Weekly Mail February 28, 2016

Howdy:

I had one of those proud parent moments today. They had a Mass for Timmy's CCD class today, and the priest had the kids come up for the homily. He asked them about Lent, and some of the kids gave their answers. But then the priest said "Hey this guy here knows his stuff. Here , take the mike and tell us about it." I thought for a minute he was talking to Timmy and sure as $h-t, there he was taking the microphone and said "Jesus met the devil in the desert and said to him I don't have to prove to you that I'm God's son. Go away!" The priest told Timmy he did a great job and his teachers are obviously very good. That led to his CCD teacher giving him a big hug at the post Mass coffee hour.
These are the days that being a parent is awesome. The first thing Tim said to me when we left church was " I got a bit of stage fright." I dont know where he comes up with this stuff folks, but he does.

EDITORS NOTE: The above paragraph i wrote this afternoon . The following items I wrote Saturday night. I realize the Segueway  from church into Twitter porn may not be the smoothest transition, but hey you get what you pay for...

     There was a lot of news worthy stuff that happened this week. The there were some things that made news and I'm scratching my head as to why it did. We'll start off with one of those stories.


SPORTS: Knicks coach likes porn!!!!!

     Interim Knicks coach Kurt (bleepin*) Rambis on his Twitter account clicked Like on a porn site, and for some reason that I still can't wrap my head around, this became news. Rambis and the Knicks put out statements that his Twitter account was hacked, which nobody believes, and a story that should have died quick went on for the better part of the day.
        The most likely scenario was that Rambis was trying to delete the tweet and hit like by accident. Or well, maybe he really liked what he saw. Does it make me some sort of perv that I don't see what the hell is wrong with an adult looking at an adult site? I mean he wasn't looking at child porn, or sending dicpics out was he? This guy won multiple championshps with the 80's Showtime Lakers, and now he's the coach of the lowly Knicks... and the interim coach at that! I mean, with a thankless job like that, can you blame the guy for needing some stress relief?
          Rambis wisely got rid of his Twiter account. I've never gotten into it. I get into enough trouble on Facebook and on e-mail with my big mouth and my 25 cent opinions. I don't need to add Tweets to my life. Besides, you can't contain my genius to a mere 180 characters. And I certainly don't need the social media world to know about any porn preferences I may or may not have.  That is fo sure.


SPORTS 2 Yoenis Cespides likes expensive cars.

Last week, I touched upon the waste of resources that sending reporters to cover Spring Training is. Nothing proved my point more than all the hubub generated at the modes of transportation used by Met outfielder Yoenis Cespides to get to the ballpark. A Lamborghini one day, a three wheeled drag racer another day, each car more expensive than the other. And it was covered in the papers and the sportscasts and if the President was arriving in camp.
     I don't care if he shows up in a Toyota Corolla as long as he hits and doesn't drop any balls in the outfield like he did in the World Series. Even with that, he may want to tone it down a notch. As Post columnist Phil Mushnick wrote in his Friday column, how soon till we read that Cespides is broke?


THE 2016 ELECTION

     Donald Trump won the Nevada caucus last Tuesday, his third win in a row heading into Super Tuesday. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz finished in a virtual tie for second place with John Kasich and Venus Flytrap bringing up the rear. The once unfathomable thought of Trump being the Republican nominee for President is becoming more and more likely. Super Tuesday may be the last best chance for someone to knock him off.
        Cruz keeps bragging that he's the only one to beat Trump, but that was in Iowa and weird things happen there. One thing Cruz has going for him is that one of the Super Tuesday states is Texas, Cruz' home state (well, since Alberta isn't a state) Rubio, who I felt got some solid shots in at Trump during their debate in Houston on Thursday, needs a couple of wins on Tuesday. These second place finishes are nice to tell the grandkids about, and they may help him if he runs again, but they're not doing anything for him now unless he gets a few W's soon.
          NJ Governor Chris Christie endorsed Trump on Friday, which in addition to unleashing the usual round of fat jokes in the media (social or otherwise) gave Trump his first solid endorsement. (Sarah Palin's endorsement garnered headlines, but she's not in office or running so...) It also raised the specter of a Trump/Christie ticket come November. I wouldn't do that if I were Trump. He's going to need someone from the South or the West cover his bases.
         Then again, what the hell do I know? I didn't think he'd be in a position to have to pick a running mate, and now here we are. After Tuesday, it may be time to start thinking in those terms.

         On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton won a landslide victory over Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary, her most lopsided victory thus far. Actually landslide doesn't do it justice, she won by like 50 percentage points. This definitely gives her momentum going into Super Tuesday, but will that translate into a runaway?  From the polls I've seen, Hillary has big leads in most of the states. Bernie is going to need to pull off a couple of upsets if he's going to stay in the race. It's not looking good.

Hope you all enjoyed this, I enjoyed writing this one.

Have a Great Week




*NY Post basketball columnist Peter Vescey gave Rambis the nickname Bleepin' after a game in the 1984 or 1985 NBA Finals, where the Lakers and Celtics had one of their many brawls. During one such mele, Celtics PG Dennis Johnson started mouthing off to Rambis, who  right there on national television , told DJ to " shut the f-ck up."  And said it again, loud and clear for good measure .

Weekly Mail February 21, 2016

          I was lucky last week. Timmy was off from school and I got to take the week off as well. Friday, Tim and I went snow tubing with Timmy's friend Ethan and Ethan's dad Danny.

I know that Timmy, Ethan, and Ethan's cousin Garrett had a blast. But I'm also certain that they didn't have nearly as much fun as Dan and I had. Dan is an athletic trainer and he's in phenomenal shape. I'm a couple inches taller and about 30 pounds heavier, so needless to say when we got on the tube we flew down that hill. A couple of times we went past the barrier that was supposed to stop us. Quite frankly were pretty lucky we came out of there alive

       But damn we had fun! And I'm starting to think that Dan and I should represent America in the next Winter Olympics. To me the only difference between snow tubing and luging is that luging is done on your back while snow tubing is done on your stomach. It's just a minor adjustment and if we go as fast on the luge as we did on the snow tubes we'll  bring home the gold.

ELECTION 2016 Trump Wins SC; Hillary Wins Nevada Caucus

          Donald Trump won big on Saturday in South Carolina, beating Marco Rubio by 10 percentage points to claim all 44 of the delegates. Ted Cruz, who won big with the religious conservatives in Iowa, finished a close third behind 2nd place finisher Rubio. 

             But the big story last night was the fourth-place finish of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush,  and his subsequent decision to exit the race . Now I can pull a Mike Francessa here and  tell you that I knew all along that Bush had no chance, even though I have been saying for months not to count him out.  I'm not going to lie, I'm quite surprised he didn't do much better. I'm not disappointed to see him go, I have Bush fatigue  as the rest of the country obviously does.  I'm just surprised with all the political experience that he has, and all the big money donors that were backing him up that he did have a better showing. I think it's pretty safe to say that this is the end of an era. 

           And Trump winning down in South Carolina is big because it shows he can carry a Southern state.  Next up for the Republicans is the Nevada caucus then Super Tuesday.  Probably the last chance for Rubio or Cruz to make a run at Trump. 

            Speaking of the Nevada caucus,  Hillary Clinton got a much-needed win there over Bernie Sanders.  Some suggested that the win give the momentum back to Hillary, but I don't think she won by a wide enough margin for her to rest easy just yet. 

             I alluded to this on Facebook the other day, but to me the most interesting fact about the Nevada caucus is this.....  In the event that there would've been a tie at one of the caucus sites, the winner would've been determined by the draw of a card! That's right,  they would've laid out a deck of cards at the caucus site and a supporter of Hillary and a supporter of Bernie would've drawn one card each, highest car drawn gets the delegates at that site !  My former Post colleague Ed Robinson pointed out to me that different states have different ways of breaking ties: coin flips, straw draws etc.. I don't know man, there's got to be a better way .  I mean drawing the Long-straw to determine the state caucus for president ? 

          One last note on the Republican side,  Donald Trump,  for once, finally used his noodle and didn't get in to a pissing match with Pope Francis . 

          It appeared he was going in that direction however .  Last week the Pope addressing the people of Mexico said that anybody who would build a wall to keep people out is not a Christian.  At firrst he took this as an attack against himself and responded in kind, saying that the Pope had no right to question anybody's Christianity.  Later on, during a CNN Town hall with Anderson Cooper,  Trump praised the Pope and said that the alleged statements by the Pope were misinterpreted by the media .   Trump realized that mixing it up with the Pope is a lot different than messing with Jeb Bush or Rosie O'Donnell or Megyn Kelly. 

NEWS ITEM:  Supreme Court Fight: 

              Last Saturday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly at a ranch near El Paso Texas at the age of 79 .  And no sooner had the announcement been made of Scalia's passing than both Democrats and Republicans did what they do best and acted ugly.  And more so the Republicans .  They demanded that President Obama hold off on nominating a replacement until after the 2016 presidential election . Obama, while respectfully remembering the fallen justice,  also vowed to nominate the successor,  something he probably could've held off on announcing.  I realize that Republican schmucks like Mitch McConnell put him on the spot, but I still think this was one time he would've been better off not hitting back right away . 

          And by the way Obama not only has the right to appoint a new justice he has the obligation to do so .  And if the Senate Republicans want to delay delay delay as Donald Trump said well shame on them because that's just the type of government gridlock that we do not need

           And this could really come back to haunt the GOP.  Because if they happen to lose the 2016 election which is a definite possibility would you rather have Obama picking other justice or Hillary Clinton ?

Or Bernie Sanders? 

TV Review. The People vs. OJ Simpson. American Crime Story. 

             So yeah I got suckered into watching,  because let's face it I didn't get enough of it 20 years ago when the whole thing happened .  Gavel to gavel coverage on CNN,  Court TV, and the E! entertainment network ,  domination on both the local and national news broadcasts,  not to mention all the gossip shows.  Careers were made out of this trial.  You would think the 21 years after the verdict was read that we would've had our fill of it. Yet here I am watching the whole thing again.

          The acting is a magnificent on the show though . Most notably, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, and David (Ross) Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian.  Paulson as Clark is right up there with Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in the eerily similar department. 

I can't really say if Schwimmer's  portrayal of Kardashian is that spot on because quite frankly, I don't remember hearing the late Kardashian speak all that much.

            But one beef I have with what I've seen on the first three episodes is that they've tried to force feed us the younger versions of the Kardashian girls.  There was one scene where OJ threatened to kill himself, and Robert Kardashian begged him not to do it "in Kimmy's bedroom".  Another scene has Kim Khloe and Kourtney running around goofing off at Nicole Brown Simpson's wake .  It's bad enough that we have the exploits of these three dingbats and their spouses shoved down on throats on a daily basis .  They were little girls with all this stuff happened in 1994.  They are totally irrelevant to the story and as such, should've been kept the hell out . 

           The night of the Ford Bronco chase, I was seeing the movie Wolf with Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer at the Cinemart movie theater in Forest Hills .  Because I was watching that forgettable movie, I missed the greatest night of television broadcasting in history (which also included Game 5 of the NBA finals, featuring my Knicks)  Maybe that's why am hooked on the show. 

SPORTS: Spring Training Starts

            I still think it is way too early for spring training to be starting .  I can't get that excited for baseball in February.  And it bugs me that all the local news stations send their sports anchors down to spring training in Florida where there is absolutely positively nothing going on and nothing to cover .  It's basically a paid vacation for guys who are already overpaid to begin with .  Still, after having made a trip to the World Series last year, I have to admit looking forward to this baseball season more than I have been looking forward to a baseball season in a long time . 

Have a Great Week! 

Weekly Mail February 14, 2016

Happy Valentine's Day !

     
          It is fuhreeezin out this weekend. They are talking temps in the single digits with wind chills below zero. A good weekend to stay inside.

POLITICS: Trump, Bernie rock New Hampshire...

       Donald Trump needed a huge win in New Hampshire to keep his hopes alive and he got it. Winning by twice as many votes as the second place finisher, John Kasich. The big story on the Republican side was the faltering of Marco Rubio, who after getting clobbered by Chris Christie at last Saturday's debate, slipped to a 5th place finish behind, Trump, Kasich, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush.
  I've been saying it all along, do not count Jeb Bush out. The big money donors are still backing him up and he has a ton of support in the South. South Carolina is going to be very interesting. Trump's leading there, but will the evangelicals swing over to him? Can Bush convince those evangelicals that he can win the nomination? Can Cruz pull off another big win? Can Rubio bounce back? And how about Kasich? He is one of the two guys, (along with Rubio) I'm considering voting for. His 2nd place finish was happily unexpected. I don't think his reasonableness and gentlemanly manner is going to serve him well as the campaign goes on, but I was glad to see it do him some good in New Hampshire. Who knows? Maybe people will start to take a liking to him. More likely, Trump will start firing at him, and Bush will start playing dirty and he'll probably sink. I hope not.

       As for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders opened up a can of socialist whoop ass on Hillary Clinton. I wasn't surprised that he won, but that he won so big! I know the deck is stacked against him, that she has a ton of money and the Democratic National Committee leadership is greasing the skids in her favor, but when you have a candidate win a state with that much of a landslide, you have to take notice. And that momentum may carry him, if not to a win, then to at least a competitive race.

        And I saw that there was some consternation over the fact that Hillary got almost as many delegates as Bernie did even though Bernie won by such a large margin. The same thing happened in 2008, when Hillary won a couple of states, but Obama ended up with more of the delegates. I agree that they should change the rules, but even I, who can't stand Hillary, has to admit she is benefiting from rules that screwed her over 8 years ago.


SPORTS: Super Bowl Wrap Up.

      As far as I'm concerned, the MVP of Super Bowl 50 was Lady GaGa. Her rendition of the National Anthem was awesome. The rest of it was sleep inducing.

       The halftime show was led by Coldplay. I'm not a Coldplay fan, and I always found Chris Martin to be pretentious, but I know chalk that up to the Queen of Pretentiousness herself, Gwenneth Paltrow. I thought he was good, but as a number of my FB friends wrote, there was really no buzz to his performance. I have little use for Bruno Mars, but he does put on a great show. To be honest I didn't realize that Beyonce was trying to pay tribute to the Black Panthers during her performance, but I thought she was much better in Super Bowl 47.

        As for the game itself, it was pure slop. Yes I give all due props to the Broncos defense, but both teams made stupid penalties and committed sloppy turnovers. Cam Newton, who thought he was the greatest QB who ever lived before the game, came up tiny in the biggest game of his career. And between his poor sportsmanship in defeat, and Peyton Manning's  shameless shilling of pizza and beer after winning, it was another banner year for the NFL.

        There weren't even any commercials that gave me a good laugh or that blew me away with awesomeness. To be honest, I should have recorded the whole thing so that the next time I can't sleep, I could watch it to cure my insomnia.


SPORTS part 2: The Answer to a Dubious Trivia Question.

 TRIVIA QUESTION      TRIVIA QUESTION      TRIVIA QUESTION      TRIVIA QUESTION

Who is the first team in MLB history to have a player permanently banned because of PHD's?

          That's right kids that team would be your New York Mets. Now, when I go to bed at night, I will thank my lucky stars for my family, our health, and the fact that as stupid as I am sometimes, I'll never be the stupidest man on earth as long as Jenrry Mejia occupies the same planet as I do.

          That said, the Mets are the real dopes here. Why on God's green earth would you give a two time loser a third chance??? If I were running the Mets, I wouldn't have brought him back a second time, much less a third. It's ridiculous.

           Yes, they now have a hole to fill in a bullpen that was awfully leaky to begin with. But Mejia wasn't the answer to begin with. Everybody looks like a loser here, and the fans lose out.

Stay Warm and Have a Great Week

Weekly Mail February 7, 2016

       So just as we were seeing the last remnants of snow from the blizzard of 2016, we get another shot of snow this past Friday. Damn. I remember back in January of 1996 when we had that huge blizzard. Karl, Ray and I had left for Canada right before the storm hit and when we returned five days later, the city was still digging out. It would be weeks before we saw solid ground again, mainly because that snow took forever to melt.

This time around there was more snow, but since the temperatures were high and we had some rain, in only took about 10 days for all that snow to disappear. Now we got some of it back. Oh, well. We live in the northeast, I guess its to be expected. Still, what a pain in the a$$ it is.


POLITICS: Iowa 2016; Just what I didn't want...

Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton left Iowa with victories last Monday. Cruz won pretty easily while Hillary barely edged out Bernie Sanders.

Cruz's victory was thought to be a blow to the Trump campaign, as was Marco Rubio's strong third place finish. Trump now needs to win New Hampshire solidly, otherwise he may as well fold up the tent. I know that sounds drastic being that we haven't even reached Super Tuesday yet, but I feel he has to win big in New Hampshire and win in South Carolina. South Carolina is pivotal. I think if Trump wins New Hampshire and loses in South Carolina, suddenly his three marriages, social flip flops and dare I say it New York Values will come into question. One would have to wonder if Trump could carry any state that has a large evangelical pull in other words, any state in the South and Midwest. I', loathe to give that weasel Ted Cruz any props, but if Trump loses SC, it could very well be because of what Cruz said about him.

And in the irony is so ironic department, while I have said repeatedly that we don't need another Bush presidency, there is something sad about the fact that while his father won with Dirty Campaigning, (Willie Horton anyone?) and his brother won with dirty campaigning, (Swift Boats for Truth in 2004, the attacks on John McCain in 2000) Jeb Bush is running by all accounts a clean campaign and getting his ass kicked.

On the Democratic side, Hillary and Bernie battled to for all intents and purposes was a tie. And according to the latest polls, Sanders has a rather large lead in New Hampshire. Now what looked like a waltz for Clinton may turn out to be more of a dogfight. You can tell because Hillary is starting to attack Bernie with some more viciousness than before.

At one point in their MSNBC debate, Hillary challenged Bernie

" Enough is enough. If you have something to say, say it directly."

in regards to his accusations that she is influenced by Wall Street because of her collecting huge speaking fees and campaign contributions from Wall Street firms. Bernie backed off, and that's too bad, because everyone knows that's exactly what she did.  Now is that any different that most other policticians? Of course not, but Hillary will deny it until she's caught red handed, then say "Hey every one else does it.!" She would save herself a ton of heartache if she just copped to it right away.


SPORTS Super Bowl 50.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, so I won't be tearing my hair out like I was last year, when that schmuck Pete Carroll cost me 350 bucks.Every year I do a football pool in which you are given 35 questions to answer. Including over/under on total yards, who will win the coin toss, who will score first, last, first TD, first FG, etc. The point values of the questions decrease as they go down. Of the 35 questions, I answered 25 of them right. One of the 10 I got wrong?  The one worth a whopping 377 points. Who will win the game. I picked the Seahawks. And if Pete Carroll had made the right call, I would have been in the money. 

I'd like to see Peyton Manning go out a winner. I think Carolina will probably win big. All I really 
care about is after Sunday, there will be no more football for 6 months. That's a good thing. 

Enjoy the game. Have a great week

  

Weekly Mail February 1, 2016

 We didn't publish last week because of the snow. This isn't the Post Office, snow, rain, wind or the dark of night will stop me from writing.You wouldn't think so would you. I mean with a blizzard outside, that would be a perfect opportunity to sit and write wouldn't it?  Instead I did the most moronic thing anyone can do during a bad snowstorm. I sat in front of my TV like a zombie and watched the news coverage.


NEWS ITEM: The BLIZZARD of 2016

        I don't get it. What the hell is the point of sending TV reporters out in the middle of a blizzard to talk about how bad it is out? One just had to look out their window to see the mounds of snow piling up outside their door. They need to have someone standing in Bryant Park trying to interview people (most of which BTW didn't want to talk to any reporter)? Like I said I don't get it.

         And then there were the poor reporters who obviously drew the short straw and had to go to the Jersey Shore to cover the coastal flooding. That brought back some bad memories, but thankfully we had none of that here. Still, there was one reporter on Ch 2, who I swore was going to get washed out to sea. You could see the swells rising up behind her as she was reporting. I guess it was kind of cool, but I'm not sure you couldn't have gotten some good video from a distance, instead of having a reporter there looking as if Noah had left without her.

           There was some pertinent info that I needed from the newscasts, specifically, when was Governor Cuomo going to shut down the LIRR so that I could call the Post and tell them "Sorry, can't make it in!!" That finally happened at 1 PM. Then I went out and played with Tim for a bit in the snow, and hung out at my neighbors house for a bit, before heading in for dinner and more mindless TV news watching.

         The next days the cews were out plowing our condo out. They did a really good job. And I heard a news conference with Mayor DeBlasio, saying that  he had some concerns that Woodside, Sunnyside, Middle Village etc were not properly plowed out. And you know, for a brief time there, I thought to myself, for all the things this guy has botched up in his 2 years as mayor, it looks like he's about to make up for a lot of it here. Unlike Bloomberg, Giuliani, Dinkins, Koch, Beame and Lindsay before him, this sounded a lot like a guy who cared about Queens. Bloomberg for all the good he did, couldn't find Queens on a map. Guiliani would come when he needed campaign money. I just got done reading a book about NY in the late 60's where John Lindsay left most of Queens under snow for weeks. He had the old ladies in Forest Hills screaming at him. At least diBlasio, acknowledged there was a problem in my hometown.

But did he do anything about it? Nooooooooooooooo!

In Oceanside, you could tell it snowed, but by Wednesday it looked like we had gotten maybe a foot. That much had been plowed away or melted that it looked like a minor inconvenice. There are still cars buried in Queens, and we are a week past the storm. Once again, the mayor of New York City took care of Manhattan and Brooklyn and gave Queens the shaft.

The names change. The game remains the same.


Glenn Frey 1948-2016.

       I'm not a huge Eagles fan, but during cardiac rehab, one of the guys brought an Eagles CD and I have to admit it made the workout go quicker. Thing is,  I've heard Hotel California probably as much as I've heard any song in my lifetime. You just hear their songs all the time. They're good, but they're everywhere.

          I have to admit, I liked Glen Frey as a solo act. The Heat is On was a great song. You Belong to the City reminds me of my 1986 Mets. he had a song in 1989 call True Love that I'm not ashamed to admit (well maybe a little ashamed) that I really liked. He also did a commercial for Jack LaLane where he said "I do curls for the girls" Classic.

             On a side note to Frey's passing, Daily News columnist Gersh Kuntzman wrote an article that was placed next to the main story about Frey telling the world how much he despised the Eagles. I happened to be listening to Scott Shannon on CBS-FM talk about it, and apparently, Boomer and Carton were giving out on the FAN about it as well. Kuntzman wrote another column the next day referring to himself as 'the most hated man in America."

           Full disclosure here: Back in 2004-2005, I worked the 6:30 PM-2 AM  shift at the Post on Sunday Night/Monday Morning. It was the best shift ever, pre marriage. I could sleep late on Sunday, especially after a few Saturday night libations, and I didn't have to get up early on Monday morning.
One of the other perks was that I got to watch The Odd Couple on Channel 11 at 1;30 AM Monday morning with Post Reporters Ed Robinson, and Gersh. Watching Ed and Gersh argue over who was the bigger Odd Couple fan was as entertaining as the show itself. I liked Gersh a lot. Still do.

         Just don't know if an article blasting the Eagles the day after Glenn Frey died was a good idea. As I said, I'm not the world's biggest Eagles fan either, but I give them their props. And I'd maybe wait till the body was cold before I'd rip away at the band.



POLITICS: The Raucous Iowa Caucus

Monday in case you didn't know, will be the first in the nation caucus taking place in Iowa. (See my previous blog for info on the Primary Schedule) It's time to try to break down how Weekly Mail stacks up the candidates. I'm going to hold off on an endorsement till the April 24 primaries. First the Republicans.


You all know that any time I see Ted Cruz on TV, I feel like I need to bathe. So he's out. Rand Paul is too far out there with a lot of his stuff and has no chance so, goodbye to him as well. Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are has-beens who never were. Carly Fiorina has some interesting debates and is obviously very intelligent, but also ran Hewlett Packett into the ground. Jim Gillmore has never gotten himself into the big kids debate.

There are things I like about Chris Christie, mainly that he's a Rangers and Mets fan like myself, and also like myself, probably not qualified to be the President of the United States.  Jeb Bush hasn't polled well, as Donald Trump so eloquently likes to point out to him, but keep this in mind, many of the big money guys who backed his brother, are backing him as well. I'm not counting him out till I see him concede. I really don't think the country needs another Bush administration, but until he's out officially don't assume he can't win.  If I bang my head against the wall hard enough lamenting the lack of talent in this election, I wouldn't mind Dr Ben (Venus Flytrap*) Carson performing the surgery on my brain. That doesn't mean I think he should be President.

That leaves us with Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and John Kasich. Look, I realize many of you can't stand Trump. Some of you are reading this and wondering why I haven't put him in the above paragraph, weeding out the riff-raff. I've had more than one friend say they'd flee the country if he became President. Well, to be honest, and as I've said before, there are things about him that I like. I like that he wants to strengthen our military and take care of our veterans. I like that he wants to secure our borders and fix immigration. I love that he wants to promote American products and get us back to being the most productive nation on earth.

But I can't support a candidate who can't take any heat. Walking away from a Fox News Debate because the moderators are too tough? Barack Obama wouldn't do that, Hilary Clinton wouldn't do that and they would be grilled 100 times worse than Trump ever would. Too many times throughout this campaign, I've heard Trump say, "Well, he wasn't nice to me. or "He's being nice to me now, but that will change if the poll numbers change." What the hell?  Is he running for President or homecoming queen? Vladimir Putin is building up his military and taking land from his neighbors. Trump has criticized President Obama (rightly so) for being soft on Russia. But to hear Trump tell it, if Putin sends him a birthday card and a gift certificate to Applebee's, all will be forgiven. It's disappointing, because I do feel he has some talent to fix things, but this is just a reality show for him. Get out.

So I've narrowed it down to Kasich and Rubio. For now.  Maybe Christie can work his way back in to my good graces. (He talks a bit more smack than I'd like.) Maybe there's something about Dr. Carson I'm missing. Carly Fiorina may be worth a second look, I don't know. I just know that Trump, Cruz and Bush aren't the answer, and the others have no prayer.

On the Democratic side, I appreciate the enthusiasm and the passion that Bernie Sanders supporters show their man. I'm no liberal, but I like a lot of the message he has. Taking care of vets, making education affordable, funding social security etc., all things that are necessary to make our nation stronger. I have no idea what the man would do if ever we were attacked, ,,(more frightening, I don't think HE does either) and the man has no foreign policy chops to speak of. He would have to build a strong national security team, but it would be fascinating to see how he could pull off some of his more ambitious programs.

Hillary Clinton? Look, you all know what I think of her, it hasn't changed much. You take her, you take the baggage that comes with her. And I just feel like electing her just shows how little imagination this country has.

It all kicks off Monday in Iowa.

Have a Great Week

*I refer to Dr. Carson as Venus Flytrap because of his uncanny resemblance to Tim Reid, who played Trap on WKRP in Cincinnati back in the late 70's.