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There's a new yard sign that has been popping up lately around my neighborhood that has a picture of a particular ex-president alongside the words "Let's Go Felon." I don't understand it.

If it's a pro-Trump sign (and it is not an official campaign sign, I checked), why does it advertise that he's a felon? Being a felon is not something that most people would choose to celebrate. Is it supposed to be ironic, by which I mean is it a political statement that the State of New York is an unjust government (with a corrupted jury pool) that has no right to find someone guilty of the crime of falsifying business records? If that's the case, I'd expect it to have sarcastic quotes, you "genius" Trump supporters, you.

On the other hand, if it's an anti-Trump sign, why would any Never Trumper want a picture of that guy in their front yard? I certainly don't. (I see quite enough of him on the evening news, thank you.) Would they post a sign advertising any other felon?

I should mention that I first saw this sign in the yard of a home that also has a family of bigfoot signs, which is making it harder for me to interpret the intention here. Do they love imaginary creatures? Lost causes? Fairy tales? Conspiracy theories? I just can't tell. I can't even knock on the door and ask; they have a gated driveway. If there are actually any bigfeet, they're not actually welcome.

Maybe this is just another thing that will have to remain in the very large bucket of things I cannot understand.

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My father called this evening to tell me that he received an unsolicited group text in which recipients were invited to visit a URL where they can fill out documentation to apply to be paid $600 a month for having a Purel hand sanitizer advertising decal attached to their cars. He thought it might be an opportunity worth pursuing. Hey, free money!

Hopefully, dear reader, I don't have to tell you this is a scam. The FTC has been warning about it for years. If you don't trust the government, you can get the same warnings from both the BBB and AARP. Yet, obviously, the scam still works or the scammers wouldn't still be running it.

Now, my father is, in theory, an intelligent man. (In fact, he gets really angry if anyone dares to question that intelligence. I hate to admit it, but I am certainly a chip off that block.) So how is it he could fail to recognize all the red flags? It's not like he needs the money. (Seriously. I do his taxes.) I think he just wants something for nothing.

I mention all this not to denigrate my father. (That's just a bonus.) I mention it because I think it's the key to understanding why so many people, like my father, support that orange-faced fellow who accepted his party's nomination for president today. They don't care about the red flags like, say, his previous, well-documented attempt to subvert a federal election for his own personal benefit; they just want to believe him when he tells them he's going to give them something they want for free, like lower taxes and fewer colored people. While I wish those people could see the fallacy in where they've chosen to put their trust, I have to concede there's nothing you can say to someone to make them stop wanting the things they want.

I want free money, too. I guess I'm just jealous no one is offering to pay to put decals on my Jeep.

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So the debate last night between an old white guy and a marginally less old white guy who led an effort to overthrow constitutional democracy for his personal benefit didn't go well. Big deal.

If you didn't know who you were voting for already, it's only because you haven't been paying attention. If you haven't been paying attention, you really shouldn't be voting.

If there's any outrage to be had here, it's only that the guy who led an effort to overthrow constitutional democracy for his personal benefit is being allowed to interview for the same job. If that one wins, it's only because Americans have decided that they are tired of living in a constitutional democracy, which, as much as I may disagree with it, is their right to do.

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My father is enthusiastically following all the news stories about American college campus protests against Israel's ongoing campaign against Gaza. I'm not sure what the appeal of that story is for him other than the fact that's what Fox News is broadcasting all day to distract its viewers from the ongoing trial of The People of the State of New York v. some guy who used to be president. (According to Dad, those damn Yankees are being very unfair to that nice, smart man.)

When I think of college protests, the first thing that comes to mind are the protesters who stood just outside The Arch of my (not particularly liberal) college campus decrying Bush Junior's invasion of Iraq in 2003. I seem to recall no one was particularly kind to them at the time, the prevailing general sentiment being "how dare they stand up for those bastards after what they did on 9/11." To hear the locals talk about it, the only rational explanation for the protesters' behavior was that they hated America.

That's my father's stance on pretty much all protests. To hear him complain about Colin Kaepernick kneeling or Occupy Wall Street, there's nothing less American than protesting. (To be fair, he thinks events in, outside, and around the Capitol on January 6 were also wrong; he just thinks that unjustly persecuted fellow facing a kangaroo court in New York didn't have anything directly to do with them.)

I hate to be inconvenienced as much as the next guy, but I respect nonviolent, peaceful acts of civil disobedience in the style of Gandhi and MLK, even when I'm not particularly sympathetic to the protesters' cause, like that guy who stands on Gillis Bridge overlooking Sanford Stadium on game days yelling through a bullhorn that everyone in the crowd is going to Hell for worshipping a football instead of Jesus Christ. Sometimes, you've got to do what it takes to make people aware of your opinion.

It would be great if the kids camping on their college quads could restrain themselves from graffiti and spitting in the faces of the men who have come to arrest them, but it would also be great if Arabs and Jews could find a way to stop indiscriminately killing one another in ever increasing numbers. As Dad tells me a great man once said, "there are very fine people on both sides."

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What's interesting to me about the New York State charges against a certain former American president is that all 34 counts stem not from having done something illegal but from having done that something in an illegal way.

To illustrate this point with a hyperbolic example, let's say I have $100 in a bank account. It's perfectly fine for me to withdraw my $100 from an ATM. It's altogether another thing for me to walk in with a gun and yell, "Give me my $100!" Just ask O.J. Simpson.

