Trump sells Pelosi Federal Building to hamburger chain and renames Alcatraz prison in honor of Eric Swalwell

 President Trump's ongoing project to construct a ballroom at the White House ignited a firestorm of criticism from Democratic politicians. California Congressman Eric Swalwell demanded that all 2028 Democratic presidential candidates promise to demolish the luxurious dance venue if elected.

"Don’t even think of seeking the Democratic nomination for president unless you pledge to take a wrecking ball to the Trump Ballroom on DAY ONE," Swalwell warned in an X post.

Stung by this criticism and seeking to assuage Democrats' outrage, Trump offered Swalwell an olive branch. "Effectively immediately," Trump announced, "I'm renaming the federal prison at Alcatraz the 'Eric Swalwell Federal Correctional Facility."

"I think Eric's gonna love it," Trump told reporters as he was boarding Air Force One. "He's gonna love the new tiled gang showers. They're HUGE!"

Later that day, Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, announced that the federal government is selling the Pelosi Federal Building to the In-and-Out Hamburger chain. In-And-Out is introducing a five-patty hamburger called the Pritzker Burger to celebrate the transfer.

Did someone say In-N-Out?

Did Japan Attack Pearl Harbor Again? No, Worse. LSU FIRED Coach Brian Kelly!

Supported by my trusty walking cane, I hobbled out on the front lawn this morning to retrieve my local newspaper.  I immediately saw a giant headline--the huge fonts reserved for reporting on major catastrophes.

I wasn't wearing my eyeglasses, so I couldn't read the momentous news. What happened? 

Did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor again? Did Trump tear down the Washington Monument to make room for a new hotel?  Did Ireland reject Rachel Maddow's request for political asylum?

I stumbled back into my house, trembling with deep forboding, and retrieved my peepers. My god! The news was terrible--worse than a new world war. LSU fired Coach Brian Kelly less than 24 hours after the Texas Aggies whupped the Tigers 49 to 25.

Coach Kelly had promised LSU football fans too much--a run at the National Championship during the 2025 gridiron season. Kelly bragged that LSU had spent $18 million to assemble a fearsome roster of talented players, and a shot at the national title was in the bag.

More than that, LSU had landed the nation's most promising quarterback, Garrett Nussmeier. LSU reportedly paid Nussmeier $4 million in NIL compensation, a hell of a lot of money to give a college kid. However, LSU's athletic boosters must have thought the investment was worth it for an athlete who might win the Heisman trophy and be the next Joe Burrow.

Alas, as poet Robert Burns might have phrased it, the best laid plans of Yankee football coaches often go astray. The Tigers looked less than stellar throughout the 2025 football season. The humiliating loss to Texas A & M in LSU's own friggin' stadium was the final straw. Coach Kelly had to go.

Unfortunately for LSU, Coach Kelly's weekend firing is just the first chapter in a melodrama likely to last for months. The university will have to buy out Kelly's contract, which will cost over $50 million. Where will that money come from? 

The public will demand an accounting of the NIL money paid to LSU athletes. How much did each player get, and where did that money come from?

And LSU fans will be scrutinizing Scott Woodward, LSU's athletic director. Woodward is the guy who signed off on Coach Kelly's $100 million contract in 2021 and then fired Kelly yesterday evening. 

This is de ja vu all over again. Woodward was the athletic director at Texas A & M when that university bought out Coach Jumbo Fisher after a disappointing football season. That cost the Aggies $75 million!

With that track record, should Woodward be put in charge of hiring LSU's next football coach? And what will it cost LSU to entice a new coach into the viper's nest of LSU athletics? Kelly's contract promised him $10 million a year for ten years. The next coach may demand $15 million. 

The LSU-Coach Kelly fiasco will reverberate throughout the world of higher education. The cost of a college degree has reached an obscene level--even at public universities like LSU. 

Should colleges spend millions of dollars a year entertaining football fans on a dozen Saturdays every autumn while asking parents to take out college loans so their child can get a worthless degree in sociology? What the hell are we doing?

Texas Aggies annihilate LSU in Tiger Stadium, and Coach Brian Kelly Becomes the Naked Prey

In a Death Valley spectacle, Texas A & M annihilated LSU's beleaguered football team last night by scoring 49 to 25 in Tiger Stadium. The Tigers led the Aggies at halftime, a minor miracle, but early in the third quarter, LSU's team folded like a cheap suit.

LSU fans turned on Coach Brian Kelly as their team collapsed before the Aggies' relentless, almost robotic onslaught. Thousands joined a chant to fire Kelly, and disgusted LSU students streamed out of the stadium by the thousands early in the fourth quarter. 

What a debacle! Even the supposedly objective television commentators began speculating about Coach Kelly being cashiered in mid-season.  

 Watching the tragic drama on television from my home in southern Mississippi, I was reminded of the movie Naked Prey, in which an African explorer played by Cornel Wilde is doggedly pursued through the jungle by spear-chucking native tribesmen. No mercy!

