Greetings! Looks like Pete “Hairgel” Hegseth picked a bad year to quit drinking. How employable will he be when he’s bounced from the Pentagon? A show on OAN seems about the best he can expect…The American Conservative has an editorial explaining why it declined the invitation to be part of Hegseth’s Pentagon press pool under new draconian rules.  Here’s the key line: “We are not in the stenography business”…What’s the freest state in the country? It’s New Hampshire, according to the Canada-based Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America index.  South Dakota and Florida rank just below the “Live Free or Die” state. New York comes in last on the Fraser list. The rankings are based on government spending, taxes, among other factors. WND has the details…. Democrats won the 43-day federal government shutdown.  So says the Wall Street Journal’s Neera Tanden. “Democrats couldn’t have planned for the horrific way Mr. Trump responded by inflicting as much pain as possible on the American people,” she opines…Weekend Watch: For all you eggheads and intellectual wannabees, Netflix has dropped the documentary The New Yorker at 100. I’m not sure how a look back at the magazine’s 100-year-history can be stuffed into 96-minutes. However, I’m eager to watch, simply to be reminded of all the extraordinary journalism, literature and cartoons The New Yorker has published, including a 2022 Talk of the Town piece about yours truly!…If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard