Discover more from Don Surber
ITEM 1: Chris Christie is expected to drop out of the race. That’s a one-inch fall for him. This will be a huge disappointment for both his supporters.
Meanwhile, DeSantis and Haley had a sword fight with their forefingers on CNN on Wednesday.
Everyone complains about the old people like Biden running things, but have they taken a good look at the new generation? Maybe we should wait till the next generation arrives.
ITEM 2: Real Clear Politics reported, “Ramaswamy Questions Reporters: How Many Of You Will Admit Media Mistakes? Hunter's Laptop, Covid Origin.”
I am starting to like this guy. He’s in the generation after the next generation.
ITEM 3: Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll and Nick Saban are retiring as football coaches.
It’s about time. Unlike politics, football has plenty of good replacements for its geezers.
ITEM 4: CNN reported, “There was a bomb threat at the home of New York Judge Arthur Engoron hours before closing arguments in the Trump civil fraud trial were set to begin Thursday.”
Did they give Ray Epps back his cellphone?
ITEM 5: Trump’s mother-in-law died. American Thinker reported that Judge-Jury-And-Executioner Engoron refused to delay the civil trial for the funeral.
He also refused to let Trump deliver the closing arguments.
It’s as if the judge wants to be reversed on appeal.
Off the Press reported, “Despite being barred from giving a formal closing argument in his New York civil fraud trial, Donald Trump used an opportunity to speak in court at the end of the proceedings on Thursday. However, his six-minute speech was cut off by the judge, who was attempting to determine whether the former president would follow the rules that required him to keep his comments focused on issues related to the trial.”
The judge then covered his ears again and went back to singing “la-la-la-la-la.”
ITEM 6: The Truth About Guns reported, “Director of ‘Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence,’ Caught With Illegal Guns, Sentenced To Prison.”
He should be happy to spend the next 10 years in a gun-free zone.
ITEM 7: Gateway Pundit reported, “U.S. Army Sees Massive Decline in White Recruits.”
That’s the plan, Stan. The only white boys the regime wants now are the Corporal Klingers.
ITEM 8: AP reported, “The U.S. and British militaries bombed more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen on Thursday, in a massive retaliatory strike using warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, U.S. officials said.”
Oh great. Our sailors get to face the weapons Iran bought with the money Biden and Obama gave Iranians.
ITEM 9: End Wokeness tweeted, “6 months ago, Massachusetts began to ask residents to host illegals in their homes and properties.
“Soon it will be mandatory.”
Time to break out on that Third Amendment.
ITEM 10: Ian Miles Cheong tweeted, “Fauci just admitted to Congress that the six-foot social distancing rule was completely made up and had zero scientific basis. Incredible.
“So many people — scientists included — were completely ostracized, silenced, and prevented from even talking about the sketchiness of the rule.
“The public is right to be skeptical of any health mandates.”
Fauci shows that half the med school grads graduate in the bottom half of their class.
TWEET OF THE WEEK:
Doctor Jill “Alice Cooper” Biden.
ITEM 11: Drudge said, “Wealthiest 10% own 93% of stock market.”
They also pay 73.7% of the taxes. Maybe if the rest of us were as productive, we would not have a $34 trillion national debt.
ITEM 12: Hunter Biden attended a congressional hearing on whether to hold him in contempt for not showing up at another congressional hearing. It did not go well.
On the way to the hearing, a reporter asked him, “What kind of crack do you normally smoke, Mr. Biden?”
He certainly isn’t smoking wisecrack.
ITEM 13: The New York Post reported, “Mark Zuckerberg facing backlash over raising cows on beer and macadamia nuts on Hawaii ranch.”
He wants to eat beef while making you eat bugs.
ITEM 14: Just the News reported, “Hertz announced Thursday the rental car company is selling roughly 20,000 electric vehicles and rebuilding its fleet with gas-powered ones.
“Hertz cited higher repair costs as one of the main reasons behind the move.”
Let Hertz put YOU in the recharging line.
ITEM 15: PJ Media reported, “Biden Judicial Nominee Torched by Sen. Kennedy Goes Down in Flames.”
She withdrew her nomination after he questioned her at her committee hearing.
Kennedy: “Judge, tell me what Article V of the Constitution does.”
Charnelle Bjelkengren: “Article V is not coming to mind at the moment.”
Kennedy: “Okay, how about Article II?”
Bjelkengren: “Neither is Article II.”
She’s sharp as a cucumber.
