Well oiled with Democratic Party support and money from across the country, Democratic Scranton Mayor and 8^th Congressional District candidate in the November election Paige Cognetti supports building hyperscale artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

So does Times-Tribune columnist Chris Kelly.

Cognetti wants the government to “regulate” quality-of-life destroying data centers.

So does Kelly.

They’re free to correct me if they flat out oppose data centers as I do. But it’s clear Cognetti and Kelly also want staunch anti-data-center activists and voters in Archbald and elsewhere in the 8^th District to believe they’re on their side.

Don’t trust these two connivers.

Kelly’s 7/26/2026 column about his soft-boiled coffee klatch interview with Cognetti makes an easy argument that he might be the number one kiss-ass in line for a local congressional press secretary gig if she wins the election.

Better than working for the Times-Tribune that could fold at any moment.

Never forget that back in 2014 egoist Kelly announced he would trade his daily newspaper columnist job for a political public relations job (the height of journalistic ethical treason), publicly proclaiming his retirement from a sacred mission to sign on as a spin huckster for then-embattled Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

Until Cognetti hit town from Oregon via Washington D.C. via Harvard Business School, Kane reigned as the Scranton darling even more popular than the late political flip-flopper and gadfly Mayor Jimmy Connors.

Then Kane went off the rails, reporting to prison after a jury convicted her of nine criminal charges of political corruption.

Thankfully for Kelly he had second thoughts, staying in the newspaper business before prosecutors handed out subpoenas. Unfortunately for readers who value aggressive, adversarial reporting and commentary that exposes corruption in both Democrats and Republicans, Blue MAGA apologist Kelly remains a marionette in the Democratic Party puppet show.

Paige Cognetti now pulls his strings.

Conversely, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro pulls hers, as do other more important Democratic Party puppet masters who dictate what can and cannot be said by Democratic candidates and officeholders. In Cognetti’s chatty data center talk with Kelly I was surprised to hear her offer weak criticism of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), a crucial cabinet-level office overseen by Shapiro who chooses the secretary.

Did Cognetti or her campaign stooges get prior advice and approval of her benign critique from Shapiro or any of his lieutenants before sitting down with Kelly? Did Cognetti grovel for permission from boss Democrats before criticizing other boss Democrats?

Ask her.

You might do better than me.

As a Scranton resident whose immigrant Irish grandfather died from Black Lung after mining hard coal underground for 45 years, I am a former registered Democratic voter and journalist who once supported Cognetti in several online news columns, But Cognetti has refused to answer my written questions for more than two years. Her congressional campaign manager Anna Korman also refuses to answer my recent written questions.

Sounding more like a programmed AI chatbot than an impassioned community crusader, Cognetti prefers talking with suck-up lackey Kelly.

In Kelly’s fawning question-and-answer exchange, Cognetti offered flat, technocratic observations about protecting quality of life from data center invasion while at the same time supporting the same data center invasion as long as the business barbarians play by government rules.

When does that ever happen?

Some of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s most “beloved” elected officials, including Kane, got indicted and/or went to federal prison as former public servants who helped themselves to the public coffers at the expense of the public.

“Fighting corruption” shapes the core slogan in the Cognetti campaign, a boast that promises she’ll fight for the people as “Paige against the machine.” Yet Cognetti preens as a plastic smile mill in that same warped political machine, doing the elite party bidding without question. I invite Cognetti to provide a single verifiable example of a successful fight against political corruption since winning the mayoral election in 2019.

Neither Cognetti nor Kelly outright opposes data centers. They support “regulations,” those bureaucratic “rules” business and government never obeyed when coal was king or now as data centers threaten to kill and destroy what the coal barons missed. The bosses couldn’t have successfully pillaged as they did without politicians like Cognetti and newspaper lapdogs like Kelly.

Of course, Republican company man and incumbent Congressman Rob Bresnahan supports data centers too.

Eighth Congressional District Green Party candidate Leila Hazou opposes data centers. Hazou understands that once data centers go up anywhere in Pennsylvania the political climate makes it easier for them to go up everywhere in Pennsylvania.

If developers miss Archbald this time they’ll come for Archbald next time.

With a vengeance.

On July 17^th The Scranton City News broke the story about Hazou’s challenge, the first to report Hazou would face off against Cognetti and Bresnahan as a candidate standing against the cruel data center siege.

Until Kelly’s Sunday column Cognetti avoided answering detailed data center questions from the people and the press, providing no specific answers about how exactly she plans to help people fight back. I sent copies of The Scranton City News column to Kelly, Cognetti and campaign manager Korman. Did my column spark overweening PR man Kelly to rush to Cognetti’s defense? Did my column scare smug Cognetti and her slick handlers into creating a superficial data center position for which gullible voters might fall?

Do not sucker for so-called Shapiro-inspired regulations Cognetti and Kelly support. Do not agree to inflict this evil corporate pestilence on yourselves or on others. “Not in My Backyard (NIMBY)” is a dishonorable position. Beware of opportunistic, self-absorbed neighbors, the Chamber of Commerce and turncoat labor union members. They’ll all quickly join Shapiro, Cognetti and Kelly in selling out your dreams.

Aloof and cold-blooded, more bureaucratic manager than gutsy leader, Cognetti talks a good game. Yet she never came close to spelling out in her first public interview about data centers what minimal action she would take to even begin to regulate these environmental monstrosities. She never said what local, state and national elected and appointed officials in her own Democratic Party she would pressure to make sure devil developers play fair. Cognetti never said she would pressure anybody.

Of course, timid Chris Kelly never pushed back.

Gonzo journalism isn’t dead.

Yet the profound prose lifestyle that exploded in the Sixties era of decadence in a psychedelic haze of the late Hunter S. Thompson’s mind-blowing brilliance is on life support.

In the end we’re all headed to the end.

But, like the anthem “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” that Bob Dylan wrote and Roger McGuinn sang in the 1969 movie “Easy Rider,” the high voltage human electricity of the moment warns that “he not busy being born is busy dying.”

U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate Ron Whitehead is busy being born again and again, decade after decade, as he continues to receive Hunter’s loud and clear message from the grave.

America’s Gonzo guru and heir to Hunter’s whirlwind spirit recently thought he might have really bought the ticket. But Ron was not yet ready to take that ride. After a stressful yet mind-bending first couple of days as the most celebrated madman about town, master of ceremonies and founding father of the four-day GonzoFest held this year all over New York City to pay tribute to Hunter’s continuing power and cultural influence, the normally high energy 76-year-old blood and guts bouncer of radical ideas and coal minefield phrases felt serious numbness in his arm.

Worried Hunter’s warning that “big darkness soon come” might be headed his way and expecting a massive stroke, he called for assistance. Paramedics quickly diagnosed severe exhaustion. With bright lights flashing in his head Ron soon made flight arrangements home and cut short his crucial GonzoFest role. Wisdom of the ancients guided him back to sacred Kentucky soil and into the strong arms of muse and love of his life Jinn Bug who has nursed him back to health on more than one occasion.

A ragtag guerrilla band of literary friends and magical mystery colleagues helped Ron travel, but he pretty much pulled off this personal mission of mercy by himself. We often need all the help we can get, but the frantic, manic Gonzo drive to create, write, breathe and ride the edge is what makes us Gonzo in the first place.

Either we go Gonzo or we don’t.

Ron Whitehead goes Gonzo.

Gonzo is an honor not bequeathed like a wet paper Burger King crown balanced on the heads of America’s limited-attention span Gen XYZ. Gonzo is a born in the USA privilege received through the disciplined, continuous work of challenging the system through writing. Gonzo is a wrathful fire-breathing god among modern-day beatniks, leftover countercultural hippies and 21^st Century philosophical anarchists like myself.

Hunter S. Thompson set the highest bar which, of course, he drank dry.

As an international foreign correspondent, national news reporter, local columnist and intergalactic commentator Hunter wrote far better chronicles of life in the lunatic lane than most of his peers. His work is unique. Despite a plethora of pathological personality disorders, his work defines him. If you only saw “the movie” you saw nothing. If you only read one of his books and not his lengthy essays you missed a ride on the crazy train and a chance to dance with the barbarians.

Hunter burned out on Feb. 20, 2005, sending the blessed cremains of his large life wildly lived exploding into space on Aug. 20, 2005, in the nose cone of a Hollywood-sponsored rocket.

Yet the unbridled spirit of Hunter’s incendiary Gonzo journalism continues.

Sadly, too many wannabe journalists and other writers don’t even talk a good Gonzo game anymore. They’re lazy. They make excuses not to write. Sad to say they’re phonies. Wordless weasels exploit intoxicating Gonzo grace while blaming their weaknesses on everything from professional mental illness to meth and martini abuse to wearing or drinking the wrong brand of cheap aftershave lotion. These frauds are as far from authentic Gonzo as Hunter was from Tricia Nixon asking him to serve as a pall bearer at Richard Nixon’s funeral and to then join her bare butt naked in the hot tub after daddy’s wake.

Not a lot of purebred Gonzo journalists exist anymore in American media. We absolutely need new generations of unholy hell raisers to keep ’er lit and let ’er rip.

Tribal elder Ron Whitehead points the way.

Defiant as a field mouse flipping the bird to an attacking eagle, he calls out the establishment. With the ease of an undefeated Old West high noon gunfighter (“crazy as nine loons” as Hunter himself once described him), Ron draws a bead on an unjust society run amok and lost in the madness of ignorance and technology.

Like the 1971 poem his legendary late San Francisco friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti called “A World Awash in Fascism and Fear” our feckless, reckless and infectious society needs Ron to provoke our increasingly dull culture. Insurgent thinkers must face devils of all ages, zombie citizens in a cruel, cruel world that walk among us trying to eat our brains and seduce writing with stupidity, timidity and self-absorbed impressions of art.

Gonzo must remain real.

Cheap imitators offer imposter self-portraits displayed like vacation photos of lounging lizards flicking obscene tongues and sunning themselves on rocks in the sweltering Mexican afternoon. Keep perpetuating imaginary Gonzo porn and one day Hunter will cast his spell from the great beyond, turning manufactured Gonzo personas into unmentionable personality disorders worse than the brain bugs these repeat offenders already endure.

