Trump putting his life on the line for America every day … AI Generated

Donald Trump is living rent free in the minds of delusional Democrats and it’s driving the Dims crazier and crazier. It’s a craziness unmatched in the history of political opposition.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, former member of the House of Representatives from Georgia, lobbed this subatomic brain bomb:

“On Easter morning, this is what President Trump posted. Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness. I know all of you and he has gone insane.”

Senior Sen. Bernie Sanders,D-Vermont, chimed in:

“These are the ravings of a dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual. Congress has got to act NOW. End this war.”

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., sang the same hysteric hymn:

“Disgusting and unhinged Easter message from Donald Trump. Something is really wrong with this guy.”

These guys and gal, and plenty of other parrots really lit up CNN, MS (not) NOW, and the other media outlets with their grinding grievances against the duly (twice) elected President.

All Trump did was threaten utter devastation to the Iran homeland, if they did not lay down their guns, sweep their mines, and open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday.

The New York Times gave space to Charlie Savage, who writes about national security and legal policy, to say Trump was self-incriminating his own war crimes. Savage quoted the President:

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, adding, “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

Meanwhile, a large segment of Americans sat back and said, “Go ahead, Mr. President.”

Let’s take a trip on the WayBack time machine — back to July 26, 1945.

The setting is the Potsdam Conference, at the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, Germany, shortly after Germany surrendered WWII.

Joseph Stalin, Clement Attlee (replacing Winston Churchill) and Harry S. Truman were meeting to determine administration of the defeated Germany.

At Pottsdam, Truman held a press conference and announced the “Potsdam Declaration.” It was simultaneously broadcast into Japan.

Crazy (by current Democrat standards) Harry S. Truman threatened prompt and utter destruction and “utter devastation of the Japanese homeland,” if Japan did not surrender unconditionally.

Last time THR checked, Truman was a Democrat, and is still probably voting Democrat somewhere in Chicago.

Immediately after Truman’s threats, the Republicans took to the airways to declare Truman “crazy,” “dangerous and mentally unbalanced,” “disgusting and unhinged.” Even his supporters were leaving him saying “something’s wrong with this guy.”

NO! NO! NO!

THERE WAS COMPLETE SILENCE. According to AI, there is no historical record of major opposition calling Harry Truman “crazy” for threatening Japan with destruction.

Eleven days later, on Commander-In-Chief Truman’s order, the world’s first atomic bomb obliterated Hiroshima, where 70,000 to 80,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed instantly or within a few hours. Radiation sickness, burns and injuries claimed another 70,000 by the end of 1945.

Three days later, another atomic bomb was sent to Nagasaki, where estimates are between 40,000 and 80,000 people died instantly. Another 70,000 died later from injuries.

Some say Japan surrendered three weeks later because they had been defeated by a miracle weapon.

Remember Japan was using suicide-committed pilots, kamikazes, to attack our Navy. They had perpetuated the largest, most devastating aerial attack on our country’s Navy at Pearl Harbor, killing almost 2,500 U.S. military personnel and wounding another 1,100,

They were fearless fanatics. Without the devastation caused by Truman’s deranged (by Democrat standards) bombings Japan could have become the world leader in terrorism, fighting to a slower, but certain death. But not until many, many more U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen had died.

After the fact, some raised the issue that Truman was a war criminal, but there never was any official war crime charges against our 33rd President by any international tribunal, government, or court before, during or after his presidency.

While the bombings brought a period of peace, Truman never was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, but in 1956, 11 years later, the faculty of the University of Oxford voted to award Truman an honorary degree for his leadership during them crucial period at the end of WW2.

While Trump is acting crazy, deranged and just not right, according to the Democrats, what he is doing is laying his life on the line every day, fighting fiercely for his country. The deranged opposition doesn’t just want him controlled, they want him in jail, hopefully facing execution, or dead.

He’s been shot once and aimed at on other occasions, and he’s in the sights of the deranged Democrats day and night. If he threatens Iran he is criticized. If he calls a cease fire, he’s criticized. Jack Smith, a former unofficial special counsel, who worked tirelessly, but fruitlessly, to jail Trump, could be, as we write, drawing up international war criminal charges against his nemesis. He would relish a new opportunity to torment Trump.

Smith, the Democrats and the never-Trumpers are like the Wylie Coyote, who just can’t catch the roadrunner. They, like the Coyote, are singularly focused on destroying Trump. The Coyote is constantly chasing the roadrunner, getting smashed by anvils, running into boulders, flying over cliffs without a parachute, blown to bits by dynamite and coming up empty. He just doesn’t realize there are other critters out there that would be easier to catch and eat.

The Dims burned over a BILLION dollars with Kamala Harris trying to keep Trump out of the White House. They squandered tons of taxpayer dollars in New York, Georgia, Florida and D.C. trying to get him behind bars.

And all they while, Trump is in a recliner, sipping Diet Coke rent free in the minds of all those poor victims of TDS. He’s enduring the quiet peacefulness of such an empty place, much more preferred than the traditional padded cell.

And despite the frequent slings, arrows and bullets, he gets up every day (if he ever sleeps) and stands up for America.

That’s what we voted for.

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They Just Don’t Want to Get It

Wednesday night President Trump tried again to explain to the liberal left Democrat opposition why we have joined with Israel to neutralize Iran’s nuclear weapons aspirations, and cripple, if not eliminate it’s worldwide terrorism efforts, but again he couldn’t seem to get them to understand.

Thehill.com, a media left wing of the Democrat Party, said speculation prior to Trump’s primetime address, obviously from the geniuses in the downstream media, was that he would announce withdrawal from NATO or order ground troops to seize Iran’s enrichment uranium.

He did neither.

“The president instead once again rehashed Iran’s long record of antagonism toward the U.S.; complained about the nuclear deal that had been in place under President Obama; and exulted the damage that has been done to Iran’s navy and air force,” said the review written by Niall Stanage, minutes after Trump finished.

We will say it again, the Democrats and their lap dog downstream media, are not hard of hearing, they are hard of listening.

Trump said “We’re going to finish it (the conflict) very fast. We’re getting very close.”

The Hill’s writer explained spun Trump was trying to “reassure the American public that there was no danger of seeing another quagmire of the kind witnessed inIraq and Afghanistan or, generation before, in Vietnam.”

Again, Trump held his cards close to his vest and the writer complained “there was nothing in terms of specificity from the president.

Word of the Day: Specificity

Searching the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary we found no such word. So, we asked AI and found the word surfaced in the 1830s referring to being more specific in medical research. dictionary.com now has as the word’s first meaning: the quality or state of being specific. The second meaning goes back to biochemistry and pharmacology: the selective attachment or influence of one substance or another, as an antibiotic and its target organism or an antibody and its specific antigen.

The word is common fancy political lingo these days, but it first hit our radar in the 1970s during the Watergate hearings. It was heavily used and heavily debated by the congressional committee members. We recall Chairman Sam Irvin, D-NC, with his distinct southern accent, demanding more “specificity”.

The Democrats thought that whistle-blower John Dean offered more specificity because he was on the inside and there at the White House, before being fired by President Nixon.

Representative William Hungate, D-Missouri, memorably tried to explain the need for specificity to eliminate the confusion of inferences. He said that if a person brought an elephant through the door, some would call it an “inference” or a “mouse with a glandular condition.”

Congressional discourse has never been accused of being lucid. But, we seriously have digressed.

A RHINO Rides Again…

To prove its case, that Trump is unable to articulate a clear case for why the war was necessary right now, the article discussed above referenced a quote from Rep. Thom Tillis, (RHINO-NC), who appeared on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday morning when he was asked what the “primary objective” of the war was.

“I don’t know, and I think its a real problem,” Tillis said.

Yes, it’s a real problem that Tillis doesn’t know. That’s why he isn’t seeking re-election.

It would be easy for Tillis, and the downstream media, to know what Trump’s —and thus our country’s — objectives are.

What is there not to understand about the primary objectives outlined again this week by Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth:

1. Destroy Iranian offensive missiles

2. Destroy Iranian missile production

3. Destroy their navy and other security infrastructure

4. “They will never have nuclear weapons”

If there has to be a “primary objective”, it easily is No. 4.

So many who are disappointed by our downstream media are saying, “You just can hate them enough.”

Real journalism is reporting who, what, when and where. Punditry is what we have telling us why. When someone is trying to explain to you what the president “really” said it is pure punditry, one’s opinion, one’s own set of “facts.” Punditry, which is broadcast and written 24-7 these days is primarily from the liberal left. If you can’t avoid it, just remember, even something as flat as a pancake has two sides.

Dispatches From the Deranged:

How these folks find publishers, is difficult to understand.

USAToday handed over space on its website, and probably in its antiquated paper publication (we don’t know because we are not about to hand over $4 for one), to two “Opinion Contributors”, Caleb O. Brown and Patrick Jaicomo, to tell states to stop cooperating with the federal enforcers of immigration and customs laws. Its headline reads “GOP-led states that cooperate with ICE surrender their power.”

The subhead to the article read: “The framers of our Bill of Rights understood that policing is largely local, and keeping that authority where it belongs should be a consistent priority.” That’s a very long subhead, designed to allow a scanning reader to get the gist of the article without really reading it. The subhead statement is possibly true.

The framers may have understood that policing is largely local. Everything in the 1700s was “largely local.”

But the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) of the Constitution (actually not just understood by the framers, but written by the framers) established that federal law, the Constitution, and treaties are the supreme law of the land, overriding conflicting state laws. It was created to address the weakness of the Articles of Confederation, and the same weakness of the anti-ICE crowd’s understanding of the law.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the clause was introduced. It was seen as needed to ensure states could not bypass federal legislation and that federal authority runs over state laws, not through them.

In the article the Brown/Jaicomo opinion piece said the “dramatic expansion of immigration-focused cooperative policing agreements with state an local authorities comes against the backdrop of the historic unpopularity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

That is another slight-of-hand offered as evidence. If you click the link to its supporting document it takes you to a Fox News poll in early March that found that 60% of respondents disapproved of ICE’s performance.

That is shallow, at best, proof of “historic” unpopularity. Historic unpopularity would be documented by similar unpopular polls on ICE performance during Biden and Obama administrations as well. But we can’t remember any criticism of ICE’s work at that time (probably because ICE wasn’t working much at that time). “Historic” is not normally proven by what happened last month.

“The state-federal collaboration campaign undermines some of federalism’s most basic aspects and reduces state control over state police officers,” the opinion piece reads.

“This comes as many right-leaning state legislatures are now considering requirements that their police departments partner with federal agencies,” the writers said.

Au contraire, by doing so, the state legislatures are controlling their police departments by requiring them the cooperate with federal agencies. The federal government cannot force states to enforce federal regulations or laws, but state representatives can agree to enforce the laws. If they choose not to, there is nothing to stop federal authorities from enforcing the federal laws.

The GOP - led states, in this case, are sanctioning what the majority of the state’s residents want — to get the illegal aliens out of their state. That’s what they voted for in the last election. They can change that in the next one, but they probably will not.

USA Today should be ashamed for publishing such hogwash. It should enlighten its readers, rather than confuse them with such inaccurate messages (aka hogwash) from the minority.

Both of the writers have sufficient credentials as liberals:

Caleb O. Brown was recently named Chief Executive Officer of Bluegrass Institute for Public Property. He was previously with CATO Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

Patrick Jaicomo is senior attorney for the Institute for Justice and a leader of its project on Immunity and Accountability which “leads the nation in challenging and removing immunities and other legal barriers that stand in the way of individuals trying to hold government officials accountable for constitutional violations.”

Then, there’s this:

Robert Tait, writing for the The Guardian, sang similar hymn of despair about the President’s address.

“Speculation before Wednesday’s speech from the Blue Room suggested that the president might be about to signal a winding up of the US military effort which began 28 February, Tait wrote. “Instead, in a 19-minute speech during which he several times slurred his words and stumbled over syntax, Trump said vaguely that “we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives very shortly,”

It would be interesting to read Tait’s coverage of President Auto Penn speeches, wouldn’t it.

If Tate was intimating that Trump was drunk and slurring his words, President Trump doesn’t drink alcohol. If was suggesting that the President is physically declining, he has been slurring his words throughout his five years as leader of the free world.

Tait had no problem accurately quoting Trump saying, “We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two weeks. We going to bring them back to the stone age, where they belong.”

The story on theguardian.com was headlined ‘A litany of lies’: Trump’s rambling primetime Iran address sparks backlash

(Sarcasm Alert) The headline was backed up by an impeccable source.

“Trump’s speech came under attack as soon as he finished,” Tait wrote.

“On the cable network MS Now, Chris Hayes called it a ‘litany of lies he’s told before.”

Shock of shockers, MS Now sparked a backlash to something Trump said. Now there’s MS Now news!

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It seems we elect people to jobs in Congress that they don’t really have to do.

There was a time when members of Congress had to work at their jobs. There was no staff for individual members in the beginning. When Davy Crockett was in the House of Representatives from Tennessee, he had no staff. He did his own thinking and correspondence.

Serving from 1827-1831 and 1833-1835 he was his own man — much like today’s John Fetterman, D-Pa.

Crockett broke the rules for expected attire, refusing to don frilly shirts, top coats and knickers in favor of buckskin pants and jackets, and possibly a raccoon-skin hat. Fetterman prefers hoodies and athletic shorts to the button-down shirts and pin-striped suits — but we digress.

The only clerical help congressmen and senators had was from those employed by committees of Congress, unless they personally funded a small staff.

Now there’s a thought. Let’s have them fund their own staff with campaign funds. That would add more to the economy than just buying television ads with their money. They would actually have to pay payroll taxes just like everyone else who has employees. …But we digress.

It was long after the Civil War, 1883 in fact, before the House of Representatives first approved personal staff for its members. In 1884 the Senate authorized personal clerks for all members. In 1886 the first full-time clerk with an annual salary was authorized and by 1893, all Senate personal staff were made permanent employees.

A hundred years later, in 2000, there were approximately 11,692 personal staff, 2,492 committee staff, 274 leadership staff 5,034 institutional staff, 3,500 Government Accountability Office employees, 747 Congressional Research Service and 232 Congressional Budget Office employees.

With these figures, which come from Wikipedia, that makes 23,944 employees doing the work of our 535 elected representatives. That’s an average of 45 employees needed to do the work of our elected legislators. We’ve come a long way, baby!

Each U.S. Senator gets a budget of between $4.29 million and $6.62 million for official personnel and office expenses, according to Congress.gov. The amount depends on the population of the state the senator represents. California, Florida and New York are in the $6 million range. The average is $4.66 million per senator, and there are 100 of those folks.

On the House side, each member gets a Member’s Representational Allowance (MRA) of between $1.84 million and $2.08 million for an average of $1.92 million per congressperson. There are 435 of those.

Senators can hire as many individuals as their budget allows. House members are limited to 18 permanent employees and up to four more employees if they are part-time, interns, shared or temporary employees.

You see, basically all the elected Senators and Congressmen have to do , at their discretion, is show up to vote, attend committee meetings, be in front of television cameras, and campaign for re-election. The first three things are optional. Campaigning for re-election is mandatory.

According to Gov.Track.us, some lawmakers, particularly freshmen or those in leadership, go through an entire session without an original thought acting as a primary sponsor for a new bill.

And at one congresswoman in 2024 didn’t participate 61.2% of the votes.

The staff does the real work, if there is any. They get coffee, tea or water when needed. They do research, get any proposed bills ready, respond at their discretion to constituents, answer the office phone, they chauffeur the royal elected, and coordinate his/her/they schedule. When a member shows up for a televised committee hearing, you’ll notice members of his staff over each shoulder, ready to answer any whim.

To do this “work” the elected members of Congress are paid a base salary of $174,000, which has not increased since 2009. A majority of the members have consistently voted to block automatic increases since that year. Is that enough? Probably, since the president’s salary is $400,000 and he’s got tons more responsibility.

A group of current and former senators and representatives, however, are suing — in a suit in federal court that was filed in 2024 — to force pay raises and secure over $69 million in back pay. They claim Congress’ voting to block automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments since 1994 violates the 27th Amendment, claiming they are entitled to the increases. Automatic pay increases were voted into law in 1989.

This year, if it hadn’t been blocked, the members would have gotten a 3.2% increase. Obviously the cost-of-living calculation is different for Congress than for those on Social Security, who only received a 2.8% increase this year.

But, let’s look at the 27th Amendment.

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

The founding principal of paying legislators goes back to the “ancient practice” of the British House of Common’s of paying legislators for their services. As confirmed by Justice Joseph Story, a Supreme Court Associate Justice from 1812 to his death in 1845, compensating legislators had a long history.

According to Constitution Annotated, an analysis and interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, paying the lawmakers was purposed “to ensure that a pool of talented people from all economic backgrounds would serve as legislators and to reduce the potential for corruption that might result if legislators received compensation from other sources.”

A lofty purpose it was, but the outcome, observed 250 years later, would be considered a tragic failure.

A group of delegates to the Federal Convention thought the Constitution should “fix” salaries for Members of Congress. But James Madison, later President Madison, argued “that it would be ‘an indecent thing’ to permit Members of Congress to ‘regulate their own wages.’”

Early in the first Congress the legislators placed a high priority on their compensation package. Not much has changed in 250 years.

