Greetings! One would think that the devastating Los Angeles wildfires would all but smother the 2028 White House ambitions of California Governor Gavin Newsom.  PJ Media thinks otherwise and pegs the camera-ready Newsom as the Dems’ frontrunner in four years….Professional bomb thrower, GOP antagonist and ace wordsmith Steve Schmidt has written what are surely the definitive words about Republican critics who are dancing on the ashes of beleaguered Los Angeles.  “Among the great grotesqueries and stupidities of our time is the sheer number of MAGA politicians who openly disdain the nation’s economic, technological, social, cultural, and innovation furnace,” Schmidt wrote on his Substack. “There is no scenario in which America succeeds with a failing California. Only an imbecile would root for California to fail or burn, and tragically, there is no shortage of fools in America rooting for both”…The Victory Girls blog hopes that Melania Trump wears a “chic Zhivago-style hat, complete with fur” to her husband’s inauguration as “nod to her critics”…Speaking of the incoming First Lady, she gave an eight-minute prerecorded interview on “Fox & Friends” this morning.  Melania  wasn’t as bad as I expected, but she answered the barrage of softball questions with all the warmth and humor of an elderly accountant discussing a new tax code…Last week’s craziest right wing headline courtesy of PJ Media: “Canada’s Commie Soy Boy Slithers off in Ignominy.”  The reference, of course, was to Justin Trudeau…If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard

Greetings!  Adios NBC Today Show co-host Hoda Kolb.  Today marked the last day of her full-time job at NBC News.  I was initially not a Hoda fan when she was named co-host in 2018 but I quickly grew to respect and even admire her skills as deft broadcaster with a light touch who could also handle hard news…Former Fox News prime time host Bill O’Reilly, who exited the network almost eight years ago in disgrace, was a guest at a recent Mar-a-Lago strategy session with the president-elect.  Mr. O’Reilly provides some details of the knee-bending meeting on his website…Podcaster/comedian Adam Carolla apparently applied to be a Los Angeles firefighter several years ago but was told he had to wait seven years because he wasn’t Black, Hispanic or female. (Hollywood in Toto)…Pizzagate gunman Edgar Welch was shot by North Carolina cops during a traffic stop on January 4.  He died two days later. Mr. Welch, who believed right wing conspiracy theories that a child sex trafficking ring was run out of a DC-area pizza restaurant, fired a rifle inside the restaurant in 2016.  He was sentenced to four years in prison by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.  (Gateway Pundit)…Weekend Watch:  As a Bob Dylan fan I’m heartily recommending A Complete Unknown.  Timothée Chalamet steals the show as the young troubadour roaming Greenwich Village, breaking hearts and shattering conventions.  To get the proper context of the movie, I suggest viewers also watch the Coen Brothers Inside Llewyn Davis and the mockumentary A Mighty Wind, which gives the folk scene a well-deserved but humorous skewering…If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard