The refs just gave Kansas the game against TCU. Disgraceful. Hunter Dickinson is up for the Academy Award.

Republicans in Congress are appalled that Biden would take a vacation without addressing the migrant situation - while they’re in the midst of a 3+ week break after a do-nothing year.

Nikki Haley, the former Governor of South Carolina, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, got asked during a campaign event, “What started the Civil War?”

Her rambling answer involved the role of government in protecting freedoms while not telling folks what to do. No mention of slavery. (I guess that wasn’t a freedom that came to her mind.) When the man asked, “What about slavery? “ she said, “What do you want me to say about slavery?” He replied, “That answers my question.”

Merry Christmas, everyone!

On TV yesterday, I saw a reporter talking to a group of people who said they were unhappy with the economy. She said to one woman, “Inflation is coming down, wages are up, unemployment is down, and the stock market is doing well.” The woman replied, “Well, I would disagree with that.”

That sums up the facts-don’t-matter situation we have in this country today and is emblematic of H.L. Mencken’s famous line: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

So Giuliani declared bankruptcy. What a surprise. The poll workers he defamed likely won’t see a dime from the judgment in their favor. I bet Giuliano’s lawyers will get paid, though.

#politics Any hope that Trump’s legal woes will affect the presidential election is a pipe dream. The only slam-dunk prosecution case - the classified documents case - will likely not even get started before the election, thanks to Judge Cannon. Jack Smith’s case - the insurrection one - has a small chance to get underway, but motion delays will doom that one as well. Ditto for the Georgia prosecution. But even if Trump is convicted of any, the appeal process will carry far into 2025. Too late.

One day after I was bemoaning the Cowboys’ pitiful loss to the Bills, the Eagles lost to the Seahawks. The NFL calls it parity. I call it mediocrity.

For 75 years, the Palestinians - through their leadership - have rejected proposals to share the land that became Israel, demanding that the Jews leave the territory (which was the Jewish homeland before Islam existed) or be wiped out. Multiple efforts to make that second option a reality have failed miserably. What makes anyone think a two-state solution would be acceptable now?

I’m not yet in the Jets-fan category (after all, the Cowboys do manage to make the playoffs and have had several Super Bowl wins in the distant past), but I’m getting there. The same team with all the hype and then lost to the lackluster Cardinals early in the season showed up again yesterday in their beat-down by the Bills. Is there a Cowboys curse that I’m not aware of? Jeez.

Stock market is at an all-time high, inflation and unemployment is down, as is the price of gas. The Fed suggests interest rate cuts are in the offing for next year. Yet people who weren’t around when there was negligible inflation or high interest rates and relatively high gas prices complain and blame it on Biden.

U.S. oil and natural gas production are at record levels, yet Trump wants to drill, baby, drill on his first day as president.

God save us from low-information voters!

Rep. Jim Jordan, who refused to comply with the Jan. 6 Committee subpoena, has the chutzpah to call for contempt proceedings against Hunter Biden for refusing to comply with the subpoena for a closed-door hearing. Despite the fact Hunter said he would comply if the hearing was aired publicly. I mean, really? What is there about this process that passes the smell test?

Oh, the craven hypocrisy of most anti-abortion politicians. They claim that abortion is murder and against their deeply-held moral beliefs. Yet they are willing to set time limits during which that murder can be allowed - just so they can get votes. Granted, some legislators are in favor of banning abortion at the moment of conception, but they’re in the minority (thank goodness!).

The college football playoff committee decided that one-loss teams should be chosen over an undefeated team in a Power 5 conference to play for the national championship. First time that has happened. Granted, Florida State lost their starting quarterback a few weeks ago, and though it won the conference title game, it didn’t “look” good doing so. So does the “eye test” trump record? Apparently so. But as Bill Parcells famously said, “ You are what your record says you are.”

#politics So Trump’s argument now against the effort to ban him from ballot listing is that his presidential oath included preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution, but did not include “supporting” the Constitution. Not that he wasn’t involved in an insurrection (which a judge recently ruled he was). So even if he was an insurrectionist, it doesn’t matter, because the Constitution says he must also have taken an oath to “support” the Constitution to be barred from the ballot.

When you consider buying a book on Amazon by an author you’re not familiar with but find glowing blurbs for it by famous authors that don’t even indicate they’ve read the book, be very skeptical. I just finished a book that had several praising blurbs by well-known authors. The book was so badly written that I wondered if an editor had been involved at all in its publication.

Rather than using these blurbs as a guide, read the reviews given by normal readers to get an idea of what to expect.

Oops, I meant unemployment rate, of course.