In attempt to prevent runaway salary increases voted themselves by sitting members, a resolution was proposed to revise the Congressional Compensation Clause to include “no law varying the compensation last ascertained shall operate before the next ensuing election of Representatives.”

Madison, a Virginia congressman at the time, explained the need for this amendment:

He said, although it was unlikely that Congress would abuse its power when determining its compensation, there was nonetheless “a seeming impropriety in leaving any set of men without control to put their hand into the public coffers, to take out money to put in their pockets.”

On September 25, 1789, Congress approved the Congressional Pay Amendment and submitted it to the states for ratification. It was accompanied by 11 other Amendments, 10 of which became our Bill of Rights and were approved with some degree of speed.

But the Congressional Pay Amendment was reposed in the ash heap of history for more than 100 years.

The Rest of the Story…

According to Constitution Annotated there is a really interesting story behind it’s eventual adoption.

“In 1982, Gregory D. Watson, an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote about the Congressional Pay Amendment in a paper for a political science class. Watson argued that the states could adopt the Amendment because Congress had not imposed a deadline on its ratification. Watson’s instructor gave him a grade of ‘C’ on the paper, reportedly telling him that the Amendment was a ‘dead letter.’ Thereafter, Watson mounted a campaign to obtain the state legislatures’ ratification of the Amendment.”

From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, more than 30 state legislatures ratified the Amendment, responding to public opposition to congressional pay increases.

On May 7, 1992 the 27th Amendment was declared ratified.

So, somewhere along the way, Congress decided it should get annual cost of living pay increases. That seems like a trick to get around the 27th Amendment which basically says they can’t raise their salary until they have been elected again — every two years.

They are also saying that a majority of members cannot vote down any pay increases.

This case should be a slam dunk to uphold the Constitution and the majority’s wishes. Why is it taking so long to get to a verdict?

Following Up…

Remember in THR 121.0 we reported that Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md, accused President Trump of lying about having had discussions with Iranian leaders about ways to end the Iran-Isreal-USA conflict.

“We know he’s lying,” Van Hollen said on CNN, “when he says that the Iranians are talking with us and they are about to give Donald Trump everything he wants, Yes that’s a lie.”

We said we’d put that in a sealed mayonnaise jar and wait to see who’s lying.

We can open the jar now. Van Hollen was lying.

Van Hollen’s statement, should, in fairness, been reported this way:

“We know he’s lying,” Van Hollan said, without evidence. Why is it that that phrase “said, without evidence” is only used when quoting a Donald Trump statement? But, we digress.

The New York Times, of all sources that we normally don’t trust, this week reported that Trump’s team has been negotiating with Iran for days, and a 15-point peace plan was presented to the mullahs.

Democrats never let the truth get in the way of a good story when a sympathetic ‘reporter’ is quizzing them in front of a camera. Television makes it easy to tell when they are lying — we can see their lips are moving.

THR News… Just for Fun

Cory Booker, vaunted Senator from New Jersey, held a press conference and was quoted as saying “Donald Trump has brought chaos to our airport in New Jersey. This is his way of doing things. Chaos, cruelty and corruption that is visiting us now: It’s Donald Trump. He won’t fund the TSA and has brought ICE to our airport here.

“Get ICE out of our airports. It’s not good for our customers. It’s not good for our flyers.”

The Hogwash Report’s insider at the White House says President Trump crafted an executive order in response to Booker’s demand. Trump would direct that every ice machine in every airport be removed.

The Senate later passed a Continuing Resolution to fund everything but funding for immigration enforcement as they tried to get limits on the “out-of-control” operations from ICE.

The Republican Senators took the bait passed the bill and the Senate left town for a two-week vacation.

Thinking it was all over, Yahoo News and MS Now had identical headlines that read, “Democrats won the fight over long lines at the airport. Here’s Why.”

It was presented as news, but with a smaller type label as “Opinion.” Both Yahoo and MS NOW were presenting a piece written by Symone D. Sanders Townsend.

Townsend, of course, is a Democrat mouthpiece. Her bio reads she is an American political strategist and political commentator who hosts MS NOW’s The Weeknight. In one place on her page on Wikipedia it says she’s a former member of the Democrat Party and in another place it says she is affiliated with the Democrat Party.

More background finds that she was in involved in Joe Biden’s 2020 election campaign as a senior advisor, and after Biden won the election, she was named chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris. She was the one who tried to put the lettuce back together from Kamala’s word salads.

But wait there’s more…

The House of Representatives have put the brakes on the reopening of the government without fully funding the Department of Homeland Security.

Paychecks for the TSA workers could start reaching the agents as early as Monday under Trump’s plan to pay them regardless of the shutdown.

In the meantime, the Senate has gone home for two weeks, so there is no real end in sight to this stalemate.

Stay tuned and stay just home for a while.

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Or you could just buy me a coffee for just $5. In honor of the good work of the ICE agents, I think I’ll have a little ICE in my cup.

(Sarcasm Alert) The best and brightest Democrats are rising to the top of the list of candidates for the 2028 presidential nomination.

For now, Pete Buttigieg is a clear leader for the nomination in the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary. He has the support of almost 25 percent of those polled in a six-way race featuring Buttigieg the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., Gavin Newsom (15%), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (12.5%), Kamala Harris (8.0%), JB Pritzker (5%) and Josh Shapiro (4.0%).

This is pretty much worthless information, but two polls, aggregated by RealClearPolitics.com are already spinning this election that will not occur until January or February 2028, about 23 months from now. Look for all of the above to change, but one thing will not change —the shallowness of the Democratic pool of competent presidential candidates.

Here is a brief introduction to the current field, in case you don’t know them all. Buttigieg was Joe Biden’s DEI Secretary of Transportation. He had to take maternity leave when he and his husband adopted twins.

Newsom has reigned as California’s governor since 2019 and presided over the catastrophic fire that destroyed much of Los Angeles County, 57,000 acres. He also couldn’t find the billions in fraud being uncovered in his state.

Ocasio-Cortez brings a wealth of bar-tending experience to the race. She proved her foreign policy chops in a trip to Germany where she proclaimed that Venezuela was south of the equator, and that was why President Trump arrested that country’s president.

You remember Kamala Harris, loser to President Trump in the last presidential election, after spending more than a BILLION dollars of Democrat campaign contributors’ money.

JB Pritzker is the governor of the sovereign Democratic Republic of Illinois. He contends federal immigration agents have no standing in his state.

Josh Shapiro is the Democrat governor of Pennsylvania, better known as the governor Kamala Harris didn’t choose as her vice president-to-be.

A debate with all of these folks on the stage would be a disaster for the Democrat Party, so, please, bring it on!

Dispatches from the Deranged…

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., had his TDS showing this week, calling Trump a lier. It takes a lot of gull for a politician to call somebody a lier. In Biblical terms, he probably has a log in his eye.

“We know he’s lying,” Van Hollen said on CNN, “when he says that the Iranians are talking with us and they are about to give Donald Trump everything he wants. Yes, that’s a lie.”

Van Hollen must have better communication with the enemy than the President does.

Then he accused Trump of planning a potential “war crime” when he threatens to target the Iranian power grid.

Let’s put that in the sealed mayonnaise jar and wait to see who’s lying.

Jan-Werner Müller wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian. Müller is a German political philosopher and historian of political ideas working at Princeton University. He’s from Bad Honnef, Germany, just south of Bonn. The U.N. has a presence there and it’s the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven. If Müller was on trial for being a liberal, there would be a unanimous conviction.

He wrote this, with his vast background on political “ideas”:

“Never before has an administration so openly glorified outright killing as the current White House propaganda machine does with its obscene snuff videos of the Iran war and the destruction of small boats.

“Trump has never hidden his desire for domination and the related willingness to have his followers engage in violence, from the call to rough up people at his rallies to the pardons of even the most brutal January 6 insurrectionists.

“Hegseth, and perhaps even Rubio, seem drunk on the idea that special military operations could be quick and costless in American lives – and make for great TV. Trump’s fixation on visuals and props – if I show a pile of paper on TV, it means I really have divested from my companies, or I really have a great healthcare plan – is now shared across his administration.”

Müller apparently can’t grasp Trump’s political idea that America needs to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon and drug dealers need to know we are no longer aiming the other way when you are bringing deadly drugs into this country.

Müller’s take probably plays well in the Professor’s Lounge, but Trump’s ideas play better on Main Street.

Yes, again Princeton puts its faculty without faculties on display.

Word of the Day

Faculties: common sense, innate common sense, intellectual gifts, senses, wit.

Dispatches from the Deranged:

Hakeem Jeffries, the esteemed Minority (Democrat) Leader in the House Of Representatives, is sounding the alarm that President Trump could get “somebody killed” for accusing the Democrats of being the country’s “greatest enemy” after Iran.

Trump, on Sunday, posted “Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent Democrat Party!” He also said on Saturday that “Radical Left Democrats have hurt so many people with their vicious and uncaring ways” and that “Fascist Democrats will never protect America.”

“Donald Trump should keep his reckless mouth shut before he gets somebody killed,” Jeffries said on the the Democrat’s CNN’s State of the Union program.

The Log-in-the-Eye syndrome is just as prevalent in the Democrat Party as is TDS.

The Democrats’ demonization of Trump nearly got him killed in 2024, remember? The Democrats’ demonization nearly got Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh killed in 2022.

The Radical Left Democrats’ rhetoric spawned an attack on Republican lawmakers at a baseball practice in 2017.

Actually, Jeffries saying that Trump’s talk could get somebody killed could be taken as a dog whistle that Trump should be taken out.

Notice Jeffries didn’t try to refute Trump’s allegations, he just attacked Trump.

And notice that Jan-Werner Müller’s commentary above could inspire radical violence against those folks he disparaged.

And so it goes in politics today. It’s not about the issues. It’s not about supporting our troops in dangerous conflicts. It’s not about fair elections. It’s not about affordability. For the Democrats is all about Trump. And what has that gotten the Democrats and the Looney Left? Two presidential terms for Donald John Trump. And they have learned nothing. They are so deranged they will not support requiring positive identification to cast a vote in this country.

They are bereft of their faculties.

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Here are some highlights:

Azcactuspete reminded us of the antonyms for “enfeeble” are: Strengthen, Energize, and Invigorate. Does that sound like Trump? You bet.”

Bob Hoebeke wrote, in response to our suggestion that we need elected officials who work for us, not against us: “We elect them to do OUR bidding, THEY quickly forget that and create their own fiefdoms, and the next thing you know they are protecting THEIR power at the electorate’s expense. Much of this would go away if only DOJ would convict those committing fraud with OUR dollars, and throw them in jail. And guess what, I believe we would once again see civility between the parties,”

Jack Sotallaro opined “People are near-sighted when it comes to politicians — the just see ‘what they’ll do for me’ rather than noticing that the federal government’s jurisdiction is the whole country and elected officials should govern accordingly. The fetid odor in and around DC is not just the pollution in the Potomac.”

Tune in Saturday for more on the largess of our legislators in Washington.

In the meantime, let’s see if we can keep our string of comments running.

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In his Farewell Address in 1796, after serving as our first president for eight years, George Washington admonished those who were conniving to establish political parties or associations.

He warned of “the spirit of party” and said it “serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.

How prescient was the Father of our country!

Breaking down that 36-word observation we can see clearly the political and, hence, the governmental stalemate our country faces today.

The party serves to distract the public councils by establishing rules of thought to be adhered to without waver. Independent thought served our country well as the founders chose independence and freedom over the royal rulers of England.

President Washington, learned man that he was, was well aware of the disruption to governance that the Whigs and the Tories had established in England in the late 1600s.

He saw political parties as a prescription to “enfeeble” the public administration.

Noah Webster, in his American Dictionary of the English Language published in 1828 told us “enfeeble” was a verb transitive meaning to “deprive of strength; to reduce the strength or force of; to weaken; to debilitate; to enervate.” As examples Webster gave “Intemperance enfeebles the body, and induces premature infirmity. Excessive grief and melancholy enfeeble the mind. Long wars enfeeble a state.”

The current stalemate in which the Republicans and Democrats have our government mired is a great example of a long war that has enfeebled our government.

The two-party system today, as Washington predicted, “agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms.” The gridlock we are in, with our government partially shut down is the unimpeachable evidence of ill-founded jealousies and false alarms.

If Washington could speak to us from his Mount Vernon grave, he would be sternly telling is, “I told you so!”

Deranged Jealousies…

Trump Derangement Syndrome is rooted in ill-founded jealousies. The fact that the American people twice have chosen Donald Trump to be our president has the Democrat Party in such a box and it only can pull the handle on the false alarm bells.

The angst from both sides, as our first president said, “kindles the animosity of one part against the other.”

The long observed comity in the U.S. Senate, where respect for one another was always expected in pronouncement and in debate, has degenerated to malicious name calling and threats.

Prophetically, Washington foretold such animosity “foments (instigates, causes) occasionally riot and insurrection.”

Oh, haven’t we witnessed enough riot and insurrection over the past nine years to bring us all to our knees to pray for Devine intervention as the first best, but often the last, resort?

But Wait, There’s More…

In another paragraph in his address of Sept. 17, 1796, Washington said these unheeded words of caution:

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

Who knew we would elect cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men (and some women, too)? President Washington knew.

Some Democrats and some Republicans must step away from being dominated by party and begin to represent the wishes of their constituents — all of their constituents, not just the ones wearing the blue or the red jerseys.

Our founding fathers revered independent thought. The current party leaders want none of that. Stubborn leadership is bad leadership. Surely there are some things that the red team and the blue team can agree on.

We send representatives to Washington D.C. to make our government work, not to shut it down. How did that simple thought get lost on these pillars of patriotism.

Tiresome Politics…

This ‘if I can’t get my way we’ll shut this country down” tantrum is getting old, very old. Some important government workers are having to work without pay, and as a result they are doing an even worse job for the American people. Citizens’ freedom to travel is now being made very, very difficult by its own government’s failure to do its job. All of this affects the economy and the morale of the people.

There are consequences for losing elections. The losing party used to suck it up and vow to win the next one, and they kept the government operating.

Now, the out-of-power Democrats are doing everything they know of to block the duly-elected president, using tactics that often makes the minority more powerful than the majority. When a single federal judge can handcuff a sitting president at every turn, that is not a democracy, which the Democrats were so afraid of losing if Trump was re-elected.

Actually, when they said another Trump presidency would be the end of democracy in our country, what they really must have been meaning was that they would see to it that democracy would no longer work here. And they are succeeding.

Time to Pay Attention…

Again, the mid-term elections this year are the most consequential in the history of our country. Do not take them lightly. If we are going to be able to keep our Republic, we need people working for us, not against us. We need some real adults to step up and put forth the ideas that will move us forward.

Maybe we need to take a walk on the wild side and elect some real independents — not the Bernie Sanders type — but some who could vote for the right ideas, no matter which side proposes them. Not the Rand Paul type who seems to go against the grain just to needle his party’s leaders.

It’s My Party…

As we’ve said before, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., may be as close as we come to a real independent, who is independent for the right reason — to do what he thinks is best for the country.

That’s why the Democrats, usually in solid lockstep, are furious with Fetterman.

We are reminded of the 1963 hit song by 16-year-old Lesley Gore. “It’s My Party” was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100l

The iconic lyrics describe a teenage girl’s heartbreak at a birthday party where her boyfriend, Johnny (only a coincidence) leaves the party with another girl.

“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. You would cry too if it happened to you.”

The first verse goes like this:

“Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone

Judy left the same time

Why was he holding her hand

When he’s supposed to be mine?”

Yep, the Democrats have caught Johnny Fetterman holding hands with someone else — the Republicans — on the Iran conflict and on keeping the government open. They want to primary him.

The second verse could tell of the Democrat’s woe. It ends with:

“Til Johnny’s dancing with me I’ve got no reason to smile.”

But the third verse is the Democrat’s greatest fear:

“Judy and Johnny just walked through the door

Like a queen with her King

Oh, what a birthday surprise

Judy’s wearin’ his ring”

Fetterman says he not going all the way to the Republicans’ arms, but who knows?

Here’s Leslie Gore for your listening enjoyment:

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We were shooting for 10 comments for The Hogwasgh Report 119.0. We, again, got only three comments, but they were good ones.

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Or you could buy me a cup of coffee here for just $5. Last week one reader bought me five cups of coffee and threatened to subscribe. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m so jazzed on the five cups of coffee I’ve come back with this Saturday post, a few days early.

With so much heavy stuff going on in the world, let’s take the lighter road less traveled today with some Hogwash edification.

We learned long ago that you don’t have to know everything, you just need to know where to find it. Hence, the dictionary.

A lot of writers are prone to throw in a word every now and then that your average, and many above average readers, have never heard of.

As a newspaper copy editor years ago, part of the job entailed editing the columns of the late William F. Buckley, the “father of conservatism” some say. You really didn’t edit Buckley’s column, you just proofread it, and pondered its depth.

Invariably, he would use a word — often in the first sentence — that would send you to the nearest dictionary. For those Gen Z and younger readers, a dictionary in those days was a thick book with printed paper pages defining all the words commonly used in the English language. Today, that would be digitized as dictionary.com.

For instance, in one of his last works, Buckley took Sen. Lowell Weicker to task for proposing a bill that would make it illegal to possess an artifact from the sunken Titanic.

Buckley wrote this opening:

“Sen. Lowell Weicker, I kid you not, has gulled the Senate into passing a bill which reads, ‘Notwithstanding any other provision, no object from the R.M.S. Titanic may be imported into the customs territory of the United States for the purpose of commercial gain…’”

We were stopped at the ninth word, “gulled.”

In the Websters Dictionary of 1828, gull is a verb transitive “To deceive, to cheat; to mislead by deception; to trick, to defraud.

The average, and many below average readers, would have understood most of the synonyms used above, cheat, mislead, trick or defraud, but Buckley’s scholarly prose forced us to expand our vocabulary.

Another example I found was his October 14, 1996 column “My Secret Right-Wing Conspiracy.”

His opening sentence: “On November 4, 1964 Barry Goldwater woke in his desert home, encircled by cactus and other asperities.”

Asperities? Look it up.

When you find its definitions, you have to go to the third one to find the one Buckley offered:

“Roughness of surface; unevenness.”

Without question Buckley conserved newspaper space by using a single word “asperities” rather than saying the home was encircled by ground that was rough and uneven. It saved newspaper space, but it cost me time to look up the word and decipher which meaning applied.

It was beneficial, however, in my quest to learn something new every day.

As I read stuff on Substack, I often come across a writer seeking to “Buckleyize” their writing.

You may or may not have noticed in The Hogwash Report 118.0, I slipped in a word so I could use it as an example in the succeeding THR (which you are now reading).

My mystery word was buried deep in the column, and many would have just read over it to move quickly to the end. Buckley would stop you in the lede sentence to get your attention and expand your vocabulary.

I wrote this: “Trump is trying to make America great again, but heck, it’s already the greatest nation on earth. With all its excrescencies the United States of America offers the greatest hope for anyone to enjoy a safe, prosperous, fulfilling life.”

If you recognized and understood the meaning of “excrescencies” your vocabulary is somewhere in the 125th percentile range. I had to delve into a Thesaurus to find the word. It means things that keep you or a thing from being perfect. It often refers to physical imperfections.

Here are a few examples of other popular Substackers and their propensity to use obscure words.

Jeff Childers, in his popular Covid and Coffee Substack posts, refers to California Gov. Gavin Newsom as the oleaginous California governor. He could just say unctuous, fawning or smarmy. He also could just say “slippery” as the first meaning of oleaginous is “having the nature of oil.”

In another Childers post, reference was made to the Brookings Institute explaining the plight of the Iranian people. It said the government was responsible for the immiseration of its citizens.

Some of you might figure this one out. To immiserate someone is to make them miserable or to cause them to become impoverished.

Childers, again, last week wrote this: “Sometimes I wonder whether its newsroom (New York Times) myopia (lack of foresight or discernment; obtuseness) is actually a symptom of bona fide medical problem. Chronic hemp overuse? Late-stage syphilis? Fulminant (occurring suddenly with great intensity or severity) TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).

That Childers, in addition to being a talented and successful columnist, is a lawyer, helps us understand his magniloquent use of words.

My fellow Substack friend, Jack Sollataro stumped me with the word “lagniappes”, referring to the lagniappes from the government.

Yep, right there it was on dictionary.com: “Chiefly Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas. A small gift given with a purchase to a customer, by way of compliment or for good measure; bonus.” [lan-yap, lan-yap]

Jack was talking about all the free things people get from the government. Again, I learned something that day.

A reporter’s job is to cut through the jargon of politicians and police and military officials who actually have their own unnecessary language. Same for us part-time bibliomaniacs.

Last week Sean Hannity was trying to report the news of the terrorist attack at a Michigan synagogue. He succumbed to a police statement that said there was an “incendiary event” at the scene. An incendiary event is a fire or the act of setting a fire. The jargon makes the police report look much more professional.

Reading, hearing and understanding can be perplexing if the writer wants it to be.

Speaking of TDS…

The Mouth of the South, and as Super Substacker Don Surber calls him, the agin’ Cajun, James Carville, has just admitted to having terminal TDS.

“I have TDS,” Carville said last week, “I hate the guy—and you know what? I don’t want to get rid of it. I don’t want to get better. I want it to get worse.”

There’s not enough meds in the world to bring him back. Our only hope is that he will donate his brain to science, if he happens to have one. The Society for an Ethical Cure for TDS could advance its search for a cure with Carville’s donation.

In the meantime, President Trump enjoys living rent free in the cavernous cranium of Sir Carville of Clintondom.

Reports on the Rich and Famous…

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is leaving Seattle and moving to Florida, the latest of the liberals who have had enough of the bereft-of-common sense west coast. He has purchased a $50 million Miami Penthouse.

Meanwhile, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is leaving California and has purchase a $150 million home in the Sunshine State.

That $100 million disparity is the difference in making your money out of coffee or out of thin air.

Why Is That?:

I want to vote on the SAVE ACT, but for some reason the Democrats want me to prove I’m a U.S. Senator.

Another let down

Last week I asked for at least 15 comments on The Hogwash Report 118.0, thinking readers would be excited to comment on why we have such a great country. I got three comments.

Paul M said “The SAVE Act will be the hill they (the Democrats) die on, assuming there’s enough courage to make them tell us why they don’t want it, when 83% of the country does.”

Michael Swartz said, “If minorities voted straight Republican there would be no minority districts.”

Jack Sotallaro said, “…the only thing different about the clowns and jokers that pepper our government today is those who filled that roll one hundred years ago is the the instant communications every person carries on their belt.”

Like I said “What a great country we live in, but who would know?”

The rest of you said nothing, so let’s try this again. Surely you can add something in the comment section. Let’s shoot for 10 comments this week.

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What a great country we live in, but who would know?

Half of our elected members of Congress get up every day to tell us what is wrong with our country. And the other half isn’t telling us what is right with it.

The biggest newspapers (which are far from as big as they used to be) are headlining the daily disaster. Television networks like CNN, MS NOW, ABC, NBC and CBS (which may or may not be taking baby steps to test the middle of the road) are 24-7 downers. You can’t even get a positive America-the-beautiful halftime show at the Super Bowl. AM Radio may be the closest thing to positive, conservative, promotion of this great country. Roger Ailes’ Fox News is gone. It once was a patriotic network. Now it seems too timid to be true Red, White and Blue through and through.

Trump is trying to make America great again, but heck, it’s already the greatest nation on earth. With all its excrescencies the United States of America offers the greatest hope for anyone to enjoy a safe, prosperous, fulfilling life. It’s the home field of freedom. It’s the land of plenty.

But, did you hear any of that anywhere this week?

When I was in high school decades ago, a sitting U.S. Senator visited our school and the principal called an assembly of every student in the auditorium. The U.S. Senator, Jennings Randolph, a dyed in the wool Democrat representing West Virginia (a state that for years was locked up to the Democrats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and mineworkers’ union leader John L. Lewis) spent what seemed like an hour or more telling us what a great country we lived in. How we all had endless opportunity to make something of ourselves, if we worked hard and obeyed the laws. I left there a more patriotic person who thanked God for letting me be born here.

Who is telling our children that today? We are just a few months away from our country’s 250th birthday, and it seems as though nobody cares. It is, and should be, a really big deal.

Now Get This…

Our own government doesn’t seem willing to tell us how good we have it.

The Census Bureau tells us that about 11 percent of our population, or about 39 million people, live at or below the poverty level. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., took exception to that, saying the American people are the most generous in the world and as a result, only about 1 percent of the population is below the poverty level. To be there, they really have to try.

Sen. Kennedy says the federal government spends $1.4 TRILLION a year to keep people above the poverty line.

He used a mom with two kids as an example. She needs $27,000 a year to not be classified as below the poverty line, but she only makes $11,000 a year. The senator pointed out that she can get $3,400 in refundable tax credits, $9,200 in food stamps, $9,500 in housing allowance, $900 in utility subsidies, $16,000 in Medicaid Insurance, $3,100 in school lunches and $6,000 dollars from other government programs.

Kennedy says that gives her access to more than $60,000 in wages and benefits each year.

In a Senate hearing, he asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick “Does that sound like she’s living in poverty?”

He said, no, it doesn’t.

Kennedy said he doesn’t want take any of those benefits away from that little family, but “Can’t we just give a little credit” to the generosity of the American people for taking care of a lot of people.

He argued that the government, ie. the census bureau, does not count non-cash payments when determining the poverty level. Meanwhile, people who earn enough to be above the poverty line have to use their own money to buy food, housing, health care, pay for utilities and school lunches. The playing field may not be exactly level. The government subsidies may tip the scale to the lower income people.

Here’s A Secret From the Swamp:

Government needs to portray itself as always being needed. A high percentage of people below the poverty level is needed to keep the increased funding flowing. Bureaucrats in the deep state need to justify their jobs. If 1% of the population is all there is below the poverty level, then there’s probably more than one bureaucrat for each poor family — hence a $38.8 TRILLION national debt that is growing, and growing, and growing,.

What a country! Ninety-nine percent of the people are in families or themselves have resources, from their own work and/or government subsidy, to live above the poverty standard. Sen. Kennedy says we willingly spend that money on people who, if in many other countries, “would just be left to die in a ditch.”

What a country! Did you hear that anywhere else this week?

The Daily Disaster…

We are complaining that gasoline prices have gone up. I don’t like it, but I think the benefit of having crippled the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism is a pretty good tradeoff. America will be safer if Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.

Folks, this, too, will pass. Let’s wake up and smell the coffee and the roses. We are living in blessed times. Life can’t be, and will never be, a full-time bed of roses. There are thorns in life, even in a bed of roses.

But let’s be grateful for another day of freedom, another day of plenty, another day of living in a wonderful place. A bad day in America is better than a good day in a lot of countries. If you don’t understand that, you just need to travel more.

Are We Flipping Minority Status?

Since the year 2000, the turn of the century, the U.S. population of “minorities” has increased from 30 percent to over 42 percent which calculates to a 40 percent increase in the last 25 years.

Over 40 percent of the population identifies as a racial or ethnic minority.

The political gerrymandering, clothed as minority dominant Congressional districts, has resulted in at least 120 districts set up in such a manner as to ensure the election of representatives from the predominant '‘minorities”.

It’s working perfectly for the racial diversity for which the system, rightly or wrongly, was designed.

The 119th Congress (2025-2026) has record-breaking levels of racial and ethnic diversity with 139 voting members identifying as Black, Hispanic, Asian American or Native American. African Americans hold more than 60 seats and Hispanics hold more than 50 seats.

Thirty-two percent of the 435 seats are held by minorities. If they are shooting for equivalent representation, they should hold 42 percent of the 435 seats, or 182.7 seats.

Our founding fathers, brilliant as they were, never considered one day we would choosing our legislators based on race or ethnicity.

The Young Are “Majority-Minority”

Over 52 percent of the population today is under the age of 18, meaning the minority children are already a “majority-minority.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Brookings Institution project the U.S. will become “minority white” around 2040.

So when will minority-secure Congressional Districts go away? When will we start electing our representatives based on their political ideology, their competence, their honesty, their veracity and their dedication to preserving and protecting America and its Constitution, rather than the color of their skin or their ethnicity? Or, will we need to have districts established for white minorities.

Shameful Public Servants…

It’s not a well-kept secret that we have some real characters in
Congress and some of them are there because they have a minority district that gives them a smooth road to the Capitol.

Here are some superstars these minority districts have given us:

Jasmine Crockett, Texas District 30, who gave us a large dose of political insanity. She became so enamored with herself she thought she should be a Senator instead of a back-row Congresswoman. She just lost the Democrat primary in a statewide race and will be out of elected office at the beginning of 2027.

James Clyburn, South Carolina District 6, who gave us four years of Joe Biden.

Maxine Waters, California District 43, who gave us direction to attack conservatives if you see them in restaurants.

Ilhan Omar, Minnesota District 5, representing the district with the highest number of immigrants of any district in Minnesota, She is a queen of the Somalis in scandal-ridden Minnesota.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York District 14, a district with roughly 70% people of color. She came to Congress from her bartending career.

Hakeem Jeffries, New York District 8, who has risen from a minority district to the most powerful man in the House of Representatives.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Florida District 20, who allegedly collected $6 million for her company in COVID-related overpayments, with funds potentially transferred to her campaign.

Rep. Al Green, Texas District 09, who was censured by the House of Representatives for disrupting a President Trump State of the Union Address. He pulled a similar stunt this year, but he lost his primary recently, as wells. He’s going to have to find a new Green deal.

Rep.Jesus “Chuy” Gardia, Illinois District 4, who was censured in November 2025 for “election maneuvers.” When he retired he did it in a manner that timely allowed his chief of staff, Patty Garcia (no known relation), to become the only Democrat on the ballot for the seat. She will face weak opposition from an unknown Republican and candidates from minor parties in the November election.

Yes, The Hogwash Report is aware — we have some doozies representing competitive House districts, too. Minorities do not have a corner on the crazy market.

We guess that just confirms that there really isn’t a need for minority districts.

Some districts, especially in California, New York and Illinois have lines drawn to contain the most possible voters with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

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“Death to America” becomes Death FROM America for 40 iron-fisted, blood-thirsty, leaders of the terrorist sponsoring nation — Iran, and the Democrats and their downstream media brothers are mad about it.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.— remember him, the belly-over-the-belt candidate for vice president on Hillary Clinton’s ticket— wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal before the smoke cleared from Saturday night’s bombings.

Kaine says the attack is “unwise and unconstitutional.” He claims the Obama Administration solved the problem in 2012 when it announced “a deal to end any move by Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. At the diplomatic table were America’s European allies plus China and Russia, all invested in helping the U.S. and Iran find a diplomatic path forward. The deal was ratified by Congress pursuant to the Iran Nuclear Review Act, which I co-authored. The first paragraph of the agreement contained the core of the deal: ‘Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.’”

Four years later Obama was caught with $1.7 billion in cash on pallets ready to be placed on a plane to take it to Iran. Why not just write a check?

Kaine, patriot that he is, wrote Sunday, “Our troops deserve better than to be sent into war by a president who promised to end wars (Which he has, eight of them). Iranian citizens deserve better than their mistreatment by their own regime (Yes, 30,000 slaughtered) and the deaths of civilians, including school children, at the hands of U.S. and Israeli arial bombardment. (As asserted by the Iranians)”

Here’s where citizen Kaine gets it really wrong. He writes: “Dictators around the world will draw a powerful message from Mr. Trump’s actions: that they can proceed against weaker nations as they please.”

Dictators around the world with those kinds of thoughts better be getting a change of address forthwith. Trump likely told the Ayatollah, “I know where you live.” He also told that to Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro.

Kaine, who obviously spends a lot of time in prayer, said “I pray for American troops and personnel stationed in the Middle East. I pray for Iranian civilians and all in the region who are punished by a war they never sought and can’t escape. And I pray that my congressional colleagues find the backbone to stand up to a warmongering president who has used our military to attack targets in Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean without congressional approval while threatening additional military action in Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Greenland and God knows where else.”

Yep, Tim. God knows.

Once Upon a Time…

In the old days, when a president, who is Commander in Chief, sent our military to war, the opposition party supported their country. Now they just want to keep it divided.

“Every member in the U.S. Senate agrees we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., wrote on X. “I’m baffled why so many are unwilling to support the only action to achieve that.” He vows to vote against the Democrats’ move to limit Trump’s war powers.

Once again, Pennsylvania’s senior Senator, is a voice of patriotism and reason for the Dims. And the Dims are mad about it.

In typical fashion, liberal website Politico said “prominent Democrats are still blasting Fetterman for being a “hard no.”

The only “prominent” Dim they could find was House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Then they went to “heavy weights” Graham Cunningham Platner, a candidate for the Democrat nomination Senate in Maine, and Saikat Chakrabarti, a former congressional staffer, who is running for the nomination to succeed Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco.

They said, that any lawmaker who adopts Fetterman’s approach “should lose their seat.“ It must have been a joint press release, or they were just reading from Dim talking points.

Then There’s This…

Thomas L, Friedman, political observer worldwide, who writes for The New York Times, is confused, conflicted, irresolute and vacillating in his most recent column.

It seems like a sign that he knows what Trump has done is the right thing when he writes:

“I hope this effort to topple the clerical regime in Tehran succeeds. It is a regime that murders its people, destabilizes its neighbors and has destroyed a great civilization. There is no single event that would do more to put the whole Middle East on a more decent, inclusive trajectory than the replacement of Tehran’s Islamic regime with a leadership focused exclusively on enabling the people of Iran to realize their full potential with a real voice in their own future.”

But he couldn’t bring himself to completely betray his liberal friends, so he wrote this, from the Democrat’s playbook:

“We must not let this war to bring democracy and the rule of law to Iran distract us from the threats to democracy and the rule of law posed by Trump in America and by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Trump wants to promote those ideals in Tehran, even as his ICE agents operated for two months with limited regard for legal restraints in my home state of Minnesota and as he floats ideas about restricting and who can vote in our next election.”

He goes on to cheer a Republican former president.

“Life as a columnist,” he wrote, “would be easy if every war you had to take a stand on was the American Civil War and every leader was Abraham Lincoln. But they are not.”

Yeah right!

