That great philosopher Donald John Trump once observed that, “Everything Woke turns to shit.”  That sentiment may be simple and succinct, but it is no less true.  Trump spoke those words at a rally in Alabama in 2021.  During the rally, Trump played part of the famous speech that General Patton’s gave to his Third Army troops.  The speech is featured at the beginning of the movie Patton.  George C. Scott, standing before a huge American flag reminds the troops that, “All true Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser.”  For the Woke imbeciles just the opposite is true.  You’ll never hear General Milley give that speech.  Woke world despises strong, smart, independent achievers who strive to succeed, and exalts weak, ignorant, and lazy failures who strive for nothing more than a handout.  Don’t doubt me.  The bastards of Antifa are the warriors of Woke culture.  Ever seen any of them?  Without exception, they are filthy, scraggly-looking, over-privileged white A-holes, still living in their parents’ basements.  These were recently arrested for terrorism in Atlanta –

No wonder they wear masks.  When Biden and company tell you about their plans for a great transformation of America, keep in mind that these mongrels are the chief transformers.  The Woke are hell-bent on destroying the America we once knew in favor of … in favor of … precisely what remains to be seen.  At the bottom of this dung heap lies George Soros.  In the universe of left-wing hypocrisy, Soros is King.  After having made his fortune manipulating the capitalist system, Soros now seeks to destroy capitalism in favor of what he calls an Open Society.  The goal of Soros’ Open Society is one world government.  Soros knows that Americans won’t willingly surrender their freedom, so to achieve his goal, Soros must undermine the U.S. by attacking its strengths; our military, our Constitution, the rule of law, and our sovereignty itself.  Look around.  That’s exactly what’s going on.  Woke control of education indoctrinates the young by ignoring or removing our history.  Why do you think they’re pulling down statues?  Our military has traded pistol practice for pronoun reeducation.  The Woke scorn our Constitution, and seek to repeal the Bill of Rights.  The Woke want to defund the police, while Soros funded prosecutors refuse to enforce the law.  And Biden has surrendered the southern border to Mexican drug cartels who are importing tons of fentanyl to kill American citizens, who presumably will be replaced by the millions of illegals also being shipped in.  Soros’ object is to collapse our system, to be replaced by his one-world government, a world in which America will be no better than any other Third World shithole.  Yet there may be some hope.  There are signs that young people may not be the mind-numbed robots of wokeism that the Left is counting on.  Satirist and free speech activist Konstantin Kisin recently struck a blow against woke culture in an Oxford Union debate centered on the motion “Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far.” Kisin spoke on the anti-woke side of the issue, decrying the Woke brainwashing of young minds, and his speech has garnered over five million internet views.  Kisin spoke for nine minutes, focusing on the myopic and cruel proposals that woke adherents offer on issues like climate change.  Kisin granted climate change activists every argument they make about an impending crisis while exposing the insanity of their position.  And his speech was well received by the students.  He wasn’t booed, or shouted down. Here are some of his comments.

“For tonight, and tonight only, I will join you.  I will join you in worshiping at the feet of Saint Greta of climate change.  Let us all accept right here that we are living through a climate emergency and our stocks of polar bears are running extremely low.  I join you in this view.  I truly do.  Now, what are we to do about this huge problem facing humanity.  What can we in Britain do?  We can only do one thing.  Do you know why?  This country is responsible for 2% of global carbon emissions, which means that if Britain were to sink into the sea right now, it would make absolutely no difference to the issue of climate change.  Do you know why?  Because the future of the climate is going to be decided in Asia and in Latin America.  By poor people.  Who couldn’t give a shit about serving the planet.  Do you know why?  Because they’re poor.” Kisin told the assembly that roughly 20% of Russian households do not have an indoor toilet of any kind or, as Kisin put it, a “wooden shack with a hole in the ground that holds a collected fermented memory of the last 10,000 visits.” “How many of you are going to go home tonight and say, ‘Let’s rip out our bathroom and erect a Siberian shithouse in the back garden?’”  “If you’re not, why should they?”  Kisin told them that 120 million people in China suffer from malnourishment, and noted that to combat climate change poor people all over the world would have to forgo technological and industrial development in order to “stay poor” enough – a prospect he characterized as “unacceptable, unrealistic, and cruel.”  Speaking of his infant son, Kisin argued, “Now, if you said to me that I had a choice: either my son had a serious risk of starving or dying from a preventable disease in the next year or I could press a button and he would live, he would go to school, he would bring his first girlfriend home, he would go to university and graduate and become a woke idiot and get a job and get married and have children and become a man.  But all I have to do is press this button and for every day of my son’s life, a giant plume of CO2 is going to get released into the atmosphere.  You’re all very young and most of you are not parents, let me tell you something, there is not a parent in the world who would not smash that button so hard their hand bled.  You are not going to get these people to stay poor.  You are not even going to get them to not want to not be richer.  So, I put it to you ladies and gentlemen, there is only one thing we can do in this country to stop climate change and that is to make scientific and technological breakthroughs that will create the clean energy that is not only clean but also cheap.”  Kisin then called for woke activists to end their worship of protest culture and outrage sessions to instead roll up their sleeves and get to work doing something in the world.  Kisin is right.  Third World people won’t give up their chance at a better life for climate change hysteria.  Now, if we can just get the over-privileged Woke bastards to understand that, we may have something here.

The top phrase of 2023 has to be “classified documents.” It all began last year, when the Left went nuts over the seizure of supposed classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago.  The nuts railed about nuclear codes, military secrets and national security.  They wanted Trump arrested, imprisoned, and even executed for treason.  Some idiot soap opera star even suggested that Ivanka Trump’s body should be exhumed to search for secret documents hidden in her casket.  A special counsel was appointed to persecute Trump for supposedly illegally possessing classified documents.  We can be sure that Trump had nothing that imperiled national security for a good reason.  The Dems haven’t leaked anything about the documents.  One scenario I’ve seen says what Trump had were only folders that once held documents.  No matter.  We were assured that Trump is a felon who must be convicted.  “What?  A former president dared to have some classified material?  That’s shocking!”  Then something very interesting happened.  In January, after the House Speaker nonsense was completed, it was announced that classified documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022.  Because an election was days away, the Corrupt Demented Imbecile Biden Administration hid the news.  The Penn Biden Center is at UPenn.  It was funded with $54 million in donations from Chinese Communists, and in 2018 and 2019, the Center paid Old Joe some $900,000 for a no show job.  On December 20, more classified documents were found at Biden’s Wilmington home, in a garage where Joe keeps his Corvette.  On January 9, the Penn Biden documents story broke.  On January 10, Biden claimed to be surprised about the Penn Biden documents, and said he didn’t know how they got there.  He never mentioned the garage cache.  Then later, two more searches discovered more documents in other rooms in the house, and a Justice Department search on January 21 revealed even more documents.  This created a problem for Democrats, who had been telling us possessing documents was a crime.  As with all things political, it wasn’t about documents, national security, or even about Biden.  It was all about Trump.  But the Dems did their best to cover up for Joe. “See, Trump is different.  He kept them in a room, locked with a lock recommended by the FBI, inside a fortress, guarded 24/7 by the Secret Service, and he had turned documents over to the National Archives, just not all of them.”  And Biden?  “He only had them in a box in his garage, at the house where his crackhead son Hunter, who was in business with the Chinese Communists lived.”  “Wait.  Let me rephrase that.”  Uh huh.  Georgia Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson, the genius who once asked if stationing troops on Guam could cause the island to capsize, mused that all the documents may have been planted, presumably by Trump or some other evil Republicans.  Right.  Planted there, and there, and there, and there, and there.  This week, it was revealed that even Mike Pence had some documents.  Il Duce Obama, who left the White House with some 30 million presidential documents, George Bush and Dick Cheney have been awfully quiet of late.  I wonder why?  As I have a strange sense of humor, all this reminded me of a song form the Broadway musical Chicago, called, Whatever Happened to Class?  Here are some of the lyrics:

Whatever happened to fair dealing?
And pure ethics?
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?
Whatever happened to class?

That’s right.  Whatever happened to all those class-ified documents?  The multiple discoveries of wayward documents raises a number of pertinent questions, such as:  Why are so many documents classified?  If they’re so sensitive, why didn’t somebody miss them during the six years or more they were in Philadelphia being translated into Chinese, and in the box near Joe’s Corvette?  We’re told the Biden documents relate to Ukraine.  A Hunter email suggests he had access to classified material when he was angling for a job with the Ukrainian company Burisma, which ultimately paid him $1 million a year. (Less 10% for the Big Guy).  Did Hunter use  secret U.S. documents to make money, or as rolling papers for his dope?  More to the point – Who blew the whistle on Joe Biden and why now?  That’s a good one.  It’s no secret, classified or otherwise, that Joe Biden is a senile nincompoop, whose brain matter is rapidly turning from chicken gumbo to chicken broth.  He wanders aimlessly, talks gibberish, even to people who aren’t there, and has left no doubt that he’s not up to the job.  Meanwhile, although practically brain-dead, Biden has vowed to run for reelection.  Probably, someone who works or worked for Biden, and who knew of the Penn Biden documents, decided this scandal would be a good way to force Joe out.  The later revelations of documents in Biden’s house were an added attraction, which I suspect was unknown and unintended.  Justice has  appointed a Special Counsel to investigate Joe.  It had to, in order to keep up the pretense of equal justice.  But there’s a problem.  Prominent Democrats are now “concerned.”  How to persecute Trump for doing something far less dangerous than Biden?  No matter how they try to twist it, docs in a locked room in Mar a Lago pale in comparison to “I don’t know what they were or how they got there,” where the “theres” are a place accessible to Chinese Communists, the house of the son in the employ of Chinese Communists, and the box in front of the Corvette, in the garage of the house where, we’re told, no record was kept of who went in and out.  The lapdog media is still trying to help Joe though.  Whoopi Goldberg no less, and there is no less, is trying to explain how Biden declassified the documents, though it’s hard to understand how you could declassify something of which you proclaim to have no knowledge.  And when Trump actually did declassify materials, these same A-holes said that didn’t count.  No, it looks like it’s curtains for Old Joe.  Democrats don’t care that he had classified documents.  It’s all a joke anyhow, as the reality is that classified documents are absolutely everywhere, and always have been.  Democrats can forgive Biden that.  Joe Biden is a thief and a liar.  Democrats can forgive that.  But they can’t forgive Biden for interfering with their blind pursuit of Donald Trump.  They would cheerfully hand over to the Chinese every classified document in the vault if they could just convict Trump of something.  He’s the White Whale and they’re all Ahab, all the time.  So forget their prattling about “national security.”  If they really cared about that, they wouldn’t be letting millions of illegals overrun the country.  Everything goes back to Trump, so it’s time for Biden to go under the bus.  Two birds, one stone.

I’ve been venting my spleen in these pages weekly for about 8 years now.  Many of my musings have been on the topic of how the America we grew up in turned into the Woke, amoral, lawless insane asylum that it has become.  My father’s father came here from Italy.  He didn’t have an education.  He never had it easy, and he never made a lot of money.  But he used to say that this country was the greatest, because here anything was possible.  He wouldn’t recognize it today.  There’s a lot I could say on this subject.  A couple of weeks ago I read something from a greater mind and a better writer than myself, and I wanted to share it with you.  The author is historian Victor Davis Hanson, and his piece is entitled The Coup We Never Knew.

Did someone or something seize control of the United States?  What happened to the U.S. border?  Where did it go? Who erased it?  Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally?  Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws?  Did President Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased?  Since when did money not have to be paid back?  Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow?  When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?  When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent of dirty coal?  How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, and which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?  Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings?  How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas – furious over a court decision on abortion?  How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring   “Off with their d–s”?  Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth?  And on whose orders did the FBI contact private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?  How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call?     Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television?  Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?  When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked?  Was it legal suddenly for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival?  Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports?  Did Congress enact such a law?  Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women?  Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed?  When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic?  In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension?  How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target?  Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would not cast their ballots on Election Day?  Was this revolutionary change the subject of a national debate, a heated congressional session, or the votes of dozens of state legislatures?  What happened to Election Night returns?  Did the fact that Americans created more electronic ballots and computerized tallies make it take so much longer to tabulate the votes? When did the nation abruptly decide that theft is not a crime, and assault is not a felony?  How can thieves walk out with bags of stolen goods, without the wrath of angry shoppers, much less fear of the law?  Was there ever a national debate about the terrifying flight from Afghanistan?  Who planned it and why?  What happened to the once-trusted FBI?  Why almost overnight did its directors decide to mislead Congress, to deceive judges with concocted tales from fake dossiers and with doctored writs?  Did Congress pass a law that our federal leaders in the FBI or CIA could lie with impunity under oath? Who redefined our military and with whose consent?  Who proclaimed that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could call his Chinese Communist counterpart to warn him that America’s president was supposedly unstable?  Was it always true that retired generals routinely labeled their commander-in-chief as a near Nazi, a Mussolini, an adherent of the tools of Auschwitz?  Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race?  How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on campus?  Whose idea was it to reboot racial segregation and bias as “theme houses,” “safe spaces,” and “diversity”?  How did that happen in America? How did a virus cancel the Constitution?  Did the lockdowns rob us of our sanity?  Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?  We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare of a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup, we never knew.

Every question asked by Mr. Hanson deserves to be answered by the people who seek to lead us.  When Donald Trump said “Make America Great Again,” people like Andrew Cuomo told us “it was never that great.”  So how about we just make America America again?  Not White America, or Black America, or Gay America, or Straight America, or Woke Amerika (not a typo), but simply the America that fed the world, protected the world, and was the envy of the world.  Not an America bent on joining the Third World as some sort of perverted penance, but the America that welcomed my grandfather, and millions like him, and invited them to become part of the finest nation on Earth.

A crisis always brings out the best, and the worst, in people.  When tragedy strikes, some people come together and rise to the occasion, indicating there may be some hope for humanity.  Others run true to form, and use the tragedy to amplify their agendas and biases.  Such is the case with the  Damar Hamlin story.  Hamlin is a 24 year old defensive back for the Buffalo Bills.  Until January 2, like many people, I’d never heard of him.  Then fate intervened.  A player for the Cincinnati Bengals caught a pass.  Hamlin came in for the tackle.  The two made contact on what appeared to be a totally routine NFL play.  Hamlin stood up, then immediately collapsed to the field, bringing the game to an abrupt halt with 5:58 remaining in the first quarter.  Players surrounded Hamlin and medical personnel went to work on him.  Minutes ticked by while television commentators speculated on what was happening and what would happen next.  When Hamlin was removed to a hospital, and the teams left the field, the situation was transformed from football game into news event.  That transformation moved the event, formerly of interest only to football fans, into the realm of the jackals, whores and opportunists of the Lamsestream Media.  As I said at the opening, a crisis always exposes the good, the bad, and the ugly.  And that’s what we got.  When the teams left the field, nobody was sure what was happening.  It was a nearly unprecedented event.  And as in war, the first reports inevitably are wrong.  The TV commentator reported that the teams had been given 5 minutes to regroup before the game would resume.  The NFL immediately denied that, but some blasted the league for insensitivity.  After about an hour, it was announced that the game would not resume.  The NFL cancelled the game thereafter.  What wasn’t known at the time the game was suspended was that Damar Hamlin had suffered cardiac arrests, and was revived by the medical team.  He went to the hospital unconscious, and in critical condition.  Under those circumstances, neither team was willing to resume the game, and of course, they made the right decision.  But having devolved from a football game into a scandal, the bad and the ugly immediately went to work.  There were calls for the head of whoever told the teams to resume the game.  Nobody had, but that didn’t matter.  Some of the most repugnant comments came from that noted group of football analysts, the witches of The View.  Joy Behar blasted conservatives and heterosexual men for  supporting “tackle football.” (Is there any other kind?)  “45% of Americans think that tackle football is appropriate.  Heterosexual men voted the most support for kids doing football.  And conservatives were more likely to support youth tackle football.  Just saying.”  Then, exposing her ignorance and innate racism, Behar suggested people play golf or tennis instead of football.  Right.  All the poor black guys playing football should just go to their country clubs for a round of golf.  And if only 45% support “tackle football,” why does the NFL generate $18 billion a year in revenue and why have 30 of the top 31 all-time highest rated TV broadcasts been NFL “tackle football?”  The only thing Joy Behar and football have in common is that her skin could be used to make the ball.  Not to be outdone, that other irritant named Joy, Joy Reid, chimed in, describing the incident as, “yet another tragic reminder of the inherent violence of the sport and the humanity of the young men who put their health and safety on the line for the NFL’s modern day gladiator spectacle.”  If football was slow and completely safe, nobody would watch it.  And by the way Joy, some of us never questioned the humanity of the players. As for “gladiator spectacle,” the gladiators were slaves forced to fight to the death.  NFL players assume the risks for an average salary of $2.7 million, more than 50 times what the average firefighter gets for doing his inherently dangerous job.  Of course, race had to be injected into the debate.  A Scientific American article claimed that the NFL’s violence disproportionately affects Black men.  As scientists, the authors might have noticed that, as more than 60% of the players are Black, it’s not surprising that most injuries are suffered by Black players.  The article claimed that through the process of “racial stacking” coaches racially segregate by playing position and put Black athletes at a higher risk.  Citing Damar Hamlin’s injury, the article claimed that Black men’s athletic labor sustains this brutal system.”  Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy was quick to respond.  “As a black man and former NFL player I can say this article is absolutely ridiculous.”  A commentator for The Daily Beast argued that, the fact it took an hour to suspend the game proved that the NFL doesn’t care about Black players.  This, of course, is nonsense.  As noted above, during that first hour after the injury, nobody was sure what was happening, and since this is only the second time in 52 years that something like this happened, there was no protocol for what to do when a player’s heart stops.  In 1971, when 28 year old (White) player, Chuck Hughes, died on the field, they took him away and the game went on.  But enough bad and ugly.  We also got some good.  Damar Hamlin rapidly improved, and as this is written, he’s at home in Buffalo.  Damar’s first question upon regaining consciousness put the lie to the notion that pro football players are no more than thralls forced to labor for a  brutal spectacle.  The first thing Damar wanted to know was, “Did we win?” That Hamlin was more concerned about his team and his teammates than himself showed his character and his spirit.  While so many NFL players engage in self-aggrandizing stunts, Damar exhibited an “Old School” attitude that put me in mind of Vince Lombardi’s favorite motto.   Damar Hamlin embodies that sentiment.  It’s a testament to his devotion to his Christian faith and his commitment to his family, who were at his bedside when he regained consciousness.  Damar attended Pittsburgh’s Central Catholic High School, and although he could have gone anywhere, played college ball at Pitt.  He explained why, “Staying close to my family and then having my little brother around so I could be a role model for him.”  And sometimes tragedy motivates good deeds.  Damar was trying to raise $25,000 for gifts for underprivileged kids.  At last report, his “Go Fund Me” site had received $8 million.  And the response from the NFL has been uplifting.  Last weekend, all the teams wore apparel supporting Damar. The NFL players and team staffs, understand the risks inherent in pro football, and they closed ranks to pay homage to one of their own.  They are the only people qualified to decide how the game should be played.  But perhaps Theodore Roosevelt said it best: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”  Amen.  Let’s all keep Damar Hamlin in our thoughts and prayers, and hope that this extraordinary young man makes a full recovery.

Nowadays, so many things that we know for certain turn out to be not so certain after all.  In the Fall, we knew for certain that Republicans were going to sweep the mid-term elections, and that a Red Wave would wash over the nation, giving Republicans the House of Representatives and the Senate.  We now know that the Red Wave wasn’t even a ripple.  We lost the Senate outright 51-49.  The only upside of this occurrence is that Kamala Harris now has absolutely nothing to do.  Republicans managed to flip the House, winning 222 seats to 213 Democrat.  Well, right now 212 Democrats, as one Virginia Democrat died right after his reelection.  January 3 was the first day for the newly elected 118th Congress.  The first order of business for this, as for every new Congress was the election of a Speaker of the House.  The office of Speaker of the House is required by the Constitution, which provides that “the House of Representatives shall chuse its Speaker and other officers.” (Yes, that’s how they spelled “choose” in those days)  The office originated in the British House of Commons during the 14th century.  Until the 17th century (King Charles I), the speaker elected by the House of Commons represented that body before the monarch but also served as the monarch’s representative in the Commons.  After Charles I, who was later beheaded, sparking a Civil War, British Speakers serve primarily as non-political parliamentary officers.  The U.S. Speaker has parliamentary duties as well, but also is second in the line of presidential succession, after the Vice President.  No Speaker has succeeded to the presidency by virtue of that office, and only one former Speaker, James Polk, has ever been elected president.  The Speaker doesn’t have to be a member of the House of Representatives.  Theoretically, anyone could be elected Speaker, even Donald Trump, who has gotten one vote this week.  Realistically, the election of a Speaker who is not in the House is about as likely as the election of a new Pope who’s not a Cardinal.  Anyhow, last year we knew for certain that the new Speaker was going to be California Representative Kevin McCarthy.  But not so fast.  Trouble is brewing in the Republican caucus, more specifically, in the Freedom Caucus, whose conservative members have let it be known that they’re tired of being lied to and overlooked by the RINOs who want to continue business as usual.  I guess McCarthy just didn’t take the Freedom Caucus threat seriously, because it came as no surprise.  From 10 to 20 Republicans have been saying for some time that they will not vote for McCarthy unless he makes commitments on conservative policies on such things as balancing the budget, tax reform and oversight investigations on little things like the Biden Crime Family.  Many people, including me, thought that the differences would be quickly resolved, and that Kevin McCarthy would be elected Speaker.  That hasn’t been the case.  As this is written, there have been 11 Speaker votes, and an 11th is expected today.  McCarthy has been unable to get the votes needed to be elected.  In the 11 ballots, McCarthy has received no more than 203 votes, his vote total then dropping to 200.  Conservatives have nominated Byron Donalds of Florida, but he has gotten no more than 20 votes.  Democrats have voted every time 212 votes for Hakeem Jeffries.  No surprise there.  If Democrats know one thing it’s the value of Party discipline.  We are told that negotiations are ongoing, but there’s been little movement.  Indeed, the opposition is getting more strident.  On January 5, Chief Embarrassment to the Country, Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden, called the situation, “an embarrassment to the country.”  He should know.  How long can this go on?  The longest election for Speaker took more than two months and 133 ballots before Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts was elected Speaker on February 2, 1856.  The Civil War began soon thereafter.  Let’s hope that’s not an omen.  The 1923 election went to 9 ballots before a winner emerged.  And what effect does a stalemate have?  Here’s the answer given by MSNBC –  Until a Speaker is chosen, the House can’t swear in its members and can’t vote on legislation, or work on investigations.  Right.  MSNBC can’t wait for House Republicans investigate the Biden Crime Family, Sam Bankman-Fried’s gift of $40 million stolen dollars to Democrats, and the FBI’s interference in our elections.  The reality is, they’ll get there, eventually.  And they don’t need to pass legislation right away, as they voted a $1.7 trillion boondoggle bill in December, precisely to keep the incoming House from cutting the budget.  Trust me.  Every day the Congress does nothing, it’s one more day that they don’t steal your freedom.  But what’s the endgame?  The Republican NK’s, that’s what they call the “Never Kevin” faction, are taking flak from Republicans of all stripes, including Newt Gingrich, who aptly points out that 10% of the caucus should not be permitted to dictate to the other 90%.  The NK’s do have valid complaints, and I hope they are trying to work toward a resolution.  Reportedly, there was a major concession on Thursday, in which McCarthy pledged that his political PAC, Club For Growth, would not contribute money to candidates in open seat Republican primaries in safe Republican districts.  This would permit more conservatives to win primaries without the Establishment Republicans putting their thumbs on the scale.  Is Kevin McCarthy the ideal candidate for Speaker?  No.  Would I be happy with a Byron Donalds, or a Jim Jordan?  Absolutely.  But McCarthy is as good as it’s going to get.  The Democrats are lurking with their 212 votes, and have offered to support “a Unity Speaker,” so long as they get some Committee Chairmanships and other concessions.  They have no right to such an outrage.  For all the talk of the “razor thin” Republican majority, with 222 seats, does anyone remember how many Democrats were in the last Congress?  222.  Did they agree to share power?  Don’t think so.  There’s also talk from liberal outlets that, “even if elected, McCarthy will be the weakest Speaker in recent times.”  McCarthy needs 217 votes to win.  Anyone remember how many votes Nancy Pelosi got in January 2021?  216.  Did anybody say she was weak?  Just sit tight.  This will be resolved, in favor of McCarthy or some other Republican, and life will go on.