Short a man: Journalist stuck in California
I feel like pulling my hair out this week.
“Why?”
Because The Advance won’t look the same this week.
“How come?”
Because our lead page designer and sportswriter is stuck in California. Meaning, we’re short on sports stories, and we’re not going to publish the DWI arrests this week, of which there will be many, considering the holidays just passed us by.
“Why is he stuck in California?”
Because our attack on Venezuela last Saturday upset air travel, and he can’t get back from his vacation until Tuesday.
He was supposed to fly back on Sunday aboard American Airlines, but it had its flight — among many others — cancelled. The reason is complex, but when one part of the world is disrupted — air travel in the Caribbean basin — it becomes a snowball effect that basically undermines air travel across many parts of the U.S.
Which is why our guy in California now can’t fly back until Tuesday when he was supposed to be back to work today, Monday.
Plus, thanks to the government shutdown last year, the air traffic controllers aren’t back to full strength.
Goodbye, Old Days
In the old days, 2025, losing a key employee on deadline day might have upset me, but no more.
Why?
Because I figured out, with the few functioning brain cells I have left, and they’re going fast, there are going to be a lot more things to get upset over during these next three years. And if there is a time to simply chill, that would be now.
For example, just the sight of FBI Director Kash Patel is enough to pop a blood vessel. Can’t have that.
Two years ago, he was a snake oil salesman promoting a line of dietary supplements online from a company called Warrior Essentials, which falsely claimed to “detox” the body from COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and the associated spike proteins.
Just pause and let that sink in for a moment — the head of the FBI was a snake oil salesman trying to detox the body from a Covid vaccine. Forget the fact that it can’t be done. Is that the kind of guy you want running J. Edgar’s old haunt?
Now, Kash the Dash is the FBI director, having never before worked for the agency or any other law enforcement agency, for that matter. Now he’s this nation’s top cop, even though Patel was never a licensed peace officer.
That sort of cabinet appointment would be as crazy as putting somebody like Bobby Kennedy in as head of Health and Human Services even if he’s not a physician or lacks a master’s degree in public health.
No, wait, Kennedy is head of HHS, no matter how unqualified he is with regard to medicine and public health.
Only in Trump’s America would such things happen.
If Patel is using a government Gulfstream private jet to fly to attend his girlfriend’s concert, which he often does, what concern is it of mine?
Absolutely none.
In fact, why can’t Patel just use a government jet to help out The Advance and pick up our guy in California?
Too late now, but maybe next time if there is another disruption of the air traffic system?
Peace Prez
Meanwhile, consider the same guy who promised not to get us into any more wars – the peace president – why get upset if he proves that he’s just the opposite of what he promised he would be?
“No more foreign entanglements,” Don Trump told us, as if he meant it. “No more regime change.”
Ha.
“We need to take over Greenland, maybe Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, it’s all on the table.”
See? That didn’t even raise my blood pressure.
“Soybean farmers are going bankrupt.”
Not my problem, although they have my sympathy.
More from the news cycle:
“Mom-and-pop businesses filing bankruptcies in record numbers.” (Source: Business Insider.)
Again, sorry, but I can’t help it.
In fact, we don’t even really know what the real economic numbers are anymore because Trump quit releasing them (Source: BBC).
In late 2025, the Trump administration canceled the release of several key economic reports, including the advance estimate of the third-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report, the October jobs report, and the October inflation report.
“Can we just hide the bad economic data from the public?”
Sure, why not. Just lie some more and tell us how great everything is, even if it’s not.
“Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?”
I’m going to believe President Trump, of course. I don’t want to get on his “naughty list.”
“But what’s the plan moving forward? Can you ask him?”
Sure. Have to wake him up though.