Had Friedman, with his currently possessed warped liberal mind, been writing in 1862, would he have cheered Lincoln on when he declared martial law multiple times during the Civil War? Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and allowed military tribunals to try citizens, target rebels, insurgents, and those discouraging enlistments or resisting drafts.

He criticizes Trump for allowing his ICE agents to operate with limited regard for legal restraints in his home state of Minnesota and his idea that only legal Americans should vote in elections. Under Lincoln, there would have been no legal restraints and at that time, women were not allowed to vote. And his Democrat fan base at the time would have been fanning the flames to keep slavery in the south intact.

In a life as a columnist, we all know we are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.

On the Wrong Side Again…

Only the Democrats would jump at the chance to condemn their own country for finally confronting the world’s greatest proponent of terrorism, a country that has slaughtered more than 30,000 of its citizens for protesting against their oppression, and a country whose motto for years has been “Death to America.”

Former president Obama cajoled his way to the presidency by saying, “All we have to do is talk with these people.”

We talked and talked and talked, sent them money, but the “Death to America” chants never stopped.

Dispatches From the Deranged

In seeking out items for this segment, we only have to look to Robert Reich, former Clinton era cabinet member, and legend in his own mind:

“Here’s the real reason for this war,” Reich writes. “Trump wants it to divert Americans’ attention from everything that’s gone to s--- on his watch: the economy, ICE’s cruel raids and murders, the crisis in public health as exemplified by the measles epidemic, our loss of friends and allies around the world, his boundless corruption, and his increasing unpopularity as shown in plummeting polls.”

If there was a vaccination against such derangement, even HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would approve it.

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Substacker Sunny wrote an excellent piece titled “The Democrat Party That Died (And Nobody Held al Funeral)” reminding everyone that the Democrats actually years ago would work with presidents on things that they could agree on, or at least mostly agree on.You can read it here:

He was writing about Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York who served in the U.S. Senate from 1977 - 2001.

Sunny used a couple of good quotes:

Moynihan actually worked for President Nixon. When he became an advisor to Nixon, Moynihan was accused of switching teams but he said “Country First. Party Second. Let’s fix stuff.”

“Maybe we should cool the hysterics and just let steady progress happen without everyone screaming,” the somewhat flamboyant senator said.

What Moynihan considered hysterics in his era was a delightful country picnic compared to the riot the Democrats perform each and every day in 2026.

His approach, even though he was always dressed in tweeds, pinstripes and a bow tie, reminds me of a current Democrat Senator who wears a hoody and shorts on the Senate floor from time to time — John Fetterman.

Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, has often adopted a “country over party” approach, breaking from iron grip of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He has wavered from the lockstep on border security, immigration and fiscal responsibility — areas where most Americans agree with the Republican approach, but seen as abominations by the Dims.

He even has criticized fellow Democrats for their intense opposition to the voter ID requirements, saying that’s “a strange hill for Democrats to die on. He also has questions why the Democrats prioritize politics over country regarding Homeland Security funding. Fetterman was the ONLY Senate Democrat to vote for a full-year funding package for the Department of Homeland Security this month.

He has formed an alliance with fellow Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, a Republican, to set an example of cooperation, rather than engaging in “mudslinging.”

Fetterman joined a bipartisan push for the ETHICS Act, which proposes abandoning stock trading by our lawmakers.

Some say Fetterman has maintained that his approach is not about “bending the knee” to the opposition, but he wants to focus on finding pragmatic solutions for his constituents.

Fetterman has come a long way from his early days in the Senate. He was elected after suffering a serious stroke, leaving him virtually unable to communicate when he took office. The Senate relaxed it once-strict dress code — suit and tie — so he could wear comfortable clothing during his recovery.

He has recovered to become the lone Democrat senator with any common sense. He’d be welcomed into the Republican Party, even though he has long-held populace views that would be difficult for the party to completely accept.

Fetterman is in his fourth year of a six-year term. He will be up for re-election in the presidential election year of 2028. It will be interesting to how much democrat opposition he gets at that time.

Sunny’s post reminded me of Moynihan. I filed a comment to his post. I’ll share it here, as well.

“I remember DPM and I appreciate you reminding me of a time when the opposition party would actually work with a president on things that could benefit the people. The dead-as-a-door-nail Democrats wouldn’t even support a Trump initiative to make it law that people in the hospital who need oxygen get it. The Democrats are clinching their TDS. It’s like them drinking poison and expecting Trump to die.”

Super Bowl?

I remember watching the first Super Bowl in 1967 when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs from the upstart American Football League. I figured the AFL would never get a win over the NFL. I was wrong about that.

I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life, and if anyone would have told me 60 years ago that the Super Bowl LX would have a halftime show totally delivered in Spanish, I would have bet the farm, and lost.

Roughly 15 percent of our population speaks Spanish. I suspect not that many of the 65,719 people who paid an average of about $9,000 to be in the stadium understood the language of the halftime star — Bad Bunny.

Most probably didn’t understand the political symbolism that permeated the “show.” Nor could they fathom the sexual twerking by the “dancers.” The oppressive sugar cane plantation theme probably was difficult to relate to. Plus, only 9 of 1,696 players on NFL rosters have any ancestral connection to Puerto Rico.

So what was the purpose of the Super Bowl LX’s halftime show?

If it was to pay a tribute to a Caribbean country, then about 25 other Caribbean countries should feel slighted. Maybe the other 175 or so countries should also feel being spurned.

So, what it has turned into is just another red-carpeted awards show/opportunity to denigrate everyone but flaming liberals. It’s the NFL’s sellout to what it perceives as social justice.

When NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell extended JAY-Z AND Roc Nation’s contract in 2022 to provide the entertainment for the halftime show, Goodell said, the relationship with the group was “mutually positive.” Before saying that, he said, “I’m not sure either of us really spend much time talking about contract. Jay is happy, Desiree Perez is happy. I’m happy, so we are all good.”

The first deal between the NFL and Rock Nation in 2019 was worth $25 million. The “mullti-cultural” show, since then has featured Dr.Dre, 50 Cent, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dog, Mary J. Blige, and Bad Bunny.

In the second quarter of the football game, 137.8 million viewers were tuned in. Ten million of those could be documented as MIA for the halftime show. That’s not counting how many went to the bathroom, the refrigerator, a concession stand or a buffet.

All of this just reminds us that the NFL is only in it for the money — for itself. If you fans don’t like it. Tough oats (as we said in the 60’s).

Glad you are happy Roger Goodell. A lot of your NFL’s fans are not.

U.S. Olympic Team

Good luck to the U.S. Olympic Committee as it seeks out sponsors and donations for 2028 summer games in Los Angeles. George Soros already has the protest signs, bricks and rocks staged somewhere awaiting a really big stage to protest America as we know it.

The Winter Olympics this year have featured downstream media coverage of U.S. team members telling their concerns about their home country. All of these athletes have had years of free training paid for by American patriots. Your shenanigans are a real show of disrespect.

The Olympics are not about free speech. They are about proving you are the best in the world at your sport.

Could we just stick to that.

Dispatches From the Deranged…

The New Republic…

Michael Tomasky just this week published an opinion piece in The New Republic entitled “Trumps New Voter I.D. Threat Is His Gravest Attack on Democracy Yet.

He writes: “The Trump Administration has done many shocking things, too far numerous for me to list. If I had to name three really bad ones, I’d go with: the rancidly political investigations of people he perceives as enemies (Wow, no president has ever done that before, but an autopen did); the staggeringly corrupt enrichment (Wow, Clinton never held a non public job after college and is now a multimillionaire; Obama and his wife now have mansions on the Atlantic coast and in Hawaii, plus millions in book deals, despite never having been nothing more than a community organizer; Joe Biden, a career politician, was skimming 10 percent from his own son’s enterprises of selling his father’s influence to Ukrainians and paint-by-number “art” to dopes who would pay Rembrandt prices for them, for influence, of course. All the while, President Trump’s net worth has declined while he has been in politics. He gives his salary to charity, too.)

Making certain voters in our elections are who they say they are is not a threat to our democracy. It will preserve our democracy. Ohio and other states have had Voter ID laws for years. Bring forth all of those who have been disenfranchised by that requirement. Where are they.

Robert Reich

In a recent podcast Robert Reich, former Clinton cabinet member who frequently shoots from the lip as a liberal, read CBS News “ground-breaking” report from Homeland Security that “only” 14 percent of those being deported by ICE have been convicted of a violent crime.

“That means,” professor Reich enlightens us, “the vast majority of immigrants detained by ICE do not have a criminal record at all.”

Realizing that was not entirely correct (or even close) he continued, “or they had only previously been charged with or convicted of non-violent crimes.

Actually those “leaked” numbers showed that nearly 60 percent of those detained (About 234,000 of the 398,619 detainees do have a criminal record (mostly felonies), but here’s the shocker, Dr. Reich — 100 percent of them are in America illegally.

Hello, CBS…

If CBS wants to re-invent itself as giving a reliable news report that is now oozing propaganda from the Democrats and the liberal left, it needs to put some balance in ALL of its reporting. This report on the criminal records of the detained and deported illegal aliens had none. Using stuff “leaked from Homeland Security” is just pandering to the deep state if you don’t balance the report.

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OK parents, we’ve taught our kids to master the cell phone and the internet, now let’s teach them to gamble!

Back in 2021, a story in Pediatric Research and Child Health told of a researcher watching a young girl playing a slot machine game on a tablet installed in an airport waiting area. J.L. Derevensky, who is an expert in the social cost of young gamblers, said the girl was earning points, not real money, and she was loving it.

“ ‘She’s winning and saying to her dad, ‘I can’t wait until I play it for real.’ She must have been no more than 6 years old.”

Lia Nower, a distinguished professor and director of Gambling Studies at Rutgers University wrote in Addictive Behaviors, Vol. 135 in 2022, “Seeing parents, siblings or other members of the household gamble also normalizes gambling for kids, making them more likely to engage in gambling and other risky behaviors, including alcohol and drug use.

“The earlier kids get exposed to gambling through online games and other avenues, studies suggest, the more severe their gambling problems are likely to be later on,” a 2012 article by A.S. Rahman for the Journal of Psychiatric Research said.

Fourteen years after that warning, we now learn from Nower’s research that the fastest-growing group of sports gamblers are between 21 and 24 years old, who were between 7 and 10 years old when the psychiatrists and sociologists fired early warning shots about video gaming.

“I’m from the government and I here to help you”

“Really”?”

“Yes, I’m pleased to tell you that you can now legally gamble almost anywhere, anytime.”

Americans legally wagered a record estimated $1.76 BILLION, that’s 1,760 million dollars on the 2026 Super Bowl. That’s up nearly 27% over the 2025 game. Las Vegas’ handle, however was up only 11 percent. There’s more and more competition for the local bookies every day. Thirty-eight states and Washington D.C. now have legalized sports betting. Missouri is in the process of launching, and Georgia, Alabama and Minnesota have recently considered legislation to join the list of legal states.

(Sarcasm Alert: Why would Minnesota need legalized sports gambling? Just get a daycare license and you’re a big winner.)

AI says Generally, sports books aim for a hold percentage, retaining between 5-10%. Meaning the majority of the $1.76 billion was returned to the winners. But to fund $1.76 billion in winnings and the bookies’ fees, a really big amount of money was lost by the losing bets.

Getting rich gambling is as rare as an albino zebra (that would be one in several million births, according to AI. Where else would you get this level of information, save in The Hogwash Report?)

Losing, however, is nearly as common as death and taxes.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported gambling as the No. 2 service-sector industry for GDP growth between 2019 and 2024. Only software publishers did more business. Gambling can be an addiction, software consumption is a forced addiction.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, nearly 40 percent of men and 20 percent of women gamble online daily.

Since 2020, U.S. sports bettors have wagered over $600 BILLION in legal, regulated markets. The annual handle skyrocketed from over $21 billion in 2020 to $165 BILLION 2025. (Add to the $600 BILLION, the handle of the unregulated, illegal bookies, who generally give better odds, and you get a staggering number.)

This year’s Super Bowl handle kicks off another expected year of growth.

My Kid Wouldn’t Do That…

An article by Gabrielle Gurley, in the February 2026 issue of The American Prospect magazine, says “Few parents consider that their children could be spending time and money on sports betting.”

Tony Cattani, a principal in Mount Laurel Township, NJ, who last year was named the 2025-26 National High School Principal of the Year, told Gurley he often hears teenagers talking about point spreads, individual players, over/unders, and prop bets in their informal classroom conversations and at lunch.

“Kids talk about how they are betting on this one player,” Cattani says. “He made this shot, but it was after the buzzer.” (Otherwise he would have won $50.) “You hear kids talking about this at 15 to 17 years old.”

Nearly two-thirds of adolescents, ages 12 to 18, said they had gambled or played gambling-like games in the previous year, according to a 2018 Canadian survey of more than 38,000. That number of young gamblers is not likely to have decreased in the last seven years.

Yeah, betting by kids under 18 is generally banned, but it’s nearly impossible to enforce. They have their own cell phones and credit cards.

Now, This Was Smart…

And who was the genius who thought betting on specific pitches in a major league baseball game was a great idea?

Court filings this month alleged that Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz conspired to rig pitch outcomes for sports betting in at least 48 games. Betters allegedly won over $400,000 using this information. Clase and Ortiz were allegedly paid bribes to throw pitches that would win the bets for the conspirators. They also may have used acquaintances to place straw bets for them.

Clase was a three-time All-Star. He may have started the scheme as early as May 2023.

The Chicago Black Sox scandal, the Pete Rose betting scandal, and the Houston Astro sign-stealing scandal have, over the years, given rise to cynicism about the game’s integrity.

But in November of 2018, just six months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting, the MLB jumped in bed with the gamblers, consummating a multi-year deal with MGM Resorts International.

To give gamblers multiple times to bet on each game, the bookies came up with prop bets, or proposition bets, individual bets on, for instance, which team will will the coin toss, will LaBron score more or less that 27.5 points, will the first pitch by certain pitcher in the sixth inning be a ball or a strike, above or below 90.5 mph, There are dozens of opportunities to bet on each game.

So Clase knew that betters were choosing whether his first pitch in a certain inning would be a ball or a strike. The guys bribed Clase to make that pitch a ball. Clase threw it in the dirt. In that hypothetical, but alleged, scenario big dollars flowed to the conspirators.

So now, the bookies can take bets on whether Clase will be in the Guardians’ bullpen, or in a prison’s bullpen.

Wait There’s More…

In January, federal indictments charged more than three dozen players on 17 NCAA Division I teams with point-shaving and fixing dozens of games in the last two seasons.

Five defendants were described as “fixers,” who recruited players with bribes of between $10,000 to $30,000 to intentionally underperform. The bettors placed and won millions of dollars in wagers on the fixed games.

They were “fixing” prop bets. Bets like, which team will win the first half of the game were easily fixed when two or three players on a team were paid to under-perform, missing a shot here and there if necessary, making a turnover here or there, if necessary to see that their team would lose the first half by the number of points needed to secure the bets. In some cases individual players were bribed to personally score no more points than the “fixers” wanted.

Read Their Lips…

AI says the NCAA “continues to position itself as anti-gambling regarding its own games while acknowledging the “reality” of the gambling landscape.” Apparently that’s an acknowledgment that the gamblers will probably find a way.

Late last year, however, the NCAA gave in to gamblers. Beginning in November, college athletes and athletic department staff can now within NCAA rules can bet on professional sports in states where sports betting is permitted.

(Sarcasm Alert: In its tough stand against gambling, the NCAA prohibits sports betting-related advertising and sponsorships at NCAA championships.” )

The House Always Wins

It’s rumored that a Native American chief once said, “White man stole our land. Give us gambling and we’ll get it back.” That’s how casinos were finally available in places other than Las Vegas.

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Apparently Substack’s founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi posted this support of alleged journalist Don Lemon’s participation in the church invasion in Minneapolis.

If Bob Dole were alive, and saw that, he would have immediately sent a copy of this and a note saying, “Dear Chris, Hamish and Jairaj: Some damned fool wrote this and signed your name to it. Just wanted you to be aware. Bob Dole

The founders thought they were coming to the defense of journalism’s protections given by the First Amendment. It was a very noble attempt to have the backs of all of us writers who toil on Substack. We certainly do value free speech.

But I, for one, do not condone “reporters” organizing and participating in disruptions of religious services with a “witch hunt” seeking to find a pastor who has a job that requires him to enforce the laws of this country.

Can the founders explain why that type of activity is protected free speech?

The arrest of Lemon and the other “independent journalists” does not send a “chilling message” to a free press. No real journalist, who seeks to sketch the world exactly as it goes with equal coverage to both sides of an issue has anything to fear from the government or law enforcement. But when you cross that line into activist journalism and break the law, you can’t hide behind free speech rights. The First Amendment is not a Joe Biden-like preemptive pardon for lawbreaking journalists.

In a day when mass shootings in churches are not unheard of, such a disruption of a Sunday worship hour obviously caused undue panic and fear among an unsuspecting congregation. Free speech does not allow this, nor does it allow yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theatre.