Coach Kelly displayed remarkable composure during the post-game press conference, humbly taking full responsibility for his team's humiliating loss. He knows he will be fired.

Here's the problem. Coach Kelly makes $10 million a year as LSU's football coach, and the LSU Athletic Department will have to pay him more than $50 million to buy him out! 

And that's not all. Some of Kelly's coaching staff may also be let go, requiring more buyouts. 

And LSU will need to hire Kelly's replacement. What will that cost? Conceivably, the university will need to match Kelly's $10 million salary to entice a new coach to move to Baton Rouge.

My sympathies are entirely with Coach Kelly. What was LSU athletic director Scott Woodward thinking when he agreed to pay Kelly $100 million to coach the Tigers for ten years? Based on past experiences (coaches Les Miles, Ed Orgeron, Coach Gerry DiNardo, etc), he surely knew the day would come when LSU's fans and donors would turn on Kelly like howling spectators in the ancient Roman coliseum, and LSU would be forced to buy out his contract. 

Now you know why a beer costs almost a tenner at LSU home games and tickets sell for over a hundred bucks. 

But you can watch future LSU games with me at my home on Lake Mary Road, where the popcorn is free and there are three La-Z-Boy recliners. Just bring along your favorite beer and a six-pack of Shiner for me.

Go Tigers!

LSU fans have turned on Coach Kelly.

This Old Airport's Got Me Down: The End of Gracious Air Travel

This old airport's got me down,

It's no earthly use to me.

Gordon Lightfoot

As a young Alaska lawyer, I traveled almost a million miles in airplanes. I flew over three-quarters of a million miles in airline jets, mostly Delta, Alaska Airlines, and Markair. I flew another quarter of a million miles over bush Alaska in various small planes: Lockheed Electras, DeHavilland Beavers, and Cessna 185 Skywagons--the pickup trucks of the sky.

There was nothing glamorous about flying in small airplanes over the Alaska bush. I threw up once flying over Chickaloon Pass in a Cessna 152. 

And a young pilot scared me out of my wits flying out of Ketchikan in a DeHavilland Otter on a foggy afternoon--the plane loaded with ice cream and chainsaws for a logging camp. He had forgotten to secure a cargo door as we lifted off, which swung open and banged against the fuselage. Unperturbed, he landed in the water and walked out on a float to give the door a good slam.

In those days, flying commercial was altogether different from flying in the bush. The airlines served hot meals on some flights, and most passengers were fully clothed. I always wore a coat and tie when I flew. And there was a graciousness about commercial air travel then that's missing now.

I recall flying down the Yukon Valley in a chartered DeHavilland Beaver on a snowy winter night, hoping to catch a commercial flight from the Inuit village of Bethel into Anchorage. I was wearing a grey pinstriped suit and tie under a cashmere overcoat. The pilot was bundled up in a khaki-covered Carhartt survival suit and wearing a holstered Ruger .44 magnum revolver.

My pilot looked me over before boarding and laughed out loud at my attire, "One of us isn't dressed appropriately," he joked.

For some reason not explained, we took off late from the Yupik village of St. Mary, where I had attended a school board meeting.

 

Clearly, I wouldn't arrive in Bethel in time to board my commercial flight home to Anchorage. This was a serious problem for me because there were no overnight accommodations for Koss'aq  (white) travelers. 

About 50 miles out from the Bethel airport, my pistol-toting pilot radioed the control tower and asked for the Alaska Airlines jet, a Boeing 737, to wait for me. I  recall a radio response, but it wasn't clear to me whether my pilot's request was granted.

We landed in a snow flurry, and two Anchorage Airlines employees sprinted out of the terminal building to grab my luggage and hurry me through the metal detector. Both young women--one Yupik and one white--were coatless on this frigid Alaska night.

I looked down the runway and saw an Alaska Airlines jet parked on the tarmac, the tail painted with the iconic image of an Eskimo. The rear passenger door was open. They waited for me!

As I scrambled up the steps, I saw a young flight attendant standing in the doorway, her profile backlit by the interior lights, reminding me of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She was hugging herself against the cold.

I will be forever grateful to the Bethel Airport aircraft controller and the Alaska Airlines pilot who delayed a scheduled flight for me on that long-ago winter night. I often think of that night when I fly commercial these days, squeezed into an economy seat, issued a bag of peanuts, and placed next to an obese fellow traveler wearing pajamas and eating a carry-on pizza.

A memory of gracious air travel

 

Last Weekend's No Kings Rally: A Flyover Country Perspective

 No Kings rallies were staged nationwide last weekend, drawing several million protesters. Anti-Trump protesters said the exercise was a huge success, setting the stage for political action that would topple Donald Trump and his administration.

Trump supporters dismissed the No Kings protests as a political nothing burger attended mainly by white retirees who should have spent the weekend with their grandchildren.

Here's my take on the No Kings assemblies: 

First, "No Kings" is a poor slogan for a call to arms against the Trump administration. As several critics have noted, Donald Trump won the presidential election with 77 million votes and a solid majority of electoral votes. How can those election results be squared with the charge that Trump has undermined democracy?

