Balladeer’s Blog will be featuring plenty of Top 20 lists in honor of the year 2020. Here’s one featuring 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans yet you know partisans will accuse me of favoring one or the other party in this list. What can ya do? Anyway, in no particular order:
JAMES M COX (Lost to Harding)
Gang Affiliation: Democrat
Motto: “But Harding said ‘NORMALCY’ for God’s sake!”
Nickname: The Man Who Ran With Franklin Roosevelt As His Vice Presidential Candidate.
Pro: Was so manly even his last name was phallic.
Con: Founded Cox Communications, vowing that someday his company’s unsympathetic and unprofessional Cable Company employees would make the country pay for not electing him.
WENDELL WILKIE (Lost to FDR in 1940)
Gang Affiliation: Republican
Motto: “No man is good three times.” For once I’m using the REAL motto that the person ran under for president. Wilkie’s campaign was referring to the way FDR was running for President for the third time in a row, hence the “three times.” Given the cultural taboos of the time it was apparently NOT intended as a dirty double-entendre but these days we can’t think of it any other way.
Nickname: The Guy Who Wasn’t Good Once, Let Alone Three Times
Pro: Was open-minded enough to plan with FDR the possible formation of a third major Political Party once World War Two was over.
Con: Died even before Roosevelt did, tragically depriving America of that Third Party that might have forever changed history with two such prominent men pushing it.
SOLO (1980) – Written by Jack Higgins. Solo is not exactly one of my favorite espionage novels but it is definitely my favorite by Jack Higgins. It’s the story of efforts to catch an international assassin code-named the Cretan Lover. Luckily that ludicrous codename is often shortened to just “The Cretan” throughout the novel. I’ll use the same review format that I used for my look at The Top Seven Robert Ludlum Novels. 
America’s Democrats took time out from telling us that U.S. troops “are the REAL terrorists” to pretend they care about what may happen to American troops in the field after the slaying of atrocity-master Qassem Soleimani. Islamic expert Maajid Nawaz weighed in on social media and elsewhere with his 10 tips on what to look for in anti-western demagogues “who know nothing about the Middle East but will now talk as if they do:
Honorary Democrat Qassem Soleimani was eulogized by America’s increasingly deranged Democrats over these past few days. WE NEED THIRD PARTIES. Join so many of us former members of that political party and #WALKAWAY from that fascist organization. 
Some of that animal’s atrocities which have endeared him to America’s Democrats: assassinations, bombings, targeting civilians and other war crimes like EFPs, plus crushing the student demonstrations in Iran. (America’s Democrats feel only students who agree with them have the right to hold demonstrations.) 
Hey, Democrats, any time you want to consider rejoining the human race and recovering your sanity, bear in mind that you do not have to canonize garbage like Soleimani purely out of spite. 
The year 2020 will be a year featuring plenty of Top Twenty lists here at Balladeer’s Blog. To start things rolling on this second day of the new year is this list of great items for the working class and the poor of all colors: 
A NEW LIST OF HILARIOUSLY WRONG PREDICTIONS FROM PSYCHICS – Cannibalism in Pennsylvania? A Civil War in the 1980s? 
ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: The People of the Moon (1895) 
IRON SIGHTS: TWO PSYCHOS – Comic book giant Richard C Meyer’s latest graphic novel featuring all-out action against the Mexican drug cartels. CLICK 
THE THIN MAN (1934) – Mystery writer Dashiell Hammett’s final novel, The Thin Man, introduced former private detective Nick Charles and his wealthy socialite wife Nora. After marrying Nora, Nick left detective work in order to manage her business interests. 
Democrats are in SERIOUS need of introspection and soul-searching, yet refuse to venture out of the pompous haze of self-infatuation that they wrap themselves in 24 hours a day. THEY are the 21st Century’s “Ugly Americans” who prance along oblivious to all of their faults while fancying themselves to be THE moral models for the rest of us. (For the Republicans see below)
*** YOU INSIST ON CASTING ALL OTHER ADULTS AS SUPPORTING PLAYERS IN YOUR INCREASINGLY JUVENILE DRAMAS, WITH YOU AS THE CORRECT-THINKER SETTING STRAIGHT THE VILLAINS OF THE PIECE. 
THE MONKS OF MONK HALL – This eerie and macabre 1845 novel features human and supernatural menaces operating in 1842 Philadelphia. “Twin Peaks Goes To The 1840s” is how I describe this book, which was America’s best-selling novel before Uncle Tom’s Cabin. CLICK 
KILLRAVEN: THE FINALE OF THE DEATH-BIRTH SAGA – The final two chapters of the most acclaimed Killraven saga of them all. CLICK 
MAD MAX (1979) – A lengthy review of the Mel Gibson/ George Miller post-apocalypse classic. CLICK 
POLEIS (CITIES) 422-419 B.C. – A look at the ancient Greek political comedy written by Eupolis. CLICK 
ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – Messages From Mars (1892) 
ISAIAH WASHINGTON – And yet another Martin Luther King Person of Courage to profile – CLICK 
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