Rest in Peace Arnie

News out this evening that Arnold Palmer passed away today at the age of 87.

When Gene Wilder passed away recently, I saw a post about it that was headlined something like Just when you thought 2016 couldn't suck any worse and I'm reminded of that again now. Who didn't love Arnie? Maybe one of the most accessible sports superstars this country has ever had. He was an everyman playing that sport of the country club elite. And kicking everyone's asses too.

He looked like a movie star and had forearms like f*ckin' Popeye! People were crowing about Tiger Woods when he was at the top of his game and working out and looking good and they forgot that 30 years prior there was this guy who looked like he could bend steel bars with his bare hands ruling the tour.

And watching him play was fun too. Though in those days it was all grainy black & white tv and tape delayed and such. That tee shot . . . he swung that driver like he was trying to kill someone, cork-screwing himself around on the follow-through. How he didn't have a lifetime of back issues, I'll never know. And then that goofy knock-kneed putting stance. It makes me smile just thinking about him on the greens.

When I was a kid it was Nicklaus and Palmer and no one I knew wanted to be fat Jack. We all wanted to be the rugged looking everyman that just whacked the sh*t out of the ball and went looking for it. When I played golf for a while, I used to joke that when I got up and down for par or better without playing a single shot from the fairway -- I had made a "Palmer"

It was brutal watching him tee off at the Masters this year. But that genuine smile and the roar of the crowd for him . . . amazing. I've got tears in my eyes just typing this stuff.

He lived a long life. Achieved a lot of great things and I don't think I've ever heard anyone say a bad thing about him. One of the first sports stars to do commercials. He never seemed to take himself seriously in them, which only made him more endearing. In this day and age of spoiled petulant man-childs in sports, Arnold Palmer was a full on man -- competitive, honorable and decent. The world keeps losing people like this and no one's stepping up to fill the void. I despair thinking of the day when whiny self-indulgent jerks will be the norm in sports instead of the rare exception.

I saw a couple of quotes that I liked when I took a quick look around online prior to putting this up. One from Lee Trevino:

"I used to hear cheers go up from the crowd around Palmer, and I never knew whether he’d made a birdie or just hitched up his pants."

And one from LA Times columnist Jim Murray:

"Palmer on a golf course was Jack Dempsey with his man on the ropes, Henry Aaron with a three-and-two fastball, Rod Laver at set point, Joe Montana with a minute to play, A.J. Foyt with a lap to go and a car to catch."

Rest in Peace, Arnie. We're gonna miss you.

And while I'm on the subject of comics . . .

. . . let me throw up this little number I ran across the other day. I was reminded of this panel after glancing through the Perspective section of the Tampa Bay Times this morning with my breakfast and saw where they were predicting an "ice free" arctic by 2030. So . . . a reminder:

If Garry Trudeau weren't a leftist toady . . .

. . . his comic today might have looked like this:

Ariel Winter gets her butt airbrushed

I think. I'm not sure exactly what's going on here:

But a lot of things are cracking me up here. First off, these are two of the skeeviest looking dudes I've seen in a while. Second, that guy in the background drinking what is probably booze out of a plastic cup . . . classy. Plus, look at where they are. That looks like one of those rooms the serial killer on Criminal Minds takes their victim. Assuming this is a photo shoot, just how budget are we working here? I mean, Ariel Winter is an actress after all . . . I mean sort of . . . she's on a television show, right?. Shouldn't she be booking stuff a little more upscale?

just sayin'

Maitland Ward gets back to nature

Now this is what I needed . . . after the spitting mad news about coward Cruz (see below), I run across some pictures of my favorite redhead strolling in the park dangerously underdressed:

She almost always puts a smile on my face. Thanks cutie!

So Ted Cruz was a fraud all along

News out today that Texas Senator Ted Cruz is actually a sniveling weakling was confirmed as after months of suffering abuse and taunts from the spray-tanned buffoon, Cruz formally endorsed Donald Trump for President.

Well, at least he and Mark Levin can go back on Hannity's show now and let that f*cking moron berate them for taking so long to come over to the side of stupidity and venal dishonor.

