CHARLIE KIRK: ONE YEAR SINCE HE WAS ASSASSINATED

One year ago, Charlie Kirk was assassinated by the intolerant forces set in motion by the Democrat Party. And don’t waste my time complaining about that wording, Democrats. We all saw the spiteful joy in your online reactions to the murder of this Free Speech Martyr AND how you’ve persecuted his widow since then.

Plus, there’s the neck gesture that 2026 Democrats continue to use in imitation of Charlie’s mortal wound. Used as both a taunt and an implied threat that some hate-filled Democrat sniper might one day kill the viewer of said neck gesture. Here’s my post from last September:

“No mere words will suffice to mark the passing of Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA hero who never hesitated to set up a chair inside the lion’s mouth and try to talk sense to political zealots. This husband and father was always thought of by me as “the amiable firebrand” because of the way he combined political passion with a willingness to engage with opponents he surely knew harbored hatred toward him.

This assassination by forces that still dominate college campuses across America highlights the way that university administrators have been paving the way for such violence for decades now. Those administrators were often 1960s generation leftists or had the misfortune of being “educated” by 1960s leftists.

Remember that self-confessed school bomber Bill “Guilty as sin, free as a bird” Ayers, the embodiment of the most hate-filled elements of the 1960s left, not only became a “teacher” himself but also influenced the politically intolerant approach to “education.”

For decades now, the intolerant Democrats and other leftists who run America’s colleges and universities have done everything they could to show hostility toward any speakers to the right of Lenin or Mao. Heckler’s vetoes and the violence toward opposing opinions were spitefully ignored by the politically biased professors and administrators. Continue reading

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B-MOVIE HOST SCORPIO (1976-1977)

SCORPIO (1976-1977) – From September 18th, 1976 to August or September of 1977 Scorpio (actor name unknown) hosted Thing Theatre at 1:00pm on Saturday afternoons. Thing Theatre aired on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s WPGH-TV, which was back after having declared bankruptcy years earlier when its Movie Host show was Scream-In

The fun backstory for Scorpio was related in the opening of every show. WPGH field reporter Ed Barrett played himself in a remote bit about pollution. He and the crew with him pretended to find a coffin covered in undergrowth, so (for some reason) they took it back to the station with them. Setting up the coffin in an unused studio, they got the lid opened revealing nothing inside.

Losing interest, Barrett and the others wandered off, leaving the coffin sitting there. As one does, I guess. Suddenly, a man in tattered clothing with messy hair and sporting an eyepatch emerged from the coffin evilly laughing at how he had fooled the others.

He introduced himself as Scorpio and, playing off Ed Barrett’s question about what kind of thing the coffin once held, decided to call his show Thing Theatre. Belaboring the point, Scorpio also said he needed to call his show something … something … some THING!” in the same sketch. Only the audio of this opening survives, no video from it.  Continue reading

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SEPTEMBER NINTH NEWS ROUNDUP

 Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog is back with another current events roundup.   

TRUMP AWARDS POSTHUMOUS PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM TO SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH FIRST RESPONDER WHO SAVED AT LEAST EIGHTEEN LIVES THAT DAY. More HERE. Related HERE.

THE SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH MARITIME EVACUATION EFFORT THAT WAS BIGGER THAN DUNKIRK.

UNDER DEMOCRAT GOVERNOR WHITMER, MICHIGAN’S STUDENT TEST SCORES PLUNGE TO NEW LOWS.

MUZAMIL AHMED ARRESTED IN SCAM STEALING TWO HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS FROM THE ELDERLY.

CAL STATE-LOS ANGELES “PROFESSOR” MELINA ABDULLAH DOXXES ICE AGENT AT PUBLIC EVENT AND CALLS FOR LISTENERS TO “F*UCK HIM UP.” More HERE. And HERE. By the way, tomorrow is the anniversary of the leftist assassination of Free Speech Martyr Charlie Kirk.  