Besides, disrupting a religious service in protest is a clear violation of federal law. The reporters were not reporting on what it was, a violation of federal law. They were reporting on it as a search for an ICE agent who also happened to be a pastor at the church. It’s not against the law to be a pastor and an ICE agent. Afterwards, they were crowing about their aim to disrupt a Sunday service. And the Feds think they have evidence that Lemon helped coordinate the event.

(Sarcasm alert)We guess all the protesters and “reporters” were willing to give up their perfect attendance pins at their own church so they could participate in disrupting another church.

Rachel Reeves was among the many Substackers who took issue with the founders. She wrote: I love this platform deeply but THIS AIN’T IT.

I posted a comment to Rachel’s Note: “Still waiting for Substack founders to apologize.

Ron Kays also posted a note regarding the founders’ folly, to which I commented:

As a journalist and manager of journalists for almost 60 years, know this. Journalists do not encourage protests, help plan protests and participate in protests. They are to fairly cover both sides of the issue. Did Mr. Lemon interview congregants about how terrified and violated they felt by the protestors’ invasion of their worship service? No, he was complicit in planning and executing an unlawful trespassing and disruption of a worship service. He was a fame seeker hiding behind a microphone impersonating a journalist in front of cameras.

Further, let me say, to have fake news you have to have fake reporters. Don Lemon has won the title of Head Fake Reporter. He’s a wolf in sheep clothing carrying a microphone. He’s been fired from CNN for sexist remarks and he’s been arrested and charged with disrupting a religious service. Mama must be proud, but the Substack founders shouldn’t be.

Just sayin…

Remembering South Carolina 1861

Victor Davis Hanson has become the preeminent conservative spokesman of our time, in the wake of our two-soon tragic loss of Rush Limbaugh.

He has been a political commentator on contemporary politics for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the National Review and the Washington Times. He is frequently a conservative politics pundit for radio, TV and podcast outlets.

Born, raised and educated in California, he’s had a front row seat to the liberal craziness of the West Coast.

Last week he wrote a compelling column for amgreatness.com, comparing what’s going on in Minnesota with what was happening in South Carolina just prior to the outbreak of civil war.

It’s worth reading in its entirety. You can find it here:

https://amgreatness.com/2026/01/29/slouching-towards-fort-sumter/

He called out the sanctuary states, cities and counties that have drawn red lines in the sacred earth of America in their attempt to nullify federal immigration law and openly defy the federal government.

“How odd that self-described progressives are now acting out the visions of prior kindred nullificationists and neo-Confederates from John C. Calhoun to George Wallace,” Hanson wrote.

It is clear thinking when Hanson suggests, “If Minnesota further wants to be like 1861 South Carolina that openly defies the federal government, then so be it. But it should accordingly not expect federal funding for its pick-and-choose approach to federal law and property.”

Minnestota Gov. Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Frey and Minnesota Attorney General Ellison have actively encouraged Minnesotans to obstruct federal officers from enforcing federal law — “despite the mounting violence that follows their collective prompts.”

Hanson also nails the truth when he says the Democrats believe “that the more turmoil, the more violence, the more resistance, and the more general sense of chaos and unrest swirl around the Trump Administration, the more they can drive down its popularity before the mid-terms.”

“They still cherish,” he says “the months of riot, violence, and arson in the George Floyd ‘summer of love’ in 2020 as critical in defeating Donald Trump.”

So, as The Hogwash Report 112.0, suggested, the 2025-26 ‘winter of woe’ is the twin sister of ‘the summer of love.’ Its true goal is to keep the chaos churning, day after day, as the lunatic left seeks to return to power.

Did the Democrats learn nothing from the results of the 2024 presidential election? While they focus their work on daily attacks against an opponent who is living rent free in their empty heads, President Trump is still winning, and winning and winning on issues the voters preferred in 2024.

Riding the Roller Coaster

Ever since Donald J. Trump made that dramatic entrance into the world of politics with his ride down that opulent escalator, it’s been a constant trip on an up and down, twisting, turning roller coaster.

In late October, during the final days of the Democrat’s Schumer Shutdown, Trump still had a 45% job approval rating, But by November 12, the end of the shutdown, his approval rating had dropped to 42.4%. Since then, the pollercoaster has gone up and down. At the end of January, Real Clear Politics’ aggregate of polls on Trump’s job approval sat at 42.6%.

On January 7, Renee Nichole Good, a 37-year old anti-ICE activist tried to run down an ICE agent in Minneapolis and was shot and killed in her car. By January 20, Trump’s disapproval rating had raised to 55.6% the highest point of his second term, and level with the polls on November, 20, 2025 during the shutdown.

Isn’t it amazing that 49.8% of the voters voted for Trump and everything that he is getting done, but the pollsters can only find 42.6% percent of people who support him now. Conservative Republicans just aren’t answering the phone for these pollsters who are not really trying to measure how Americans feel, they are trying to influence Americans’ opinions.

Actually, those polls on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every two years are they only ones that really matter.

The Bill Maher File

You gotta love Bill Maher… well, maybe not, but he does have brief episodes of lucid thought.

Saturday, in his monologue, he addressed his fellow Hollywood stars about their political speeches at the awards shows that nobody watches anymore.

He pointed out that Ricky Gervais, an English comedian, actor, writer, television producer and filmmaker, once told the award show crowd to stop using the platform for political speech, “You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. And, of course, this is where celebrities say, how dare you: We’re citizens with just as much right to speak out.”

Maher went on to say that every big name in show business came out for Kamala Harris, “from Oprah to Clooney to Beyonce, and she lost every swing state.” He pointed to a survey which found that 24% said Taylor Swift’s endorsement made them less enthusiastic about Harris as a candidate.

He continued casting stones to the Dems: “So Democrats, it’s great you have all the big celebs, but people see them as an arm of the Democrat Party, which they already suspect for lacking common sense.” (The Democrats are no longer suspects, they’ve been convicted.)

Bill surely gets that right. Common sense and Democrats are words rarely used in the same sentence in a positive way for the party whose logo mascot is an ass.

He closed his monologue with this zinger for the stars:

“I know it’s very important for you that you feel that you’re making a difference, so let me assure you, you are. You’re making independents vote Republican.”

You gotta love Bill Maher. But don’t bother watching. He’s not always this lucid.

Here’s a Different Take…

There’s a family in Minnesota that does not want ICE to deport a certain criminal illegal alien. That’s probably not unusual, but in this case it’s different.

You see, on the same day of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado in 1999, an illegal alien was brutally raping and killing a 12-year-old girl in Waseca, a small southern Minnesota town.

Cally Joe Larson was found by her 16-year-old sister. She had been stabbed, sexually assaulted and left hanging in the stairwell of her home.

About a year later Lorenzo Bahena Sanchez, a Mexican citizen in the U.S. illegally, was arrested and convicted of Cally’s murder. He’s serving a life sentence in Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater.

He could have a parole hearing in 2030. The family wants him to stay locked up right there in Stillwater.

“We do not care if he was born here or born in Mexico, he committed a crime here. He needs to finish his sentence here,” wrote Chad, the husband of Cally’s sister, in a letter to Minnesota Attorney General Ellison, Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell and two U.S. Senators. “We know exactly where he is and we know he won’t hurt anyone else. We want him to take his last breath in a Minnesota prison.”

The family worries if he is deported back to Mexico he will walk free in that country.

When Sanchez gets a parole hearing, Chad says the family will be there demanding he remain in prison.

According to the Corrections Commissioner there is an active ICE detainer on Sanchez, which could require he be turned over to federal authorities.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, however, told the Washington Post that the detainers that apply to Sanchez require “the criminals serve their time and then are turned over to ICE. They aren’t taken out prematurely before they serve their time.”

The Rest of the Story…

According to Cally’s relatives between the time of her murder and Sanchez’s arrest, Sanchez was deported. He subsequently reentered the country illegally, and returned to Waseca, where local police arrested him on suspicion of home burglary.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension found one of Cally’s hairs and some of her possessions, including a compact disc carrying case, where Sanchez was living.

So many deportations over the years resulted in the culprit soon getting back across the border. That was before the Trump border wall and there were many places illegals could simply walk back in.

Thanks again, President Trump.

Dispatch from the Deranged

A Florida anesthesia nurse gets last week’s FAFO trophy. Erik Martindale allegedly posted this on social media, “I will not perform anesthesia for any surgeries or procedures for MAGA. It is my right, it is my ethical oath, and I stand behind my education. I own all of my businesses and I can refuse anyone.”

CBS12 News reported on Jan. 30 that Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that Martindale is no longer a registered nurse in the state.

“Healthcare is not contingent on political beliefs, and we have zero tolerance for partisans who put politics above their ethical duty to treat patients with respect and dignity they deserve.”

State officials clarified to CBS22 that while Florida law contains conscience protections for medical providers, those protections do not extend to threats to withhold essential care based on political identity.

Martindale later claimed on Facebook that his account was hacked and that he didn’t write the post. But state officials didn’t buy that story.

But, Wait,There’s More…

Just a day earlier, CBS12 reported that a labor and delivery nurse at Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital had been fired after a TikTok video surfaced that appeared to show Alexis “Lexie” Lawler, making graphic and violent comments about White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who recently announced that she was pregnant.

In the video, Lawler says it “gives (her) great joy” to wish Leavitt would suffer a fourth-degree tear during childbirth — the most severe type of obstetric tear. She said as much using explicit and profane language, CBS12 reported.

So many people get up every day with hate in their hearts that is consuming their troubled minds.

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Mirror, Mirror on the Walz…

If you admit, with evidence, in a vice presidential debate that you are a knucklehead, you might be a knucklehead.

If you are the token white guy on a DEI presidential ticket, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever looked the other way after being told that millions of free lunches were being provided by a non-profit that didn’t even have a kitchen, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever thought a child care center in Minnesota was a grand prize in a Somalia lottery, you might be a knucklehead.

If more than $9 billion was scammed from the state of which you were governor, you might be a knucklehead.

If you condone rioting, arson and assaulting law officers, you might be a knucklehead.

If you told anyone to interfere with law officers doing their job, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever sold your home when you were elected governor, thinking you would live forever in the governor’s mansion, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever participated in a campaign photo-op about hunting, but didn’t know how to load the gun, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever claimed to have coached a team to a state championship when you were not the head coach, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever thought you could lie about being in Tiananmen Square, during the 1989 protests and massacre, and get away with it, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever said you had become friends with school shooters, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever thought you could strong-arm Donald Trump, you might be a knucklehead.

If you ever told thousands and thousands of people that Kamala Harris would make a great president, you might be a knucklehead.

Here Comes the Biden Library

The Joseph R. Biden Jr. Presidential Library is off to a glacial movement pace as those in the know say fundraising has been slow. After Joe and Jill generously chipped in $4 million, a transfer from his presidential inaugural committee, the other roughly $296,000,000 is not flooding the coffers.

The edifice is planned on land selected in Wilmington, near the University of Delaware. Biden graduated from there in 1965 with a degree in history and political science. He spoke at the school’s commencement in 1978, 1987, 2004, and 2014, but not as president. Wife Jill is also an alumnus.

The Hogwash Report has obtained some of the early-stage plans for the JRB Jr. Library from “reliable” sources.

First, there will be absolutely no stairs in the facility, elevator’s only. That’s a nod to Joe’s ability to fall up stairs. The original plans were for a grand escalator, but Jill squashed that idea as “Too Trumpy!”

The docents will only use pre-prepared note cards or teleprompters, just like President Joe. Visitors will stand six feet apart in painted white circles. There is no word yet on whether vaccinations will be required for all visitors. Dr. Tony Fauci is leading that committee.

There will be an unauthorized copy of Joe’s most famous speech, the one he plagiarized while making his first bid for the presidency in 1988. He left the race shortly after it was revealed that entire passages and speaking styles were lifted from a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

Biden, who once introduced Kinnock as his “best speech writer,” still contends he wrote the speech first.

Biden Library researchers are reporting difficulty in verifying several of Joe’s claims and accomplishments.

The former president has claimed:

1. He was arrested as a teen-ager in civil rights marches.

2. He worked as a truck driver.

3. He met with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1967 during the Six-Day War and she wanted him as a liaison, but he actually met her in 1973.

4. He claimed that he visited the Tree of Life Synagogue after an murderous antisemitic attack, but he had only spoken to a rabbi by phone.

5. He claimed that his ancestors were Pennsylvania coal miners, but there’s no evidence of that.

6. He claimed that he was just an “Average Joe” from Scranton, but that may be an overstatement.

Plans call for a display of the actual map that Joe used to find his way back to Scranton during his vice presidential and presidential campaigns.

When Kamala Harris got a first glimpse of the plans for the Biden Library, she said, “I would not change a thing.” She must have noticed there was no mention of her in the planned exhibits.

But There’s a Plan B…

If the money to build the planned structure in Wilmington doesn’t come through, plans are being developed for a mobile version of the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Presidential Library.

A used, all-electric school bus will be converted with some book shelves. It will also have an area that replicates the closet in Joe’s basement from where he ran his 2020 campaign to get a record 81 million votes. Researchers are still trying to verify the number of legal votes.

The bus will tow Joe’s 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray convertible. Researchers are also trying to confirm Joe’s boast to Jay Leno that he had once hit 160 mph in his Corvette.

Boxes of classified documents will be placed around the Corvette when on display.

The nationwide tour for the first-ever mobile presidential library will be sponsored by Baskin Robbin’s.

Son Hunter will man the accompanying ice cream stand and will personally fill a cone with two scoops for just $500,000 each.

As usual, Jill will call all the shots on the tour.

Now the Real World…

Isn’t it amazing the downstream media, the Democrats and the ultra liberals saw nothing wrong when a policeman shot and killed an unarmed woman point blank in the U.S. capital on January 6, 2021.

If the Democrats were in charge, and the ice agents who pulled the trigger in Minneapolis were members of the Capitol Police Force, they would be given promotions, honored, and allowed to open daycare centers to become very wealthy.

Instead they want them charged with murder.

Just saying…

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The woke Democrats (in too many cases that’s redundant) are unable to give a definitive answer to a simple question — what is a woman.

A lawyer, defending transgender males in women’s or girls’ sports, last week would not — or could not — define the term “woman” when queried by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The lawyer in question, Kathleen R. Harnett, herself a biological woman, stammered and her voice had that quiver, which is somewhat gender specific, when someone is trying to answer a question one really doesn’t want to answer.

Maybe such a hard question never came up in law school. After all, even one of the Supreme Court Justices, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, couldn’t answer that question when Sen. Marsha Blackburn, asked her to define “woman” in her confirmation hearing.

“I can’t, not in this context. I’m not a biologist,” Judge Jackson said. She went on, trying to dig herself out of a hole, and said it was her job as a jurist to hear arguments about definitions before deciding.

Well, she has her chance now that the high court justices are deliberating the question that few could have ever predicted — should biological men be on women’s teams, or compete in women’s competitions or allowed to undress in women’s locker rooms. Stay tuned.

Maybe We Can Help

In the meantime, let’s try to help these people who can’t define a woman.

The ultimate authority on this matter, to those of us who do not believe human life miraculously was formed from single cells in pond water somewhere billions of years ago, is the Bible (a book often not accredited in liberal academia).

Early on the sixth day of creation God created all the animals, according to their kinds. This was easy, because he was God, all powerful, all knowing. But he didn’t want to have to keep producing animals throughout eternity, so he created a way for them to reproduce themselves, each according to its kind. He ordained that males and females would be necessary for procreation.

Later that day, he said “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”

So God created mankind in his own image, male and female, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27 NIV).

Note the repetition. When God repeats something in the Bible, it’s really important. That’s why the Ten Commandments are in there twice, too.

In the next second Chapter of Genesis, we get more specifics.

Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. (Gen. 2:7 NIV)

It is recorded (in God’s own inspired word — the Bible) that God then said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

But first, God called called all the animals and brought them to the man, the man we know as Adam, and commanded him to name the animals. In that process, however, no suitable helper was found. So God caused Adam to fall into deep sleep. While the man slept, God took one of the man’s ribs and from that rib he made a woman, the female that would be necessary to continue the human species.

He created to be Adam’s helpmate Eve, not Steve.

There is no record of God ever making another human being. He essentially broke the mold right then and there. From that day forward, it has been a woman who has given birth to every baby ever born on this earth, including God’s only begotten son, Jesus Christ.

Hit Fast Forward

Let’s now look at what a woman is in the world today.

A woman is a human with particular features assigned to females as opposed to features assigned to males. There is no need to graphically describe those features ordained by our creator, God.

A woman is a mature version of the baby that was born female, with features only attributable to the female gender.

A woman is a person who has been assigned the task of giving birth to children, therefore, they are most often engrained with maternal, motherly desires and instincts. In general, they are the quieter gender.

Women come in various shapes and sizes, they have individual personal desires, hopes and dreams.

Women have many, many valuable rolls in their homes, their community, their country. They can be independent and ambitious, they can be productive and successful, or dependent and supportive, if they so choose.

Women are generally better than men at many things. In the womb, they were wired for empathy, compassion, helpfulness, and nurturing. They want to know and love others, arguably one of the best attributes of women.

Women often have more patience, that’s why they can knit or crochet for hours at a time. They often are gifted with artistic flair and their vocal range is distinctly different from that of all but a tiny sliver of the male population.

Most women are conscious of their looks and thus they make the world a more beautiful place with their flare for fashion, make-up and style. They are definitely more graceful than men.