Cruz made his name as a man of principles, a servant of the people who put him in office and pay his salary, standing up to the Washington establishment no matter what they threw at him. He had integrity. Or so they said. Well they were wrong. He has none. Like spineless coward Rush Limbaugh, who hasn't got the guts to stand up to a minority of his drive time listeners, Cruz saw the election getting close, heard Reince Preibus threatening to punish anyone who didn't get on board, and the former Tea Party darling bowed his head, tugged his forelock and got on the Trump Train to political and moral corruption.

It takes courage to stand your ground in a fight, whether that fight is literal or figurative. Talk is cheap as they say. They also say actions speak louder than words. In Ted Cruz we now see that all he is is talk. His actions say that he's no more than the typical deal making, ass covering politician he campaigned as the alternative to.

And the funny thing is that if Cruz thinks he's secured his political future by endorsing Trump, I think he's going to be in for a rude awakening. Should Trump win the White House, there's no job for Cruz in his administration except maybe scrubbing toilets or the ambassador to some sh*thole third world country that no one's heard of. Because Trump is a vulgar bully who never forgets a slight or forgives an enemy, and he has already said he doesn't want or need Cruz's endorsement. For Pete's sake, he's spent months calling Cruz "Lyin' Ted," insulted the man's wife and implicated Cruz's father in the assassination of Kennedy! Apparently there is no limit to the insults Cruz will meekly endure to protect his cushy job in Washington.

Texas voters won't forget Cruz's cave on principles next election and Trump's not going to give him anything either. This coward sold out his integrity and soul for exactly . . . nothing.

Ted Cruz -- f*cking loser!

#NeverTrump

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 4 premiere

The much anticipated, by me anyway, season 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered this Tuesday. What did I think?

Glad you asked.

Like seasons one through three, the premiere episode this season was heavily overwritten. Not that it was a bad show, just that they crammed so many storylines into the one hour show that it can seem a bit overwhelming and incomprehensible on initial viewing. Personally, I think the showrunners are still insecure about the show and it's following and feel they have to grab our attention immediately or we'll lose interest. I wish they'd give us a bit more credit. Having said that . . .

We see now, as teased at the end of last season, that Daisy has morphed pretty fully into the "Quake" character. She's working as both a Robin Hood like vigilante -- we see her leaving bundles of money for various persons who supposedly were wronged in some way, and also tracking some terrorist-like bad guys. In this case, some white supremacist types (probably the only group that can be portrayed as evil without offending someone) who are trafficking in some sort of mysterious thing. Daisy has matured in her ability to use her powers making her a formidable fighter and we are also shown the side-effects of her unrestrained use of these powers via the bruising on her arms as she is literally destroying herself by emitting force waves.

Her attempts to apprehend the bad guys leads to the much ballyhooed appearance of the Ghost Rider as he too is after the same dudes. We also get a look at why the show was moved to 10 p.m. as, along with the Chloe Bennett body double pulling on panties over her bare behind in the opening sequence, the Ghost Rider's outright killing of the bad guys is pretty bloody.

The Ghost Rider in the show is the more recent Robby Reyes version of the Rider as opposed to the more traditional Johnny Blaze motorcycle riding version you may already know. But aside from bringing some more ethnic diversity to the show's main characters, we get Reyes driving an absolutely beautiful 1969 Charger, all souped up with a blower sticking up through the hood, old school mags and big tires . . . nice. A throwback to when cars were cars without computers and cameras and airbags . . . just big brutal raw horsepower that you had to know how to handle. Mmmmm . . .

After Daisy tracks Reyes down to the junk yard where he hangs out, we get a pretty decent fight between them along with some interesting insights into both characters. Reyes apparently has layers of Rider within him as his eyes blaze and he is able to set things like whatever he grabs on fire without fully morphing into the Rider. That's some control I'm not familiar with from the old days of the comics. Plus once the Rider overpowers Daisy and has her helpless, she begs him to kill her, saying she deserves to die. This is a carry over of her guilt from last season at losing Lincoln plus her desire to have the sense of belonging she found as part of Hive and then lost when she was freed from his sway. A subtle touch in the storytelling, I thought. We see the Rider spare Daisy, and we know from his mythology that the Rider judges before he kills and thus finds Daisy an innocent. This sparing of Daisy may play out through the season as a way to free Daisy from her guilt if perhaps she gets to know Reyes and his alter ego and exactly how he functions. We'll have to see.

Elsewhere in the show, we see that post the Sokovia accords from Captain America: Civil War, S.H.I.E.L.D. (ugh, those acronyms) has been reconstituted and no longer in the shadows. Coulson has been demoted, probably because he technically isn't supposed to be alive, and teamed with Mack, and doing basic agent work like tracking Daisy down and also looking for these same terrorist types.

Coulson gets constantly upgraded arms from Fitz who seems over his aphasia from last season and is getting ever more inventive, debuting a vr interface that maps the human brain and may be the key to something else they foreshadowed later in the episode.

Though Fitz and Simmons are now an official "couple," Gemma herself is no longer in the lab with Fitz. She has taken on the role of the new director's assistant. We don't see him yet, but it seems he's a next level paranoid -- demanding constant lie detector tests of the agents and installing a hilariously complex level of security clearances to keep anyone from getting to something he decides they shouldn't see. What is first assumed by her fellow agents as Gemma trying to be upwardly mobile, it is revealed that Gemma doesn't trust the new guy in charge and is trying to gather enough power unto herself to defend them later if things go south within S.H.I.E.L.D.

May is tasked with creating her own team of operatives and has a group of four, I think, that she trains to be as ruthless and deadly as she is herself. We see a glimpse of them working to take down a group of baddies as Mack and Coulson look on astonished at their abilities and unrepentant shoot first, ask questions later ethos.

The final reveal in the episode comes courtesy of Holden Radcliffe, who we were introduced to last season. A scientist on a par with Tony Stark and Fitz, we saw him tease the Life Model Decoy first spoken of in the first Avengers movie. What was supposed to be Fitz and Simmons going over to Holden's to watch a World Cup game or something gives us a look at Aida, played by Mallory Jansen -- a physical embodiment of Holden's computer. Using Fitz's breakthroughs in synthetic body recreation (as in Coulson's arm), Holden put his computer into a human-like body. When Fitz recoils at the notion and reminds Holden of Stark's failure with Ultron, Holden has Aida reveal her purpose -- to create doubles of the agents so that these doubles can take their place in the field and spare any more loss of human life on missions. I'm assuming this is where Fitz's brain mapping may come into play and wondering if the idea is to create programmable stand-alones or perhaps something more along the lines of the 2009 Bruce Willis movie Surrogates.

Like I said, a lot happening in the first hour of the season.

We also get some sort of ghost like creature either haunting or inhabiting May. Yelena Rodriguez (Yo Yo) makes an appearance and besides flirting so heavily with Mack (apparently they've already had dinner together) that he comes off like a stammering schoolboy, she also is helping Daisy by stealing medicine from headquarters to help her body heal from her usage of her powers.

Not sure if we're going to get any more stuff on Inhumans, and since they don't hesitate to name check the various movies and their plots, we'll have to see whether Dr. Strange gets any mention, or whether Coulson will weigh in on Cap's decision to leave the Avengers and so on.

I like the 10:00 p.m. broadcast time. I'm hoping this leads to more action and adult themed moments -- I'm liking Daisy's goth-y look. And where they're going to go with Ghost Rider. Be kind of fun if he and Daisy form a sort of bad ass vigilante team. Definitely looking forward to the rest of the season.

Not much happened in the off season, but here's a few recent appearances by Chloe Bennett and Ming na Wen:

Lady Gaga accepts the challenge

Ariel Winter has been stealing all the paparazzi press recently as she's been parading around with her booty hanging out of her shorts at every opportunity. Well, Lady Gaga has a new CD coming out and she's not going to let some kid on a television show upstage her. No siree.

So the singer showed up at Schoenfeld airport in Germany rocking the trailer park fabulous along with one other small fashion accessory:

If this was any other fame-whoring celeb, I'm sure she or her spokespeople would be moaning about how this was an innocent "wardrobe malfunction" and how dare we scandalize her by publishing these pictures and so on. Two problems with that. Number one, you can't tell me a woman, any woman, wouldn't know she had her bra so askew as to be crushing the life out of her nipple like that and not know something was wrong.

And two, this is Lady Gaga we're talking about here. She goes around with her goodies hanging out all over the place every day. So business as usual.

Still, I do sometimes wonder why someone at one of the public venues doesn't come up to her and politely ask her to assume a little decorum whilst in their establishment. You know?

---

And for a little palate cleanser after the above photos ('cause you know you need it), here's World's hottest celebrity mom™ Kate Beckinsale returning from a workout looking oh so hot:

Wowzers!

Daily Duffster

Seems like ages since I've checked in on my Duffster and she certainly isn't disappointing me as she goes out and about in some short cut-offs displaying her power-lifter thighs and wonderful white girl booty:

Nice :-)

Mischa Barton is see through

My favorite hot mess, Mischa Barton, turned up recently at some sort of artsy thingamajig in a see-thru dress sans proper undergarments.

Mischa doesn't really seem like an annoying Hollywood type, but she does seem to have had more than her shares of ups and downs in her career as an actress. And those swings in success/prosperity have been accompanied by wild swings in her physical appearance (and I guess there's really no surprise in that) as she's gone from lithe and slender to doughy and puffy:

Judging from those hollowed out cheeks, it looks like she's lost a bit of weight since we've seen her recently. At least I hope that's what's going on here. She's had some truly bizarre moments in her life, I'd like to think she's getting herself back together and having some fun with her life.

She's never been shy about showing herself off in public when she's feeling good about herself, so perhaps this is a sign of some fun Mischa watching to come.

Oh look, Mark Levin is really angry now

Over at Conservative Review there's a headline that reads thus:

Mark Levin UNLOADS on Trump's liberal maternity leave plan: 'It sucks'

What a f*cking joke!

The article is little more than a link to an audio excerpt from Levin's radio show where he apparently went all medieval on Trump's latest leftist/socialist policy suggestion. I didn't bother to waste my time listening to one of Levin's nasal-y rants. But the article did have this interesting teaser for the clip:

This proposed "safety net for new mothers" is "liberal-speak" for creating a new welfare program, Levin said. "So here we have more big-government proposals because Trump is, in his heart, a liberal with some conservative proposals." "What do you think?" Levin asked his audience. "I think it sucks!"

Hold the phone there, precious. You just came out and endorsed Donald Trump for President. After months of saying that you would never vote for him because he was a life-long progressive democrat. And now here you are once again calling him a "liberal" on your radio show.

So why are you voting for him again? And why are you publically endorsing him for President? Because make no mistake about it . . . after months of ranting on your radio show against Trump, your public announcement that you've flip-flopped on your principles and convictions is an endorsement. No matter how hard the trolls at your website try to defend your traitorous decision.

If it wasn't an endorsement, you wouldn't have gone public with it. You would have kept your decision to yourself. But you wanted to sway other NeverTrump-ers to join you. That's the point of endorsing a candidate. Does anyone believe that if Jonah Goldberg or Rich Lowry suddenly announced they were voting for Trump that everyone wouldn't be calling their decision an endorsement?

You know damn well they would.

So grow a spine you coward. You bought this bozo, you own him. You can stop with the lame righteous indignation routine at all of Trump's left-wing proposals. This is the guy you want in the White House. You're voting for him. You want others to go along with you.

Guess what? You missed with me, big boy.

#NeverTrump

While you were watching the games . . .

Democratic Presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton collapsed while leaving early from a 9/11 Memorial service in New York City.

Her spin team said she had a medical episode and became overheated during the service and had to leave. It was 82° and breezy with humidity in the 40% range in New York City this morning.

If you think this is suspicious, it is. And the nagging rumors about Ms. Clinton's health have been looking more noteworthy the longer this campaign has gone on. Coughing fits, lack of stamina and now this.

Trump's been climbing in the polls making this election a lot more competitive than many, including myself, thought it would. I warned way back at the beginning of the primaries . . . don't be surprised if a weakening Clinton suddenly steps aside for someone like Elizabeth Warren.

That could really change the face of this election. Trump will be filleted like a fish in debates with Warren and all the negatives that Trump and the RNC have lined up to use against Clinton will be gone. Like Obama sliding in at the last minute in 2008, the Republicans won't have any sort of game plan to use against their opponent and it'll be way too late in the game to devise new strategy.

Remember who warned about this a long time ago.

Update:
Okay, so it seems Hillary's team put out an update on her condition later in the morning. Apparently she was diagnosed with pneumonia last Friday and this is supposedly related to that. Not sure why a common medical condition had to be treated in a more classified manner than the e-mails she mis-handled that actually were classified . . . but there it is.

Never Forget

Today is the 15th anniversary or the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in our country's history.

I titled this post "Never Forget" because if you're old enough to have read history books before the social justice crowd got in control of academia, then you should be aware of how history is being re-written to align with the supposed societal norms as we sit here now.

Beloved actor Tom Hanks says we attacked the Japanese in World War II because they didn't look like us. That whole inconvenient Pearl Harbor thing apparently had nothing to do with our decision. Abraham Lincoln wrote in his letters and stated in debates that he though black men were inferior to whites and could not conceive of a time when things like interracial marriage would be allowed. But supposedly Southerners were the racists and were willing to fight and die simply to own slaves. In fact, the entire founding of our country is based on white privilege according to supposed historians like Howard Zinn.

We already have a sitting President and members of our own Congress that say we brought the horrors of September 11, 2001 on ourselves. There is an amazingly large number of people that think if we just roll up our borders and sit quietly on the sidelines, meekly bowing our heads and apologizing for our existence and prosperity then terror will disappear and everyone will love us.

Then President George Bush visited the carnage at the twin towers site. He showed this country and the world what a President should be, what a man should be. When he answered that first responder in the crowd "I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!

He didn't stand atop that crushed fire truck and talk about how the terrorists have legitimate grievances or say that we should look at the mistakes in our own history or some other load of horsesh*t. He spoke like the leader of a nation and brought us all together in a way we haven't seen in the last eight years of the Obama apologize for America Presidency.

A lot of ink and bandwidth has been spent denigrating Bush for the Iraq war that followed and the failure of transitioning Iraq to a democratic nation. But people seem to forget exactly what we were doing there. Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism and lead by a genocidal murderous dictator who had already tried to invade Kuwait. The Iraq war was a message. We picked the biggest baddest kid in the neighbor hood, stomped a mudhole in him and walked it dry. The message -- don't fuck with the sleeping dog!

And for seven years it worked. Not until President mom jeans got into office and began undoing everything Bush had done before him, going around the world and bending a knee to foreign leaders, apologizing for this country and Christianity and stoking racial tensions within our own borders did terrorism return to our shores.

Remember what happened 15 years ago. Remember why it happened. And how a real President responded and brought this country together.

Remember that when a bunch of pampered pussies piss on the flag before their football games today.

Today in politics

Today I learned that the word "never" when uttered by someone like Mark Levin means something completely different than what it would mean if I uttered it.

Levin has repeatedly said that he would never vote for Donald Trump. Guess that statement came with an expiration date, like the promises of so many politicians that Levin has mocked throughout his career as a pundit. Levin now says he will vote for Trump come this November. He gives the usual lesser of two evils rationale and lots of other fancy backpedaling on his promise to stand on principles this election.

Nice spine there, Mark.

Levin and Michelle Malkin are the tip of the spear for what I have repeatedly referred to as the extreme purity wing of the Republican party. These two hold politicians to a nearly unattainable level of accountability in their voting records and achievements while in office. For example, Paul Ryan gets an F grade at their little hangout -- Conservative Review while Ted Cruz and Jason Chaffetz get A's.

Malkin and Levin almost single-handedly destroyed Marco Rubio's presidential aspirations over his support for the ill-fated Gang of Eight immigration bill. A bill that mirrors or may actually be to the right of Levin's current choice for President.

