If you spend much time on the internet you likely have seen some of the abundance of Hitler parodies.

Based on a 2004 German movie about Adolf, clever people have inserted subtitles of their own with legitimate film clips to comment on a variety of subjects through the years.

I was emailed links to three Hitler parodies centering on our figurehead president, Joe Biden, watched them recently and found them able to hammer home their point using the basis of all good humor, truth.

The message common through Hitler phoning Biden, Hitler interviewing Biden and Hitler heckling Biden, was Biden’s ever-diminishing mental faculties, as viewed by a character who knows a thing or two about catastrophic intellectual decline.

Videos of vintage Biden stumbles and bumbles were interlaced in the videos. But you don’t need to wait for more Youtube creations to get some additional laughs. Simply observe Biden if and when he has to think on his feet, maybe answer questions without a teleprompter or written notes, and you are reminded of the charade that is Biden’s presidency.

Biden got hit by some friendly fire this week when CNN amazingly went with a story that Biden had canceled a State Department inquiry, begun by President Trump, to look into the origins of COVID-19.

Public outrage was palpable and stumbling, bumbling Joe, or at least his handlers, attempted to change the subject by promising the U.S. intelligence community would launch a 90-day investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

I guess the U.S intelligence community has a lot of spare time now that it doesn’t need to run a full-time operation to manipulate the laws and discredit Trump with false claims.

So, supposedly in 90 days we Americans will know whether all those liberal fact checkers were correct when they immediately and without legitimate reasons, shot down any suggestion the virus escaped from a Chinese lab. Already the ministry of truth types operating internet sites have backed off (without fessing up) on their previous hit jobs on the Chinese virus angle, which should speaks volumes about the legitimacy of their fact checking.

But, it is most likely that the truth never will be revealed.

Asked if the findings of the U.S. intelligence community investigation would be released in 90 days, Biden issued more of his vintage gobbledygook: “Unless there’s something I’m unaware of.”

This coming from a man who during his campaign was unaware he was running for president, instead proclaiming at a rally in South Carolina that he was running for Senate, does not inspire confidence. To paraphrase Shakespeare, there are many, many things both in Heaven and on Earth that Biden is not aware of, even a little bit.

Expect any release in 90 days to be vague and unlikely to finger the Chinese. Once again implicating the Russians is a more likely outcome.

But while we wait, enjoy the mounting daily evidence that our once great country is becoming a pathetic mishmash of hucksters, grifters and opportunists.

ITEM: A North Carolina auto repair business had a vehicle stolen and others vandalized. Racist graffiti was left behind and the kneejerk response was yet another black businessman had been targeted by white supremacists, likely Trump supporters. Except that black business owner set up surveillance cameras and caught two black men doing the damage. Ooops!

ITEM: Atlanta City Councilman and mayoral candidate Antonio Brown (not the former Steelers wide receiver of the same name) managed to have his car stolen during a stop Wednesday. The perpetrators allegedly were children, but one of them “acted as though he had a gun.” And you wonder if Brown, your defund-the-police candidate, might want to rethink that, if only to give him protection from having kids steal his car, or his candy, in the future.

No doubt, once the intelligence community has wrapped up its COVID-19 investigation, Biden will have it look into false flag racial incidents or defund-the-police political candidates who need help crossing the street.

And in 90 days, Biden might share those findings with us, unless there’s something else he’s unaware of.

Christmas arrived before Memorial Day this year, with the Penguins unceremoniously departing the Stanley Cup playoffs in the first round — again.

Cue the fireworks.

You say you’re confused as to how a resident of Western Pennsylvania and a hockey fan to boot, possibly could take pleasure in the Penguins being laid low.

Let me explain. Ever since retiring from sports writing and becoming a mere fan, I can indulge in personal prejudices. As a sports writer I just watched the games and wrote about them, a detached sort of thing the late sportswriter Jerome Holtzman chronicled in his classic book “No Cheering In The Press Box.”

That was the traditional way of sports journalism – observe and report. But these days too many members of the sweaty literati, much like journalists in general, have turned to a reporting style that is a mixture of propaganda, boosterism and outright hero worship.

Check how many times you hear “we” references to a team of which they are not members.

Along that line, think of the way CNN, MSNBC, major television network news and national print outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, covered Team Biden in the most recent election. They might as well have been wearing Sleepy Joe jerseys.

I expect a sporting team’s radio and television announcers to be biased. But, if you’ve ever had the opportunity to follow broadcasts with other home team announcers via a platform such as NHL Center Ice, you would find that Penguins announcers are over-the-top in terms of their homerism.

By happenstance I listened to a radio broadcast of a Penguins loss to open this series, with the Penguins ahead after two periods, and the one studio guy was particularly condescending in the second intermission. His tone came off as especially patronizing toward the New York Islanders, as in hey, they’re gutty and trying hard, but . . . we’re the Penguins!

Well, the Islanders were gritty, tried hard, and sent the Penguins to the offseason golf course in just six games of a possible seven-game series.

When the late Bob Prince performed the home-viewpoint style of broadcasting for the Pirates, it was an engaging kind of bias, replete with amusing anecdotes, engaging nicknames and pet expressions.

This is different. It’s not particularly entertaining and seldom is credit given to the opposition.

Instead it’s orgies of self-congratulation if the Penguins are winning, and, if the Penguins are behind, laments about cheap play or luck on the part of the opposition, or even critiques of the obviously blind referees.

Similarly, too many media members issue reports on games that read like they sleep in Penguins jammies.

When you see this sort of thing close up through the years, as I did, you develop a bit of a distaste for it. Throw in that my son decided on his own to grow up a Detroit Red Wings fan, mostly because he enjoyed former Wings star Steve Yzerman’s production on video games, and you have a family that doesn’t exactly bleed Penguins black and gold.

Along that line, by definition, fans like to think they can influence the outcome of games with their rooting. The NBC Sports Network broadcast of the clinching series win for the Islanders Wednesday night even gave the third star to the team’s rabid home fans.

I’ve found another way, if not to affect the winner or loser, at least to be able to enjoy whatever outcome transpires.

As something of a jinx and a decidedly unlucky individual, I find myself engaging in small sports bets on my DraftKings account that make me happy regardless of which team wins. Simply put, I bet on the team I actually want to lose.

I’m not claiming to be a practitioner of voodoo, sticking pins in dolls of Penguins players. But I did make a parlay bet for the Penguins to win the series before it started, and individual bets on the Penguins to win the past two games, all of which ended up being won by the Islanders.

If the Penguins had won, I’d have had a few extra bucks to ease the pain.

Suffice it to say I won’t miss the money now that the Penguins have lost the games and the series. It was all worth it just for the smile brought to my face by the thought of all those Penguins fans – media and otherwise – dealing with this latest cold dose of reality.

Recently I shared the state of my ‘hood in a posting here. Events demand a short update.

On the positive front, the jungle that was taking shape across the street has been hacked back to what passes for a yard.

The promised lawnmower arrived. It was put into use and, after many a fit and start, success was achieved by the renter there.

Previously I’d alluded to the sale of a house up the street causing concern among its immediate neighbors due to shady behavior by the newcomers. Already there is some confirmation of those early worries.

Police were called, apparently from someone within the lengthy roster of residents, to deal with domestic discord. Since then, there have been reports of assorted comings and goings but it is not clear if anyone currently is living in the house.

As if on cue, another house just a few addresses up on the other side of the street from me has gone on the market. It’s owner died last year, but the house has remained unoccupied. We can only hope that a family with some modicum of stability purchases it and helps restore some domestic tranquility to the block.

The focus of another neighborhood update is not a resident, but rather our mailman.

A few days back I saw a mail truck parked in front of my house – unusual in that it most often is parked at the corner up the street when it is the customary delivery person. Only when it’s a parcel delivery does the truck tend to end up in front of my house.

