Ban Rick Snyder

Not even BB8 can save Flint now.

Danville, Kentucky -- Flint, Michigan is an all-American town. A town I've written about before. I told you about Flint's Thanksgiving traditions. Flint's unique fauna. Flint's industrial culture. And most importantly, Flint's love for the game of baseball. A town where working-class folks powered the country, literally and figuratively. A town where hard-working men like my uncle assembled the AC spark plugs that power our cars. A town whose blue-collar work ethic silently underwrote the economic strength of our nation. A town that invented the sit-down strike.

A town that's been failed. Failed by nerds at both the state and federal level.

The state of Michigan has long suffered from a leadership vacuum. The best governor in recent memory was John Engler. Engler was a man of the people. The type of man who'd order the Carolina Chicken Salad at Ruby Tuesday's, but still have the courage to order a chicken tender appetizer afterwards.

Engler, pondering dessert options.

the people's salad.

Michigan has been in sore need of leadership like that. Yet, Engler is an aberration. Instead, the state has been cursed by ineffectual leaders like George Romney, father of the man who couldn't beat Obama. George Romney was the Ted Cruz of his time; a man born under mysterious circumstances in Mexico, with aspirations to govern Americans despite his un-American heritage.

Folks, I was overjoyed for my family members in Flint when the reign of Supreme Leader Granholm met its end in 2011. Yet, Rick Snyder was not the man Flint needed. Rick Snyder, the self-proclaimed "One Tough Nerd," spent too much time with the professors in Ann Arbor and not enough time with the AC spark plug assembly-men in Flint. Rick Snyder made a deal with the devil. He bought into Obama's coercion. In exchange for federal highway funding handouts, he let the tentacles of the Employment Prevention Agency suffocate the good people of Flint.

I blame Rick Snyder for the lead poisoning crisis we see today. But not because he was negligent or corrupt like liberals and Hillary Clinton say. Because he allowed federal overreach on his watch. The federal government has no business interfering in local matters. Environmental problems are best addressed by officials who understand the nuances of the local ecological conditions. Especially when those officials are un-democratically appointed feudal overlords. Mr. Snyder, why appoint an emergency manager when you're going to let Obama and the EPA be the emergency micro-manager anyway?

Something is rotten in the state of Michigan. Maybe it's the lead; maybe it's the outlandishly large unemployment rate. I knew there had to be something in the water when my Uncle Bert and his family became Bernie Sanders supporters in the fall of 2015. I can see why Bernie's crude populism would be appealing to my Uncle Bert on a superficial level. Sanders, like a broken old union punch clock, manages to be right once and a while. Bernie knows the devastation that NAFTA wrought upon the people of Flint. Yet, socialism is not the solution to the crisis in Flint; the EPA's grotesque failure shows that much.

The solution is clear: Ban Rick Snyder. Sign Flint native and communist Michael Moore's petition to have him arrested. Folks, let's save time and just arrest them both. The trials of man are fought everyday throughout this country as good men are given the constitutional right to face a jury of their peers. Rick Snyder's peers are in the process of dying. It's time to kill Snyder's run in the hallowed grounds of Lansing before he starts emailing on the job like Hillary Clinton.

Trump Will Win Iowa

Danville, Kentucky - In 11 days, the first votes will be cast in the last Presidential election of the second decade of the 21st Century. In the blistering cold, men and women across Iowa will gather in front of neighbor, ex-wife, and child to proclaim their vote for President. While others have attempted to predict the race with "polls," "experts," and "establishment media," we're going to actually tell you who wins.

Bush holds up fingers signifying how many candidates were better than him in 1980

Folks, I have predicted every Iowa caucus except 1980, when the voters of Iowa foolishly chose George H.W. Bush over Bob Dole and Ronald Reagan. We all made mistakes in '80. As my divorce still requires, I will not go into details about those mistakes. Instead, I will explain how Iowa will go.