Ever since the spray-tanned buffoon began walking back his tough talk on immigration reform, I've been waiting to hear something from the gang at CR. The silence over there has been deafening. In her last 17 posts, immigration warrior Malkin has exactly one post about Trump's about face. One. At the end of the article, she demands Trump choose either amnesty or proper immigration reform.

Guess we know where her buddy Levin stands on that now.

Since that crowd likes to grade politicians so much. I wonder when Levin will give himself an F for not only going back on his word, but supporting an amnesty shilling, life-long progressive democrat for President?

---

Way back when I was a blogger for Huckabee in the 2008 primaries, I pointed out a disturbing statement by then candidate Barack Obama. The Illinois Senator, a supposed constitutional expert, said that he found the Constitution of the United States to be a fundamentally flawed document because it didn't contain entitlement language. I tried to point out to all my liberal friends and others that I feared might vote for this wildly unqualified candidate, that his statement illustrated a fundamental misunderstanding of exactly what the Constitution was. That is, a firewall against an intrusive and overreaching federal government. I thought that was a disturbing position for a presidential candidate to take.

But Obama made a number of disturbing statements that election cycle, including one about wanting the ability to go around the world and sign treaties without getting Congress to ratify them. That is the sort of power wielded by monarchs and kings, not a president of a constitutional republic like ours. And again, I tried to warn my friends about how scary this candidate's views on what he would do as President were.

Flash forward to now. After eight years of "I've got a pen and a phone, I don't need Congress" we now have President (King) Obama going to China for the G20 summit and signing a climate change treaty without getting the approval of Congress.

Obama has already issued more executive orders than any President before him. When you add in the stealthy presidential memoranda (which are the same as executive orders), King Obama has issued over 30% more executive orders than even George Bush did. And Bush was excoriated by the left-wing press for trying to run the country by executive fiat, even though the majority of his EA's were to manage benign, mundane daily business types of situations. Nothing with the wide-reaching effects of forcing the U.S. to comply to regulations set by foreign governments.

We've got what, four or five more months of this ego maniac in the White House? The left's holy grail of wiping out the Second Amendment and outlawing private ownership of firearms is still available. How many more EA's do you think this President will put in place on his way out the door? He said he wanted to fundamentally change this country. He's done a good job of that so far. And not in a positive way.

And hey, Mark Levin? If your boy gets in the White House, do you really think he'll overturn anything Obama's put in place? A die-hard left-wing New Yorker? Do you really think someone that spent his life donating to Democratic campaigns and politicians is really conservative? That he really doesn't think like them? Believe what they believe? His words are on record. You're going to own his bullsh*t if/when he gets in the White House.

But look at the bright side -- at least now you'll get more face time on Hannity.

---

After Trump tagged Mike Pence as his running mate, I posted about what I feared was going to be a rationale by many conservatives that perhaps Trump could/would bow out at the last minute and Pence could run for President.

Guess what I just saw over at Erick Erickson's website? Yep. Erickson saying that the time is right for Trump to bow out and let Pence be the nominee of the party.

*sigh*

I've said before that Erickson's a bit of a tool. And honestly, I find these conservative pundits and bloggers who constantly quote from the Bible to be tedious and just a bit insincere and try hard. But The Resurgent has at times been an enjoyable read. But Erickson is hardly objective on this situation. He's admittedly a very good friend of Pence, even encouraging Pence to run for President at one point and offering his help if he chose to do so.

But setting a precedent with this sort of bait-and-switch maneuver in an important election such as this would destroy this country. And I am really not trying to use hyperbole here. Imagine the ramifications of politics in the future when parties just simply put pretty faces up there to win voters and then at the last minute pull them off the ticket for some unvetted hard-liner that met whatever their party's goal-of-the-moment was? We'd be little more than a banana republic in that case. The entire power of the voter would be lost because there would be no reason to pay attention to politics or the news or pretty much anything that we currently do to inform ourselves and make us intelligent voters.

What a disaster. And I'm disappointed that Erickson can't see beyond his own dislike of Trump and admiration for Pence exactly what the ramifications of what he's proposing are.