ITEM 16: The Daily Caller reported, “Forty-nine out of 50 U.S. states saw an incredible rise in gender dysphoria between 2018 and 2022, a 2024 report revealed.
“South Dakota was the only state to see a drop in the number of residents believing they were a different gender to that they were born with.”
They still teach biology in South Dakota.
ITEM 17: Instapundit’s John Tierney reported, “Experts predicted that baby boomers would be broke in their old age — prompting endless media alarms and and calls for the government to intervene. Instead, the boomers are now one of history’s richest generations.”
I still want my Social Security check, sonny. I paid into it. It’s mine.
ITEM 18: NBC reported, “Marjorie Taylor Greene files complaint about Georgia prosecutor who charged Trump.”
It turns out that DA Fani Willis hired her married boyfriend to prosecute the RICO case. They took exotic vacations on the taxpayer’s dime. After the indictments, they visited the White House for instruction. Twice.
RICO the Biden administration already.
ITEM 19: On You Tube: “Donald Trump: I’m not going to be a dictator.”
For the first time, President Trump has disappointed me. I was looking forward to his use of the FBI to spy on people like Obama did him and throwing protesters in prison.
ITEM 20: The Daily Mail reported, “Glamorous Missouri math teacher, Hailey Nichelle Clifton-Carmack, is charged with rape for having sex with a 16-year-old student at high school — and the victim’s dad faces charges for ‘allowing relationship to happen.’”
This is all a misunderstanding. She was trying to teach the boy division, starting with how many times one goes into one.
ITEM 21: National Review reported, “Harvard University students filed a lawsuit against university officials on Wednesday, claiming they have failed to protect Jewish students from severe and pervasive anti-Semitic harassment sparked by the Israel-Hamas war.”
The story quoted from the lawsuit, “Harvard permits students and faculty to advocate, without consequence, the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only Jewish country in the world. Meanwhile, Harvard requires students to take a training class that warns that they will be disciplined if they engage in sizeism, fatphobia, racism, transphobia, or other disfavored behavior.”
The anti-Semitism of Harvard from Claudine Gay should drain that $50 billion endowment fund dry. If Alex Jones can be slapped with a billion-dollar verdict, why cannot Harvard be slapped with a trillion-dollar one?
ITEM 22: Newsweek screeched, “Republicans Annihilate Democrats in Virginia Election Sweep.”
It was a special election for replacements for two legislators. One is leaving to run for a judgeship; the other is leaving due to cancer.
Paragraph 7 began, “The victories took place in Republican strongholds, replacing GOP incumbents.”
It’s like praising France for winning the French Revolution.
ITEM 23: Libs of TikTok tweeted, “Sean Gravells, an outspoken LGBTQ activist and President of an LGBTQ pride organization in Canada was arrested for se* crimes against children and possessing and distributing child p*rn*grap*y.”
The Big G in LGBT stands for Grooming.
ITEM 24: I didn’t watch the Golden Globes awards show on Sunday night but comedian Jo Koy bombed as its host. He admitted it during the show.
His excuses, though, are entertaining. Deadline reported, “Koy had just 10 days to prepare. He told the LA Times his writers weren’t picked until eight days before the show; there was no writers room until two days before, and the monologue was done the day before.”
Johnny Carson did a new monologue each night on the Tonight Show for 30 years.
ITEM 25: I screwed up when I said Claudine Gay went back to being a law professor. Wrong. Gay is as much a law professor as Liz Warren is an Indian.
Gay went back to being Harvard's Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American Studies.
Cowett was Jewish and worked for the OSS in World War II. Afterward, he graduated from Harvard, a school that had a Jewish quota — cap — before the war. After the war, anti-Semitism fell out of favor because of the Holocaust. He made a lot of money and gave a lot of it to Harvard and the United Jewish Appeal.
The irony is that he posthumously pays the salary of this bigot Gay as Harvard slips into Holocaust denial and the anti-Semitism that goes with it.
ITEM 26: Paul Bedard reported, “Defense spending has fallen off a cliff under President Joe Biden, shrinking as a percentage of gross domestic product to pre-World War II budgets and the short-lived peace dividend days during former President Bill Clinton’s administration.”
The plan is to use up all our ammo, give up all our weapons and replace soldiers with DEI activists to make the world’s mightiest military chump change for Red China.
Funding, however, is no guarantee of success.