Women can be beautiful in many, many ways — both inwardly and superficially. Their outward beauty is often enhanced by their beautiful heart and spirit. They can be tender yet sufficiently tough.

They are capable of being a servant or a CEO, and one will be president some day.

They have innate intuition that serves them well. They can be educated to the highest levels.

AI says this when asked about the qualities of a woman:

“Qualities in a woman often highlighted include kindness, empathy, and honesty, paired with independence, intelligence, and confidence, alongside traits like a good sense of humor, strong communication, resilience, and authenticity, all contributing to a well-rounded individual with passion and integrity who values respect and growth. These characteristics extend beyond appearance, focusing on inner strength, self-awareness, and positive interaction with the world.”

The adjectives, kind and empathetic, would not generally be included in describing the qualities of a man. Nurturing, caring and helpful are also woman-specific qualities. So, you see, there are distinguishing differences between man and woman beyond the biological definition.

But in the real world, no two women are alike. So to define women as a group is no more scientific than trying to describe men. They are difficult to define, but they are not undefinable.

When the woke say they can’t define a woman, they disparage a very high percentage of the gender, just to placate a tiny slip of men who want us to accept them as women, when they biologically are — and always will be — men. That has been the standard throughout history.

Even lawyer Harnett, in her attempt to avoid defining a woman, indicated that transgender men were a “subet of men.”

Word of the Day — Subset

dictionary.com defines subset as “a set that is part of a larger set.”

With that definition, Harnett may have helped Justice Jackson, understand that transgender men are still men and should not be participating in women’s sports or hanging out in women’s locker rooms. Stay tuned.

AI also says, “Describing a woman involves highlighting her multifaceted nature through personality traits like compassionate, resilient, ambitious, and creative, her physical attributes, her roles (mother, leader, friend), and her unique strengths, such as graceful movements or determined spirit, focusing on actions and inner qualities rather than just appearance.”

Other experts, with natural intelligence, say women are:

Intuitive — She balances her gut feeling with experience to form a keen sense of the right direction.

Observant — She notices small but important details that others may have overlooked.

Shrewd — She makes her decisions based on her needs

Assertive — She is clear about what she wants without being aggressive.

Doting — She takes care of others when they need her.

So, you see, it’s easy to give a definition of a woman if you aren’t concerned about offending the delusional crowd that thinks men can be women if they want to be.

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Back at Thanksgiving The Hogwash Report 101.0 elucidated its readers about the plight of Cuba and how the U.S. should make it a U.S. Territory. Here two months later, this is a red-hot issue.

Two months ago we wrote “We are somewhat shocked that Secretary of State Marco Rubio hasn’t been pounding on President Trump’s desk to liberate Cuba. Maybe he has, but it hasn’t been reported. It seems our country’s leadership has ignored the potential of the island and accepted the inhumane treatment of its people.

“Liberating Cuba could be the crowning moment for Rubio and another notch on Trump’s belt of wins.”

Was the liberation of Venezuela just a trial run for the Cuba expansion?

All the talk about taking over Greenland, Cuba, Canada and the beginning in Venezuela has the Democrats standing in fear of extreme aggression by President Trump.

But, it’s about time someone started taking seriously America’s right to defend itself against the insurgence of the colonization of countries in our hemisphere by dictator-led socialists who are squeezing dry once-great countries.

The Western Hemisphere is our backyard. The fifth president, James Monroe, recognized that the U.S. needed to stop any foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere. Hence, the Monroe Doctrine, which holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potentially hostile act against the United States.

Monroe, God rest his sole, certainly has been tormented since the 1950s by the Soviet allies in Cuba. Now China has been trying to buy its way into Panama, even to the point of trying to own the Panama docks and control of the canal that America built. Trump nipped that in the bud last year.

China was gaining a foothold in Venezuela until earlier this month when Trump put the brakes on that illicit alliance.

Venezuela has been attacking the U.S. for years with drug boats. Trump has stood up to that and it’s now pretty much dead in the water.

Greenland is in the Western Hemisphere as well. Unfriendly nations are trying to reap valuable minerals from Greenland. Trump is saying, “Not on my watch.”

Every American should be behind ending the dictatorship in Cuba that is impoverishing the people there and foisting upon them unbearable conditions — lack of adequate food, lack of adequate health care, lack of adequate fuel, lack of consistent electricity. Folks, all of this is happening just 90 miles from American shores.

Just Another Dark Day

Many times across the 109 editions of The Hogwash Report, we have questioned why the Democrats can’t just agree with Trump on a few issues that would be best for America. Why, we ask frequently, does everything Trump does or suggest have to be portrayed a bad by the Democrats.

This constant positions by the party of woe has left it having to support things that 80 percent of Americans don’t want. They are against fighting major city crime. They are against fighting rampant government fraud. They are against cutting unnecessary spending on frivolous things in foreign countries. They are against keeping the government open. They are against controlling “illegal” immigration. They are against deporting criminals. We could go on.

No, there is not a typo in the first line of the above paragraph. We did not mean to call the Democrats the party of woke, because that’s a long held truth. We meant the party of woe.

Word of the Day: Woe

Dictionary.com: Woe. (1) profound grief or distress. (2) an affliction or cause of distress.

Some of woe’s synonyms aptly apply: melancholy, wretchedness, trial, tribulation, anguish.

Again, we say, how difficult it must be for those so afflicted to wake up each morning unhappy, burdened, despondent. That’s no way to live.

Why not grab on to a few Trump proposals and share in his success, we ask.

Well, this may just have happened last week.

CBS News reported this:

“Sen. Elizabeth Warren and President Trump don’t agree on much, but Warren suggests they might be able to work together on capping credit card interest rates and potentially addressing other cost-of-living issues.”

President Trump proposed capping rates at 10% for one year. That was on Friday.

On Monday, Warren, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, made a speech criticizing Trump’s record on affordability issues and saying he should pick up the phone and do something about capping credit card interest.

Trump did just that. He picked up the phone and called Senator Warren.

Warren went on about how she lectured Trump on affordability issues while on the call.

The President hasn’t shared his version of the phone call, but you can wager it went something like, “Well, Senator, all you have to do is get me some Democrat votes in the Senate.”

Warren probably sees the likely hood of Trump getting this done and she doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of this issue. She says she has been in favor of cutting credit card interest rates for years.

If this proposal gets to the floor of both houses, there shouldn’t be a single no vote. Besides, the House and Senate members have been given sufficient warning to dump their stocks in the credit card companies.

Hold On, There’s An Update

But wait, maybe some Republican’s aren’t willing to risk losing the support of the credit card companies.

Politico reported Tuesday morning that Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson voiced skepticism on Trump’s move to temporarily cap the interest rates.

“I think that would probably deprive an awful lot of people access to credit around the country,” Thune told reporters,” Thune said, according to Politico.

So, Thune doesn’t see that a lot of people with credit card debt, with interest rates up to 30 percent, couldn’t use a break with 10 percent interest for a year. Does he really believe that poor people are served by credit at usury rates? Does he not believe that people who borrow money from credit card companies and can’t pay it back do not cause higher interest rates for everyone else?

The banking industry does have high-powered lobbyists. The average citizen with high credit card debt doesn’t.

As of the turn of the new year, Americans have a record credit card debt, hovering around $1.2 TRILLION and where essentials are making up a large portion of the balances.

Republicans in Congress need to help Trump as he works on affordability, or risk the prospect of the Republicans becoming the minority party again. God forbid.

Michigan Hogwash Revealed

Michigan Secretary of State candidate Anthony G. Forlini, a Republican, stumbled onto something as he went about his duties as the Macomb County Clerk.

Forlini found that over the past four months, his office has pulled the names of 239 non-citizens for possible jury duty with the 16th Judicial Court.

You see, potential jurors are selected from among the state’s driver’s license applicants, which is maintained by the Michigan Secretary of State’s office.

“Frequently non-citizens slip through because citizenship was not flagged in the Secretary of State database,” Forlini told The Detroit News.

Then, he decided to check to see if these folks were also on the qualified voter file (QVF), and yep, 14 of the 239 non-citizens had been registered to vote at some point. Among those, three had actually voted.

In Michigan, anyone who applies for a driver’s license is automatically registered to vote, unless they specifically opt out. They are supposed to truthfully check a box as to whether they are a U.S. Citizen or not, but their is no cross check for that.

Forlini suggests Michigan safeguard election integrity by cross-checking driver’s license applicants against a federal list of non citizens.

Why not require proof of citizenship, ie. birth certificate or passport or naturalization certificate?

Just sayin…

Things We Never Thought We’d See…

— The U.S. Supreme Court having to hear testimony and decide whether men should be allowed to challenge for trophies in women’s sports.

— Indiana University playing for the NCAA football championship. Hell hasn’t frozen over yet, but it’s cooling significantly as the big game approaches and Indiana could be the first undefeated team with 16 wins. See our upcoming Sports Extra edition of The Hogwash Report. ETA later this week.

— People rioting in the streets to keep the federal government from enforcing its laws.

— An Iranian uprising against the Ayatollah.

— A former President of the United States (William Jefferson Clinton) failing to answer a subpoena to testify before Congress.

— A bill introduced in Congress to make Greenland our 51st State.

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(1) The U.S. Military did more in three hours in the middle of the night to control the flow of dangerous, deadly drugs into our country than the Democrats have done since the War on Drugs was declared in 1970. The Jan. 3 arrest of Venezuela dictator Nicholas Maduro brings to justice the kingpin of a foreign nation’s sponsorship of dangerous drug terrorism. And, the Democrats are really mad.

(2)The Democrats are trying to convince voters that Donald Trump hasn’t done anything about making life more affordable in this country.

Submitted Photo This week in Ohio

The single best way to leave money in the hands of Americans and their families is to have lower gasoline prices. The average per gallon gasoline price at the end of the Biden years was, $3.14. The average for 2024 was $3.30. In 2023 (another Biden year) the average was $3.50. The Democrats are really mad.

And, by the way, The Hogwash Report staff purchased jumbo eggs at a Dollar General last week for $1.99 a dozen. Remember those $9 a dozen Biden eggs? The Democrats are really mad.

(3) 2025, with 11 months coming under the Trump Administration, saw an inflation rate of 2.7%, down from 2.9% in the Otto Penn Administration’s 2024. The record-setting Biden/Penn years saw inflation peaking at 9.1% in 2022, reflecting soaring prices for essentials like food ($9 eggs) and energy ($4.09) gasoline. The Democrats are really mad.

(4) President Otto Penn signed an executive order in 2021 setting a target of 50% of U.S. car sales to be electric cars in 2030. The Penn administration’s EPA set tailpipe emission rules effectively requiring higher EV sales of 44% by 2030 and 56% by 2032 to meet the emissions standards. Trump revoked those 50% targets and ended the subsidies to EV buyers and now the car companies are scaling back their money-losing EV cars and trucks. The Democrats are really mad.

(5) The Democrats told us it would take Congressional action to control the illegal immigration that was bring millions of people across the borders and straining our welfare “safety” nets and health care providers. Trump didn’t even send a wake up call to Congress and shut down illegal immigration in his first 90 days in office. The Democrats are really mad.

(6) The Democrats told us that if Trump was re-elected to the presidency, he would have us in World War III in no time. In his first year, Trump negotiated the end to more wars across the globe that any leader in history. The Democrats are really mad.

(7) The nation’s capital was occupied by National Guard soldiers, at Trump’s order, for four months of 2025 and homicides fell from 187 to 128 (-32%). In the other Biden/Penn years, 2021 - 2023, there were 226, 203, and 274 murders respectively. Twenty-eight murders occurred in D.C. after the National Guard Deployment — 29 the Associated Press counted to include the death of Sara Beckstrom, 20, the National Guard soldier from West Virginia who was killed while on duty in the nation’s capital. Robberies were down in 2025 from 2,112 to 1,324 (-37%), all violent crimes were down 29%. The Democrats are really mad.

(8) Things don’t look good for Minnesota’s Knucklehead Gov. Tim Walz. He’s curiously dropping out of his race for re-election to a third term. Could be he’s fearful of being smothered by My Pillow guy Mike Lindell. That would be almost as as embarrassing as having been caught in a bald-face lie in the Vice Presidential debate and having to admit he’s sometimes a knucklehead. The Walz administration has been flagged with failure to prevent rampant fraud that has been described as having cost $9 BILLION in Minnesotans’ money. His leaving the campaign, after having announced several months ago that he was going for another term, leads him open to speculation that he might also have some legal troubles ahead of him. The Harris/Walz Democrat ticket also burned over a BILLION dollars of the party’s faithful donors’ money. The Democrats are really mad.

(9) The downstream media is being exposed more and more every day and their reliability is at an all-time low. The downstream media has been a powerfully effective branch of the Democrat Party. Former CBS journalist Catherine Herridge has let the cat out of the bag about how CBS was complicit in helping keep a lid on the Hunter Biden laptop story. “When we did the story, we did it after the (2022) midterms, Herridge said. “I argued against that because I was ready before the midterms, and my training is that you always do the story when it’s ready to go. You should not be dictated by the political cycle.” That hurts, even for a party whose logo is an ass. The Democrats are really mad.

(10) The Democrats gave us the Affordable Care Act which became unaffordable, so the only thing the Democrats could do was to try to make it affordable again with government subsidies. Instead of making the subsidies permanent, the Democrats set them to expire at the end of 2025. The Democrats shut down the government for 41 days trying to get the Republicans to bail them out by extending the subsidies. There was no real bi-partisan support for that, so some Democrats came to their senses and voted to reopen the government. The day of reckoning came, Dec. 31, 2025, and the subsidies evaporated. The safety net for the Democrat’s high-wire act was removed. The Democrats, who promised “affordable” health care have let 20 million people down. The Democrats are really mad.

(11)On the fifth anniversary, January 6, of the mostly peaceful protest at the nation’s capital, the Democrats are still focused much more on the past, which they can’t do anything about, than they are on the present which they are incapable of doing anything about, or on the future, which they have no vision for other than to change America, as we know it, to a socialist country. The political hay the Democrats were trying to make from the event is now gone with the wind. The hundreds of political prisoners have been freed. The pipe bomb ruse, which was ignored by the Penn Administration’s Department of Justice, has been solved, and their attempt to put Donald Trump in a jail cell has really resulted in putting him back in the Oval Office. The Democrats are really mad.

(12) July 4, 2026 (just six months away) marks the 250th anniversary, the Semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence. During the Auto Penn Administration, some planning began for the celebration. The Democrats selected those to be honored on special coins to commemorate the event, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Ruby Bridges, the latter of whom was escorted to school the National Guard at age 6 amid opposition to racial integration at public schools. But President Trump has taken over the planning for the big birthday celebration, a “Salute to America 250, which will kick off on Memorial Day and culminate on July 4. The big plan is for a “Great American State Fair” at the state fairgrounds in Iowa. Skeptics say Iowa was selected because of the importance of the Iowa caucuses. The governors of all 50 states have been asked to provide a pavilion to feature each state’s great features. There will be year long celebrations including Patriot Games for high school athletic competitions showcasing American skill and sportsmanship, an original video series, “The Story of American” to promote love for American history, and a National Garden of American Heroes, a project to create statues of important American figures. President Donald Trump will preside over these historic events. And there are also plans for a $1 Trump commemorative coin featuring his likeness on the obverse and his iconic raised fist and “Fight, fight, fight” on the reverse. The Democrats are really mad.

(13) The once proud party of the people has been coopted by a looney liberal left wing that has left it wandering in the darkness of being powerlessness.

To say the Democrats are really mad can be taken in various ways.

The word mad has several definitions. Several apply to the Democrats.

The first definition for humans is “mentally disturbed, deranged, insane, demented.” Synonyms are crazy, crazed, maniacal, lunatic.

The second is “enraged, greatly provoked or irritated, angry.” Synonyms are irate, wrathful, furious.”

A third is “extremely foolish or unwise, imprudent, irrational.”

Another is “wildly excited, confused, frantic.”

Still another is “overcome by desire, eagerness, enthusiasm, etc.”

Further, it could mean “wildly lively and merry, enjoyably hilarious.” This one seems more appropriate for Senator John N. Kennedy, R-Louisiana who has very different take on the Democrats at times.

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A grocery store keeper was being victimized by a female thief — shoplifter, if you will. He knew she was stealing from him, but he could never catch her in the act. He put his stock boys on alert, commanded them to watch her discreetly when she was in the store.

One day one stock boy came back to the produce section, where the storekeeper was straightening the bins of vegetables.

“We got her sir! She’s stealing a ham.”

“A ham!” the proprietor asked. “Where’d she put it?”

“She lifted up her dress and put it between her thighs,” the boy said, blushing.

The storekeeper started to the front of the store where he grabbled one of the checkout clerk’s paper bags. Locating the thief, he moved to the next aisle, quietly climbed onto a gondola so he could be above the woman as she continued to shop.

He blew air into the paper sack until it was tight. Then he twisted the top to trap the air. He leaned over the stack of canned goods and POP! The bag exploded like a gunshot. The lady jumped and immediately turned to see what happened and she dropped the ham.

Busted.

It hadn’t taken the storekeeper long to devise a plan to end the woman’s thievery in his store forever.

Why has our government, on all levels, failed to stop the massive thievery of our hard-earned tax dollars?

Last month, way back in The Hogwash Report 104.0 entitled Minnesota Mischief, we told you about the multi-BILLION dollar theft of government our money meant to feed hungry children. That story broke when Abdiaziz Shafi Farah, 36m, was sentenced to 28 years in prison for his part in possibly the biggest welfare scam ever prosecuted.

What took so long for that story to hit the public news? It started way back in 2022. The scam began under the cover of Covid, and preyed on government our dollars allocated as a way to protect children during the national “crisis” and worldwide pandemic.

The downstream media (so named from the cowboy adage that you should always drink upstream from the herd) wasn’t interested in a “little” fraud in a program so liberal with good intentions.

But in late June, 2024, before Joe Biden left the presidential race and before Kamala Harris tabbed Minnesota Knucklehead Governor Tim Walz as her vice presidential running mate, the lid was blown off of this story.

But, can the lid being blown off of a BILLION dollar fraud be heard if nobody (the downstream media) is listening?

The Minnesota Office of Legislative Auditing reported that the Minnesota Department of Education’s inadequate oversight created opportunities for fraud.

“The Minnesota Department of Education failed to act on warning signs known to the department prior to the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic and did not effectually exercise its authority to hold Feeding Our Future accountable to program requirements,” the report said.

Walz obviously was preoccupied for a time, trying to become our vice president, so 18 months after his Department of Education’s epic failure was disclosed, he rushed to appoint a judge and former FBI agent to be Director of Program Integrity for the state.

“I’m proud to announce that Tim O’Malley is joining our team to lead the charge in fighting fraud against Minnesota taxpayers,” Walz crowed at a press conference last month.

It reminds me of a story my wife tells about me, “He had a heart attack and three days later he rushed to the doctor.”

After the horses left the barn with BILLIONS of stolen tax dollars, Walz also announced a “partnership” (translated we’re going to pay them big bucks) that will give the state “a fraud prevention program that can be implemented across state agencies.”

Walz’s syrupy press release also said O’Malley’s appointment follows “numerous actions taken by the state over the last several years to detect and prevent fraud.

Since those grandiose crime-fighting plans were launched last month, a 23-year-old Youtube “journalist” Nick Shirley blew the lid off of another Minnesota scam with a video of several day care centers that he found not to be in operation receiving large sums of state program money. The video went viral with more than 130 million views. It prompted Kash Patel to launch an FBI investigation.

CBS News, which is trying to reinvent itself as a real news organization, filed a report on New Year’s Day saying “Records show Minnesota has been trying to improve oversight of the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) payment system for more than a decade.”

CBS said audits completed in the last 10 years show that Minnesota has lacked the teeth to properly vet attendance records and go after fraudsters proactively.

Minnesota just can’t seem to get it right.

In 2019, a report by the Office of Legislative Auditor (The same office that made the 2024 findings) showed that the Minnesota Department of Human Services established an investigatory team to go after child care providers suspected of fraud from 2013 to 2018, ultimately finding that prosecutors were able to “prove” about $6 million worth of fraud in those years.

CBS said more than dozen Minnesotans were charged in state and federal cases, but not all were convicted.

What those prosecutions did, apparently, was provide a pretty good road map to success for future child care fraudsters. When government can’t learn, criminals can.

A federal prosecutor said earlier this month that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds our money that supported 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018 may have been stolen.

The case against more than 70 defendants in the Feeding Our Future investigation was well under way as Walz hit the Vice Presidential campaign trail, but it was not even a blip on the downstream media’s radar.

The case had another surprising twist in June of 2024 the Feds charged five of the conspirators with bribing a juror with $120,000 cash. In August of 2025 Abdiaziz Shafii Farah pleaded guilty to that charge.

Farah, in 2022 had his passport confiscated by the FBI, when the fraud charges were launched. In March 2022 he applied for a new one, claiming his first one had been lost. He got a replacement passport the same day. He then bought a one-way ticket to Kenya, but he never made the trip. He turned himself in on May 23, 2022, according to the FBI.

Crime pays, at least for a while. Farah spent his ill-gotten gains on five luxury cars, an 8,000-square-foot luxury home project on Prior Lake as well as real estate in Kentucky. He also made overseas investments in Kenya and China.

We obviously have government insanity to deal with. It keeps doing the same thing over and over and we still keep getting the same result — government our money wasted or stolen.

Substacker Jeff Childers, in his newsletter Coffee and Covid on Dec. 29, gave us a great read on the Minnesota welfare fraud. Take the time to read it here. It’s great stuff.

In it, he points out how we keep having these major thefts of government our money come back around again and again.

With each new benevolent program the cockroaches come out and start eating away at government our money. The fraudsters have latched on to that liberal mantra, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Childers reminded of the 1970s programs that exploded under the Carter Administration. Caseloads soared for initiatives like Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

A notorious fraudster in that program was “Linda Taylor, a Cadillac-driving, fur coat-wearing Chicago woman dubbed the ‘welfare queen’ by the press in 1974. Taylor used multiple aliases — up to 80 names, fake addresses, and phony claims of nonexistent children and deceased husbands — to defraud the system of tens of thousands (in some accounts up to $150,000 annually),” Childers said.

In the 1980s, federal investigators uncovered food-stamp trafficking rings where recipients sold their stamps for cash, drugs or even guns. Childers asked if that doesn’t sound familiar.

It’s still going on today.

“Dorsey Mae Woods, in California, who posed as multiple women to claim benefits for thirty-eight fake children, racked up hundreds of thousands in illicit welfare payments, and filed 135 fake tax returns for refunds over $350,000,” Childers reported.

All the welfare cheating eventually led to President Clinton grabbing a Republican platform plank and getting welfare reform passed.

Our politicians react to every “crisis” with a bazooka loaded with government our dollars. Since a BILLION dollars is chump change to a country that is 38 TRILLION dollars in debt, it’s an easy fix for the politicians and an easy pick for the fraudsters.

It would be a good bet that the fraudsters are still using the very same playbook to bilk BILLIONS today that they used to milk MILLIONS in the 1970s.

It is pretty obvious that our politicians are doling out more money than they can possibly keep track of.

That’s why the Democrats went berserk when President Trump gave Elon Musk a free hand to root out government waste with the Department of Government Efficiency (Now there’s a department with an oxymoron for a name.)

But that’s why The Hogwash Report has repeatedly called for an auditing of every government desk at every level of government.

The Biden Administration’s misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) called for the hiring of 87,000 new IRS employees over the ensuing 10 years to handle things like, taxpayer services (customer service reps that you can’t get to on busy days, any day ending in Y), operations support (IT specialists), enforcement staff, including revenue agents for complex audits of high-income individuals and corporations, and more criminal investigators.

THR suggests that Congress repurpose those new hires to be DOGE auditors sufficient to stop the rampant thievery of our tax dollars.

Thievery, at all levels, seems to be an after-thought to law enforcement these days. Our police have seemingly thrown up their hands — they can’t prevent it and they don’t have the manpower to solve the crimes due to the magnitude of the problem. Same with government thievery.

The tax money confiscated from us every day should be just as important to the government as that ham was to the grocer. He knew if he didn’t stop the thievery of that woman, it would just continue.

Just sayin…

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Or you could just buy me a coffee for just $5.00. I accept no government funding.

When the Big Mac was introduced by McDonald’s in 1968 it was priced at 45 cents. Hamburgers were 15 cents. For a nickel more you could get a cheeseburger. Fries were 10 cents.

Those were the good ole days for this writer who was fresh out of high school — 57 years ago.

The projected price for that Big Mac in 2026 is $6.72, a 1,500 percent increase since 1968. At the average rate of inflation of 3.9% it should be costing about $4.25. In some blue states, California, New York and Massachusetts, a Big Mac could cost you as much as $8.00. Would you want fries with that?

But, what did you expect when we started paying McDonald’s workers $15 to $20 per hour? The American people cheered the increased wages. Red states, Missouri and Alaska voted to eventually raise their minimum wage to $15 per hour in November of 2024.

California voters rejected, believe it or not, a move to set the minimum wage in that state for all workers at $18. The issue failed by less than 1%. In April of 2024 California raised the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour. Go figure. Only in California.

Folks are crying for prices to go back to the days before President Otto Penn. They (especially Democrats, who stood buy and watched inflation hit a high of 9% when they were in charge) are demanding President Trump make prices more “affordable.”

News flash! It ain’t happening unless wages are shaved, and nobody wants that to happen, so it won’t. (UNLESS there is a severe recession or depression, which Democrats would love to see in hopes of getting back into power. Remember they were praying for a recession at the end of Trump’s first term. It was the only thing, they thought, that could keep Trump from being re-elected. Then along came Covid and saved their bacon.)

The $20 per hour “fix” for fast food workers boosted the starting wages for almost every job in America.

Wages are a huge factor in the cost of every product. The American worker has come to expect to make more money every year for the same work they did last year. Every raw product that goes into a salable item needs to increase it’s cost year after year. Only a severe lack of demand can cause prices to go back significantly. And they can only go back to a point that results in bankruptcy or a cessation of that product being produced.

Automation affects a lot of jobs and more is being developed to overcome the high cost of payroll. Workers in jobs that require little training and primarily manual labor are in danger of being replaced by a machine. These jobs, routine tasks in assembly work, data entry, jobs that require little education, will be replaced by automation.

That means available jobs will require a higher-skilled, better-educated worker. But what incentive is being offered young students when they believe they can go to a McDonalds and make $30,000 a year and live in Mom and Dad’s basement.

President Trump, who has proven he can juggle a lot of knives at once, has jawboned lower interest rates to lessen the burden of consumer credit. Inflation is in check, facilitating the interest cuts. Unemployment is low and jobs are being created.

Gasoline prices have been reduced by increased production. I paid $2.21 per gallon on my last fill-up. He is winning consolation on drug prices, which have been over-inflated in this country for years.

Black Friday spending jumped a whopping 9% over President Biden’s last Christmas in office, hitting $11.9 billion. And consumers were not spending this huge increase on necessities. Beauty products, fitness equipment, activewear apparel, toys, tablet and headphones were popular items.

Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, blasted through it’s record sales ceiling with $14.25 billion spent, up 7.1% over the previous year and making it the biggest single online shopping day in history. Interestingly, 57.5% of the sales were done from a mobile device, aka a cell phone.

The Democrats still want us to believe Americans are suffering under the Trump Administration.

They are going to try hard to convince voters of that in the mid-terms. They are desperate to get back in control. They want to impeach President Trump again. They want to cover up the failed coup they attempted to perpetrate. They want to entrench more liberal activist judges in the federal judiciary. They want to stop the revelation of non government organization fraud that has stolen billions of taxpayer dollars and funneled lots of it back to the Democrat Party.

The Democrats are a desperate bunch, but we must be even more desperate to prevent this from happening.

Let me say this again: The 2026 mid-term election for the control of Congress is the most consequential election this country has ever seen.

Complacency by the Republican Party and conservative independents will do irreparable harm to this country. Make sure we have great candidates on the ballots and let’s get them elected.

Dispatches from the Deranged…

From Max Burns, Opinion Contributor to The Hill, posted Dec. 31, 2025:

“The Trump administration has given us precious little to be thankful for this year. As 2025 draws to a close, history will remember it as a year scarred by the chaos of a White House that seemed intent on breaking the back of our democracy once and for all. It’s a psychologically exhausting time for the millions already coping with a sagging job market and rising consumer prices.”

THR: Same song. Different singer.

In the same commentary piece Burns included this:

“A Pew Research Center survey published this month shows just how far things have fallen in the opening decades of the 21st century. Back in 2001, 54 percent of Americans reported trusting the federal government, a slight increase from the 47 percent who felt that way in the 1980s. Now, public trust in government is scraping historic lows across every metric: As of 2025, only 17 percent of Americans believe that what their government is telling them is true.”

THR: He’s offering this as if the low respect for our government is all Trump’s fault. Does he not recall how for most of four years our government told us that Joe Biden was hitting on all cylinders, healthy as a race horse, sharp as a tack, best he has ever been? Does he not recall that our government told us that the Russians colluded to get Trump elected in 2020? Does he not realize that our government under Democrat Obama told us it was giving us Affordable Health Care? Our question is where did they find 17% to say they believed our government.

Robert Reich, former Clinton Administration cabinet member, Substacker, and unfortunately, victim of Terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome, said on a Tikok rant:

“I know 2025 was a terrible year! Many will remember 2025 as the year Trump returned to power. I will remember it as the year America began to fight back against oligarchy.”

In his Dec. 31 Substack post, he wrote:

“Most of the people who in previous decades sought to justify their power by claiming they were the ‘leaders’ of America — CEOs, Wall Street bankers, presidents of our major universities, heads of our giant media corporations, managers of the nation’s giant law firms, directors of our largest and most prestigious nonprofits — have lacked the courage to stand up to Trump and his tyranny.

“Some have shamelessly sucked up to him — flattering him, presenting him gifts, enabling him, making excuses for him.”

THR: It must be awful to wake up every morning so unhappy in this land of opportunity and plenty.

George Clooney, American movie star, Democrat king-maker:

The star of one of my favorite movies, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”, couldn’t wake up happy in the country that made him a millionaire and a big screen sex symbol, so he’s now a citizen of France.

The French government announced last week George and his wife Amal, along with their two children, have been granted French citizenship. Amal is a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer.

Clooney has long been a critic of Donald Trump, and a huge fan of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Clooney wrote a New York Times op-ed piece in July of 2024 urging Biden to step down. He later praised Biden’s decision and supported Harris as the new nominee. He contributed significantly to the BILLION dollars Harris burned in losing to Donald Trump.

Clooney told French media that France “is where we’re happiest.” He blames his disenchantment with America on paparazzi, saying in France, “they don’t take photos of kids. There aren’t any paparazzi hidden at the school gates. That’s number one for us,” he told RTL Radio.

THR: He joins Rosy O’Donnell as Hollywood stars who have self-deported.

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Strolling through vacation land last week, I had an encounter with an extremely rare bird — a conservative Canadian. In my seven decades, I’ve never spotted one. I assumed there had to be pockets of this species somewhere in the vast expanse of the world’s second-largest country which stretches 3,426 miles from east to west, but I finally encountered one in the wilds of the U.S. Southeast.

This male example of a conservative Canadian is nearly despondent over what his native country has become — too liberal, too socialistic, too international and too anti-American. He freely shared his feelings, once he realized he was talking with a conservative American.

He offered that he would be fine with Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state and said, “When you are done with Trump, send him to us!”

I’ll call him Gerald, but it’s not his real name. At age 71, he wants out of Vancouver, the largest city in British Columbia at 766,000 people. He said so much of the city is what we would call a cess pool in more polite language than he used. He’d like a remote spot on one of the islands off the left coast.

Retired as a fire-fighter, he spends as much time as his visa will allow in the U.S., 180 days a year. He has a residence in Arizona and friends in the southeastern states that he likes to visit with.

He is bitter that he must abide by the 180-day restraint while the Biden administration opened the border to illegal aliens who had no restrictions and lots of government support for housing, health care and food. Gerald pays his own way with no U.S. subsidy.

He detested Justin Trudeau as his Prime Minister and he says Trudeau’s replacement, Mark Carney, is cut from the same cloth. Both carry the banner for Canada’s Liberal Party.

He scoffed at Carney’s attempt to stare down Donald Trump. Gerald says Canada has no power in its military and is content to let the U.S. protect its northern neighbor, despite the growing anti-American sentiment it’s government and it’s liberal populace display.

He acknowledged the the United States’ upper hand in the tariff “war.”

And Gerald laments that Trudeau became the first Canadian Prime Minister to march in the Annual Gay Pride Parade in Toronto. Trudeau can be found in photographs walking and smiling in the parade with his wife waving a rainbow flag and his two young children along side waving to the crowd. Carney has followed the Trudeau tradition participating in the gay parade. Gerald begrudges the tax money spent on the expenses for Trudeau and his large entourage to join the days-long celebration.

The liberal Canadian snowbirds have bristled at Trump’s quip about making Canada our 51st state and have jawboned shunning their annual migration trip to Florida to escape the brutal Canadian winters. The downstream media says the political tensions are the reason for the boycott. According to Visit Florida data, the Sunshine State still attracted 640,000 Canadian visitors in the second quarter of this year and overall, tourism in Florida is up for the year.

There is a huge tourism imbalance with Canada and the visa use between the two countries is heavily weighted to the Maple Leafers.

“Who wants to spend 180 days in Canada? Gerald said. “At least half of that time would be in winter conditions.”

Some Canadian liberals have contracted TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and have sold their properties in Florida. No problem, there are still plenty of Americans from the northern states who want to reside in Florida.

However, it’s not all about getting back at the Americans. For many who chose to stay home in Canada, it’s financial. The Canadian dollar is weak and it’s affecting those on fixed incomes. The cost of U.S. travel insurance and health care costs are rising. Plus, incomes are attacked by higher prices at home and abroad.

Don Surber

America Alone updated

Mark Steyn predicted the world we live in 20 years ago with the publication of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It…

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4 months ago · 240 likes · 208 comments · Don Surber

Superhero Substacker Don Surber this week wrote about Mark Steyn’s predictions from 20 years ago. Steyn is a Canadian author and pundit who wrote America Alone. The End of the World as We Know It.