Closer examination revealed the mailman across the street. He was shooting basketball with the neighbor kid at the driveway hoop. The play went on, and on, and on.

I’m estimating, conservatively, it ran at least half an hour and more like 45 minutes. Lunch?

By the way, I received no mail that day. Perhaps if I had a basketball hoop?

Finally, allow me to share something that falls under the category of ‘hood happenings only because it involves me. It was my lot to be contact person in efforts to sell one of my mother’s cars.

It was a low-priced vehicle, advertised by my son with a ton of caveats as to its condition and future road-worthiness.

And yet the average inquirer, after opening with how much under the asking price they might be able to limbo, seemed to want varying degrees of guarantees as to future reliability. New cars have been known to come with less in the way of warranty.

Included in the sales effort on Sunday was me picking up a prospective buyer, driving him to look at the car, accompanying him on a test drive of 15 miles or so, and then taking him back to his apartment.

He didn’t buy the car because he failed in his quest for OPM – other people’s money – from within his family to fund his purchase

Someone else did end up taking the car off our hands today. And, thankfully, I’m spared this daily interchange with the unreasonable among us on the subject of low-priced cars and projections of their future use.

Submitted for your consideration, things that make you go hmmmm.

Make up your own minds if these things pass the smell test, seem rational, or are just more hypocrisy.

Item: According to emails from Hunter Biden’s famous laptop, a charitable foundation for Joe Biden’s grandchildren reportedly received a $100,000 donation from a trust controlled by former FBI director Louis Freeh. This might matter because Biden was vice president at the time and Freeh was an attorney for three foreign businessmen that ran afoul of the law.

Item: The White House is teaming with nine dating apps to offer special perks to people receiving COVID-19 vaccinations. No mention of STD prevention rewards.

Item: Meanwhile, the State of New York will offer scratch off lottery tickets as incentive to get COVID-19 vaccines. Also, no STD bonuses.

Item: A total of 22 states have acted to drop the extra $300 a week unemployment bonus, which a substantial number of “unemployed” have used to fund their remaining outside of the employed workforce, the better to play video games or enjoy other leisure activities without that pesky 40-hour work week intruding.

Item: According to no less a reliable left-leaning source than The Washington Post, CNN host Chris Cuomo was instrumental in formulating the policy of his brother, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in dealing with mounting accusations of sexual misconduct. The most busted name in news strikes again. Ethics? We don’t need no stinking ethics.

Item: Dominion Voting Systems had “coding errors” in the past week’s Pennsylvania primary election, but the company has assured that all votes were counted correctly. Sounds familiar.

Item: Mr. Mask, AKA Dr. Anthony Fauci, who in recent weeks has made it a point to wear masks in public even while bragging about being fully vaccinated, has conceded that, just as Senator Rand Paul said during Fauci testimony, it was all for show. Fauci admitted it was for public consumption, but now he’s more comfortable with the reality that there is no pressing need for his mask, indoors or outdoors.

Item: A solid 71 percent of respondents to a recent poll said their country is full of immigrants and can’t handle any more. That country would be France, which sent this country the Statue of Liberty as a gift. Sometimes, enough really is enough.

Item: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had the gall to go to closed beauty parlors during COVID-19 lockdowns to help her appearance, but can’t get a handle on her city’s murder sprees, has a new solution to her image problems. According to a tweet from a Chicago political reporter, Lightfoot now will grant 1-on-1 interviews only to “Black or Brown journalists.”

Item: All of a sudden the sanctimonious truth police of the internet are pulling back on labeling as debunked speculation all stories about Chinese labs as a possible source of COVID-19. Republicans in Congress have released a report with strong circumstantial evidence of a Chinese leak and even the hysterical head of the CDC was forced to admit in testimony that such a lab leak is definitely a possibility. Considering some other information coming to light, this could be even more embarrassing for Dr. Fauci than his constant flip flops, or that anemic first pitch at a Washington Nationals baseball game.

Item: And, finally, a Bloomberg opinion writer posits that should the planned release of all United States government information on UFOs this summer provide strong evidence of ET presence, that could be good for the U.S. dollar and domestic investment markets. Buy now and avoid the rush from space immigrants – I guess.

When we first moved onto our street 35-some years back, it was the sort of neighborhood in which there was a traditional singing of Christmas carols while walking behind the borough fire truck, and then refreshments were served in a two-car garage.

Neighbors visited and interacted throughout the year, beyond the passing nod. You actually knew names, and other details about the neighbors. Not any more.

These days, the ‘hood has devolved into something less social.

I’m not totally against that. Neighbors are an accident of geography. If you have similar tastes and philosophical leanings, you get along. If not, you avoid the neighbors.

My problem arises when the peculiarities of the neighbors infringe on my peace and happiness.

It seems there are more and more of these annoyances daily.

For a few years there has been a game played on the street I call simply “The Parking Grab,” in which many neighbors feel compelled to tie up as many on-street parking spaces as possible, leaving their garages and driveways unoccupied by their vehicles.

It’s poor manners, but perfectly legal. What isn’t perfectly legal is a deranged neighbor cursing out my son a couple of years back for having the temerity to park IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE, because said neighbor wanted that space for his wife.

The error of his position was pointed out to him and his wife, and punctuated afterward with a few no trespassing signs on my property to keep his progeny from treating my yard like a playground.

They now leave me alone and I ignore them. It’s bliss, if only they didn’t feel the need to acquire two dogs who bark each and every time they are put outside, which is about five times a day.

Many times in the past few years we’ve had drug dealers and drug users living in the ‘hood. Fortunately, they’ve moved on, to be replaced by better behaved residents in many, but not all, cases.

A relatively recent addition to the neighborhood apparently operates under the delusion that grass mows itself. It’s not that he seems to be too busy with anything like a job to find time to mow the grass.

In an amusing incident Mr. I Don’t Mow leaned out his second story window and yelled to a neighbor kid who was mowing grass the other day. My wife and I both saw it and thought he might be going to offer the kid a few bucks to take on his overgrown yard while he was at it.

Nope. The neighbor was telling the kid, for no apparent reason, that he had a lawnmower arriving the next day and would tackle his jungle soon. That was two days ago and counting.

What happened on the mower delivery front isn’t clear. What is clear is this guy, who lives with a woman and child, sure has time to scream maniacally as he plays video games at all hours. This is readily apparent because the windows are open, even in the winter.

Meanwhile, some people up the block are incensed because new arrivals on their end have little or no respect for property rights, feeling free to pile garbage on the land of others, not to mention taking the liberty to visit the neighbors’ yards without benefit of being invited to do so.

My wife, who makes periodic forays out to visit her friends in the ‘hood, reports that one neighbor of the newcomers found his construction of what used to be called a “spite” fence back in the day delayed due to the skyrocketing price of lumber and a shortage of funds.

The neighbors on the other side of the offending newcomers have the police number on speed dial, the better to report transgressions by the recent arrivals, as well as to call out a young driver from closer to my house who doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of stop signs, or speed limit signs,

Also close to me is a house whose teenage male has friends who keep mistaking our otherwise quiet residential block for the burnout box at a dragstrip.

I pointed out to the neighborhood kid a few months back – ironically while I was monitoring a guy who’d had too much to drink (he’s being charged by the DA) and took out a car and a neighbor’s small tree/bush as he careened down the street at about 9 a.m. – that if his friends wanted to prove how healthy their cars are, I could get out my Mustang GT, we could go to a grudge night at a dragstrip, and we could race for some cash.

So far, no takers. Regardless, they were advised to take their tire-melting antics somewhere where it doesn’t disturb the peace, lest the police need to be contacted.

Not that our police force would do anything. They make a point of ignoring a family that’s been driving a Jeep Cherokee sporting an inspection sticker that expired in May — 2019. No, it is not an antique exempt from inspection.

The police say they can’t watch vigilantly to catch the driver(s) in the act. I say since they are not exactly policing a hotbed of shootings, rapes, murders, robberies or other felonies, perhaps they should spend a little time trying to get a long-running scofflaw off the streets.

Just Saturday, while returning home from a pizza run, said vehicle pulled out of a side street behind me, so I got a quick video and am weighing asking the police whether they are willing to watch it and then to do something now. Probably not.

It occurs to me that if such a decline in behavior, social niceties and law-abiding behavior is evident in this formerly pleasant middle-class neighborhood, one wonders how bad things must be elsewhere. Probably I don’t want to know.

We promise some sports on this blog, an aspect sorely neglected of late, but here is a crossover entry.

Big-time sports operations, in an orgy of virtue signaling, have demanded vaccinations. Yet just last week news broke that no fewer than eight members of the New York Yankees – players and staff — had tested positive for COVID-19.

The knee-jerk reaction among the vaccine Nazis would be how selfish and disgusting these people are to have refused to take the jab. But, no, all eight had been fully vaccinated for more than 14 days prior to testing positive.

The question, asked here previously, why get vaccinated if it possibly does nothing for you?

Predictably, there has been a rush to obfuscate the situation. Seven of the eight had no symptoms, so the vaccine worked is one claim.

Well, I know unvaccinated people who have had COVID-19 and their symptoms were mild. I also know at least one person who got vaccinated after having “recovered” from the virus and found the post-vaccine symptoms worse than the disease had produced.

My favorite rationalization for the Yankees outbreak was they got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is not as effective as alternatives.

This Yankees news has come out against a continuing backdrop of COVID-19 mania despite conflicting facts.

A porky Wisconsin school teacher lectured an unmasked student, calling him a jerk in a scene that of course was captured on video and posted on social media. Said teacher is cooling her heels on administrative leave – no doubt with pay.

But wait, the student claimed to be fully vaccinated and the teacher didn’t care. The student still could infect others, she screeched.

Didn’t she listen when our figurehead president Joe Biden proclaimed that the vaccinated no longer had to wear face diapers, an act of contrition now reserved for those refusing to surrender to the jab?

There was an insert in the teacher story showing a social media post from a virtue signaling young twit noting that he wears a mask outside even though he’s been vaccinated just to be sure he’s not mistaken for – horrors – a conservative.

No problem, twit. Similarly, you never will be mistaken for an independent thinker or someone no longer needing mommy’s help wiping your butt.

The party line being preached is vaccines are great, and those who chose not to get the jabs are Neanderthals. Except, super bureaucrat Dr. Anthony Fauci, the guy who makes more in salary than any other federal government employee, including the president, had to admit to a dirty secret.

Testifying before the U.S. Senate, old One Mask Is Never Enough Fauci had to concede that about 40 percent of his staff at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases had not been vaccinated. Similar percentages were reported for people at the Food and Drug Administration and the Marine Corps.

It is estimated that maybe one-third of the general population in the United States has been vaccinated. And yet, according to a report from the Human Mortality Database, deaths in the United States are down to pre-COVID levels.

An interesting side note to that report was that as much as one-third of the so-called “excess deaths” during the COVID-19 lockdowns were due to untreated medical conditions (owing largely to the lockdowns) as well as increased drug overdoses, suicides or murders.

This drop in the overall death total was not supposed to happen until 70 percent or more of the population had been vaccinated.

Could it be that cutting back on the lockdowns and forced isolation has helped as much as vaccines?

The message of this report will be lost on the must-vaccinate crowd, whose blind evangelism is scary to behold. They cannot be expected to let the facts get in the way of advancing their cult of control.

This doesn’t mean that you need to join them just to fit in.

Nazis on trial at Nuremberg after World War II often fell back on the “just following orders” rationalization, which has come to be called the Nuremberg defense in their honor, or dishonor as it were.

I mention this because I’ve had it up to here (imagine me holding my left hand about a foot or so above my head) with the quacks who have hamstrung our economy and society with draconian measures to combat COVID-19, all the time justifying it by saying they were “just following the science.”

