Back pop star for a Nobel Peace Prize, reader urges

The magazine The Nation has officially nominated the City of Minneapolis and its people for the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up to ICE agents... and to the Department of Immigration... and to (U.S. President Donald) Trump.

In a similar vein, the Asheville Daily Planet should officially nominate pop star JoJo Siwa for standing up to the evangelical actress Candace Cameron Bure, when Bure announced evil plans to boot same-sex marriage off of TV and to only allow traditional marriage on TV.

JoJo Siwa rccognized that this was a thinly disguised back-door attempt to boot both same-sex marriage and homosexuals and homosexuality off TV.

And through the sheer power of her will, JoJo wouldn’t let her (Bure) have it and made her walk back those evil plans.

I really believe the Asheville Daily Planet should officially nominate pop star JoJo Siwa for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The uncannily incompetent and unconstitutional, wannabe dictator Donald “the diddler” Trump just got his bloated cankles cut out from underneath him by a 6-3 bipartisan majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, including two justices nominated by truculent Trump himself, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both of whom disappointed Don the con admonished.

Economically hard-hit American households are now owed a refund of at least $2,400 each from the federal government as a result of the costs consumers accrued during 2025 from demented Donald Trump’s across-the-board, artificial, illegal inflation in the prices of imported products caused by wrong Don’s unconstitutional economic policies, not to mention his fascist foreign policy also primarily based upon his criminally implemented and now legally invalidated, irrational system of arbitrary tariffs (otherwise known as taxes).

The costs of 90 percent of Trump’s tariffs was paid for by American businesses and consumers on the import side of the ledger.

This wasn’t anything more than sadistic psycho Donald Trump punishing the American people for purchasing items produced in nations that have pissed off Dear Leader Donald for whatever ridiculous reason Trump whines and cries about in front of the Fox “News” TV cameras that particular day.

I don’t care about your hurt feelings, President Snowflake, I want my money now!

If you want a refund check of $2,400 sent to your mailbox, too, then call corrupt, conservative, convicted felon Donald Trump’s White House/Ballroom at (202) 456-1414.

The president’s State of the Union speech is a familiar, ceremonial fixture. It’s a constitutionally mandated, annual report to Congress.

Calvin Coolidge took it live on radio in 1923, and Harry Truman brought it to television in 1947.

Lyndon Johnson moved it to prime time in 1965 and, ever since, it’s been game-on for presidents who can use the mega-spotlight for self-serving political interests — from cherry-picking data to honoring and highlighting special guests.

The president has both a live congressional audience and millions of TV viewer-voters.

He has applause lines for his side of the aisle and his side of the electorate. We’re used to it.

What we shouldn’t be inured to, however, is the de facto political performance act that this event has devolved into. It is enabled by off-putting optics, resulting from a reaction shot-obsessed media. We see whack-a-mole partisans hopping up and down for deferential ovations, while the opposition party sits uncomfortably taciturn, eye-rolling, text-checking and occasionally heckling.

But this isn’t, of course, just about “what-a-difference-a-president-makes” Trump, MAGA shout-outs and GOPster-minion ovations over “the golden age of America.”

This is about a consequential American moment that has morphed into an indecorous, politically punctuated spectacle unworthy of a serious democracy.

The SOTU speech needs a reset if it is to be seen as anything but democracy-debasing political show business. It wouldn’t be hard. Keep the president in a tight frame and do a little furniture rearrangement behind him. No need to show the Speaker and the VP, especially when they are of different parties. And no routine reaction shots — whether of uncomfortable Supreme Court justices or role-playing partisans of either party.

Save the optics for the NFL and hurricane coverage.BTW, the U.S. WOMEN’S gold medal-winning hockey team declined an invitation from President Trump to attend his SOTU speech. Logistics was a problem.

The bigger problem, left unsaid but not unnoted, is that Trump doesn’t deserve Olympic puppets.

Some likely samples: Solve Hocus-Focus; count backwards from 5; name the day of the week; 2 SCOTUS justices; 3 NATO members and the main ingredients of a cheeseburger.Atorvastatin, Azerbaijan, Acetaminaphen: Which one is a country? Algeria, Albania, Al Roker: Which one is not a country? Andrew Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, Magic Johnson: Which one was not a president? Cherokees, Mokawks, Redskins: Which one is not an indigenous tribe?

Name 2 books, other than “Art of the Deal” and “Mein Kampf,” that you have read.

...and yet, even with the ferocity of this nor’easter, nothing compared to the great Blizzard of ‘78!While walking into the woods this morning, hearing the wind and once again in awe of so much magical white dust around me, one is reminded of Walt Whitman’s “Patrolling Barnegat” (1800s) vividly describes a fierce storm and the “steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering along the coast.”

As New Englanders, WE are so fortunate to hear the roar of the wind as the nor’easter churns and yes, attentive to the “incessant undertone muttering” of the stirrings of Mother Nature....