In this case, what's particularly funny is that if they had simply opened their checkbook and paid the former porn star her extortion money without the sideways "catch and kill" shenanigans, it would have been just another drop in the bucket of shitty things he's done, and he probably still would have become the "grab 'em by the pussy" president anyway. (Remember: the FBI confirmed they were still investigating his opponent 11 days before the election! America hates Hillary Clinton.)

By involving a fixer (who openly claims that the purpose of the payment was to aid a presidential campaign) and a publisher (who has reportedly testified to a grand jury that the purpose of the payment was to aid a presidential campaign) and lying about the purpose of the payment to accountants, he's gone out of his way to make things much harder on himself than they had to be. There's certainly a lesson here for other people who wish to make under-the-table hush money payouts to cover up extramarital affairs.

No matter what your definition of the word "is" is, it's never the crime; it's always the cover-up.

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The world will always need a Superman.

Superman #7, 1941

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UGA football legend (and gameshow-host Donald Trump's best "see-I'm-not-racist-I-have-a-black-friend" friend) Herschel Walker won the Georgia Republican party primary for U.S. Senate with over 801,000 votes (68%). He literally won every single county in the state. He trounced his closest opponent, Gary Black (13%), who has been the state Agriculture Commissioner for the past 11 years! If I was writing headlines, this would read: Football Culture Trumps Agriculture.*

Now Walker will head into the general election to face sitting senator Raphael Warnock. So far Walker — who it should be noted has a net worth upwards of $29 million yet has sent me, a UGA football season ticket holder, at least 7 letters asking for campaign contributions — has refused to describe any specifics of his platform (other than "Teamwork good" and "Democrats evil") or debate any of his Republican rivals, instead relying purely on the goodwill garnered in college in the 1980s. And it's easy to see why he's so reluctant to speak up. When asked on friendly Fox News what he would do to prevent future mass murder of elementary school students like the 19 who died this week in Texas — Walker's home state for the past decade, right up until he decided to run for Senator of Georgia — he said this:

You know, Cain killed Abel and that's a problem that we have. And I said what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation. What about getting a department that can look at young men/women that's looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that? And we can stop that that way.

Yes, poor Abel would still be alive today if Adam had only kept his eyes on TikTok instead of Eve's fig leaf.

Besides, Cain killed Abel with a rock, the Daniel Defense DDM4® V7® AR15 with Improved Flash Suppressor rifle of its day. No one would ever try to ban rocks, so why would you want to ban 30-round magazine automatic rifles? (According to Christian dogma, the rock was given to Cain by The Devil, which I'm sure Walker would insist in no way reflects on for-profit gun manufacturers selling military-designed long guns to 18-year-old civilians.)

Sadly, I think there's every chance that bible-thumping, gun lobby-supporting, social media-spying Walker will win a seat in the U.S. Senate on nostalgic name recognition alone. And if that is the case, Georgians will be getting exactly the representation in government they deserve. That's democracy in action, folks!

* While Trump did indeed endorse Walker, it's not like Black wasn't trying his damnedest to earn his evil overlord's favor too, including refusing to admit that Biden is the lawfully elected president of the United States. Trump's endorsement in this race means far less than Walker's 82 touchdowns as a Georgia Bulldog.

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I tell you something else I heard, and I think about this, because at one time science said, man came from apes. Did it not? If that is true, why are there still apes? Think about it.

The ex-bobsledder has a point. Who needs apes anymore? Mankind is way better at swinging in trees and foraging for insects than those other primates. God only keeps apes around so humans will have something to laugh at in zoos. Stupid monkeys!

Well, I'm sold. Anyone who can manage thoughts that deep is certainly qualified to be a U.S. Senator.

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A poll earlier this week showed former UGA running back and current U.S. Senate candidate for the state of Georgia Herschel Walker leading all other Republican primary candidates with an estimated 75% support of voters surveyed. That's a lot, especially for a guy who has never held public office, hasn't made any public statements about what he plans to do if he held public office, and hasn't even lived in Georgia for the past decade.

Hershel is a legend in this state, and rightly so, for carrying the University of Georgia to its (most recent) national title in 1980. He was truly a great running back and deserves all possible accolades for his performance on the field. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I don't think that alone qualifies anyone for political office, at least not until Congress decides that the only way though its political gridlock is physical violence on the gridiron.

Seventy-five percent of one party is a lot, but I wonder if Hershel's support might not be even higher if he wasn't personal friends with Donald Trump. The two go way back to Hershel's time in the United States Football League. Hershel was the star player on the team that Trump bought then promptly ran out of business. What a way to earn a guy's eternal loyalty!

(Immediately after buying the team, Trump tried to hire coach Don Shula, the only coach with a perfect NFL season, away from the Miami Dolphins. As a negotiating tactic, Trump made the mistake of trying to pressure Shula via the press. A resentful Shula stayed with the Dolphins to become the winningest coach in NFL history; America elected the bad negotiator to the presidency.)

As a Bulldogs fan, it bothers me to say that I would vote against Hershel. I think, aside from his misguided allegiance to a disgraced former president, he's probably a decent enough fellow. But I don't think "decent enough" qualifies anyone for political office either, even if you couple it with great athleticism.

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