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHARGED WITH STABBING WORKER TO DEATH. “If it saves even one life” isn’t it worth it to enforce our immigration laws? Continue reading

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THE OZIDI EPIC OF NIGERIA: PART NINE

FOR PART ONE CLICK HERE. PART TWO HERE. PART THREE HERE. PART FOUR HERE. PART FIVE HERE. PART SIX HERE. PART SEVEN HERE. PART EIGHT HERE.

PART NINE – Ozidi’s character development will continue in this installment. It starts out like the previous part, with our main character being sought by another who has heard of the many powerful opponents that Ozidi has slain and wanting to see for himself how well the young man can fight.

This time the challenger to Ozidi is Tebesonoma of the Seven Crowns. Tebesenoma is a giant man with seven heads and on each head sits a crown made of writhing demons. The giant’s long arms reach all the way down to the ground, letting him more easily reach and kill his opponents.

Tebesonoma roams the jungles near the Niger River until he comes face to face with Ozidi, who as usual stalks the land looking for adventure. The seven-headed giant speaks to Ozidi about how much he has heard about him and goes down a list of all the figures who have fallen in combat with him. He then challenges our hero to battle.

(This exchange reminds me of Old West gunfighters with one of them wanting to blow away a gunslinger with a big reputation.)

Ozidi draws his lightning-sword from his mouth and, since his retinue of musicians, singers, a lizard and a monkey were already at his side, he fights Tebesonoma.    Continue reading

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FORGOTTEN TELEVISION: BANACEK (1972-1974)

BANACEK (1972-1974) – George Peppard starred as insurance investigator Thomas Banacek solving seemingly impossible thefts in this rotating series from NBC’s Wednesday Night Mystery Movie. NBC launched the Wednesday Night Mystery series in an attempt to duplicate the success of its Sunday Night Mystery Movie which had launched iconic detective shows like Columbo, McMillan and Wife & McCloud

After its 2-hour pilot movie, Banacek settled into rotating with other 90-minute Wednesday night NBC detectives like Tenafly, The Snoop Sisters and others. Thomas Banacek was a Polish American insurance investigator at the top of his profession. For newbies to the concept of insurance investigators, the independent detectives among them would work to recover stolen objects which the insurance companies hiring them were on the hook for.

An insurance detective recovering the stolen item would save the parent company from having to pay the entire insurance policy amount. They would only have to pay a certain percentage to the detective solving the theft and recovering the insured object.

Banacek had become so successful and wealthy that he could afford to take on only those cases where the stolen items were worth at least a million dollars, meaning his 10 percent recovery fee would be at least $100,000. A minor pet peeve of mine is the way some descriptions of Banacek claim his fee is always 100 grand, but that’s not so. If the stolen object was worth 2 million dollars his 10 percent fee was $200,000 and so on.  Continue reading

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JOE MAGARAC: NEGLECTED AMERICAN FOLKTALE

Joe MagaracLabor Day is the appropriate time to post this look at neglected working-class folk hero Joe Magarac. This figure was the Steel Mill equivalent of Paul Bunyan and John Henry.

Though mostly associated with Polish-American steel workers in Pittsburgh, PA the general figure of a literal “man of steel” helping and protecting his coworkers can be found from the East Coast through the American Midwest. Sometimes the figure is Croation or some other ethnicity instead of Polish. 

Written versions of Joe Magarac and/or similar steel worker tall tales seem to have started around 1930 or 1931. Oral legends about such figures – but not specifically Joe Magarac – have been dated as early as the 1890s.

Vintage advertisements from tattered old newspapers indicate that such Man of Steel imagery may have been used for the steel industry prior to World War One. This “Which came first, the chicken or the egg” dilemma for Joe Magarac and other Steel Men puts one in mind of the quandary surrounding Billiken lore.        

Joe Magarac statueAs a lame play on words since this is Labor Day season I’ll present Joe Magarac’s origin and then depict his tales as “Labors” like in The Labors of Hercules.

BIRTH – Joe Magarac supposedly sprang into existence from a mound of iron ore and – depending on the version – that mound was either in Pittsburgh or the Old Country. Magarac emerged from the melting mound fully grown and spoke broken English like so many of the other Polish steel workers. He was called into being by the urgent need to catch up on production since the current shift had fallen dangerously behind.