First off, “science” is a dynamic pursuit that is rife with failed assumptions as well as those eventually proven correct. To take an early read on a situation and pronounce it settled science is akin to proclaiming the winner of a baseball game in the first inning.

At the very least the “just following science” evangelists ought to be willing to admit when they are proven to have been flat-out wrong; to have over-reacted and caused greater harm with their remedies than the disease itself would have produced.

Check out the surges in domestic assaults, suicides, drug overdoses and other categories that have occurred alongside of virus lockdowns.

My motivation for this screed comes from an acquaintance who went to the local hospital’s emergency room this week. He’d been feeling ill, ordered one of those home test kits and came up positive for COVID-19, putting himself in self-quarantine after the positive reading.

But, when his symptoms worsened after several days, he thought discretion was the better part of valor and he headed to the hospital. During his stay at the ER he was shuttled into treatment areas and back into the general waiting room numerous times.

He had arrived at the hospital wearing a mask and never was given a new example. And, as far as he was able to determine, he never was tested for the virus by the hospital. Instead, it seemed the people there were willing to accept the test he’d gotten online from WalMart.

And I ask, what happened to the science?

We were preached at incessantly through the early pandemic panic months that we should wear masks, but change them at least daily. More recently we’ve been told if wearing one mask is good, then having two, three or more swaddling your face simultaneously is even better.

We also were told that, once infected, we should quarantine ourselves and avoid common areas or close contact.

Hell, even the uninfected have been pummeled with warnings to employ social distancing, thus empowering a new class of petty dictators manning cash registers, fast-food counters or any other customer service interface.

We were lectured incessantly about personal hygiene, and having concern for the health of others.

To question any of this, or other drastic mandates, was to be branded a denier of science.

In view of all that, I’m struggling to understand how it’s a good thing to be sending a COVID-19 positive patient into a waiting area – repeatedly – to mingle with other customers (I guess I mean patients, but customers is more apt since this particular ER formerly and possibly presently, has a billing goal daily just like a salesman’s quota).

But, wait, today the New York Times, newly emboldened to be a teller of unpleasant truths because its favored regime team holds the nation’s executive office, came out with a story critiquing the Centers for Disease Control for disseminating the assertion that “less than 10 percent” of COVID-19 transmission occurs outdoors.

The newspaper, whose slogan through the years has gone from “All the news that’s fit to print,” to “All the news that fits our agenda we print,” noted the actual number of outdoor transmissions likely is less than one percent. So, while less than 10 percent technically is accurate, it’s sloppy statistical science, likely designed to scare the sheep among us.

Let’s face it, less than 10 percent sounds a whole lot worse than less than one percent.

The Times went so far as to assert there is not a single documented case worldwide of transmission of COVID-19 from casual outdoor contact such as walking past an individual or eating at a nearby table.

Using less than 10 percent where less than 1 percent is accurate sure sounds more like propaganda than science to me.

Surprisingly, the New York Times agrees.

More media supporters of those using this virus outbreak to seize control of our daily lives would do well to think twice before accepting half-baked presentations as settled science and pontificating to the masses based on the pseudo-science.

The public seems to be coming around to my way of thinking, too. Enough is enough with the inaccurate and hypocritical virtue signaling that is part and parcel of “just following the science.”

During web browsing today my eyes were assaulted yet again by the twin media propaganda efforts of dramatizing shootings without context and another favorite, promoting the campaign to hamstring law enforcement by pulling shut the purse strings.

In a perverse way, those who would seek to move forward their agendas based on these events love to cherry pick their examples.

Particularly clear on the subject of police defunding is the attempt to paint the issue as a racial demand, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Let us begin with gunfire. In recent days we’ve had extensive national coverage of shootings in New York City (Times Square) and Colorado Springs.

Three people, all reported bystanders, were shot in the New York City incident Saturday, including a four-year-old girl, but all are said to have non life-threatening injuries. The alleged shooter is black. He reportedly was trying to shoot his brother during an argument.

On Sunday, a man, his race yet to be reported widely, shot and killed six people at a birthday party in Colorado Springs, then killed himself. It’s unarguably tragic; a horrible addition to a weekend of violence.

But even as these incidents in New York City and Colorado Springs were occurring Saturday and Sunday, Chicago had yet another violent weekend that somehow slipped beneath the radar of the national news.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, five people were killed and 21 wounded in shootings across Chicago over the weekend. A search of CNN.com found no reference to those Chicago numbers.

But there were plenty of CNN stories from Colorado and even a wrapup of various mass shootings from around the nation this past weekend that didn’t even mention Chicago.

CNN’s explanation for this no doubt would be that the wrapup story was of mass shootings, an arbitrary statistic that requires a total of four people killed or injured in one incident. I’m thinking that five dead and 21 shot in a city in one weekend is notable, no matter your cutoff line.

A cynic might argue that a report of a child being wounded in New York City, or adults being killed in front of children at a birthday party, paints a much stronger psychological image when you’re trying to get guns taken away from the law-abiding masses, as CNN and others like it are.

But regardless of how you come down on the matter of gun confiscation, these reports of widespread violence and killings are not the stuff of a backdrop that suggests a need for less police presence.

And yet, right on cue, a column from The New Yorker showed up as a promo today with the headline: “The Emerging Movement For Police And Prison Abolition.”

Again, this is an issue long on alleged racism, as in blacks can’t trust police to be even-handed with them and so police should not exist and ostensibly we should be left to fend for ourselves.

Does anyone in their right mind think fewer police would result in less crime?

But the issue goes beyond that. An August 2020 Gallup poll found that 81 percent of black Americans questioned wanted as much (61 percent) or more (20 percent) police presence in their communities.

These often are the people who have to deal with neighborhood violence firsthand, not merely use it to make anarchistic, left-wing radical arguments. They’re black and they welcome police in their neighborhoods doing their jobs.

More recently, a March 2021 USA Today/Ipsos poll found that only 18 percent of the population at large supported the “defund the police” movement while just 28 percent of black respondents backed that plan.

So why do national media outlets, most notably cable news propaganda outlets, continue to treat this as though it is a popular solution, particularly among the black population?

And what can be done about that distortion?

First of all, people who don’t back defunding the police need to become more vocal, more visible, more in-your-face with those who do want law enforcement reduced or eliminated.

The police also could give the idiots among us a graphic lesson, merely by withholding services. To make it effective – to give all criminals ample notice to plan ahead for cop-less carnage – announce the dates in advance.

Nationwide, for one week, or more, all police could succumb to the blue flu and fail to show up for work. If it’s too hard to organize nationally – shouldn’t be the case in these days of electronic communities – make it by city, county or state.

I’m thinking that after that hellish week we might expect the passive supporters of the police to become much more high-profile, and those ridiculous morons who posit eliminating police as the answer to our societal ills just might be forced back into their caves.

What a wonderful sight that would be, on both counts.

As a young man I wondered what it would be like to live in what then was known as a third-world country and now is called an underdeveloped nation.

Well, I’ve gotten my wish without even needing to cross the border.

The United States circa 2021 is quickly devolving into third-world status.

Stay tuned for the effect that the cyber attack on the nation’s largest gasoline pipeline will have in coming days, possibly with higher prices, limited availability, or both. Yes, I made a special trip and filled the wife’s car today, at 3.09.9 a gallon.

Who knows how long gasoline will continue to be readily available?

By now we should be getting used to shortages in this former land of plenty.

Recall the run on toilet paper, paper towels, baby wipes, disposable diapers, disinfectant and some foods when the COVID-19 scare first reached critical mass.

Even now canned vegetables or soups are hard to find, or limited in quantity at area stores.

Hunters, or people who shoot targets for fun, have been experiencing across-the-board shortages of ammunition or weapons for about a year. A few years before, we got a preview when formerly ubiquitous .22 long rifle ammunition disappeared for a time.

The .22 LR boxes came back for a short while, but now ammo of all types is virtual unobtainium. Go to a gun store, or a sporting goods outlet and you will know the ammo section by its denuded shelves, sort of like the toilet paper aisle a few months back.

Automobiles, appliances, all manner of goods with even the slightest reliance on electronic brains, also are in limited supply due to a shortage of microchips.

Building supplies are hard to come by and cost multiples of their prices from a year back if you can find them.

We are being turned into modern day examples of the shoppers in the former Soviet-bloc countries, who rushed to stores and stood in massive lines when word got out that there might be meat in the freezers, or other staples available that we in this country used to take for granted.

These days, if I decide I need something, I rush to buy it when it is available lest it disappear with ammo and other items ranging from deodorant, to espresso makers and sofas. Sometimes I buy a spare, just in case.

This is the psychology that feeds frenzies and leads to shortages. But in classic game theory, you want to be the first to defect (panic) from an agreement, in this case the social agreement to buy only what you reasonably need for use in the near future.

While evidence of our country’s decline to backward levels is coming fast and furious these days, the signs have been there for years. My brother used to joke, sardonically, when his electricity would go out very often that he now knew what it was like to live in Baghdad.

Our electrical grid could be the next catastrophic failure, with the blame likely to be placed on a cyber attack. Our roads and bridges and various other infrastructure are in generally terrible shape, but hackers can’t be blamed for that sad state.

Inflation is rising well beyond what the government will admit, another third-world sign.

Unemployment is high, but we’re told all is well.

Our government, using COVID-19 for a rationale, is looking to restrict movements of people and track individuals.

The governmental intelligence agencies are spying without justification, or legal authority, on the domestic population.

Our election integrity is virtually non-existent.

Our supply chains are fragile and suffering disruptions.

It’s not all Joe Biden’s fault, but he’s accelerating the collapse with his feeble-minded agenda.

The stereotypical request of the Great Depression was “Brother, can you spare a dime?” Our update for these times might be: “Brother, can you spare a roll (toilet paper), a gallon (gasoline) or a bullet (any caliber)?”

I admit that I am not an economist, even though I did take a few economics courses in college.

More to the point, one needn’t be a credentialed economist, but merely a student of human nature, to understand the impact of incentives, and disincentives, on job seekers.

This was evident today as the the Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with its monthly number of jobs created and it fell far short of optimistic expectations of two million jobs. The report also was well below the consensus number of one million, and below even conservative expectations of 800,000 (just two of 79 forecasters had predictions below that 800,000 estimate).

Instead, the BLS (an acronym that some cynics suggest could be shortened to BS) announced just 266,000 new jobs. It’s worse than that raw number would suggest.

The miss was the worst since 1998 and the total jobs gain can be credited to service/entertainment jobs such as waiters and card dealers.

So, what happened? Stimulus.

When you pay people not to work, many do just that. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was out today imploring the Harris-Biden regime to stop the handouts, which are incentivizing people not to work.

Even a Federal Reserve official Neel Kashkari, conceded that the generous unemployment handouts and other stimulus measures loosely linked to COVID-19 relief are keeping workers at home playing video games rather than reporting to the workplace.

But rest assured, the pay-not-to-work agenda will continue.

Kashkari, as might be expected, ignored the obvious as provided by the BLS numbers and instead rationalized that the government largess should and must continue because the economy is not humming away at pre-virus levels.

Anecdotal evidence that people are and have been willing to take the government money in lieu of working has been readily available in news media reports of various would-be employers begging workers to take jobs.

You probably know someone – family, friends, neighbors – sitting at home until the gravy train ends. Then, they presume, they still will be able to find work. But in the interim they will have enjoyed a months-long, if not longer, vacation.

I repeat what I’ve written previously. This is human nature and it is why socialist and communist experiments all die a slow, inevitable death. Given the choice of being productive, or merely benefiting from the fruits of the labor of others, too many citizens opt for the free ride.

Today’s BLS report confirms that economic reality, although it will be ignored, as usual.