Elon Musk is acting out just like some of the mentally challenged individuals I used to deal with during a brief experience working at group homes, Democrats are screaming about the end of democracy, and Republicans are rushing to social media with threats to torpedo it all hoping to raise their profiles in the pathetic pursuit of beat-me-bore-me-but-never-ignore-me existences.

All this because the Senate, with a tiebreaking vote from vice-president JD Vance, has passed President Donald Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill and sent it back to the House for approval of their changes.

Optimists see Trump able to vote on the thing by his July 4 target date. Don’t hold your breath, but we can dream.

This has been a fitting sendoff to Gay Pride Month and the embarking on what the Federal Trade Commission has declared to be Made in the USA month.

Now, if the childish Republicans in the House can just swallow their pride and special interests, we could be on the path to resurrecting this country economically.

Let me state up front, there is much that I have learned is in this legislation that I don’t like. That, my friends, is part of the sausage-making of Congress.

The special carveouts (bribes) to confused Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski (last heard making threats of turning Independent) in order to secure her vote, make me ill.

Other aspects are not desirable. And I’m sure there is much in this bill of which I am yet aware, but won’t necessarily like.

All that being said, this is the nation’s last, best chance to turn around our fiscal decline.

It’s been said before, but bears repeating here, our path of borrowing trillions of dollars to pay our bills is not sustainable.

Trump, as a businessman, understands that. He also knows that when you inherit a debt-ridden operation, through the fault of Republicans and Democrats alike, the only way to solve the problem is through growth. That or admit to bankruptcy.

Because of the way our government spending is structured, as Musk and his DOGE boys have found out, it’s very tough to cut existing spending. Now that the Supreme Court has neutered all the over-reaching low-level federal judges, that task might be less arduous. It remains difficult, however.

Cutting is tough, and won’t solve the problem considering how much of the federal government is untouchable mandated spending.

What the U.S. needs is growth. Make the pie bigger and the debt problem can be eased, if not solved entirely.

But, but, but, the hyperventilating critics scream, this bill increases the debt.

On the face of it, using static analysis, yes.

This is the sort of short-sighted thinking that got us into this problem in the first place. Simply put, you need to spend money to make – or save – money.

Trump’s plan is multi-faceted. He’s gotten immigration under control, has acted boldly militarily, and he is working on evening up the playing field for international trade. If foreign lands put punitive tariffs or other restrictions on us, Trump fires back.

Spoiler alert: Our trading partners don’t like that plan.

So, perhaps they agree to a new slate of trade rules. If not, they pay the price through tariffs, which flow directly to our fiscal bottom line. If our companies see their foreign trade increase because of more fair trade regulations, they make more money, pay more taxes and, yes, the Feds get more revenue.

Part of Trump’s tariff goal is to return manufacturing to the U.S. Another aspect is to keep in place tax cuts, so that lower-income people and corporations alike have more net income.

Ronald Reagan proved that lowering taxe rates can increase tax revenues as companies feel motivated to produce more.

Throw in deregulating these companies, freeing them from ridiculously onerous and burdensome governmental red tape, and that also tends to produce more economic activity and more tax revenue.

This is not a pick-and-choose situation. Trump needs this Big, Beautiful Bill to pass to get the economic stimulus needed to grow the economy and put a dent in the deficit.

It’s like the nation is a new business starting out, needing to spend money to keep things going until the plan gains full speed and more than pays for itself.

Should Trump’s bill fail in Congress, this nation, with its stock markets at all-time highs in anticipation of success, will experience dark days.

We will be like the stereotypical elderly women in those “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” commercials.

The difference is this nation has no call button hanging from its neck to push in order to summon help. We either help ourselves – are you listening, Congress? – or we fail.

The ball is in your court, you petty, special-interest, short-sighted House RINOs. Try not to fail us, again.

It was a weekend of shame for our maple syrup swilling neighbors up north.

Globalist Prime Minister Mark Carney blinked in a showdown with President Trump, calling off the digital services tax set to begin being collected Monday, retroactive to 2022. Talk about taxation without representation, Canada planned a 3 percent grift of American tech giants such as Apple, Google and Meta.

Trump, in his Trumpian style, said no soup for you, as in no trade talks, and get ready to pay some HUUUUGE tariffs.

Carney did his tent-folding-in-a-high wind impression, and said just kidding. Carney and Iran’s Ayatollah must have the same advisers.

Why globalist types keep pushing Trump and then give up when he fires back amazes me. Do they really expect him to blink first?

Not likely,

To all the people pushing the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) narrative, you might want to buy a vowel and make it TOACO (Trump Opponents Always Chicken Out).

While Carney was waving the white flag in economics, the Canada men’s national soccer team was puking away a game vs. heavy underdog Guatemala in the CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament.

That it occurred in Minneapolis/St. Paul, home of bizarre politicians and burgeoning immigrant populations, was somehow fitting.

Leftists have caused me to view all things through a racial lens, so I noted that at one point in the second half, at least 7 of the 10 players on the field for Canada appeared to be something other than Caucasian (there were only 10 players because Canada was forced to play a man short after one of their group kept playing out of control and was shown the door).

I checked some census data and found about 4 percent of Canada’s residents are black and three percent or so are Hispanic. Yet 70 percent of this on-field group seemed to be non-white.

A story a few years old, about Canada’s World Cup team in 2022, proudly proclaimed the presence on the national roster of players born in other countries, including one defender “born in England, with Nigerian lineage.”

Despite all the current imports, Canada blew a 1-0 lead Sunday and lost on penalty kicks, failing to advance to the semfinals when many had pegged this international assemblage as a favorite in the Gold Cup.

The choke was made all that much sweeter because earlier this year the Canada coach Jesse Marsch (an American, not a Canadian) made a public spectacle of himself pandering to his employer nation by proclaiming his shame at President Trump speaking of Canada as our 51^st state.

Yo, Jesse, Trump mostly is kidding, but to make a legitimate point – Canada needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs Canada.

If you doubt that, see the quick cave by Carney when push came to shove on the digital tax.

And, to the people talking about Canada’s military might, the country has a reported 79 fighter jets. We have about that many fighters on a single aircraft carrier. I’m pretty sure Canada has no B2 bombers, either.

Whiny Marsch justified the embarrasing loss to Guatemala by noting many Canada players (mostly with non-Canadian sounding names) were missing due to injury and the like.

Well, the U.S. team, traditionally an underperforming bunch, has somehow managed to advance to the semifinals of this competition despite missing probably its top five players, guys who opted out because they were too tired from their club seasons and needed a break. Poor babies.

The Costa Rica team that succumbed to the U.S. in penalty kicks during the Sunday match, was missing four or five of its top players due to injuries and suspensions.

Marsch and Carney have a lot of spare time now, so they can meet up in Ottawa for a whine and cheese party later this week, during which they can decry what a mean guy Trump is, and how Canada can’t seem to win big at soccer, even with a roster heavy on imported talent.

Canada just might be better off as a 51^st state.

Sometimes it is healthy to step away from politics, both domestic and global, as well as debates involving issues economic and cultural.

This is to note that while I am well aware the United States Supreme Court struck a pair of blows for common sense Friday, first by rapping the knuckles of radical leftist judges in lower level federal courts who have displayed a political urge to issue nationwide injunctions to hamstring President Donald Trump’s agenda.

No more of that.

And the Supremes (not the Diana Ross group) also showed great wisdom leavened with common sense in noting school districts cannot ram trans propaganda down the throats of elementary school children over protests of parents, who also happen to be taxpayers and the employers of the teachers.

Against this momentous backdrop, I choose to sing the praises of air-conditioning. Stick with me.

Although we’re getting a break from the heat wave, I have spent a lot of time in recent days going steady with the air-conditioning units in my home. When I strayed from that and mowed the lawn a couple of days back, I came back inside looking like I’d been hit with a fire hose and quickly – after showering – camped out in the cool stream of an AC window unit.

It’s quite a departure for me, a guy who once thought air-conditioning was an unnecessary extravagance.

Younger people might find this incredible, but back in the day, cars didn’t necessarily come with air-conditioning. It was an option, a relatively expensive one, costing hundreds of dollars back in the mid-1970s, when the average cost of a new car was maybe $4,000.