Joe was 7 or 8 feet tall, his flesh was like solid steel, his torso was as wide as a smoke-stack and his arms were as thick as railroad ties. His surname Magarac meant “mule” in the workhorse sense, referring to his stamina. Joe’s appetite was such that he carried his lunch in a washtub instead of a standard lunch box.

Magarac’s favorite leisure time activity was polka-dancing and halushkis were his favorite food.

THE LABORS OF JOE MAGARAC:   Continue reading

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NEWS ROUNDUP: SEPTEMBER SEVENTH

Here’s a Monday current events roundup from Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog here in an America where most of those unhinged women idolizing and cheering on Lindsay Clancy will likely vote in November. They won’t lazily sit at home and pout like far too many people in the opposing political party say they’re going to do.

“BLUE COLLAR BOOM” FOR A HAPPY LABOR DAY. Trump is the greatest president for the working class and the poor during my lifetime.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHARGED WITH KILLING A WOMAN AND HER DAUGHTER IN DEMOCRAT “SANCTUARY” MARYLAND. As always, Democrats provide no sanctuary for victims. Only for perpetrators.

PRESIDENT TRUMP CONTINUES WORKING TO MAKE “SANCTUARY” CITIES PAY FOR HARBORING VIOLENT CRIMINALS.

CHARLIE KIRK CORN MAZE BASHED BY THE KIND OF PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE JUST FINE WITH A LINDSAY CLANCY CORN MAZE.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHARGED IN ONE BILLION THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR MEDICARE FRAUD SCAM.

MY REVIEWS OF THREE MOVIES THAT ARE PERFECT FOR LABOR DAY. Continue reading

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COLLEGE FOOTBALL RESULTS FROM SEPTEMBER FIFTH

HEADLINES

NAIA OVER NCAA DIVISION TWO – The NAIA’s FLORIDA MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY LIONS traveled to face the higher NCAA Division Two team the ALLEN UNIVERSITY YELLOWJACKETS. Allen University parlayed their 10-7 1st Quarter edge into a 31-21 advantage by Halftime. From there the Lions shut out their opponents and came from behind for a 38-31 Upset. 

KNOCKING OFF NUMBER THREE – Down in NCAA Division Three, the 5th ranked team in the nation – the WHEATON COLLEGE THUNDER – played host to the number 3 UNIVERSITY OF MOUNT UNION PURPLE RAIDERS. The Thunder put Mount Union on Upset Alert with their 17-7 lead at the Half only for the Purple Raiders to tie things up at 17-17 in the 3rd Quarter. In the 4th, Wheaton College managed a 24-23 victory. Continue reading

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FLASHBACK: SHARYL ATTKISSON’S LIST OF FAKE NEWS ITEMS DURING THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

FROM JANUARY 29th, 2019. So obviously the list has grown exponentially since then. 

It’s no secret that Sharyl Attkisson – the Ida Tarbell of the 21st Century – is one of the few actual journalists left in America. She broke with her unethical colleagues over their refusal to cover the Obama Administration’s many scandals and found herself targeted by Obama’s FBI and NSA thugs.

The incredibly courageous Attkisson still goes after tough stories on both political parties, and she doesn’t care if the facts reflect poorly on Trump, Obama or George W Bush before them.

Sharyl has compiled a list (see below) of the many instances of Fake News that the corporate media has perpetrated during the Trump presidency.

For that list click HERE *** IT WAS UPDATED IN 2025, so many, many more items were added. Continue reading

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MARVEL (TIMELY COMICS) JANUARY 1942 STORIES

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at Timely Comics (later Marvel Comics) stories in January 1942.

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #10 (Jan 1942) 

Story 1: Spy Ambush

Villain: Countess Mara

Synopsis: Privates Steve Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes are part of the security for the transport of a new secret weapon. Nazi operative Countess Mara (below right) and her henchmen ambush them and make off with the weapon.

Our heroes don their costumes and as Captain America and Bucky they find Mara’s lair and defeat all her Nazi troops and her booby-traps. Then Cap defeats the countess and her purse’s weaponry – grenades, a gas-gun and a regular gun.    Continue reading

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