To know Iowa, you have to know it's process. The snobs say Iowa is a backwards people in a backwards place using a backwards election process. I'm not allowed to teach driver's education in Kentucky after burning a car in protest of the 1994 MLB strike, but I believe 3 backwards equals a forwards. And that's what the caucuses are: a forward process to the nomination.

Jeb Bush asking God to strike him from the race

To really know Iowa you need to know it's people. Iowa is a land of hard-won hustlers. The folks in Ames love their Cyclones. To anyone that's attended the Big 12 tournament, the passion, fireball, and lack of respect for officiating, tells you the caucus can get nasty. A winning candidate has to be able to overcome the quick putdown of another candidate in a middle school gym. Mitt Romney couldn't survive those insults in 2012 and the voters of Iowa voted for Rick Santorum. Jeb Bush isn't a man that can survive the taunts of a middle school. He has no chance.

Des Moines wisely didn't waste their budget on art like some cities did 

Then there's Des Moines. A big city with a small town feel. The St. Louis Rams would never move to a place like Des Moines because the Moines requires accountability. Instead, the Rams moved to a state where no one cares about anything except trying to ruin the country like they did by voting against Nixon in 1962. Des Moines didn't vote against accountability or Nixon. The folks in Des Moines will ask Rick Santorum a simple question: why do you deserve a second chance? Santorum couldn't beat Romney. Even Obama beat Romney. See ya later, Santorum.

The caucus is a voting process. To vote in a caucus requires someone actually casts a vote. Marco Rubio doesn't actually cast votes in the Senate. He's too busy not voting. When the voters at the caucus think about how they are voting, they'll remember Marco doesn't vote. He has no chance.

Marco Rubio pictured in his natural habitat: not voting

Ted Cruz is a Canadian. No non-American has ever finished in the top 5 of the caucuses. I don't see the voters of a state like Iowa ignoring this. We've been all over Ted Cruz being a Canadian before others. Luckily, Iowa will realize before it's too late they need to vote for an American.

Ted Cruz views on America

John Kasich voted for NAFTA. Those five words will drown him in Iowa. Kasich's a sly one though. His hand motions may just let him swim in New Hampshire if the voters aren't careful.

Ben Carson is a great man. I just can't vote see the voters of Iowa supporting someone that taught at John's Hopkins. For those not familiar- the non-Iowan's of the world- John's Hopkins is a school where the liberal eggheads develop their foreign policy. Dr. Carson never criticized the foreign policy of his own school. Iowa demands a President that criticizes those in the wrong. Carson stood silent. Enough voters will stand silent for him on February 1st.


Carly Fiorina foolishly rooted for Iowa in the Rose Bowl. The problem with that was not the pandering pundits decried. Everyone loves someone willing to sell out everything they believe in for the hope of winning a handful of votes in a state with less than 1/50th of the delegates needed to be the nominee. The problem was that Carly's tweet reminded everyone she went to Stanford. Iowans don't leave and go to Coastal schools. They stay home and go to an Iowa school. See ya later, Fiorina.

This organization has too many letters for an acronym

The people of Iowa love the Constitution. They demand the right to shout offensive things at Hawkeye basketball games, and they love the freedom to be free from having to house troops protected by the 3rd Amendment. It's too bad Chris Christie doesn't believe in the Constitution. His support for Sonya Sotomayor has trampled the Constitution. Christie will get trampled on caucus night.

Rand Paul, nope.

The once and future Presidents shaking hands

Then, there's the winner. Donald. Trump. The process of elimination says no one else can win. And that's the problem. Iowa has not won in a longtime. America has not won since the 2012 Olympics. The country, and more importantly, the people of Dubuque, Iowa need a win. Trump has everything Iowa voters want. They want a candidate that will tell them the truth, Trump tells them the truth when he says Mexico will pay for a giant wall that only benefits America. They care about family values and want a candidate that loves their spouse. Trump loves traditional marriage so much he's done it three times. They also want a candidate that can win. The polls show Trump gets destroyed by Clinton and Sanders. Those same polls once said Trump would lose to Jeb Bush.

Nate Silver has said for most of the last 13 months that Donald Trump could never be the nominee. Now he wonders why the party failed to try and stop the man. The party did not want to stop the man, Nate. The party wanted to be led by the man, and the party wants to vote for the man. Nate Silver and the folks at ESPN that want me to pay extra to see American Athletic Conference games on ESPN News still think Trump will lose Iowa. The only thing statistically significant in Silver's life is how wrong he is again. He'll fire back that he called all 50 states in 2012. Even a random number generator is right sometimes, old foe. This time listen to the people, you can hear them sing the song of angry men: Trump for President.

In Memoriam of a West Virginian Pizza Hut

Danville, Kentucky -- Folks, it pains me to say that a place near and dear to my heart -- a Pizza Hut near my Aunt Jodie-May's cabin in Marmet, West Virginia -- has gone the way of the Southern Democrat, or Ben Carson's scholarship to West Point. While that legendary pizzeria's ovens may never heat cheesy-bread again, an eternal flame of love for this fine establishment -- hotter than any WingStreet product -- burns in my heart like a buffalo-sauce induced ulcer. As I rolled into Marmet eager for some fresh pizza pie, I spent the better part of an afternoon crying in the parking lot when I discovered this wonderful restaurant had closed; the once proud exterior now shuttered and abandoned.

Why is this beloved institution of Marmet going out of business? West Virginia is where Obama's War on Coal and Obama's War on Fair Trade intersect. Some would say this Pizza Hut was getting gouged by the recent emergence of competitors like Little Caesars and CiCi's. But I place the blame squarely on Washington's shoulders. With Obama's TPP set to kick-in in the coming months, resulting in the dumping of cheap products from backwater communist hell-holes like Vietnam and Japan, investment capital is flying out of Marmet faster than frat-boys are running out of Chipotle restaurants across our great nation.

Located in rural Appalachia, in the shadows of great imposing mountains which will soon be stripped via mountaintop removal coal mining, lay one of the finest pizza joints I will ever know. Every day for 40 years, my Uncle Cletus descended into the pitch black depths of the West Virginia coal mines. He took nothing down there with him but a flashlight, a pick-axe, and a burning desire to emerge to the surface once more so that he could head to that Pizza Hut and order a P'Zone®.

All Hail the P'Zone®

While Uncle Cletus toiled away in the mines, my Aunt Jodie-May would nervously wait for him, loyally sitting in her favorite rocking chair. As she sat on her front porch, biting her nails and inhaling NO2 gas which would waft down from the mountains in dirty orange plumes, the promise of breadsticks and the salad bar gave her the strength to persevere through the day.

Some of my sweetest memories happened at this Pizza Hut. My Aunt and Uncle's 15th anniversary dinner in '93. In 1995, I met my future third wife while in line for the lunch buffet. Folks, this was a great 'Za Hut. Their kind employees were willing to turn a blind eye when I brought flasks full of Jameson into their fine establishment, to help wash down the thousands of calories of cheesy-bread I would eat in the span of about 10 minutes.

A typical trip to the Pizza Hut buffet.

The dessert pizza remains an unparalleled triumph of culinary excellence.

Pizza Hut taught my family about the value of hard work. The BOOK IT! program gives bright young American kids everywhere free 'za in exchange for these children meeting a monthly reading goal. It was a win-win: I got to introduce my children to Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater, and my kids got to introduce themselves to the fantastic Tuscani Creamy Chicken Alfredo in massive heaping quantities. 

Marmet's Pizza Hut, and the blue-collar family values it represents, are yet another casualty of self-destructive free trade policies. America has not yet learned the lessons of NAFTA, SKFTA, CFTA, and PFTA. For the sake of my Aunt Jodie May and the good people of coal country, we need to.