My family bought a lot of used cars and almost never did they boast air-conditioning. Our “air” came from cranking down the car windows (no power windows on our low-buck cars) or riding in the back of one of my dad’s pickup trucks. That’s not the rear seat of a crew cab, but rather riding in the bed of the truck.

I know, dangerous. Yet my brother and I have survived.

Having air-conditioning in the house was similarly rare.

As a result, air-conditioning used to be a selling point for movie theaters, bars, restaurants and other businesses, who advertised the chance to beat the heat by coming inside to spend both time and money.

The newsroom of the Johnstown Woke Gazette was air-conditioned when I worked there and it was appreciated. That also provided comic relief in later years when the AC failed and massive fans with blades approximately the size of the propellers on B-17 bombers of World War II vintage were wheeled in, not for the comfort of the staff, but to keep the computers cool.

There were no computers being used, just manual typewriters, when I first began working there in 1974 and I wondered whether we’d have seen the fans brought in for our comfort back then. Probably not.

When one works in an an air-conditioned office, there is a constant fight to control the thermostat. Women almost universally find anything under temperatures found in equatorial Africa to be uncomfortably cold, and so rush to turn down the air. They can put on sweaters, or even coats to fight the cold, but they disdain those individual options, preferring to make all people operating with normal internal thermostats uncomfortable.

Thankfully, my wife is the outlier on this. She likes AC and even has the temperature low enough in our bedroom that I’ve slept under a comforter, even in the midst of this heat wave.

Almost all my current fleet of six vehicles are air-conditioned, save for the Corvette which had its AC taken out in the conversion of it to a hot rod, and my Jeep Cherokee, whose AC has stopped functioning, along with many other electrical features of the machine.

But, the vehicles I drive most often have killer AC. Earlier this week, while cruising top-down in my Mustang convertible, I had the AC blasting to provide comfort while stopped in traffic.

Once, I’d have laughed at such. No longer.

Now I love my AC and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

As I’ve told many friends and relatives in recent days, perhaps the most impressive aspect of Operation Midnight Hammer, when our B2 bombers dropped massive loads on Iranian nuclear facilities the past weekend, was that the public found out about it only after the fact.

In Washington, D.C., where too often there are sieve-like qualities to holders of classified information, it was amazing that no leftist staffer, or member of Congress, got the news and rushed to leak it to CNN or MSNBC.

The explanation for that is rather simple in retrospect. Donald Trump didn’t share with Congress or others with no need to know, realizing from past experience that they were not to be trusted.

This sparked typical outrage — calls for impeachment and allegations that Trump had acted unconstitutionally, mostly from the usual suspects in the Democrat party.

That would include Jazzy Crock Of It, who wanted Trump to give a “holler” to her and leftist buddies in advance so that she might give consent.

Crock Of It made a fool of herself, as usual.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 gives presidents the ability to send strikes into foreign lands as long as they tell Congress within 48 hours and don’t allow the forays to linger more than 60 days. Trump is good on both counts.

Democrats conveniently forget that luminaries from their party, including Slick Willy Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, relied on the act to allow their various military raids.

I had no problem with them at the time. And I have no problem with what Donald Trump did this time.

Those who do carp and moan only prove their ignorance, hypocrisy, or a combination of both.

AOC (Always Opposing Conservatives) also cited a social media post in which a war reference was made as potential grounds for impeachment. She should go back to hustling drinks for tips as a bartender, or supporting Marxist Muslims for NYC mayor.

Wars, to be official, need a declaration. We have wars on drugs, wars on inflation, wars on terror, without official declaration. War often is a verbal device meant to imply dedication to winning the cause.

The United States has been fighting undeclared military wars for about 75 years. My late father, who served in what has come to be known as the Korean War of the early 1950s, took great pleasure in correcting me every time I said “Korean War.”

It was, he would tell me, “ A police action.”

Technically, he was correct. UN Police Action was the term ginned up by President Harry Truman to get around the need for a Congressional Declaration of War so close on the heels of World War II. I would presume the 50,000-plus service members who died fighting in Korea, or their family members, do not necessarily appreciate the distinction.

