There is nothing inherently wrong with making a list, or even checking it twice, as Santa Claus does annually to separate the naughty from the nice.

I routinely cobble up to-do lists, shopping lists and wish lists. If the intent is not Machiavellian, there is no problem with lists.

However, when it’s bitter leftists making up lists of political enemies, for the purpose of punishing them, that is a different matter.

Some of the boobs on the left actually have taken to the airwaves to boast of such, or have posted on social media about their plans, or simply have used their jobs in mainstream media to promote hateful lists – without any restraint as it turns out.

These saps want to create a list so as to blacklist anyone who ever worked in the Trump administration or in the ongoing effort to determine the honesty of this presidential election.

Presumably, the dopes eventually will want to list for retribution the names of anyone who voted for Trump, which would be one long, long list, standing at 72 million plus currently, and growing.

The time is upon us for the conservative half of the country to start making lists, too. Begin with a list of web sites to stop supporting, specifically those who throw money at leftist causes or impose their fingers on the scales to alter public discourse.

Drop Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Substitute Mewe.com, Parler.com and Rumble.com. I already have signed up for Parler and Rumble and might be looking into Mewe soon.

The one-world government goons only have power over you if you cede it to them. Social media is their catchall method to control minds and, by extension, elections and public policy.

Is it worth it to cyber-brag by posting your family photos, or to tweet that you’re sitting on the couch doing nothing as usual to all your followers, when the downside is enriching leftist elite ownership that wouldn’t wipe their shoes on your prone bodies unless those bodies first were dipped in bleach?

I never have posted on Facebook, although I did briefly open an account this year to access the marketplace feature in pursuit of used Mustangs.

I threw in the towel when Zuck’s crew never allowed me to access the marketplace. Facebook didn’t provide answers to my inquiries, but users of Facebook told me I needed to establish “friends” and put up some posts and pictures so they knew I was a legitimate person.

This has nothing to do with Facebook trying to be conscientious. Instead, they want that information so they can merchandise me by selling my information to online advertising, or homing in on those I would correspond with so as to merchandise them, too.

Not being willing to play their game, I punted and canceled my account.

Similarly I’ve never posted on Twitter, which too often is the morons’ megaphone. I’ve been on Twitter to read tweets from people I respect, often their investing thoughts. But I see even on their threads that people interacting with them seem to have an inverse relationship between their knowledge and how much they have to say.

In other words, the idiots post a lot more than the thoughtful types.

This doesn’t even factor in the inequity of censorship by those who run the sites, which is skewed heavily toward silencing conservatives, but letting any far-left group have the freedom to post falsehoods, or hateful thoughts, without fear of being labeled as such.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions – yes, another list – will be to make a conscious effort to support conservative businesses in coming years. Intellectual honesty isn’t easy, but it is worth the effort.

I was struck by a recent Peter Grandich investment podcast on Kitco.com in which he spoke of shutting down his business of providing money management advice for professional athletes because he found it conflicted with his Catholic faith and the support of pro sports of such anarchist organizations as Black Lives Matter.

It’s time this nation discovered those on the right can take stands, too. It starts with each individual making the effort on the road toward achieving critical mass.

This is Veteran’s Day and vets such as my late father and three deceased uncles would be horrified at what has transpired in this nation, whose way of life they fought to preserve.

The uncles served in World War II, in the European and Pacific theaters, and fortunately all returned to live out their lives as civilians. My father fought in Korea and came home unscathed.

Too many others were not as lucky.

Imagine their surprise, were they alive, to see massive voting irregularities that are being swept under the rug by the allegedly victorious Biden campaign, not to mention the media types who serve as the Democratic party’s public relations organs.

The New York Times, with its revamped slogan of “All the News That Fits Our Agenda, We Print,” came out yesterday with a headline that proclaimed “No Evidence of Voter Fraud.” Of course, they backed that off in the body of the story, downgrading to no evidence of massive fraud that changed the outcome.

Yet tonight’s Tucker Carlson show on Fox ran a lengthy list of names of deceased people who had voted in this election. This is evidence of election fraud and unless the New York Times can prove Carlson wrong, then a retraction of the headline is in order.

This is an old tabloid journalism trick, that the Times once was above, that being to write an incendiary headline that the story doesn’t support. Generic example: “Does chewing gum cause cancer? See Page 7” Then you turn to Page 7 and find no, it doesn’t.

As for meaningful evidence of election-changing fraud, in some of these states with extremely close vote totals it really wouldn’t take many dead voters state-wide to make a difference.

And that doesn’t even address the apparent rampant bastardization of the mail-in votes. I want to know who legitimately won this election, not whose organization could best manipulate the vote by altering counts or submitting hordes of invalid votes.

To repeat, is it mere coincidence that Republican poll watchers were banned from doing their jobs, most notably in Philadelphia? Is it mere coincidence that this was done in a Liberal stronghold, but our Left-leaning Lamestreet Media sees no problem?

Reverse the roles, have Democratic poll watchers barred and get ready to see the outrage shouted from the highest hills by these very same media types who see no problem here.

This is what bothers Trump supporters, this inconsistent application of standards and rules. Trump and his supporters are held to a ridiculously strict standard. Leftists can commit murder and their supporters will scream police brutality should they be arrested.

Defenders of the Blue Crew will maintain that the Republicans have no more than circumstantial evidence of widespread voter fraud. But mostly circumstantial evidence was enough to convict Timothy McVeigh for murder and conspiracy.

Circumstantial evidence was similarly the preponderance of the evidence that convicted Scott Peterson in the murder of his pregnant wife in a very high-profile case.

Circumstantial evidence certainly should be considered and weighed heavily in the matter of the integrity of the election for president of this nation.

Georgia has announced that it will look at its election results in-depth, but will this be the sort of meaningful audit that ferrets out fraud, or merely one that makes sure the ballots – valid or not – were counted correctly?

I want to know if reports of massive irregularities in mail-in voting, things like signatures not matching, ballots not being signed at all, ballots arriving late or not in the proper outer envelope, will be checked.

Obviously it is much easier for a dead person to vote by mail than in-person, perhaps a factor in the push by Democrats for more and more mail-in votes.

I want to know if the Philadelphia votes that were run through without a poll watcher present for the Republicans will be refactored.

I want a check to see if allegations of manipulation of electronic vote totals due to software glitches, or more nefarious reasons, are accurate.

At worst, this should be viewed as a warning and a call for preparation to avoid similar shenanigans in the two Georgia runoff elections for U.S. Senate that have the potential to deadlock the Senate and give President Harris – as part of her VP duties – the deciding vote in a tie.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, sire of the portly actress of the same surname, already is salivating at removing “minority” from his title.

“Now we take Georgia then we change America,” he screamed at a recent event.

Notice he didn’t say win the elections in Georgia. Too many Democrats like to take things, particularly elections.

Were Lewis Carroll authoring Alice in Wonderland today he would need neither a vivid imagination, nor the drugs some imply aided the former. No, Carroll could just send Alice down the rabbit hole of the 2020 presidential election – the buildup, the actual event, and the aftermath.

Democrats, as is their wont, are feverish in their pleas for what benefits them at the moment. Recall their righteous indignation in 2000 when they wanted painstaking examination of the election that their guy, Al Gore, lost and George W. Bush won.

Now, never mind the ever-growing reports of voter fraud, their guy, Joe Biden, won this time, so let’s get on with it.

Do you think that would seem curioser and curioser to Alice?

Or do the Democrats forget that just this past August bitter Hillary Clinton, their losing presidential candidate in 2016, went public urging Biden “not concede under any circumstances”?

That seems to be pretty much a blank check for a “losing” candidate. She anticipated Republicans would “mess up absentee balloting.”

So Trump, in a remarkable display of bipartisanship, is taking Hillary’s advice and refusing to concede because he’s not sure the Democrats, to borrow Hillary’s line, didn’t “mess up absentee balloting.”

You will see most of the Lamestream Media profess there is no evidence of any funny business with mail-in ballots. Yet if you look close enough, on sites such as zerohedge.com, there are plenty of stories. Just today there was a former California woman, since moved to Texas where she voted for Trump in-person, who was surprised to learn she’d voted in California, too. By mail. Likely for Biden since she was registered as a Democrat.

This same woman also discovered she had voted in 2016, except she hadn’t

Project Veritas has video of questionable vote harvesting and procurement.

Funny how the Lamestreet Media ran with unverified, since dis-proven smears on Trump, but now is working overtime to knock down the fraud claims.

Statistical analysis I’ve read, again on zerohedge.com, suggests that the way the late votes ran almost entirely to Biden defies probability. Others note an uncharacteristic disconnect between Biden votes and a lack of same for down-the-ticket Democrats. Again, possible, but highly unlikely.

Florida, Michigan, Georgia and others had precincts record votes by more than 100 percent of registered voters. Nothing to see there. Just move along.

All the above taken together indicate at least a closer look is in order.

Add in the constitutional end-run around the state legislature attempted by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, our Heinrich Himmler look-alike, that constitutional scholars have called blatantly lawless, and you have even more questions and reasons to double-check the count here and elsewhere.

Sticking with Wolf and his amusing spokesperson on matters of Coronavirus, Pennsylvania is experiencing record cases, yet Wolf isn’t rushing to shut down the state as he had when it had the greatest potential to hamstring Trump’s re-election push.

Now that Wolf can pull on his nightshirt and sleep peacefully convinced that his guy Biden has won, the state is open for business, record numbers of virus cases be damned.

Hypocrisy is the religion of the political left and Wolf is a model member of the flock.

Someone pry Nancy Pelosi away from her $24,000 ‘fridge stocked with $13-a-pint ice cream long enough to get her thoughts on Pennsylvania being open.

Alice might want some of that ice cream for her tea party.

She also might want to invite Biden, but first smear some of that ice cream on his face to wake him up and remind him he’s not running for the U.S. Senate.

Ah, but Biden had someone write him a comment on Trump’s refusal to concede. “An embarrassment,” he parroted.

This is strong stuff from a guy who should know embarrassments, having reared Hunter, whose checkered past includes drug problems, fathering a bastard child to a woman he met in a strip club, and being involved in a lot of questionable business deals.

Republicans would help Carroll’s modern Alice tale, too. Attorney General William Barr has given prosecutors the go-ahead to look into voting irregularities.

This prompted the guy who was supposed to do that job, to quit.

Lamestreet Media reports on this and other voter fraud stories always slip in the adjective “unfounded” before words suggesting anything less than a totally honest election.

This is Psych 101, about on par with the “mostly peaceful” boilerplate description tacked on reports of any Antifa or Black Lives Matters protests, even when the accompanying video showed burning cars and buildings, or looting, or all of the above and more.

Don’t worry Lamestreet Media, with Barr on the job, we shouldn’t have a report on election irregularities until about 2030.

Finally, as Trump predicted, we have word of an effective COVID-19 vaccine, which prompted the stock markets to melt-up Monday.

How Curioser and Curiouser, Alice, that this came so soon AFTER the election. Add to the striking coincidence, that it was Big Pharma member Pfizer that announced the breakthrough. That would be the same Pfizer that Trump browbeat into taking back huge price increases on drugs in 2018.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, Alice, sort of like Pelosi’s designer ice cream stash.

We have so much hypocrisy, so much intellectual dishonesty and so much just plain inconsistency ongoing, it’s a smorgasbord of subjects for commentary.

• Remember the leftists who were horrified that Trump rallies would super-spread Coronavirus? Well, based on their socialist celebrations of Biden’s alleged victory in the presidential race, I guess COVID-19 only affects those on the right side of the political spectrum.
• In the area where I live, the media’s calling of the election for Biden seems to have emboldened the snowflakes. Biden signs have sprung up, post-election, on lawns that were unadorned before it was time – ostensibly – to boast.
• Some horn-blowing morons taunted a neighbor who had Trump signs in her yard. “Guess all your signs didn’t help” or words to that effect, to which she replied “I guess it’s because you can’t read” or words to that effect.
• Is anyone surprised that disappointed Trump supporters aren’t borrowing a page from the Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other assorted socialist Democratic-leaning organizations and expressing their rage at the outcome by burning buildings and police cars and/or looting stores?
• Fox News had an amusing montage the other night about how the Republicans are mouthing the same arguments the Democrats had used in contesting the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. It would be flat-out disingenuous for the Democrats now to criticize the Republicans for wanting all LEGITIMATE votes to be counted and correctly.
• While on the subject of voting irregularities, wake me when someone actually is going to do something about it and send some people to prison. Attorney General William Barr and special investigator John Durham were supposed to be calling to task those who ran a governmental coup attempt on President Trump. These guys have disappeared. Witness protection?
• Why is it that the main faces atop the Democratic party, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, look like they buy Botox by the 55-gallon drum and have weekly appointments with cosmetic surgeons?
• Those Democrats celebrating like they just won the Super Bowl need a bit of perspective. The Dems spent four years beating on Trump with their lapdog mainstream media outlets, and running him through a charade impeachment based on erroneous reports that were buttressed by inaccurate media reporting on the fabricated information. They exploited COVID-19 for political purposes and made sure blue states led the lockdown parade to hamstring the economy. They used their control of the education system to mint fresh ignoramus Democratic voters. They spent more than $100 million to win Florida for Biden, but he lost the state to Trump. Similarly, they spent more than a $100 million and could not unseat South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. They lost House seats overall. They don’t appear to be in position to take the Senate majority. They barely beat Trump – subject to attempts to correct various reports of faulty ballot tabulation and outright lawbreaking in the pursuit of a Biden win. No wonder that Pelosi was taking heat in a leaked conference call with her underlings.
• If you’re betting on whether or not Joe Biden makes it through a four-year term, take the under. Whether due to him being declared incompetent, succumbing to age, or having one of those “accidents” so many prominent Dems have suffered when they are out of favor, I don’t like his chances. If his alleged win holds, he already has done his bit as a beard for the socialists who otherwise could not win national elections.
• I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that it is Democratic-controlled, deep blue areas, that had trouble processing votes in timely fashion and now appear to have been caught trying to influence the totals.
• This is the political version of when the scanner errs in computing your bill at the checkout. Did you ever wonder why those mistakes aren’t in the customer’s favor more often?

Sometimes life throws you a bone when the big things don’t go your way.

In this case, with the re-election of Donald J. Trump disappearing into a morass of opaque vote counting in Democratically controlled states, my consolation prize is making money on investments because of the expected Trump loss.

I wish I owned stock in gun manufacturers or ammunition makers, because their products are flying off shelves in stores across the country as right-minded individuals brace for government-sanctioned lawlessness.

Instead, my profits are coming from precious metals and the companies that mine them. Gold as I write is up $47 an ounce as reported on Kitco.com. Silver is up $1.19 an ounce. Mining stocks, or ETFs that hold them, such as GDX, are up big, too.

The investing world foresees virtually unlimited governmental largess moving forward. To say money will be printed is a dated metaphor. These days the bulk of “money” is created digitally. Saves a lot on paper and ink costs.

But the increase in the money supply is just as real. Those who back such reckless expansion of the money supply point to subdued inflation reports issued by the government – an interested party in keeping those numbers down – and say there is no rise in prices, hence no inflation.

They are missing the boat. Inflation is increasing the money supply. Rising prices is a symptom.

Our federal government, the most massive debtor on the planet, benefits immensely from artificially low consumer price inflation and hence artificially low interest rates it must pay on its debt.

This also allows the Feds to give people on Social Security paltry cost of living adjustments that are lower than the recipients’ expenses would indicate are merited.

If you shop for food, buy gasoline for your car, pay utilities, rent or property taxes, you know costs are going up.

But the huge price inflation is in financial assets. The stock markets are near all-time highs. Gold is near an all-time high. Yes, silver is only about half it’s all-time high, but hang on because that likely is coming. Many investment analysts peg silver as the most under-priced asset on the planet.

These investments all are benefiting from more money supply. For a time, the stock markets should continue to do so, too, but don’t stay too long because a reckoning is coming there.

I tend to agree with those liking silver, but make up your own mind. THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE!!!!

My post on this blog the other day noted that regardless of the election outcome, you move on and make the best of it.

I spent yesterday cleaning and waxing my most recent Mustang acquisition, then taking it for a bit of a cruise. There was time spent playing with the granddaughters and a nice walk with them in the woods.

By voting for Trump, by trying to point out to others why I would do so, I did what I could to promote his re-election.

I didn’t expect him to win, also as previously mentioned here and elsewhere, because of precisely what is happening. Democrats wanted election-day vote totals for Trump, particularly in key swing states, as a target for after-the-fact tabulations.

Anyone who has ever shot a gun knows you do better with a fixed target. The Democrats provided themselves with one and, surprise, surprise, surprise, they are hitting it.

In my younger years, I recall that by the end of Jimmy Carter’s term as president, you were hard-pressed to find anyone who admitted they voted for the guy. In this case I didn’t see that as an election having been stolen, but instead voters too ashamed by his weak-kneed performance to confess their culpability in elevating him to the office.

I just want all the Biden voters to remember their votes a few years hence. In this era of skin art, perhaps a letter “B” tattooed on their foreheads would be appropriate.

My sentiments on a Biden presidency – bad for the country but potentially good for me – are similar to my experience with the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare.

Common sense told me that given government subsidies for their prices, insurance companies would go whole hog on increases. And they did.

But you were supposed to be indifferent because of that government aid in the form of premium tax credits.

I obtained a health insurance license, not valid at the moment, because of seasonal work I did in the field after retiring from journalism, and so have some insight into this beyond my personal policy.

I know firsthand that companies across the board raise rates relentlessly, counting on ever-increasing premium tax credits to mute the actual out-of-pocket premium increases to subscribers. That happened in my case.

Twice I voted against the guy who was trying to put Obamacare into practice. Twice – with Trump – I voted for a guy promising to replace it with a better option. I did what I could do.

I’m off an ACA plan now, having moved on to Medicare. My wife remains on an ACA plan into next year.

Not only has Obamacare done huge damage to government finances, it also has hurt healthcare. I’m on my fourth Primary Care Physician under Obamacare as my doctors either have quit or retired due to bureaucratic idiocy with which they must deal.

I know of pathetically bad healthcare, including a cousin who nearly died when a hospital botched – twice – a sepsis diagnosis.

My wife told me the sad tale of a neighbor – since deceased – whose wife shared with her a story of neglect in his care at an area hospital in his last stay. He finally was brought home for his final days, where the family could take care of him themselves.

Biden is going to be tonic for investments that benefit from governmental handouts and the misallocation of resources and the raging price inflation those surely will produce. Even the so-called green push, with its emphasis on solar power and other “clean energy” will be a huge boost for silver (used in solar panels and various electronic applications) as well as rare earths.

It reminds me of the words of that great college basketball coach and politically incorrect philosopher Bobby Knight, who once advised: “If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

This election lives up the ubiquitous hype of being the most important of our times. That doesn’t mean, however, that life ends immediately for those whose candidate loses.

It’s an important thought to keep in mind on this election day as we vote and, later, await the results. It could be a long wait.

While we wait, and even after the wait ends and approximately one-half of the population is extremely disappointed, it’s important not to throw in the towel.

Continue to do the things you like doing. Enjoy family and friends. Do not allow bitter disappointment to drain the hope and happiness from your lives. Do not collapse into a puddle of goo, unable to cope with reality.

There will be another presidential election in four years. There will be mid-term elections in two. There is a chances down the line for the voters who will leave 2020 disappointed to have their opportunity to correct the perceived mistakes.

There are extreme sentiments that whichever direction this nation chooses in this election, it will be carved in stone ad infinitum.

I concede that a Democrat win will produce an adverse shift to the left and potential power-grabbing moves by socialists such as packing the Supreme Court or adding Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as states to, presumably, add four leftist Senators. This would make it difficult for Conservatives ever again to exercise power on a national basis.

But I also know from studying history that when a significant portion of the population feels isolated and powerless, sometimes those people act in ways other than visiting the voting booth. Democrats would do well to keep that in mind.

Even as I write this, there are reports of credentialed Republican poll watchers being barred from voting precincts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Make no mistake, if Trump supporters are convinced this election was stolen from them, they will not go quietly into the night.

I voted early today – for Trump. I was somewhat pleased to show up at my polling place and find a crowd, but not an overwhelming wait. Similarly pleasing was the fact we actually had paper ballots that were scanned after their completion. But hard copies will exist in the event of a dispute.

This is much preferable to the touch-screen voting, with our votes potentially disappearing into the ether.

Before taking her afternoon nap today, Granddaughter No. 2 wanted to go for a ride in my Mustang convertible. It’s chilly, but sunny. I think when she awakens we will go for that ride.

I rewarded myself the past weekend by acquiring another Mustang, this a hardtop GT model.

In coming days life will be lived to the fullest in this household.

We will deal with the consequences of this election, whether favorable or unfavorable. Here’s hoping you can do the same.

One of the most oft-heard election misconceptions these days is that the outcome should be known in relatively quick fashion and most then will move on with their lives, putting aside hard feelings.

This is coming from otherwise intelligent people, as they pontificate on subjects ranging from economics, to sociology, to investing, to everyday living.

And it is so wrong on so many levels.

First off, the abundance of mail-in votes will delay things in many states, including my home state of Pennsylvania, which doesn’t process these votes until election day. Plus, Pennsylvania is allowing late mail-in votes to be counted, too.

Also it’s unwise in these times of structural breakdowns to expect anything to go smoothly, by which I mean we could have usually reliable states in terms of expeditiously counting votes degrade into slow returns.

Add in all the subplots, such as the so-called Red Mirage, in that Republicans voting in person could provide an early large lead for President Trump in states like Pennsylvania that the faceless – sometimes nameless –Democratic mail-in voters can and will overcome in the Democratic telling of the story.

Trump critics fear, very publicly, that he will claim victory based on Red Mirage results. This is unlikely, but the Biden camp and Trump camp both have made it known they are not into conceding quickly.

On the flip side, there are fears of a Blue Mirage, with states such as Florida and North Carolina that have been processing mail-in votes for weeks, having outsized Biden early vote totals based on the presumption that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail.

Beyond the mirages, even in better times, election outcomes take longer to call when the races are close. The 2000, 2004 and 2016 elections each had no winner identifed until at least the next day.

There was a time when winners were projected, accurately and relatively quickly after the polls closed. In one such instance, a co-worker zipped out of work early to go home and watch the results.

He barely had time to rip open his bag of potato chips and decant his soda before it was all called. When he told us his tale of woe it amused his coworkers considering that this guy had a habit of rushing out the door and leaving others to make up for is absence, including once ostensibly having to dash home because his girlfriend couldn’t get the refrigerator open.

Even in the unlikely event a winner is quickly identified this time, anyone think the losing side is going to accept graciously the outcome is smoking some of the weed Democrats would dispense freely to anyone interested, for reasons ranging from recreational up through medical.

If you recall the sideshow that was hanging chads in 2000, imagine 2020 with debatable, illegible scrawls on mail-in ballots being challenged, or electronic voting machines coming up with apparently massaged totals, as been alleged as a distinct possibility in some published prognostications that cite the CIA.

In the past, such speculation as the last could have been dismissed. In the wake of years of FBI and CIA harassment of the Trump campaign and presidency, that no longer is the case.

Even if there is no wrongdoing in this election, an outcome neither side would be willing to stipulate to at this time, we’re going to have emotional responses from the more excitable types on both sides.

Riots in Blue cities and states are to be expected as opportunists, who likely voted for Biden, either celebrate a victory or protest a defeat.

More ardent Trump supporters aren’t likely to loot and pillage to celebrate a win for their guy. But they also are not likely to accept a defeat as legitimate.

These raw emotions only will fester, on both sides, if the post-election day machinations stretch into days, then weeks.

Questions will be asked over and over. Were polls wrong again? Were metaphorical ballot boxes stuffed? How many illegal aliens voted?

Peaceful transfer of power apparently is an amusing relic of the past. Republicans, as usual, will be blamed for this situation, but it was the Democrats who strung out the process in 2000, then refused to accept the outcome.

And it’s the Democrats who spent the past four years trying to undo the 2016 election results with what amounted to coup attempts.

If Trump supporters see their man declared the loser but aren’t willing to accept that result, well, they are no worse than the other side.

And for all the pap being spewed by the Biden campaign about uniting the country, don’t expect the quick-tempered guy who called Trump supporters “chumps” to be offering any olive branches should he win.

The wait for an election outcome will be a real life case of Waiting for Godot. Godot never did arrive in the play.

I admit to being stunned to find that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has endorsed Donald Trump for re-election as president.

To understand the historic nature of this, it is the first time that newspaper has endorsed a Republican for president since 1972.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, my former employer, endorsing a Republican I could understand, but the PG?

After reading the PG editorial, I find I could have written the piece, it so closely mirrors my sentiments.

It praised Trump’s economic leadership and noted the boom of domestic energy under him, plus pointed out as a positive Trump’s willingness to take on foreign nations who in the past have been free to prey on the American economy with implicit endorsement of prior administrations.

The PG also pointed out that critics of Trump’s handling of COVID-19 ignore the reality that the nation can’t hide in its basement – taking a page from Joe Biden’s playbook – and further decimate the economy.

The PG made the obligatory swipe of Trump’s behavior, wishing he was more dignified. However, the editorial made the important point that Trump has gotten things done.

Surprisingly, the endorsement also alluded to Joe Biden being “too old” and “fragile” for the job, and his VP Kamala Harris has given no indications she’s up to the job should Biden disappear.

On the other hand Trump, while no youngster, is noticeably more robust, campaigning with seemingly endless energy despite having been a COVID-19 patient not that long ago. And VP Mike Pence has demonstrated the ability to take over the presidency if necessary.

While the PG endorsement was unexpected, my hometown paper, the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, continued its leftward lurch by endorsing Biden under the laughable headline of him being the choice to bring the country together. The endorsement reads like it was written by the Biden campaign.

By contrast, the PG didn’t try to portray Trump as a saint, but merely as the superior choice in this contest.

Give the PG points for journalistic integrity.

If you are to vote for Joe Biden in this presidential election, you must believe a lot of misrepresentations.

Begin with taxation. The Biden campaign vows to raise taxes, but not on any families making less than $400,000 a year.

But the math doesn’t work. Taxing the hated Top 1 Percent into oblivion, both by raising their income taxes and taxing their accumulated wealth, doesn’t put a dent in this nation’s over-spending habits, which only can be expected to increase under a Harris-Biden administration.

The United States budget deficit for fiscal year 2020, which ended at the conclusion of September, was $3.3 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) not some partisan organization.

We got there by spending $6.6 trillion on revenues of $3.3 trillion. Part of this unarguably was to be blamed on COVID-19 over-reactions, but even before that, the deficit was nearly $1 trillion in fiscal year 2019.

Spending by the federal government will only increase if the Democrats take control of all three branches of the government, witness Biden and his endorsement of AOC’s Green New Deal, House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s goal of bailing out all failing Blue states and cities with massive federal handouts, and various other promises of transferring money from the “wealthy” to the “non-wealthy.”

But we won’t even factor that likelihood of vastly increased spending by Democrats into our calculus. Let’s just presume continuing $3-trillion deficits.

In 2017, the last full tax year for which the Internal Revenue Service has provided tax breakdowns, the much-maligned “Top 1 Percent” of taxpayers earned $515,371 or more per year in Adjusted Gross Income.

So, if Biden is looking at a $400,000 cutoff, he’s dipping well below the Top 1 Percent. That’s just for starters in terms of half-truths and deceptions.

Already those Top 1 Percent paid more in taxes in the 2017 tax year than the BOTTOM 90 PERCENT COMBINED. The total tax contribution of that Top 1 Percent was $616 billion.

To clear the budget deficit annually these days, you’d need to raise the tax rate on the Top 1 Percent FIVE TIMES! That isn’t happening, even under the most draconian Biden proposals.

So, where would the revenue be made up? By raising taxes on the bulk of the nation, the middle class.

That’s the reality, which you will soon learn should Biden’s Blue Wave hit the shores in coming days, or weeks.

Another untruth of the Harris-Biden crowd is that Joe will bring us together. Note, they don’t say Kamala will bring us together, which is an uncharacteristic concession to reality.

Back to Joe Biden. Near the end of October, he fell into line with previous Democratic presidential candidates by stereotyping those who oppose him with a derogatory term. In Biden’s case, he called Trump supporters at an event in my home state of Pennsylvania “chumps.”

Hillary Clinton previously had called Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables.” Elaborating on that, Clinton had said they are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it.”

Don’t forget Obama previously referring to those who would not kiss the hem of his robe as being “bitter” and “clinging to guns and religion.”

This sort of judgmental, holier-than-thou sentiment is shared by Democrats and will not result in bringing this country together no matter how many times this is promised and how many of the brain-dead among the voting populace are willing to believe it.

Along that line, we also are told ad nauseam that we can trust Biden, a man who changes his positions on key issues about as often as the average person changes underwear.

If you are to be willing to trust Biden, you must believe he really knew nothing about son Hunter profiting from the family name, as has been evidenced by a key whistleblower witness providing ample documentation.

You similarly must believe Biden will not be a slave to left-wing interests, even though his positions noticeably have skewed left as he sought first to put down the Bernie Sanders primary campaign, and then to solidify his base among a Democratic Party that is in a hard rush to the political left.

A cousin of mine, since gone to his eternal reward, used to muse about the general population. His take: About 10 percent get it and the other 90 percent stumble along in blissful ignorance.

He might have been a bit off in his percentages, but the sentiment rings true. An uncomfortably large percentage of the population cannot exercise critical thinking, cannot separate truth from deception, cannot make difficult choices without calculating how much they’re going to get out of it even at the expense of others.

On that base rests Biden’s campaign. Delusion. Denial. Divisiveness.

The Washington Post, the newspaper whose slogan is Democracy dies in darkness, is one of the many media outlets whose fingerprints are to be found on the light switch that’s been flipped off to darken the intellectual atmosphere.

Social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter are right there, too, making sure what they consider unacceptable news — and their definition for that is anything that harms the Democrats and Joe Biden — must be censored.

Current case in point: The ignoring of the Biden whistleblower implicating the Biden Family for its questionable business dealings with foreign nations.

But this is bigger than the current Hunter/Joe Biden news blackout. Don’t forget the New York Times, formerly the newspaper that proclaimed proudly that it contained All the news that’s fit to print, but now should admit, All the news that fits our narrative, we print.

A Times “journalist” has been decrying coverage of the riots in Philadelphia by those from less-woke outlets as attempting to misrepresent the situation. There are riots. There is looting. There are injuries. What exactly is being misrepresented?

In a more sane time, the charges of misrepresentation would have been applied to the iconic CNN shot of a reporter, in front of a background of flaming vehicles, reporting on Kenosha protests with the graphic screaming in large type “Fiery, but mostly peaceful protests.”

Why do they do this? It’s like the old joke: Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can.

This is the Democrats’ country. Traditional conservatives are just marking time as an endangered species.

Democrats have taken control of the school systems, minting a never-ending supply of up-and-coming social justice warriors – poorly informed types who can’t name three Supreme Court justices or hold down jobs, but in a split-second can recognize perceived injustice and demonstrate en mass to show that they feel it to the core of their transfer-payment souls.

Democrats, regardless of which party is in power at the White House, hold the bulk of the bureaucratic posts in the federal government and use their numbers to throw sand in the gears of any Republican who would dare to challenge their un-elected power – witness the treatment of President Trump.

OK, so Democrats control schools, the bureaucracy (AKA The Swamp), social media and mainstream media outlets.

These people should never lose an election, yet somehow they manage to do just that, which calls into question their ability.

Recognizing that, if they win this one on a national level they will take great strides toward making their shortcomings meaningless by ramming through statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to provide more guaranteed electoral votes and senators to keep those pesky Republicans from ever again holding a majority in the Senate and thereby acting as a brake on runaway Democratic moves to socialize this nation.

Don’t forget the threats to pack the Supreme Court, and so guarantee the socialist rush would face no judicial limit on those plans.

Also Democrats will be quick to open immigration with little regulation, the better to boost the numbers of their base.

But the question isn’t why the Democrats do what they do, but rather why are they allowed to get away with it?

Why doesn’t the populace rise up and demand the shady past of Hunter Biden be investigated to see if it is as bad as it seems for Papa Joe, “The Big Guy.”?

The unfortunate answer is we’re moving inexorably toward the a sad state in which the majority of the United States citizenry doesn’t understand the value of sacrifice for the common good, putting country above self, doing the right thing not just what’s expedient.

Too many of our fellow citizens are softer than the Pillsbury Doughboy. They want to take the easy path both morally and financially.

Don’t ask them to follow traditional behavioral norms. If they want to dye their hair pink, sport more piercings than a pin cushion, tattoo every visible square inch of their flesh, then be offended that you might stare at them, that’s no problem.

People increasingly seem to believe if they lie, cheat or steal, it’s perfectly acceptable and if they should get caught, no punishment is justified.

If rather than joining the workforce they are content to wait for stimulus payments, earned income tax credits and any other manner of governmental largess, who are you to look askance at them?

We’re electing a president next week and filling federal and state legislatures, but what we’re really having is a referendum on the near-term future of this nation.

If Biden and his ilk prevail, this nation soon will be unrecognizable, and almost certainly irretrievable.