Welcome to this week's headliners

Never saw it coming.

Last week, I easily could have done a piece on Father's Day and the fathers who make a difference.

Take Roseau's Dave Hovda, a great guy who's always there for his kids, now all grown up and middle-aged.

He's also a grandpa every grandkid should have, kind of like an old shoe that comfortable to be around.

He's an old teddy bear with a great laugh and a heart of gold who taught his three children the important life lessons.

They're all hardworking and productive citizens - Tyler, Tanner, and Kelly.

And what an exceptional husband he was to his late wife, De Anna.

Happy Father's Day, Dave.

I'm late with this but you're one of the very best, and thanks for a continuing job well-done.

And for every father who goes the extra mile for his kids and is good to their mother, you've done yourselves proud.

One of these fine dads is Gary Grondahl, the manager of SuperOne in Roseau, who has a big heart and was always there for his late stepson, Cody Warne.

They were a team.

In the book of life, Gary is a bestseller!

Take a bow, sir!

Hard to Figure

I've never understood why anyone would ever want to be President of the United States.

What a pain in the ass!

To become the president, you give up your freedom.

Plus, you're in the limelight, and everything you say is under a microscope.

But the worse thing is, you can't drive anymore. The Secret Service handles that task.

Sure, you're famous.

Or infamous.

Who needs that!

You say one dumb thing - or lots of dumb things - and you're no longer the stable genius.

You're just another idiot.

Before you got into politics, only your family and friends knew that you were nothing exceptional.

Can you imagine your elementary or high school classmates getting together for some beers and laughing about what a dumb ass you really are.

Of course, if they're rich, are they really your friends or just looking for big tax breaks and being invited to fancy parties at the White House.

Then, again, the rich are different.

Everything is status and hanging out with the in-crowd.

I wouldn't fit in nor would my good friend, Steve "Dog" Furuseth, one of the great cut-down artists.

If we were to be invited to Trump's White House, I'd be grabbing souvenirs and he would be pimping Donald Trump Jr.

They'd throw us out of the joint.

Some big Secret Service agent would grab me by my ankles and hold me upside down and shake out the silverware and other contraband.

Furuseth, for sure, would be engaged in great conversations with the elite, who would ask if he were a Harvard or Yale graduate and which corporations he owns.

He would regale them with his trapping pocket gophers for two-bits a piece back on the farm in rural Thief River Falls in the early 1960s.

"Toots, you ain't eaten right until you've gnawed on a gray squirrel."

That's what they need at these fancy White House dinners - regular folks.

There are regular folks in the White House, but they're servants.

In The News

Fresh off the press from Mediaite (www.mediaite.com):

Ex-Trump Official Makes Stunning Revelation: Trump Talked About Executing People At Several WH Meetings

That makes perfect sense these days as a way of thinning out the gene pool.

"Who's the Minnesota Secretary of State? He's a pain in the ass. He should go next. I don't like him."

That's just a hypothetical example.

Ex-Trump White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin told Mediaite that then-President Donald Trump discussed "executing" people at multiple White House meetings.

"Hey, Pence, fetch me a new bottle of ketchup. I just splattered one against the wall when somebody mentioned Mitch McConnell."

It could become the norm beginning in January 2025.

"Who's that little bastard columnist up in Roseau writing such uncomplimentary things about my intellect. Take him ice fishing and drown him."

My wife would appreciate that.

If I die an abnormal death, she receives an extra fifty grand in life insurance.

Remember Dan Quayle?

Perhaps, neither does Mr. Trump, who last Friday made a big gaffe in geography.

Mr. Quayle misspelled potato as potatoe in a sixth grade spelling bee in a New Jersey classroom in 1992 while he was the U.S. Vice President during the George H.W. Bush presidency.

Quayle would never hear the end of it. The media assault for this goof-up was truly relentless after Mr. Quayle had informed William Figueroa, 12, that he had misspelled potato and should have added an "e" at the end of the word.

The young Figueroa crystalized the effects on Quayle's public image when he said that it "showed that the rumors about the vice president are true - that he's an idiot."

Terrific!

Here was a sixth grader who was more astute than George H.W. Bush, who had picked Mr. Quayle to balance the ticket.

And here's the latest headline from OK Magazine (okmagazine.com):

'Trump Wouldn't Pass Testing at a First Grade Level': Ex-Prez Slammed for Not Knowing Venezuela is in South America During Florida Rally

This is the same bloke who, when he first declared for the presidency, contacted all the schools he had ever attended - elementary through at least two universities - threatening to sue if they released any of his transcripts to the media.

That should indicate he is far from being a stable genius and was just a mediocre student.

He's hiding his insufficiencies - one of which might be his low IQ.

"Okay, Donald, we'll try it again. It's 'See Jane, See' not 'Pee, Jane, Pee.' We've gone over this for at least two days."

I wonder if he knows where Paraguay and Uruguay are situated. Or, if he has ever heard of them.

As Clint Eastwood is famous for saying: "A Man Has Got to Know His Limitations!"

Yes, Biden is known for having a speech impediment. He stutters occasionally.

That is much different than a brain impediment, which number 45 is being noted for.

From the Associated Press last Saturday, the headline read:

Trump challenges Biden to a cognitive test but confuses the name of the doctor who tested him

According to the AP, Mr. Trump on Saturday had mentioned that President Biden should be required to take a cognitive test.

However, in Mr. Trump's recalling the event, he screwed things up royally by not stating that he was administered this test by the White House physician at the time and now Texas U.S. Representative Ronny Jackson.

Instead, he called him Ronny Johnson, possibly a truck driver whose wife is screaming over her cellphone, "When the hell did you get a medical license and what are you doing driving a damn semi and we're living in a f**king hovel."

Blame Trump!

He's a flipping genius.

Last weekend, he was speaking at a convention in Detroit and questioned Biden's mental acuity.

"He doesn't even know what the word 'inflation' means. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did."

Forever, Trump will be Trump.

Seconds later, he continued, "Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much indeed immediately."

The quack's correct name is Ronny Jackson, who's an embarrassment to the medical profession.

A Real Character

Last week, Florida was inundated with torrential rains and the streets were under water. I called Tallahassee Slim to see if he was floating around Fort Myers with an alligator perched on his big belly.

"Look, you dummy, I'm high and dry, and my TV show starts in 5 minutes."

The call abruptly ended.

He loves "The Price is Right."