Fast-forward to today and the leftist LameStream media was caught with its notebooks down regarding Operation Midnight Hammer.

Their response has been to find leakers to question the effectiveness of the raid. I have read reports that the very same bimbo who pushed the false claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, was the CNN hack who claimed the raids didn’t work.

Credibility? Yeah, right.

When experts from various sides noted that the sites had been effectively destroyed, the LameStream types pivoted to saying the Iranians already had removed their enriched uranium from the sites pre-bombing.

Trump has taken to Truth Social to deny that one. Lesser sources say he is wrong and about 800 pounds of 60-percent uranium is floating around somewhere, perhaps in Iran

To borrow from the late astronomer Carl Sagan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Trump can point to aerial images indicating those bombers did, as advertised, drop massive explosive devices down ventilation shafts. And we have tested these bombs to know what sort of damage that would produce.

So, the ball is in your court, skeptics. Produce details of where the enriched uranium is, and how it got there. Or just STFU.

And, even if you can provide specifics, which I doubt, understand that if you know, then so does Israeli intelligence, which planned this entire event for months if not years right under the Ayatollah’s hairy chin.

If Israeli intelligence knows of such a tranfer of uranium, it will be dealt with by them.

And, for the MAGA types who went rogue opposing Trump, we already have a ceasefire that seems to be holding with some late Trump tongue-lashing. No forever war here, you critics.

Trump also was able to stop fighting between India and Pakistan, two countries who do have nucleear weapons. He’s gotten promises from most NATO slackers to start paying more for their own defense. He’s closed our porous border and, despite the best efforts of leftist judges and government officials, is deporting illegals.

If Republicans in Congress can get Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill passed into law, his tariff plan will have the domestic component needed to make it part of a total revitalization of America

But, keep diminishing the man, LameStream media. It only serves to accelerate your descent to the bottom in terms of credibility.

It was a common feature during my younger years to have women abused by their spouses blaming themselves for it all.

In real life, and often in television shows borrowing from real life, the stereotypical scene showed a crying woman, perhaps with a black eye or bruises, explaining to police they shouldn’t take her abusive husband off to jail because she’d done something to make him mad, provoked the attack, and so she was to blame.

Yes, it was ridiculous. So were ads with doctors promoting smoking, lawn dart toys for kids and similar absurdities. In retrospect, it all is hard to understand. At the time, it was everyday life.

Fast-forward to the present and the LameStream media has incorporated victim shaming as a main aspect of its news coverage.

Consider the weekend bombing strikes against Iran. Rational people – patriots — celebrated the derailing of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The dust barely had settled – literally – when I read one hysterical report that now Russia and China and perhaps North Korea were rushing to give nuclear warheads to Iran. This point of view, that Israel and the United State had gone and done it, angering Iran, and so deserve whatever they get, was being pushed by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. There was no shortage of outlets willing to run with the story.

These are the usual suspects that proclaim wildly whenever Donald Trump or some other western source eliminates a terrorist chief, that it won’t play well with the so-called Arab Street and thus provoke more terrorism.

That this flies in the face of experience doesn’t slow their roll. It’s all about fearmongering.

There are some atypical news outlets today proclaiming that Medvedev’s threats are merely so much blather, for reasons both technical and practical. Kudos to them.

Other outlets, though, point the finger at Trump for kicking a hornet’s nest. Anything that happens now, anywhere and for any reason, blame Trump.

Democrats are screaming “unconstitutional,” “impeachment,” “threat to democracy” as you would expect from their intellectually bankrupt ranks.

Gavin Newsom took a break from pumping gel into his hair to wonder aloud about threats to California that might arise from Trump’s decisiveness.

Gavin and LA Mayor Karen “Rhymes With Ass” Bass have been exhibiting crossed wires in their craniums for some time. Bass, like Nero, watched from afar as Los Angeles burned. Then, she and Newsom blamed law enforcment, particulary ICE, for riots protesting law enforcement.

People in the country illegally, being supported by protesters doing physical harm to people and damage to property, is to be excused because meanie Trump, to borrow from the vernacular of the abused wife, made them mad by enforcing the law.

