The other night, I remarked to my wife that the tablet I had at my work desk wasn’t streaming as it was supposed to. You know, REALLY a first-world problem.

“How long has it been since you actually shut it off and let it reset?” she asked. I allowed that it had been some time, so the next day when I went to work I shut it off, brought it back and it works just fine again.

Sometimes we need to do a reset on our stream of consciousness as well, don’t you think? Kind of like when you would need to hit the ALT/CTRL/DELETE keys at the same time to stop and restart your computer.

I have accumulated quite a few things that are just floating around and maybe getting them out will help reset my system as well. It’s worth a try.

Isn’t it somewhat ironic that votes, counted numerous times by several agencies, continue to be counted in Arizona, in an attempt to placate the former president who continues to rail that he is, in fact, the rightful winner? And all the while, former President Trump is working toward running again in 2024. The 22nd Amendment, however, says that a person can only serve two terms as president.

So, is he president? Or is he running again?

If he’s really president, well..... he can’t run again. If he’s not, why in the world are taxpayer dollars in Arizona being used to count and recount those votes?

Makes you shake your head.

Governor Kristi Noem - actually nearly all conservatives - are vehemently opposed to any instruction regarding the Critical Race Theory. They all say that teaching this type of history of the United States portrays the country as mired in racism and misses the point of the patriotic history of the nation.

Again, somewhat ironic that the same people who railed against cities and states removing statues that were deemed offensive to African Americans are at the forefront of wishing to whitewash history to alter what youngsters learn.

While there is no doubt that the Founding Fathers were brilliant in their approach to things and that they cast a patriotic shadow when it came to building a nation, it merits remembering that all of the same people who wrote “All men are created equal,” in the Declaration of Independence and penned the Constitution....owned slaves.

Saying it didn’t happen or overlooking the facts doesn’t make it so, contrary to popular opinion.

And again, while I try REALLY hard not to meddle in ideas portrayed in our Letters to the Editor, sometimes the little voice inside my head just says, “Say WHAT?”

I am a firm believer in the Abraham Lincoln advice that says “Better to remain silent and let people think you a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt” when it comes to opinions expressed by the letter writers. Their opinions are their own, not mine and certainly not the paper’s.

But a recent letter pointing an accusing finger at former President Obama for not filling judgeships during his administrations stuck with me.

Those of us who didn’t turn to Fox News and then throw away the remote fully understand that President Obama nominated dozens of qualified judge candidates, candidates who never got a hearing in a Senate controlled by Mitch McConnell. You know, the Mitch McConnell who said in 2009 that it was his strategy to deny Obama a second term, and who more recently said (and I paraphrase) that he intended to block anything that President Biden attempted.

As Paul Harvey would say, that’s the REST of the story.

While we are on judges and such, I think the idea of increasing the number of judges on the U.S. Supreme Court is goofy.

Sure, the numbers have changed since the nation was founded, but seriously, do we really need more than nine justices? No, we don’t.

But there should be some mechanism in place, to limit when a new perspective justice may be nominated and that those nominated must receive a hearing.

For instance, eight months prior to an election - like when Obama nominated Merrick Garland in March of 2016 - would be an acceptable time period. Garland is not on the Supreme Court now - again because McConnell refused to hold a hearing - saying that it was too close to an election.

But nominating someone five weeks prior to an election, say like when President Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett last fall, is kind of short notice. Wouldn’t two or three months be about right?

If Garland had received a hearing, he would likely have been confirmed - the same Senate had approved him for a different judgeship. And had there been a three-month moratorium in place last fall, Coney Barrett would not have had her whirlwind nomination and confirmation. President Biden would have nominated someone else and the makeup of the court would have remained more evenly split.

Doesn’t playing by the same rules for both teams all the time sound amazing?

Boy, does my hard drive feel freer now!