Trump's critics charge him with acting regally and unconstitutionally--particularly concerning his efforts to deport illegal aliens. Yet virtually every one of Trump's policy actions has been challenged in the courts.

Trump has won some court battles and lost others, but the fact that our system of government permits judges to annul Trump's executive actions belies the charge that he is behaving like a monarch.  To my knowledge, his administration has defied a court order.

Second, the leftist media has framed the No Kings rallies as grassroots protests with broad support across all racial and economic sectors. However, photographs of protesters show them to be mostly retirement-age white people. And these events were funded by foundations and organizations linked to left-leaning billionaires. The Durden Dispatch reported that ultrawealthy benefactors donated almost a third of a billion dollars to help underwrite the No Kings events and that George Soros's ancient fingerprints were all over the project.

Finally, the protesters' utter lack of seriousness undermines any argument that a cross-cultural rebellion is brewing against President Trump. Videos of protests in cities across the United States showed attendees dressed in inflatable costumes. Indeed, people who identified with the "furry" movement showed up at No Kings events dressed like animals.

I happen to be reading the first volume of Rick Atkinson's masterful history of the Revolutionary War, and I am struck by the contrast between the no-king Americans of 1776 and last week's decidedly unserious protesters. The Americans who fought King George's armies risked being blown to pieces by British muskets and artillery or freezing to death crossing the Delaware River in December. 

I don't think the people who wore chipmunk costumes to last week's "No Kings" rallies have the moxie to do anything courageous to oppose the Trump administration--other than perhaps sending a small, tax-deductible donation to National Public Radio.

Barack Obama's Ugly Presidential Library and a Classically Beautiful 19th Century Synagogue in Flyover Country

 I spent No Kings Day in a deer blind in North Louisiana, so I missed the opportunity to spend the day with a bunch of overweight, dyspeptic baby boomers. 

However, it was a glorious autumn day, and I was grateful to spend it in the woods, even though I missed an easy shot at a fat deer. I consoled myself that evening with a plate of enchiladas and a frozen margarita in the Gonzalez Restaurant in the little town of Homer, where the dress code permits men, women, and children to dine wearing camouflage and international orange hunting vests.

Usually, I drive home through small Louisiana towns, which collectively have assembled the longest speed trap in North America. All my hunting buddies have gotten at least one speeding ticket on the treacherous route between Arcadia and Alexandria. I am proud to say that I've only been ticketed once--in the despondently named village of Dry Prong. The local cop assured me my offense would not be reported to my insurance company, and he kept his word.

Yesterday, however, I chose to return home through Mississippi. I drove east on Interstate 20 until I crossed the Mississippi River bridge in Vicksburg and then traveled south down Highway 61, following the river's course.

South of Vicksburg, I drove through Port Gibson, where a Yankee army had passed in 1863 on its way to breaking the Confederate blockade of the Mississippi River. General Grant was struck by Port Gibson's beauty, declaring the town "too beautiful to burn." 

Indeed, Port Gibson is a lovely Southern town graced by antebellum and post-Civil War homes in a variety of architectural styles: Greek Revival, Federal, Victorian, Queen Ann, and Italianate Revival.

Presbyterian church steeple

I've driven through Port Gibson many times, and my favorite building is the Jewish synagogue, built in 1891-1892 and now closed. As its historical marker attests, the building blends Moorish, Byzantine, and Romanesque Revival architectural styles and is topped by a Russian dome.

Temple Gemiluth Chassed

Coastal elitists deceive themselves into believing that the vast stretch of America between New York and Los Angeles is a cultural desert, which they derisively dismiss as Flyover Country. Port Gibson attests to how wrong they are.

Port Gibson's architecture is eclectic, but there is grace and beauty in almost all its historic homes, churches, and businesses. The people who built these structures had a refined aesthetic sensibility--an appreciation for visual appeal in the structures they designed and built.

Contrast the nineteenth and early twentieth-century architecture of small-town America with the ugliness of today's suburban malls and tract homes. We've created a drab and monotonous environment for ourselves, which James Howard Kunstler accurately described as "the geography of nowhere."

However, it is our society's public architecture that is most offensive. We see it on display in courthouses, city halls, and university buildings. Some of it has been pugnaciously labeled as brutalist--and brutal it indeed is. 

This brings me to Barack Obama's presidential library, which is currently under construction in Chicago. This monstrosity is an insult to the eye, the landscape, and the human spirit.

Barack Obama has often been described as brilliant and almost supernaturally empathetic. Yet how intelligent and sensitive can a guy be who allows his architects and sycophantic donors to talk him into approving a presidential library so ghastly, so inhumane, and so goddamn ugly?

Maybe Barack doesn't care what his presidential library looks like. After all, he owns four homes. If he gets sick of looking at his library in Chicago, he can always fly to his digs on Martha's Vineyard or Hawaii. 

Is Barack mooning the American people?