Don’t expect the left, be it in government or media, to change tactics on their own and adopt sanity. It’s up to you to dismiss out of hand the utter garbage they spew — change the channel or vote for the opposition.

That’s the only reality they seem to understand.

Talk about a bizarre world, the latest example being reaction to President Trump giving the go-ahead for what early reports indicate was a successful bombing mission on Iran nuclear facilities Saturday night.

Splinter factions of MAGA reportedly took to social media to lament it all, even as Democrat Senator John Fetterman said Trump did the right thing. Maybe the disaffected MAGA minority can run and find a judge to order the planes back. Oh, wait, too late.

Once again, Trump has our enemies living my favorite acronym, FAFO (Fxxx(ool) Around, Find Out).

I learned leading up to the most recent presidential election that watching Real America’s Voice was the best option for conservative news coverage. While outlets such as FoxNews give their A teams weekends off, and copious nights off during the week, the top people at Real America’s Voice work weekends when their spidey senses tell them there is news to cover.

That is why, when I saw Steve Bannon was broadcasting Saturday evening, I tuned in and watched it all unfold.

The Trump administration provided a master class in misdirection. Yes, he came back to the White House earlier than expected Saturday, but gave no audience to the media and the White House media spokespeople declared an early lid, as in go home, nothing more tonight.

As an aside, the Marine One helicopter landed easily on the White House lawn, despite speculation I’d read from some Trump critics that his newly installed, towering flag poles, made that sketchy if not entirely impossible.

This sort of snarky commentary is why Trump has been known to note that if he walked on water tomorrow, critics would lead with the headline: Trump Can’t Swim.

Many of the talking heads on Real America’s Voice and elsewhere continued to debate the wisdom of potentially bombing the nuclear facilities after the media lid was declared, and even as the mission already was covertly underway.

Around 8 p.m., Trump took to his Truth Social to report the raid, declare it a success, and push for peace.

Pity all the media morons who had another TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) broadside ready if his self-declared two-week window to come to a decision on the bombing expired without action.

Trump should make video shots of the bombed-out areas as famous as his mugshot. TACO, indeed.

Iran’s leadership is nothing if not consistent – in being maniacally misguided, that is. Even with the country imploding around him, the ayatollah was refusing to negotiate, refusing to surrender and refusing to embrace reality.

Expect Iran to strike back, in typically gutless fashion with terror attacks. Expect Trump to punish them further if and when they do that.

Also expect a chorus of fears to be expressed that we’re locking ourselves into a forever war. We are not. Trump has no intent on doing that and I trust him. I expect his address scheduled for 10 p.m. tonight to stress this was our military contribution to the cause, other than helping shoot down Iran missiles raining down on Israel.

The strike on the nuclear facilities was necessary, arguably overdue, and something Israel could not handle on its own. Give the Israelis high marks for preparing the battlefield, taking away anti-aircraft protection so that our B2 bombers could fly with impunity and deliver their mammoth munitions load.

We’re not trying to conquer and hold Iran. We’re not looking to nation build, as fools from both political parties have tried in the past.

Instead, we punished a country run by a cadre of religious zealots whose favorite pastime is chanting Death to the United States, after saying the same about Israel.

On that note, some fool guest on one LameStream media outlet was noting the past week that even because we hear this sort of stuff from Iran, it doesn’t mean Iran hates us or Israel. Such is the delusion of the political left.

Allow me to repeat, this bombing had to be done, to erase years of previous administrations being asleep at the switch. I expect the world to experience long-term benefit from it, albeit recognizing that there could be some interim blowback from Iran-funded terrorists.

Trump did the right thing, and I’m not just saying that as a guy who bought precious metals and an oil stock this week anticipating this very event.

Back in the day, when I wrote for my daily bread, I created the Answer Man column format, in which I not only answered questions, I asked them of myself.

Cutting out the middle man uncomplicated things.

In those days, I’d come up with names for the questioners and hometowns, all intended to further the theme. Today, we dispense with those details and just have questions and answers, denoted by Q and A, respectively. Call me lazy.

Q: What do Canada and Iran have in common today?

