door knobs and other items, not to mention leaving obscene voicemail messages and defacing bathrooms to the tune of $15,000 in damage according to a General Accounting Office report.

This U.N. exercise in sophomoric resistance came as the unwashed U.N. masses had joked in advance about such possible occurences. Official explanations were weak.

Trump’s tough love for the U.N. was the big story, but there was much more today.

NEWS: Would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh, who chose to represent himself in court, was found guilty on all charges and faces possible life in prison. Routh responded to the verdicts by trying to stab himself in the neck with a pen.

VIEWS: Is there no end to what this walking, talking failure cannot do?

NEWS: Pregnant liberals (presumably women, but since libs believe men can be women, maybe men, too) have rushed to TikTok to post videos of themselves consuming large amounts of Tylenol in response to officials in the Trump administration suggesting a link between Tylenol use by pregnant women and the massive rise in autism.

VIEWS: Trump should post on Truth Social that it is dangerous to ingest rat poison and wash it down with a cup of mercury.

NEWS: Kamala Harris was out flogging her book on the usual leftist outlets Monday, sharing yet more snarky attacks on fellow Democrats.

VIEWS: Is there a single, less self-aware politician than Harris. She’s the ultimate DEI hire who, when she eventually was boosted to a position of guaranteed failure, couldn’t wait to blame others. I’m thinking there is not a single mirror in the Harris household. And none of those Venn diagrams she no doubt has on the walls are shiny enough to reflect her dark, negative image.

NEWS: Jimmy Kimmel is back on his late-night ABC gig tonight as Disney did the usual and caved to the Woke mob.

VIEWS: Sinclair and Nexstar, two owners of a large number of ABC affiliates, say they won’t run Kimmel’s return. I’m not even sure if my local ABC outlet is owned by either, but it is irrelevant because my plan is to keep intact my stretch of never watching Kimmel’s show. He’s a mediocre political hack masquerading as a comedian. There ought to be a large L tattooed on his forehead.

Presented without comment, here are some news snapshots from recent days.

Kamala Harris, in published excerpts from her book, says she would have loved to have named Pete Buttigieg as her VP running mate in the past election, but “it was too big of a risk” because Buttigieg is openly gay.

Names of the alleged fraudsters in Minnesota who are accused of taking money illegally from a program to help the disabled fund housing: Moktar Hassan Aden, Mustafa Dayib Ali, Khalid Ahmen Dayib, Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed, Christopher Adesojo Falad, Emmanuel Oluwademilade Falade, Asad Ahmen Adow and Anwar Ahmen Adow.

Among the names of those who restored a vandalized Charlie Kirk tribute mural in Pensacola, Fla.: Hannah Alfredson, Mason Vickers and Ben Uitzetter.

The body of a black student at Delta State University was found hanging from a tree on campus. According to ABC News, initial reports and subsequent investigation ruled it a suicide. But, there was unrest, prompting a closure of the school Monday and the school’s white president to say, “this is not only about facts, it’s about emotions, and it’s about feelings and the way this loss and how it was discovered affects people’s lives.” The dead man’s family has hired a civil rights attorney.

The body of a white man was found hanging in a tree about 100 miles away, also in Mississippi. There seems to have been no unrest, no closures, no general interest except to ask if the two deaths were related. The dead man was reported by ABC News to be a drug user whose body was found in an area “known to be frequented by drug users.”

A former Texas State University student, expelled for mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk at an on-campus memorial event by multiple times slapping his neck and recoiling as if shot, has set up a GoFundMe account to “grow from this experience.”

London’s Daily Mail is reporting on dailymail.co.uk that they have documents and testimony proving that Minnesota U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar did, as long rumored, marry her brother in order to keep him in the United States.

Hunter Biden, scandal-plagued recipient of one of those blanket pardons from his father, Joe, before the elder Biden left office, reportedly sat in on pardon meetings, perhaps influencing those who would receive them.

Kamala Harris, between taking swipes at Biden et al, in her book and public appearances, has spoken out for free speech, decrying the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel for lying during a monologue, saying the alleged Charlie Kirk assassin was a MAGA supporter. This is the same Kamala Harris who called in a 9-30-19 Twitter/X post for Donald Trump’s Twitter/X account to be suspended over his exercise of free speech.