17 January—Has it occurred to anyone that while Ron DeSantis is wasting his time in a futile attempt to slither past Donald Trump into a job he’s not gonna get—this year, at any rate, and, given his autocratic record as governor, ever, one would hope—he’s being paid as governor of Florida. For not doing his job, like all too many public employees, elected and otherwise.

And has it occurred to anyone that the equally objectionable and autocratic Vivek Ramaswamy has been positioning himself from the get-go for Donald Trump to choose him as a running mate? Think about it.

And does anybody care that the Republican candidate debate in New Hampshire has been cancelled?

Giving the Democrats whatever due is due, then, do any of their strategists, prognosticators, geniuses, or other operatives who want to run a candidate other than Joe Biden against Donald Trump have any idea who would stand even a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping the White House for the party? Given all Biden’s liabilities, after all, he was nevertheless able to beat Trump fair and square in 2020.

Anybody? Anybody at all? Dear Kamala Harris, Biden’s traditional successor (especially in a DEI world), is a guaranteed loser, of course. California flake Marianne Williamson and Congressman Dean Phillips have thrown their hats in the toilet just for the fun of it. But in addition to their other negatives, Marianne and Dean are Jewish (Kamala is Jewish by injection, but that doesn’t count), so they can’t be taken seriously.

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The big news is that Benjamin Franklin would have turned 318 today. Had he not died at 84 in 1790. Author, musician, commentator, scientist, inventor, diplomat, editor, printer, publisher, entrepreneur, investor, real estate speculator, bon vivant, paramour of elegance, slave owner turned abolitionist, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence, first postmaster general, sixth President of Pennsylvania [sic], ad infinitum.

While Ben was working on the Declaration in Philadelphia, his son William, Governor of New Jersey and a Tory loyalist (like Chris Christie), was exiled to Connecticut. Before it became a tourist mecca, to be sure. Within the year he found himself in solitary confinement on death row in the Litchfield slammer. Not the slammer that now houses fancy apartments and shops, incidentally.

Poor William’s accommodations weren’t up to Airbnb’s publicized standard—no bed, seat, or toilet facility, for instance—so he had to use his influence with patriot Gov. Jonathan Trumbull to get sprung to East Windsor. In 1778 he was in a prisoner exchange and eventually made it over to England, where he died in 1813 at 83. Pretty good after the privations he suffered in Litchfield.

So here’s everybody’s favorite portrait of Benjamin Franklin: