Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy is beginning to remind me of the feral cats who roam our neighborhood — always looking for handouts.

There are notable differences, including the cats seem to be taller in stature (literally and figuratively) than Zelenskyy and they don’t make time for Vogue photo shoots with their mates (many mates in the case of those feral felines).

And yet Zelenskyy, like the cats, is anywhere and anytime looking for charity, mostly from the United States.

Some neighbors have discovered the dangers of trying to satisfy the wants of the feral cats. Once you start, you are expected to continue until you, or the cats, cease to exist. Money is no object, at least not to the cats.

One neighbor actually has heated shelters set up on her porch for the cats and feeds them regularly, complaining on more than one occasion to my wife about the costs. She also, for a time, had a penchant for feeding hot dogs to crows, but that’s another story.

It is likely that the feral cats will be around after Zelenskyy is but a memory. The way the Ukraine struggle with Russia is going, Zelenskyy’s future is anything but secure. It would end his unlikely rise from comedian playing a fictional president of Ukraine in a sitcom (2015-19) to actually playing the role in real life.

An imaginary parallel of sorts would be Jerry Seinfeld as our next president. No, scratch that (cat pun intended). Likely Seinfeld would do a better job than Zelenskyy, as would anyone not prone to excessive narcissism and mooching.

Zelenskyy comes off more as Seinfeld’s wacky TV neighbor Cosmo Kramer. Sure, the Kramer character was much taller than Zelenskyy, as are most adults either male, female or gender-confused. What was extremely similar was the penchant of Kramer to raid Seinfeld’s apartment for food, clothes and the use of things like the telephone, stereo, television, or even the bathroom.

I recall with humor some episodes in which an ungrateful Kramer harangued Seinfeld for not having the right food, clothes, cable television to satisfy Kramer’s wants.

Also, there was an episode in which Kramer, for a time, kept a running tab of what he was using at Seinfeld’s expense. We still can’t get Zelenskyy and his cohorts to give an accurate accounting of where all the Ukraine aid is going.

Along that line, Zelenskyy recently was whining about Congress not readily forking over billions more in foreign aid to Zelenskyy-ville, a rapidly shrinking European country also known as Ukraine. No strings attached, you understand.

Congress has been on hiatus and Zelenskyy is feeling abandoned. There is a war going on, he reminded. This is something he seems to forget when he traipses around the globe, although admittedly wearing clothing suggesting he’s ready for combat at any time.

I’d like to know the last time Zelenskyy actually needed that type of clothing, or a weapon for that matter, because he was battling Russians at the front.

But the little guy is a lot indignant that Uncle Sam has been late with this month’s handout/grift.

‘Tis time to tell Zelenskyy that we’re washing our hands of providing aid and comfort to him. He should be grateful that we didn’t pay to have him neutered, as was the fate for some of those feral cats.

Perhaps the Russians will perform that service.

Imagine the entire world invoking the Joe Biden, I-can’t-remember and I’m-an-old-man, defense whenever required. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.

Begin with Atlanta Fulton County DA and Trump persecutor Fani Willis, now being called to account for alleged improprieties in her public and private lives. She would have done well to plead dumb and ignorant.

Instead, Willis has been, in words of one observer, using the snarling badger defense, being combative and belligerent with accusers.

Willis also had played the race and gender cards previously, at a church no less, suggesting this all would not have happened had she not been a black woman.

If only Eve, a person the Bible definitely indicates was a woman (gender confused was not yet a thing) and now some sociologists suggest was black, would have thought to claim misogyny and racial bias when God cast her and Adam from the Garden of Eden.

Eve could have remained while Adam, a male and perhaps white, was forced from his domicile.

But God, in his infinite wisdom, had seen fit not yet to have created courts of the legal or public opinion sort, or social media, so Eve was left to deal with her lot — with Adam — beyond the bounds of Eden.

Back to the Biden defense, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, AKA Mr. Taylor Swift, might have professed amazement when clips were shown of him screaming at his head coach Andy Reid and shoving the portly, elderly gentleman.

That Kelce did this on the sidelines of the most recent Super Bowl, only the most watched television program in history of the boob tube, would only heighten the validity of the defense.

Think of Biden in countless press conferences and other public appearances fluffing names, dates, shaking hands with imaginary people, tripping, falling, and needing to be led off stages by helpful stooges.

All these actually strengthen Biden’s defense, as in no rational individual would so consistently make a fool of himself if he was aware of what he was doing. Obviously, Kelce was distraught over being embarrassed in front of his gal pal by not having made a greater contribution to that point of the game, and even having been on the sideline during one crucial play.

Kelce could have the best of both sides, claiming temporary insanity/amnesia/mental imcompetence, but then having recovered sufficiently to serve as a cultural icon.

A surprising supporter of Biden has arisen in the form of much-hated Russian strong guy Vlad Putin. During a recent lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson, speaking on the subject of Biden mental shortcomings, Putin referred to a meeting with Biden in 2021 of which Putin recalled, “I did not see anything of this sort.”

Faced with this unexpected — perhaps damning — endorsement of his mental acuity, expect Biden soon to say that he doesn’t remember the meeting, or instead that he was speaking with Czar Nicholas II (who died in 1918).

The subject was a nuclear arms deal – or a job for Hunter.

On Valentine’s Day we are programmed to express love via cards, flowers, chocolates and various other gifts.

The commercialized celebration ranks with Christmas in terms of providing sales volume to merchants.

The historical roots of Valentine’s Day are vague, with some tracing it to the festival of Lupercalia celebrated in ancient Rome. Others allude to martyrdom of saints named Valentine, one or more of whom met tragic ends.

The holiday is said to have taken off toward its present form in the U.S. and the United Kingdom as early as the 1840s.

Regardless of the historical details, I hope you and yours are enjoying today, with appropriate expressions of love.

Contemplation of this holiday has me thinking not of material gifts, but rather things I’d love to see transpire.

Here is one man’s list of things he would positively love to see occur:

• Joe Biden acting as if he were aware of important realities, like which day of the week this is.

• Politicians of all stripes putting the country above party.

• Johnstown spending federal and state handout money for actual economic development, not merely putting spats on a pig and enriching the nonprofit elites.

• The end to the obvious politicization of our justice and legal systems.

• All the Soros-backed Marxist district attorneys and judges cast from office in a wave of electoral righteous indignation.

• Media outlets rediscovering that journalism is reporting the facts and is not propagandizing and indoctrinating.

• Public schools and institutions of higher learning returning to educating and not propagandizing and indoctrinating.

• Financial markets return to some form of fundamental sanity, escaping the algo-driven excess that saw shares of Lyft soar 60 percent and then crash Tuesday when a company earnings release contained a typo proclaiming a margin increase of 500 basis points (5 percent) as opposed to 50 basis points (.5 percent).

• Someone, anyone, plugging the sieves that are our southern – and northern – borders.

• A legitimate election and appropriately fair vote counting this fall.

I was stunned, stunned I tell you, to awaken today to green grass, clear sidewalks and streets, and nothing approaching the weather Armageddon scene predicted by the local weather types.

When is the last time this happened? Are you kidding me? The weather overkill forecast trend is reminiscent of the old yarn about the stock market being a leading economic indicator, having predicted eight of the last two recessions.

It was only yesterday, while driving granddaughter No. 2 to our house following getting her off the school bus at her house, that she eagerly spoke of a day off school Tuesday, or at least a two-hour delay.

Apparently she’d gotten wind, likely through her teacher or other kids, of the apocalyptic weather forecast for Monday night into Tuesday morning.

I tried to assure the child these things tend to be overblown, although I did not use my favorite term for the phenomenon – weather porn – since she is but six years or age.

“No, Poppy,” she argued, “the weather people are always right.”

Ah, the innocence of youth. She still probably believes there are boys and girls and she can easily tell the difference, that white people are not the devil incarnate and children with two mommies are not the norm.

I told her we would wait and see what the next day provided.

It was evident by early evening Monday that schools were falling into line, one-by-one, in bowing to the wishes of the weather porn purveyors, calling for two-hour delays, outright canceling classes, or calling for the students to work from home.

Allow me to add as an aside that I was out Monday putting gasoline in various cars, not because I was terrified I could not do so today (one is, after all, a four-wheel drive Jeep Cherokee and one other is an all-wheel drive Kia SUV).

I just needed gasoline and bought same, being distressed along the way that the regular unleaded gasoline was 11 cents cheaper per gallon at Giant Eagle Get/Go than it had been at Sheetz, even with the 3-cent discount for using my Sheetz card. I’d only gone to Get/Go due to having $11 in gasoline credit accumulated, this having been relayed to me by the wife.

While pumping gas, after a woman had raced ahead of me to grab a pump on one side of the building, forcing me to move to the other side of the building, another woman engaged me in conversation as the gasoline flowed into our vehicles.

Said woman professed surprise the stores were not more crowded, what with the bad storm coming and all that.

She alluded to the predictable rush to stores for bread, milk and toilet paper once the weather porn types overhype an approaching storm, or “event” as they seem to prefer.

Well, this event was nowhere near as bad as predicted. And yet my wife still was eager to get the latest misinformation from the local NBC outlet’s noon report.

To get to the weather, we had to sit through an anchor for whom English seems to be her second language. She spoke of a Central Pennsylvania contractor Leonard S. Fiore, only she pronounced it LEE-ON-HARD where most would say LEN-ARD.

Later, there was a story of an “18th-month-old” child. Most I know would say 18-month-old, but why quibble?

At last it was weather time. There were no apologies for having blown the call, no promises to do better moving forward.

Instead, the rain/snow event was glossed over, as in it had “cleared out” and we were in store for a “nice” afternoon and tomorrow.

“Quiet weather” was another term tossed around — presumably birds would be silent, as would be children and otherwise noisy constituencies.

The quiet weather actually had begun much earlier than they had predicted in their noise of yesterday, which is how it goes in the weather porn game. To paraphrase the catch phrase from the movie “Love Story,” weather means you never have to say you’re sorry.

I got most of my Super Bowl picks correct – unfortunately.

Kansas City prevailed, 25-22, in overtime. I’d picked the underdog Chiefs to win outright in a Sunday post here, while noting I’d prefer it if San Francisco won.

I also identified proposition bet picks of Taylor Swift being shown more than six times during the broadcast (she was shown 12 times by count of the Houston Chronicle) and Swift arriving from an Asian concert in time for kickoff (she did.)

My only miss was taking the bet that Swift would be wearing a Travis Kelce jersey. She wasn’t.

Still that’s 3-1 on picks, a rebound from going 0-2 in conference championship games two weeks back.

As for the game, it was competitive and went to overtime. It was not, however, a well-played contest.

Kansas City was far from sharp and prevailed largely on the basis of San Francisco beating itself.

Most notably, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan added to his choking legacy. The common thread is Shanahan can’t seem to understand how to manage leads and run the ball, both to wear out opposing defenses and to drain the clock.

He was offensive coordinator when the Atlanta Falcons blew a 28-3 third-quarter lead to lose in overtime to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI.

More recently, Shanahan twice has blown 10-point Super Bowl leads as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in losses to Kansas City. The second came Sunday.

And, as before, it largely was because Shanahan forgot to call any running plays when it would have mattered. Only after Kansas City had taken the lead in the second half did Shanahan rediscover his run calls and mix them with passes.

Still, when it mattered most in overtime, Shanahan tried a ridiculous play-action pass on a key third down – Kansas City’s defense had for some time been ignoring run fakes and racing straight at quarterback Brock Purdy. The pass thrown under duress was incomplete and the 49ers settled for a field goal and 3-point lead. But Kansas City would get a possession.

The Chiefs then marched promptly down the field to a winning touchdown and Shanahan had cemented his label as a playcalling choke artist when it counted.

It was legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel who said “Most ball games are lost, not won.”

Winners capitalize on outright mistakes of the opponents, or the failure of opponents to maximize opportunities.

I was screaming loud and long even when San Francisco led in the first half that the 49ers would lose the game due to their inability to build a bigger lead when they were dominant and Kansas City was stumbling.

Missing a second-half PAT didn’t help, nor did Shanahan’s again questionable playcalling.

Kansas City fans will celebrate back-to-back Super Bowl wins. But, make no mistake, the 49ers lost it. Shanahan’s name should go on the Lombardi Trophy as a contributor to the KC cause.

The Roman Empire had its bread and circuses, highlighted by the annual festival Saturnalia, to honor the god Saturn.

Our current American Empire has bread (welfare, SNAP, earned income tax credits, various heavy-handed governmental handouts based on perceived inequality), and circuses (assorted sports, general low-brow entertainment in movie and song, all-encompassing social media) climaxing with our annual Super Bowl celebration, in which the majority of the country’s populace gathers to watch football and commercials.

This is a moment in history exhibiting a particularly great need for distractions from the unpleasant realities of day-to-day existence. And so the elites took it upon themselves to meld football and pop culture.

There are those who think it is no coincidence that broadcasts of Kansas City Chiefs contests have devolved into unending shots of Taylor Swift in some private box observing the play.

Getting Swift – and the Chiefs – to the Super Bowl has been a coup for those desperate to have you lose focus on your personal plight.

Recall, Swift endorsed Clueless Joe Biden the last election, thereby unleashing her legions of Not-So-Swift brain donor fans to vote early and often for Joe. She is expected to do the same this time around, standing squarely behind a guy, who in the tradition of Super Bowl proposition bets, is about a 50-50 pick to know which two teams are playing in this most publicized sporting event.

I imagine broadcasters would collapse in orgasmic pleasure if only Mr. Taylor Swift would bend knee and propose on the field following the final whistle, that to be followed by the couple endorsing Biden and the cackling hen who serves as his vice president for four more years in office.

Or maybe Swift can commandeer the halftime show to indicate she’s ridin’ with Biden, which would rank in terms of memorability with Janet Jackson’s pierced breast nipple “accidentally” being exposed in a Super Bowl halftime extravaganza 20 years back.

For the average logic-impaired voter, this would be more than enough to allow them to forget day-to-day inconveniences such as inflation, heavy-handed government regulations, double standards in justice and the inability of otherwise learned individuals to discern whether an individual is a man or woman.

In recent days, we’ve been told that Biden, like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, mishandled classified information. But, like Hillary, Joe will get a pass because he’s an addle-brained old guy who can’t remember things and likely would be acquitted by a sympathetic jury. This is not my take, but that of the report from the special prosecutor assigned to investigate this Biden foible.

An outraged Biden held a press conference to dispute he is impaired mentally, and managed during this short time to provide further evidence by confusing Egypt and Mexico and freezing when delivering a line about where the rosary he has on him daily to honor a deceased son originated. Etc. Etc. Etc.

A study, based on a survey that had about 1 in 5 respondents ADMIT they have committed fraud in submitting their 2020 mail-in ballots, indicated Trump most likely actually won the election if only legitimate ballots had been counted.

The Federal Reserve, the quasi-governmental bank of banks that manipulates the money supply and sets interest rates, managed to lose a record $114.53 billion in 2023.

These are the same Fed people who helped cause the inflation with which we have suffered for years due to their unreasonably loose monetary policy.

And if you have the willingness to contemplate existential issues, know that we are one misguided act away from being involved not in proxy wars around the globe, but in actual combat with our military vs. counterparts from Russia, China or Iran.

If you think there is no risk to what is transpiring regarding Ukraine, the Middle East, or Taiwan, enjoy your blissful ignorance as long as you can.

Vote for Biden, again and again.

Let us forget reality for a few hours and lose ourselves in a football game and lose our money as a result of the availability of a seemingly never-ending supply of so-called proposition bets.

Take the yes for Taylor Swift arriving before kickoff. Take the over on Swift being shown on camera more than six times during the broadcast. Bet yes on Swift wearing a Travis Kelce jersey.

One prop bet I’d take, that I haven’t seen offered, is that Kelce and Swift no longer will be a couple at next year’s Super Bowl, but she will have used the experience to write yet another breakup song.

As for the game, (this from a guy who was 0-2 on the conference championship games) I’d love to see San Francisco win, but I’d eagerly take the two points and bet on Kansas City to win outright

Late on this watershed day that saw President Joe Biden judged to have been guilty of mishandling classified information, but given a pass on prosecution due to his diminished capacity, I decided to partake of some cable news.

The experience was all too predictable.

First, on Fox News, the panelists noted a man too diminished mentally to be prosecuted probably isn’t fit to be president, either now or down the line. Makes sense to me.

The Fox talking heads also thought it to be beyond the purview of a special prosecutor to decide not to bring charges because he thought a sympathetic jury might give the accused a pass due to age and some measure of likeability.

In addition, the Fox folks pointed out the hypocrisy of attempting to crucify Donald Trump on similar classified lapses, with that former president facing 37 felony counts. They highlighted that not only has Biden mishandled classified documents as president, but also, according to the report, he has done it while he was vice president and a senator.

Biden has been given some leniency for “cooperating” with prosecutors, but Trump’s lack of cooperation centered on him claiming – correctly – that a president can de-classify documents. A vice president or senator cannot do so.

And, the coup de grace was the recapping of Biden’s press conference Thursday night, when he alternated between expressing outrage at the special prosecutor questioning his mental acuity, then providing further evidence of same by confusing Mexico and Egypt and seeming to forget where he got the rosary he said he wears daily in remembrance of his late son, Beau.

It was a PR disaster for Biden to the extent that the cynics suggested it might have been just another attempt by the Deep State to get rid of Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate, and perhaps replacing him on the ballot with Michelle Obama, or any warm body other than Kamala Harris.

To get the deranged left view, I switched to MSNBC and that analysis lived down to my expectations.

The female host of the 11 p.m. hour show kept hurling loaded questions at some guy from the New York Times and he failed to foam at the mouth on command. One telling camera shot, just before cutting away, showed said host throwing her head downward into her palms in disgust because this dog had not howled on command.

A couple of female panelists – forgive me if I got the gender identification wrong – were more amenable to the host’s leading inquiries.

During a few tortured minutes they either noted Donald Trump makes just as many speaking gaffes as does Biden – clearly that’s a whopper – or questioned the need for the special prosecutor to go political in pointing out Biden’s problems with dates, times, and assorted other facts during his interviews on the subject of mishandling classified documents.

One of these partisan hacks went so far as to be enthused at the combative way Biden went after the press, particularly those asking for a response to the fact that the public is doubting his mental fitness for the job. Why this Biden testiness pleased her, I’m not sure. He came off as an angry old man, trying to dispute facts with bluster and outrage.

This is vintage Biden. When in the past people have called him out on mistakes, outright lies (recall his “Lying, dog-faced pony soldier” and “you’re a damn liar” and “fat” shouts at such people) or just inconsistencies, Biden has been vintage insecurity, lashing out with ad hominem attacks instead of rationally explaining his positions.

Biden also played the blame game, blaming his staff for the classified problem, just as he had blamed generals for blowing the Afghan pullout and has blamed Trump and Trump’s supporters for all existing problems in this country despite Biden being in his fourth year on the job.

I’m sure the majority of Republicans thought this day to be a crucial moment in undermining Biden’s re-election chances.

I’m sure the majority of Democrats thought this was no big deal and will blindly vote for Biden again, as many times as necessary.

That speaks to the dysfunctional state of the United States. Where once people could acknowledge truth even when it conflicted with their party’s narrative, now the facts can’t be allowed to get in the way of narrative.

If you think this sealed Biden’s defeat this fall, you are only kidding yourself. If he runs, he almost assuredly will win. And if the Democrats do toss him overboard, it only means they have another figurehead candidate lined up to present a more palatable face for their behind-the-scenes maneuvering.

Never underestimate what Democratic operatives are willing to do to get and keep power.

Joe Biden, nominal president of these United States and would-be spiritualist, is at it again.

Biden seems to be living a variation – or imagining he is doing so — of the 1999 cinematic thriller “The Sixth Sense,” in which the Haley Joel Osment character very famously confides to the Bruce Willis character “I see dead people.” Osment’s character also talks with the deceased.

And so it is that Biden flits about recounting supposed recent interactions and conversations with long-dead leaders from other countries. Sometimes, just to add a little bit of spice, Biden jumbles up which of those dead people with whom he speaks represent which countries.

Ha, ha, ha. That’s just old Joe! Harmless and doddering.

Now, spiritualism and the White House are nothing new. From Mary Todd Lincoln trying to communicate with a deceased child via mediums, to Nancy Reagan’s fascination with astrologers, to Hillary Clinton ostensibly channeling Eleanor Roosevelt for guidance, attempting to interact with the deceased has something of a track record in Washington, D.C.

The difference – a notable one – is that while Clinton, Reagan and Lincoln presumably knew they are attempting to reach out to the dead, Biden seems to believe these interactions are with the still living.

This is a significant distinction, I would suggest.

But the delusion and confusion of the aptly nicknamed Clueless Joe Biden appears to have little downside and substantial benefit.

Consider that the man is purported to have won the presidency while in a veritable witness protection program, garnering a record number of votes in the process.

When Biden did venture forth to offer some ridiculous statement such as he was running for Senate, not president, it didn’t harm his vote totals one bit. Perhaps this is a credit to those doing the counting, but I digress.

Just today, Biden’s lack of mental faculties has been invoked by a special prosecutor to explain why no charges will be forthcoming for Biden illegally possessing classified information.

You might recall a full-on SWAT raid of Donald Trump’s estate and no fewer than 37 felony charges filed against Trump for – wait for it – illegally possessing classified information.

The difference seems to be mental state, as in Biden is too cognitively impaired to be aware he was breaking the law. He is not too cognitively impaired, though, to serve as president.

Perhaps Trump should begin shaking hands with imaginary people, needing to be escorted off stages, freezing in mid-sentence during addresses, and being unable to recall any significant details of anything without the use of note cards and teleprompters.

I can’t wait to hear the Biden apologists try to explain away this latest bit of selective law enforcement. But, make no mistake, they will make some feeble attempt which, considering Biden’s mental state, is fitting.

Last October I wrote a blog entry on the travails of being a Republican. Events of today suggest an update is in order.

The oddly rhythmic knock at my door came around midday; a man seeking signatures on nominating petitions.

He went one-for-two with me, failing to get me to sign up for a Republican candidate to oust Frank Burns from the state House. The man shared that I was not the only person so inclined on my street and he didn’t bother to suggest that we were wrong.

What followed was a good discussion of what ails the Republican Party, on a local, state and national basis.

In an obtuse way, Burns is an example of that. Among Burns’ many accomplishments in office has been the outing of the Myopia 2025 closed-door elites’ secret plan to ship unvetted Afghan refugees into the area.

It failed when the light of publicity was shone upon the plan, sunshine being a great disinfectant.

Understand that in so doing, Burns, a Democrat, aided greatly the public he represents, but also angered elites of both political stripes. Think of him as a smaller scale Donald Trump, who now must defeat interests both in his party and the supposed opposition party in order to retain office.

Make no mistake, the knives are out for Burns, who had the temerity to buck the behind-the-scenes puppetmasters.

I’m a registered Republican, but I have voted for Burns in the past and will do so again, particularly as long as Republicans offer up as candidates people from the cabal of non-profits, not-for-profits, foundations and various other nominal charitable organizations that have taken control of area politics.

There’s a reason why Johnstown and Cambria County seem to be mired in unescapable third-class economic status. Shaking the begging bowl for federal largesse and distributing it among the politically favored isn’t going to change that, just as stringing more lights above Main Street won’t solve any problems.

The petition man recognized me from my days as a local sports columnist, and we spoke of some common acquaintances from Windber. We talked sports briefly, but then went back to politics and the sad state of the Republican party. Again, he seemed to agree.

It was after he had left that more evidence of this came to light.

First, four gutless Republicans in the U.S. House failed to vote for impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who has presided over turning our southern border into a particularly porous sieve.

Next came reports that Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is going to quit soon. Good riddance.

Under McDaniel, Republicans have failed to deliver a concise, clear message and so have squandered opportunities to win elections against a wounded Democratic Party. It is instructive that Trump’s 2016 presidential win came with the Republican establishment only being dragged kicking and screaming late to backing the winner.

As I told my afternoon visitor, Republicans have to take off the gloves and understand that those on the left mostly hate us and would have us confined in concentration camps if they could. George W. Bush and his compassionate conservative pap set back the party despite his presidential wins.

Give the Democrats credit, they almost always can be counted upon to line up and march in lockstep fashion spouting the party line, no matter how bizarre, fringe or anti-American it might be.

Meanwhile, Republicans try to find middle ground and shrink from the fight.

Emboldened Democrats smell weakness and run roughshod, at all levels.

Impeaching Mayorkas would have been a start. Showing McDaniel the door also would be a positive step.

But it’s going to take much more than that and I’m not sure Republican leadership – beyond Trump – has the stomach to do what needs to be done.

If we can’t find quality Republican candidates, an intelligent person votes for a Democrat like Burns, who at least isn’t drinking his party’s far-left Kool-Aid.

This is the day Punxsy Phil didn’t see his shadow, government estimators came out with another surprisingly large increase in the job report (no doubt subject to downward revision in coming months as is almost always the case), Clueless Joe met protesters at each stop of his journey, and the military heat was turned up in the Middle East.

It is a backdrop for contemplation, best expressed in the form of questions.

When do white men get to play the race/victim card, joining various racial minorities, women, gender-confused types and other protected groups in calling for unfair advantages from society?

When do whistleblowers implicating Democrats for wrongdoing get their fair hearing and protection from retaliatory witch hunts against them?

Why does a Democratic staffer who videoed and posted online a gay sexual encounter in a Senate meeting room, escape punishment while ordinary citizens – presumably Republicans – are jailed and otherwise penalized for being in The Capitol on Jan. 6?

Why do investment markets react so strongly in kneejerk fashion to government statistics that are mere estimates and frequently prove to be incorrect?

Why are illegal immigrants both here and abroad able to commit crimes with impunity, escaping punishment even as their liberal apologists labor to explain away those misdeeds?

Where is the outrage over alleged serial indiscretions by Atlanta Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has been accused of hiring a married lover to prosecute/persecute Donald Trump and now is said to have fired a whistleblower for alleging a misuse by Willis’ office of Federal grant money?

Why is Nimarata (Nikki) Randhawa (Haley) still hanging around in the chase for the Republican presidential nomination?

Is she a Quisling?

Is she a stalking horse?

When do traditional Americans, from either major political party, say enough to the ongoing bastardization of our laws, traditions and customs of this once-great nation?

Does anyone think it is mere coincidence that most of the major U.S. cities facing mounting crime, declining quality of life and massive impending commercial real estate crises are led by Democratic administrations?