Just another reason why I'm finding it harder and harder to find anyone who's opinion I value when it comes to politics anymore.

Today in Instagram

Or Twitter or Snapchat or whatever. I completely don't do social media, so . . .

Here's uber cutie Danica Mckellar in a bikini, something we don't see nearly enough of btw, showing that brains (she has a Phd in mathematics, my area of study . . . again btw) and beauty aren't necessarily mutually exclusive traits:

Here's 51 year old Elizabeth Hurley showing what it looks like to win the genetics lottery:

And here's my favorite redhead, Maitland Ward, in a remarkably well composed picture that had it been bigger and of higher resolution would be screaming to be made into wallpaper for someone's computer:

Greta van Susteren out at FOX

Donald Trump's first big cheerleader at FOX has left the network effective immediately, supposedly over a contract dispute. van Susteren had a clause in her contract that allowed her to leave/renegotiate if Roger Ailes left the network.

Of course, Ailes is out over the sexual harassment claims from Gretchen Carlson (settled for $20mil) and the shallow, opportunistic Andrea Tantaros. It is reported that van Susteren has claimed that FOX hasn't felt like home to her for a while now. Not sure what that even means.

And though she has said in prior interviews that she would gladly return to teaching, I'm going on the record (like how I did that?) right now as saying she turns up in a Donald Trump administration should that buffoon win the White House.

You read it here first.

Happy Labor Day!

Labor Day was passed into law in the late 1890's as a way to celebrate the contribution of the rank and file workers of this country to what sets the United States apart from most of the world in terms of economic prosperity and potential, quality of living and basic security of the populace.

In this era of constant complaining and self-hating, it is sometimes lost just exactly how good everyone -- of every race and ethnicity, men and women, have it in this day and age.

If you've been reading any of my stuff, you should know I work for the U.S. Postal Service as a letter carrier. It can be a frustrating and thankless job at times. Both customers and our bosses sometimes seem to forget or perhaps don't appreciate exactly what we go through on a daily basis. And exactly how above and beyond we go routinely without any second thought.

But not always.

We recently had a tropical storm pass through our area. Where I work, there is already an overloaded and outdated storm drainage system. And to complicate things, they are in the process of trying to upgrade that system. Which means that there are streets torn up, new pipes halfway in place, and pumps running on every corner (it seems).

A foot of storm driven rain . . . and you can imagine what a mess that caused.

I had places on my route where the water was 2 feet deep. Which is too deep for the trucks to drive through. Which meant I had to walk those streets. Two feet of water is mid-thigh, unless you're an NBA player. And that's a tough slog. Plus it was often raining. And no one stopped ordering from Amazon or wherever just because there was a storm coming.

I should also mention I'm not 20 years old anymore. Not even close.

Bottom line -- it was a real chore to get the job done.

And it was amazing to have folks slow down in their cars and shout encouragement or thanks or simply reach out and high-five or fist bump while I was wading down one street or another. And don't ask me why they were driving their personal car down some street I wouldn't take a beat up old postal truck down . . . that's just crazy in my opinion.

And my customers thanking me or expressing incredulity that I was even at work, let alone sloshing through water nearly up to my crotch just to get them their mail.

But that's the job, right? That's what I would tell them. And that's what made this country so great -- work ethic. We don't take naps in the middle of the day. We don't stop everything for tea or only work four 6 hour days or some such. We bust our asses five or six days a week. Often ten hours a day to get it done. And that's why this country has the level of prosperity and personal dignity for anyone willing to put in the effort for it.

So for the spoiled athletes and entertainers and politicians that wouldn't know an honest day's work if it kicked them in the ass, this holiday isn't for you. It's for those of us who make everything work. Who make this country work.

For those of you who get it done on a daily basis -- I hope you have the day off and can put your feet up or do something relaxing, even if it's yard work or washing the car or whatever. You've earned it. And if you're one of those that still has to work, and I've been there -- working for five years in a hospital and other jobs where Labor Day was just another Monday in September, I feel for you. And I'm not the only one who hasn't forgotten about you.

Thanks for everything you do.