The pre-World War II military won the war because two decades of underfunding reduced the officer corps to those who loved the country and loved the military. Promotions were rare and medals rarer. Everyone knew everyone from the academy. This small cadre of generals and admirals worked out of warrens of offices in DC before they built the Pentagon.
When Pearl Harbor hit, FDR fired his commanders in Hawaii, and the new crew would go on to win the war. Nimitz knew Halsey inside and out, both his strengths and weaknesses. They trusted one another. They knew the other naval officers. Everyone knew everyone. The same was true in teh Army. George Marshall picked Colonel Eisenhower to run the war in Europe because he knew the man well.
We don’t have that now. We have more generals today than ever before but does anyone know anyone any more?
Funding The Pentagon gave us a big bureaucracy staffed by careerists who shuttle in and out of the Pentagon as they get their tickets punched — inching their way to their goal of being a retired flag officer on the payroll of a defense contractor. Ours is a Fauci Fighting Force.
ITEM 27: One more thing, when President Harding took office in 1921, he cut government. This brought about the Roaring 20s. Industries concentrated on building cars and radios, not tanks. The result was a manufacturing base bigger than the rest of the world combined.
When war broke out, our civilian industry quickly converted to military production. “The Singer Sewing Machine Company Built the Best .45 Pistol Ever Made!”
We should do that again but that would require Washington DC to give up billions in bribes and kickbacks.
ITEM 28: Fox reported, “William Shatner says Paramount is ‘erasing’ Captain Kirk, blames those ‘threatened’ by the character.”
Lefties dumping on the character has gone on for 40+ years. The song 99 Balloons said:
99 Knights of the air
Ride super-high-tech jet fighters
Everyone’s a superhero.
Everyone’s a Captain Kirk.
The irony is those real-life Captain Kirks spared the world a nuclear war, much like the fictitious captain stopped wars on the old TV show. If peace through strength doesn’t work, why is Xi’s boy Biden weakening our military?
ITEM 29: Politico reported, “Trump campaign tries to stave off Iowa turnout drop from brutal winter weather.”
Oh no. Only FROSTY THE RED-NOSED SNOWMAN can save him now.
I’ve watched way too many Raskin/Bass specials.
ITEM 30: The New York Post reported, “Fed’s aggressive rate-hiking campaign results in record loss of $114 billion for 2023.”
Our economy is run by people who don’t know how to make a profit.
We need Hermey the Dental-Wannabe Elf’s brother, Wally the Bean-Counting Accountant Elf and Yukon Cornelius’s uncle, Yukon Balancethebooks.
ITEM 31: The Daily Mail reported, “A small town lawyer from West Virginia was in for an extraordinary surprise when he discovered a 253-year-old pre-Revolutionary War fort hidden inside the walls of his Monroe County plantation home.
“John Bryan, 43, a self-described history buff and amateur archeologist, purchased the property in 2019 with a hunch that the large white clapboard farmhouse was built around an old log fort known as Byrnside's Fort.
“‘We had to buy the property first before being able to take a crowbar to it to see if the logs were inside the walls.’
“It was originally built in 1770 by an early settler of Virginia named James Byrnside after his cabin was burned to the ground by Shawnee Indians on the same site in 1763.
“The fort — which never came under attack during the Revolutionary War — has been occupied ever since by three families until 2019, when the last descendant passed away.”
I am not surprised because life is old here, older than the trees but younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze.
FINALLY, Business Insider reported:
The CEO of Burger King’s largest US franchisee is rolling out some new customer service initiatives at her restaurants.
Deborah Derby, who runs Carrols Restaurant Group Inc., told Bloomberg that her staff will be required to say “you rule” to customers. The phrase was a tagline introduced by Burger King in 2022.
This, Derby says, will generate a “positive aura” in the restaurants.
And it's not just greetings. Derby also expects her staff to offer the restaurant's signature cardboard crowns to every customer.
“Say it's a guy who's like 38 years old, no kids in the car, and I got to say to him: ‘Do you want a crown?’” Derby told Bloomberg.
“You can’t help but smile when you say that, and he can’t help but laugh back. It forces that extra two minutes of engagement,” Derby continued.
This might get me to drive all the way to Cross Lanes to get a Whopper.
I remember the time I was asked, "Do you want a crown?" It was my dentist and it cost me a week's pay.
I've been watching Ramaswamy ever since he came down the golden.....no wait that was someone else..... Seriously he got my attention right away. I've been teaching people how to say and spell his name correctly all last year. I'm still a diehard Trumper but Ramaswamy has my attention.