I have the good fortune of knowing both John McCain and Donald Trump well, both men have more in common than the today's media hype would have you believe. Both blazed trails in their careers and love our great nation.

That GOP leadership, that establishment, they've got to get their stuff together I love what they believe in, I believe in it too. But they've got to get tough, man. You know what? It's not just the New England Patriots who are dealing with deflated balls right now.

You either get free stuff or you get freedom. You cannot have both and you need to make a choice.

I used to wonder if the occasionally rough edges of politics were unique here under the Great North Star. But I ventured out a bit this past year, and I tell you that, as partisan quarrels go, ours really aren't so bad.

We say keep your change, we'll keep our God, our guns, our constitution.

Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven't learned enough to dismiss common sense.

This is Reagan country. Yeah! And perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California`s Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked to the Golden State.