The first line of the first Steyn quote Surber reproduced grabbed our attention.

“The continent (Europe) has embraced a spiritual death long before the demographic one.”

The same can today be said about Canada. Its melting pot is so overpowered by non-Canadians, the natives feel a crushing minority status.

“Sometimes you can go all day without hearing anyone speak English,” Gerald commented.

Demographics are choking the homelanders and Canada has experienced a real decline in its spiritual heritage. Church after church is boarded up or used for other purposes.

Then, Gerald, threw a truth dart: “I see America becoming more like Canada.”

Too liberal, too socialistic, too international and too anti-American.

In a perfect world, the U.S., Canada and Mexico would be the tightest of allies, fair trading partners, and an impregnable topography to stand against any invasion. That will take a lot of work. Strong immigration laws, agreeable to all three countries, are needed. The drug cartels need to be eradicated in Mexico, and the illegal drug culture in the U.S. and Canada need to be quelled. The muslim takeover of more and more of the U.S. and Canadian governments has to be quelled. The grip of corruption in the governments of all three must be sought out and destroyed.

Mark Steyn pretty well told us 20 years ago where we would be today. If things don’t change, we do not want to think about how things will be in 2045.

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Or, you could buy me a coffee. It’s Christmas, you know. Just sayin…

Ohio’s 2026 gubernatorial race looks like it will come down to two candidates, both new to Buckeye politics.

Vivek Ramaswamy will carry the Republican banner and Dr. Amy Acton apparently has the consensus endorsement of the Democrat machine.

Ramaswamy, 40, is a MAGA product, a billionaire with a net worth of $1.8 billion according to Forbes. He’s a Harvard graduate (2007) and finished Yale Law School in 2013. He was the youngest presidential candidate in the 2024 Republican primaries.

Ramaswamy is not your normal name for an Ohio politician. That could be a problem for him. He was born in Cincinnati to Indian Hindu immigrant parents. His father worked as an engineer for General Electric and his mother worked as a geriatric psychiatrist.

Vivek teamed up with Elon Musk to initiate the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for President Trump. He baled when it became clear that he would have a direct line to the Republican nomination for the office of Governor in Ohio — which incidentally has been a launching pad for presidents.

Dr. Amy Acton got her time in the state’s spotlight during the Covid years, as Governor Mike DeWine’s medical expert who helped guide his handling of the pandemic on the state level. She was a clear follower of Dr. Anthony Fauci (Mr. Science) and was part and parcel of DeWine’s poor handling of the directives that promoted lockdowns, limited assembly, mask requirements, and vaccine requirements. He had compliance officers roaming the state at times.

Ramaswamy last week took on Acton’s covid record at a MAGA hangout, the Top Notch Diner in Cortland, Ohio. He made a campaign stop at the diner. The ownership of the Diner had defied DeWine’s and Acton’s directive in 2020 that restaurant workers and customers should wear masks. The owner posted a sign on the door saying the business “will not force any mask/facial coverings …” The Trumbull County’s Health Department harassed the diner’s ownership, but

the publicity had a positive effect on the diner’s business.

Long-time Congressman Tim Ryan, who lost to JD Vance in the 2022 U.S. Senate race, decided against running for the Democrat’s gubernatorial nomination, clearing the way for Acton. The Democrats have a history of pre-selection their statewide candidates to eliminate the need for costly primaries.

Lt. Governor Jim Tressel, former Ohio State football coach and former president of Youngstown State University, declined to seek the higher office after Ramaswamy declared.

Acton in Action

Acton last week fired out an email headlined, “Wow — I can’t believe my eyes.” What she couldn’t believe was the release of an Emerson poll that gave her a 46% - 45% lead over Ramaswamy.

The poll was taken December 6-8.

A Bowling Green/YouGov poll taken in October gave Ramaswamy a 50% - 47% margin.

Governor DeWine indicates he will endorse Ramaswamy, despite his close working relationship with Acton.

“This is a razor-thin margin!” Acton said in her text. “It means we have what it takes to beat corporate billionaire and MAGA-golden boy, Vivek Ramaswamy.

“I refuse to look away because, for too long, our Statehouse has sat by while Ohioans suffer.”

That may be why DeWine plans to endorse Ramaswamy. She faces a tough task if she thinks MAGA is unpopular in Ohio. And it will be difficult to convince a majority of Ohio that they are “suffering.”

But, in total, DeWine’s eight years in as governor has been disappointing to many Republicans in this cherry red state. His handling of the Covid crisis left much to be desired. He proposed a red flag gun control bill that thankfully failed. He raised gasoline taxes immediately upon taking office, after failing to mention that when he was campaigning for the job. And, he was weak in supporting President Trump.

Ramaswamy has the upper hand in campaign funds with more than $9 million in the bank. Acton has less than $2 million, but having close polling should give her enough credibility to raise Democrat money.

Needless to say, the Democrats at this stage see blood in the water in the Buckeye State.

He’s Baaaaaaack…

Seventy-three-year-old Sherrod Brown wants his U.S. Senate seat back. After serving three terms as one of the most liberal members of the Senate, 2007-2025, Brown — a career politician — lost to Bernie Marino, a car dealer, last year.

Brown just couldn’t stay on the sidelines, says his publicist, Connie Schulz, a former newspaper columnist in Cleveland who was a Pulitzer winner for commentary, and who is Sherrod’s wife.

Schulz wrote this on her Substack, Hopefully Yours:

“Throughout last year’s campaign, Sherrod and I reminded each other that this is the last one we would have to endure. Now, here we are again. This will be a race like no other, in part because Sherrod’s reasons for entering it are different from elections past. I have always known him to be a public servant fueled by a strong sense of duty, but also ambition. I watch him now, I listen to him as only a wife can, and I know that his sense of duty carries the day. This is as it should be.

“This is no time for standing on the sideline. Each of us must decide for ourselves what that means. In this house, in this marriage, we are relighting that splendid torch.”

Unless some new firebrand Republican steps up and wins the primary, it appears that former Lt. Governor Jon Husted will be Brown’s opponent. Husted was appointed by DeWine to the JD Vance’s Senate seat when Vance ascended to the Vice Presidency. A lot of folks want Ramaswamy to be appointed.

Unfortunately for Republicans, Husted is an unimpressive candidate. He was an attractive local candidate as a young man and worked his way to be Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. Later he moved to the state senate and was elected Ohio’s Secretary of State before being placed as DeWine’s Lt. Governor.

Husted was as quiet as a church mouse for the first 11 months of his time in the U.S. Senate.

Just last week he announced he was seeking election to the remaining two years of the Vance term.

Then he tried to make some news.

He announced he was promoting a bill that would extend the “enhanced premium credits” for two years. These are the same premium credits for the American Care Act (aka ObamaCare) that Democrats sought to have extended for three years as they kept the government shut down. Does Husted think that the Republicans kept the government shut down for 43 days to eventually give two thirds of their ask to the Democrats? Of course, he’s trying to neutralize the subsidy argument in the upcoming Senate campaign.

Husted proposed that all ACA participants pay a $5 a month payment as a way to prove that the recipients are real people. His bill would, he said, reduce fraud and lower premiums. The “enhanced premium credits” lower premiums for the ACA participants with taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Husted is correct in saying that something has to be done about the fraud in the system. He said it amounts to $27 billion annually.

But if you watch the video of him announcing his plan, it highlights his lack of charisma, his lack of poise on camera and his failure to deliver memorable sound bites. Those qualities, or lack thereof, do not bode well for a candidate for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He’s a product of next-in-line Republican politics in Ohio. He needs a campaign manager who can light a fire under him.

The seat Husted currently holds is his to lose. He needs to step up and try not to do that.

Brown has a substantial political base. He’s been in virtually every factory in the state of Ohio, glad-handing the workers there. He’s been a darling of the unions.

An Emerson poll last week gave Husted a 49% to 46% advantage. As we said, It’s Husted’s race to lose. Incidentally, Emerson, you will recall from above, is the pollster that gives Acton a lead over Ramaswamy.

The 2026 mid-term elections stand to be the most consequential mid-term balloting in many, many years. Stay tuned.

Dispatches from the Deranged…

James Carville on “Politics War Room” podcast:

Re Trump: “He’s done. We just got to butter his toast and slice it and eat it. He’s done.

“He’s done in Florida. He’s done in Pennsylvania. He’s done in New Jersey.

“He was done in Virginia. He was done in Mississippi. He was done in Georgia.

“He’s done. It’s over. Your a loser, Dude.

“You’re losing everywhere and you’re going to lose more because you, my friend, are a loser.”

Crockett Rockets…

Jasmine Crockett, the Texas member of the U.S. House Of Representatives who is challenging James Carville for the title of “The Month of the South,” is also running for the U.S. Senate, trying to unseat longtime Republican Senator, John Cornyn.

She’s out of the gate with impressive polling in her 2026 primary election race against James Talarico, 38, a Presbyterian seminarian and former public school teacher.

The poll by Texas Southern University finds those polled preferred Crockett 51% to Talarico’s 43%. Crockett, 44, leads Talarico amongst women 57% - 36%, among those 55 years or older 59-34% and among black voters 89%-8%.

But, according to Carville, Crockett has a real problem, and it’s herself.

“First of all, she seems like she’s well-educated,” Carville told his “Politics War Room” podcast co-host Al Hunt. “Seems like she’s got a lot of energy. But she, to me, she violates the first rule of politics and that is, in politics, you always make it about the voters and never about yourself.”

There is intrigue on the Republican side, as well.

Cornyn is seeking a fifth term, having been there for 24 years. He’s facing a competitive challenge from Ken Paxton, Texas’ popular attorney general. Paxton criticizes Cornyn for being insufficiently conservative. Cornyn, on the other hand, points to Paxton’s legal troubles, perceived character flaws and his 2023 impeachment by the Republican-controlled Texas House. The Senate acquitted him of all charges in the impeachment.

Will the Republican divide allow Crockett to conquer? Stay tuned.

Connie (Sherrod Brown’s wife) Shulz:

“As bad as we thought this (Trump) administration would be, it is far, far worse — for our state, and for our country,” she wrote on Substack. “I came to understand that, if Sherrod were to remain true to himself, his only option was to run.”

Michael Moore:

On Nov. 1 Moore doubled down on socialism for America.

“In the next 48-60 hours we have a chance to change history,” Moore wrote on his eponymous Substack newsletter. “To elect the most progressive mayor ever in New York City (Zohran Mamdani). But this isn’t just about NYC — Zoran’s election could be a huge turning point for the entire country. We need a LANDSLIDE that will inspire millions.”

Moore, the prominent filmmaker, lives in Flint, Michigan.

Gavin Newsom

The likely Democrat candidate for president in 2028, California Governor Gavin Newsom, says he’s putting “everything out there” in an autobiography to be published in February.

He has told reporters he is nervous about how the public (read voters) will respond when he dishes details about his personal life and those around him.

“Just being honest — it comes with a cost,” Newsom said.

Now there’s a political truth. Dishonesty is much cheaper, we suppose.

“This is not a politician’s book”, he said. “It’s not a book that you would expect me to write.”

Nope, we’d never suspect he’d write the truth. Let’s just go ahead and elect him president.

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Or you could just buy me a cup of coffee here. For me, coffee clears the mind after reading so much mindless hogwash.

Now, this could be fun. Mike Lindell, you know the founder and face of My Pillow has announced he will run to become Minnesota’s next governor.

Lindell, who has suffered heavy financial set backs as a result of his attempt to help President Trump prove that the 2020 election was rife with voting irregularities, admits his finances are drained and will have to rely on supporters to finance his campaign.

Lindell has been sued for defamation by a Dominion Voting Systems executive and a jury ruled Lindell should pay $2.3 million, which he is appealing. A software engineer who refuted Lindell’s election data claims won a $5 million award, but a federal appeals court vacated the arbitrated award in July of this year.

After hitting every home television screen many, many times, Lindell certainly has name recognition, And, he certainly should received the ultra-valuable support of Trump. All of that likely brings this reaction from current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz:

TV screenshot

Walz announced in September he would seek a third term.

Earlier this month, however, news broke of the multi-BILLION welfare fraud in Walz’s state. Reports are that his administration looked the other way after receiving multiple fraud allegations made by state workers.

The fraud has seen BILLIONS scammed by members of the Somali community of immigrants in the Land of a Thousand Lakes (maybe it should be the Land of a Thousand Mistakes).

Last month Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 36, was sentenced to 28 years in prison for his part in what is looking like the biggest welfare scam ever prosecuted in this country. Prosecutors say he and his co-defendants billed the state of Minnesota $47 million, claiming to have served 18 million meals through his Empire Cuisine and Market, a Minnesota restaurant that contracted with the nonprofit Feeding Our Future to cook and provide meals to children. BUT THEY DIDN’T PROVIDE A SINGLE MEAL, CBS News reported (emphasis ours).

Minnesota has a self-proclaimed “knuckle head” for a governor, and he’s determined to prove he’s right.

The North Star State (Minnesota has many nicknames) is certainly a resilient state. It has had a pro wrestler as a governor, Jesse Ventura, who ran as a third-party candidate. He held the governor’s office from 1999-2003. Then there was the comedian who quit his nighttime job and became a U.S. Senator — Al Franken, D-Minn.

Franken resigned his Senate seat in 2017 due to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including unwanted kissing and groping, according to AI (that’s Artificial Intelligence, not Al).

Then there was Gov. Rudy Perpich who was dubbed “Governor Goofy” by Newsweek for suggesting that the governor’s mansion be sold and that a chopstick factory be built in northern Minnesota.

Voters elected “Governor Goofy” not once, but twice. He is Minnesota’s longest serving governor (10 years) having served from 1976-79 after ascending to the governorship from the Lieutenant Governor’s post when Gov. Wendell Anderson resigned to claim Walter Mondale’s U.S. Senate seat when Mondale was elected Vice President. Perpich was elected to the Governor’s office in 1983 and 1987.

Goofy works in Minnesota.

Yep, the 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial campaign should be a doozy. Stay tuned.

More Minnesota Fraud Hogwash…

Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses and Minnesota will give them free health care, free food, free housing, even free money. That was learned as a result of great reporting by The City Journal’s investigative reporters Christopher F. Rufo and Ryan Thorpe.

They found that Somali immigrants in Minnesota set up fake businesses and organizations in order to collect welfare payments, from housing, medical and education programs.

One Somali-run organization, the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, defrauded the Federal Child Nutrition Program of over $250-MILLION by falsifying meal counts, doctoring attendance and fabricating invoices.

While some Somali’s apparently are brilliant at playing our government, a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) says four out of ten adult Somalis lack a high school education and nearly 60 percent of the working-age Somali adults who have been in the U.S. at least 10 years were categorized as speaking “less than very well.

Hence, the need for government social services and the study found that 80 percent of the Somali population in Minnesota are receiving some sort of government welfare. Seventy-three percent get free health care — MEDICAID.

“Recently some Somalis have been implicated in welfare fraud,” CIS Resident Scholar Jason Richwine commented. “Over $1 BILLION has been reported stolen so far, but the scandal goes beyond money.’’

He pointed out that several million dollars wound up being given to the Somalia-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab, one of al-Qaeda’s strongest and most successful affiliates.

Richwine went on to say, “The way to reduce immigrant consumption of welfare is not simply to crack down on frauds but to reduce the number of new arrivals who have the low earnings power characteristic of Somalis.” He said allowing in immigrants who struggle with these problems adds to the social burden and makes helping impoverished Americans more difficult.

The fraud, however, puts a real burden on taxpayers who are already facing a $38 TRILLION national debt. The Hogwash Report wonders how much that number is inflated by our government’s failure to recognize fraud.

Reporters Rufo and Thorpe adroitly concluded, “Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations low racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft with taxpayers left to foot the bill.”

Hogwash Shorts…

Too Busy To Arrest a Pipe Bomber…

There’s a simple reason why the Biden Justice Department couldn’t find the Jan. 6 pipe bomber — it didn’t want to. The FBI had all the evidence to arrest the alleged pipe bomber in 2021, but it didn’t.

The Biden FBI and Attorney General Merrick Garland were too busy trying to jail Donald Trump and “save” our country from Trump ever being president again.

Another Trump Bad Idea…

President Trump wants to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the huge, ornate building that houses the Vice President’s office, National Security Council, and Office of Management and Budget, along with many other senior White House staff.

The building covers an area the size of 11 football fields and serves serving as a vital hub for White House operations and historical functions.

But it looks grimy and dirty and Trump likes for things to shine, so he has proposed painting it. Of course, if Trump proposes it, it’s the wrong thing to do.

Historic preservationists immediately sued President Donald Trump over his plans to paint the building, warning the structure could be “irreversibly damaged.”

The Trump Administration has told the court it would not paint the building before the end of the year, giving the court time to sort things out.

Trump wants to paint the building white. It’s located across the street from the White House, also on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Trump rarely is wrong about these things, but in this case he should have said he wanted to paint the building in rainbow colors. The liberals would love that idea. The first coat would be all white. After that coat was applied they could have said Biden’s inflation has cause paint prices to be so high that not enough money was available to paint the other colors of the rainbow. Problem solved.

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