A: No, not that each would have better prospects as our 51^st state. The correct answer is an NHL francise based in either country once again failed to win the Stanley Cup. To be fair, Iran has no NHL franchises. But Canada doesn’t have that excuse, hosting teams in Montreal, Toronto. Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. That’s seven by my count, yet, Oh, Canada!, the last Canada-based team to win the Cup was Montreal in 1993. Just going by the math, a Canada-based team should win about every fourth year. And, yes, I know an abundance of NHL players are Canadian, but the captain of the repeat champion Florida Panthers is a Finn, their most high-profile player is an American and their super goalie is Russian. Now, all those butt-hurt Canada hockey fans can take a break from booing our National Anthem before games and stress chug some maple syrup.

Q: Have you seen any pictures from Huma Abedin’s wedding with Mini-Me Soros?

A: I have and many thoughts spring to mind. Abedin looks positively anorexic. If she and Letitia James jumped on a scale together and you divided the total by two, you’d have a pair of individuals of fairly normal weight. I mean, James looks like she could inhale Abdein without needing to burp. Beyond the starvation look, Abedin and the new hubby looked classic Living Dead. Mini-Me’s oversized glasses and ashen skin tone made him appear to be an albino Urkel. Nice to see Huma was able to snag a leftist billionaire after all that unfortunate stuff with first husband, the appropriately named, Anthony Weiner.

Q: What is your definition of America First?

A: Whatever President Trump wants it to be. I have no problems possibly giving Israel a hand delivering a bunker buster bomb to the Stanley Cup-less Iranians. And, for those hyperventilating about our nation once again being sucked into a multi-year Middle East war, relax and calm yourselves by viewing wedding photos of Abedin and Soros.

Q: What are your thoughts on attention seekers Alex Padilla and Whoopi Goldberg?

A: They’d be a match made in delusional hyperbole Heaven. Padilla thinks one can storm the speaker at a press conference and not expect retribution. I didn’t know he was a U.S. Senator, and apparently neither did the security people. But that is beside the point. I attended a lot of press conferences in my working days and never expected to be able to act that way without consequences. As for Whoopi and all the others equating life in these United States with everyday existence in Iran, please buy a one-way ticket and self-deport there. Just be careful with the bumper-to-bumper traffic streaming out of Tehran.

Someone should hand Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell a copy of the play “Waiting for Godot,” something to occupy his time as Powell continues his vigil of inflation anticipation, using that as an excuse for not reducing short-term interest rates. Spoiler alert, Jerome, Godot never arrives.

This is not to say that inflation never again will dog this nation. We’re just one free-spending Democrat president and Democrat-controlled House away from that. What I am saying is that the supposedly apolitical Powell is a bundle of apparent political conflict.

Allow me to remind you that last September, with President Trump coming on strong to retake the presidency, Powell rushed to cut interest rates 50 basis points (one-half a percentage rate, say from 5 percent to 4.5) ahead of the November election. This came despite many analysts predicting he would do no such thing because he might appear political that close to an election.

People, Powell couldn’t seem any more political if his next step were to drop his pants and show you the D tattooed onto his skinny butt.

Skeptics sensed Powell was trying to breathe life into the stumbling campaign of Cackling Kamala. We’re reminded of the quip from former Pirates general manager Syd Thrift, who once volunteered of his mission, “It ain’t easy resurrecting the dead.”

It is further significant politically that Powell watched inflation numbers rise through the roof under Clueless Joe Biden, but was unwilling to raise interest rates to fight that.

This is why Trump calls him “Too Late” Powell.

Inflation for August 2024, the latest data Powell would have had when the September 2024 rate cut was made, was running at 2.5 percent. It’s a touch lower now, but Powell and his gang are standing fast and not reducing rates.

I almost gagged when Powell noted several times in his opening remarks Wednesday that he was doing this for us, the citizens of this great land. Gee, thanks, Jerome. Please, stop helping us.

It was interesting that the early questions in the press conference were all about tariffs, with one pointing out the widely feared upward impact on inflation from tariffs had yet to materialize. Another media type followed with a similar inquiry.

Powell tap-danced like Fred Astaire.

Ah, said Powell, but the threat of tariff-induced inflation is there. Funny, this is the same guy who says time and time again that he doesn’t want to anticipate and stresses he can only rely on the data. Well, that data shows inflation slowing and consumer activity and the job market stagnant to slightly declining.

Yet interest rates remain unchanged.

A cynic might think Powell is trying to tank the economy and, by extension, Trump’s agenda. Trump is, after all, a very vocal and public critic of Powell. Can’t wait to read Trump’s social media posts today regarding Powell and the Fed.

Danielle DiMartino Booth, a panelist on Fox Business News yesterday, part of a group convened to assess this latest Fed move – or lack thereof – came down hard on the Fed. She described Powell as “mean-spirited,” which brought a gasp from one of the typical Fed worshippers also on the panel.

Booth is correct. Powell is letting his partisanship interfere with his job, a common theme in the bureaucracy. And, despite his protestations about looking out for you, Powell is, in effect, sticking it to you by keeping your borrowing costs high while you pay his salary.

You should be so thankful.

We often hear people expressing fears of a civil war in this country. That ship has sailed. We already are in a civil war. Just look around.

Consider the past weekend, when Donald Trump angered the hate-America crowd by having the audacity to hold a parade in Washington, D.C., celebrating the 250^th birthday anniversary of our U.S. Army.

Many of my family have served in that Army and while they almost all no longer are with us, I’m sure they would have approved – unlike the select group of unhappy military veterans dredged up by left wing media to quote for a story about veterans feeling uncomfortable with the parade.

In advance of the event, the Army parade had been likened to a display of force one might see put on in Russia, or North Korea, or China. Instead, if you took the time to actually watch the festivities, it was a history lesson, timely since such history no longer seems be taught in schools.

Military bands, soldiers and equipment from various eras paraded with the announcer recounting snippets of information on each. I learned a lot and I’m sure I’m not alone.

It was a happy mood on the ground as far as I could tell from the televised coverage. But, don’t take my word for it. Fox replayed a clip Monday night of a triumvirate of dour-faced MSNBC types – including the disinJENuous one — admitting their anticipation of a dystopian, authoritarian event had been wrong. Imagine, if these leftist propagandists felt moved to concede their error, just how wrong they had been.

Meanwhile, in stark contrast to patriotism and normality, this was the weekend that oligarch leftists hiding behind the scenes funded No Kings protests around the country, neatly coinciding with ongoing riots in Los Angeles, where mayor Karen “Rhymes With Ass” Bass daily sides with the rioters against law enforcement.

I’ve read estimates that the military parade cost $25 to $45 million. I’ve read the No Kings funders in the shadows threw maybe $65 million into that supposed grassroots protest effort.

AstroTurfing the streets costs big.

It costs a lot of money to print all those signs, hand out expensive face shields and, in many cases, pay professional agitators to appear and gin up the brain-dead masses. Hell, they even advertised publicly for these rent-a-goons, such is their arrogance.

A neighbor told my wife she had the unfortunate experience of going to downtown Johnstown for another event the past weekend, unaware this was a minor outpost of No Kings tomfoolerly. She found the yelling, threatening and generally uncivil behavior so unsettling she had to retreat to a nearby food outlet, then come home early.

I can only imagine why people think it’s a good idea to encourage loose cannons to congregate, which is why I steered clear. Seeing footage of these protests around the nation makes one marvel that we have so many elderly hippies, pimply faced and pencil-necked youth short on common sense, and general malcontents ranging about in search of a place to vent their frustration at themselves for being wastes of oxygen.

These people will not change their minds and will not go away. This is the mission of their miserable existences. It’s all they’ve got.

Sure, you have a job, a family, religion, friends, purpose. They have ….. this.

The current Civil War has yet to progress to armies of uniformed combatants battling it out, and maybe it never will. But, it will get worse from here, with the traditional types moved to combat rising lawlessness being fostered by leftist politicians and judges.

Americans can be tolerant up to a point, then they tire of tolerance and resort to pragmatic solutions.

Stay tuned for that next step in this Civil War.

Before we go, I will concede that this nation does have more than its share of royalty. Ever hear of the Los Angeles (NHL) or Sacramento (NBA) Kings? Maybe you’ve spent money at Burger King or, in the interest of DEI, Dairy Queen?

I’m suspecting an outbreak of triskaidekaphobia – the irrational fear of 13 – today in Iran.

Friday the 13^th arrived with an onslaught of Israeli air attacks on Iran, designed to kill leadership and destroy uranium weapons facilities.

Early reports are that it all worked, spectacularly.

Late last night our time, early Friday 13^th in Iran, I watched coverage on cable news and cheered the pre-emptive strike designed to end Iran’s nuclear weaponry ambitions. Predictably, the usual suspects in the deranged Democrat fringe and their mouthpieces in LameStream media were not pleased and rushed to denounce Israel.

You’d expect nothing less from the people who support blindly criminals, illegal immigrants, Marxists, anarchists and generally anyone intent on ending western civilization.

This caused me to ponder what it might sound like if LameStream media and radical politicians decided to support Israel, applying the same metrics they use in covering up for scofflaws,

From a typical CNN host, Jake Tapped-out: Israel launched a mostly peaceful air attack on Iran, an act of righteous indignation over repeated attacks, both literal and figurative, Iran and its proxies have made on Israel for maybe the past 40 years. Israel was provoked and Trump, I mean, the ayatollah, forced the hand of the Israelis.

Typical Democrat politician guest on CNN: Iran is claiming violence, but I know violence when I see it. No one was killed. What? Some top Iranians were killed? Well, not that many. So, Israelis huddled in bomb shelters were having a little fun watching broadcasts of cars, missile launchers and uraniun enriching facilities burn. I repeat, it was all non-violent.

CNN host: But you must be upset that the Tel Aviv gay rights celebration scheduled for today has been canceled.

Hack politician: I think Israel canceled it out of an abundance of caution over what hateful things MAGA supporters might shout at the celebration. That, and the threat of Iranian missiles, and even debris from those intercepted, raining down on the rainbow warriors might not be desirable.

CNN host: Back to the mostly peaceful air raids, it certainly is justifiable when you are dealing with a modern version of Hitler and the Third Reich Nazis.

Hack politician: No doubt. They must be eradicated so the world is safe for normal people. By the way, did I mention I’m selling a book about the cognitive decline of Clueless Joe Biden while in office and just blowing the lid off the coverup by the White House. It’s available . . .

CNN host: I hate to cut you off, but I co-write all the after-the-fact scandal books. Plus, we have to go to breaking news. Taylor Swift and boy toy Travis Kelce attended Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight and the network broadcasts managed to slip in some game footage amidst gratuitious shots of the happy couple mugging for the cameras they obviously knew were monitoring their every move.

Hack politician: You know, Swift supported Kamala. I’m sure the dude did, too. Otherwise, he was going to be immortalized in another of those insipid breakup songs.

CNN host: Now, we go to national security correspondent Coyote Blitzed. Coyote?

Coyote: Yes, I just got off a call from Voldo . . . however you spell/pronounce it, Zelenskyy, who pleaded that we not forget his peoples’ struggles amidst this blatant Israeli attention ploy. He told me he fears the United States will ship all its spare munitions to Israel, leaving his rapidly diminishing army at the mercy of the Russian bear. He also said something unflattering about Jews I will not repeat here.

CNN host: Well, Ukraine does have a substantial Neo-Nazi population, so this should be expected. We have word that jubilant Israelis have taken to the streets. Let’s get a live report from there.

CNN field reporter: Yes, I’m here among thousands of mostly peaceful demonstrators, desirous of gaining the historic territory they feel they are owed. They are chanting “From the sea to the rivers,” which I take to mean they want control of land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

CNN host: Sounds fair to me. Yes, it would mean seizing portions of Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, but what’s fair is fair.

Hack politician: Remember, my book is available . . .

CNN host: Concerns have been expressed that Iran did not receive due legal process. Thoughts?

Hack politician: I hate to admit this, but Trump told them 60 days and this is day 61. Who do they think they are, illegal immigrants? Maybe we should write “Due process” on one of the bombs.

CNN host: That sounds like a reasonable compromise.

Hack politician: About that book . . .

CNN host: Sorry, our time is up. Back to coverage of Swift and the dude at the hockey game.