Fear not.

Viking hillbilly Ron Whitehead remains our Gonzo zookeeper feeding hungry vibes that embolden golden creativity and inspire genuine Gonzo aspirants to knuckle down and get to work. Leading the poetic charge Ron storms establishment castle walls, like a Norse Berserker leader among those of us who tear it up producing original Gonzo journalism on a regular basis. Renegades and proud of it, we rebels refuse to succumb to the fickle status quo of mainstream dullness that stifles revolution.

At 75 I’m forever an outlaw, a decades-long unruly dissident and veteran Gonzo writer.

Home

I look up to very few people.

But I look up to Ron.

When he one day does disappear from our sweet Earth, as we all will, it’s easy to imagine swirling, billowing clouds forming new words, phrases and sick syllables blown together by Ron’s eternal presence, cosmic poems penned by our Gonzo ghost writer in the sky galloping across the endless horizon into an astronomical infinity with no beginning and no end.

You want Gonzo?

You got Gonzo.

Ron Whitehead is 100-proof white lightning Gonzo.

Free Palestine.

No data centers.

Abolish ICE.

Until now no candidate in the 8^th Congressional District race has boldly advocated for these three vital quality-of-life issues that mean so much to Northeastern Pennsylvania voters.

As of today Green Party candidate Leila Hazou stands as an unapologetic champion of all three crucial public policy positions. As of today Hazou joins countless voters who oppose American-sponsored Israeli genocide, support Palestinian human rights, oppose hyperscale AI data centers and want to abolish domestic terrorist cops running amok on our streets.

Unlike incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan and challenger Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, Hazou favors protecting air, water, pristine land and a healthy future for humanity. Unlike the two professional politicians Hazou refuses to abandon the hopes and dreams of struggling, hard-working people where she lives and works.

Hazou and her Green team are already circulating petitions to get her on the November ballot. She and her insurgent army have until Aug. 3 to obtain the required number of signatures. Expect Bresnahan and Cognetti to challenge her every move. Expect them to play dirty with their elitist staff and deceptive misinformation. Expect the worst, which is the most powerful weapons both campaigns currently offer voters.

Hazou offers the best.

The 8th District race is one of the most significant races in the nation, a massive opportunity for Democrats to help resume majority power in the House of Representatives. Political opportunity for the Greens is even bigger. This race affords a victory for third party power on behalf of good citizens who rarely ask for much and usually get less.

Hazou’s fearless advocacy makes her the perfect opponent for Bresnahan and Cognetti, mainstream lackeys with everything to lose. Moneybags “rich kid” Bresnahan is already a GOP puppet. Harvard Business School graduate Cognetti is smarter, slicker and more desperate. Cognetti’s technocratic narcissism also works in Hazou’s professional favor.

Until now Cognetti stood as the darling of traditional liberal Democrats, many of whom have packed local government meetings to oppose data centers, particularly in Archbald.  Following the lead of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Cognetti’s political boss and mentor, she has tried to make it appear as if she supports the power of the people with lackluster calls for data center “regulations” when she truly only supports her own cut-throat aspirations as well as the corrupt Democratic establishment that supports her with barrels full of campaign cash from states across the country.

This is the same woman who claims “fighting corruption” as the centerpiece of her campaign, a public servant who cannot provide a single solid example of a victory against corruption in her entire political career.

Shapiro has already greased the fast track to monster data center big business developers and their plans to steamroll unpolluted land throughout the Commonwealth, destroying the quality of life for taxpayers as well as jeopardizing the health of future generations.

Shapiro’s support for Israeli genocide and Zionist supremacy also creates a problem for Cognetti who is on board with Shapiro’s cash-on-the-barrel Israeli political fervor. In a recent interview Cognetti said she’s even looking forward to a visit to Israel. Shapiro’s already been there. One of Israel’s staunchest supporters in the barbaric quest for Zionist supremacy, Cognetti regularly pushes for more jobs for the Scranton bombshell factory where Israel is a valuable customer. The Israeli ambassador to the United States, by the way, another Zionist fanatic, is a Scranton native who says he still has a bank account in the city.

Cognetti makes a big deal out of not accepting corporate political action committee money.

Hazou won’t take any corporate cash.

But Hazou will reject any and all pro-Israel money including AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) cash, the blood money that comes to degenerate American politicians from the powerful Israeli lobby.

Cognetti accepts pro-Israeli blood money, tainted through exploitation, suffering and death.

When it comes to support for Israeli genocide, little policy difference exists between Cognetti and Bresnahan. Each candidate already does Israel’s bidding and takes marching orders from the Zionist lobby in the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. Unswerving in her loyalty to Israeli nationalism, Cognetti might be a bigger warmonger than Bresnahan.

More and more NEPA voters oppose Israel. More and more NEPA voters oppose data centers. More and more NEPA voters will now oppose Cognetti and Bresnahan. Discerning 8^th District voters with a genuine social conscience no longer have to try to persuade these two dangerous establishment candidates to speak truth to power.

Leila Hazou will do it for them.

The Dingman’s Ferry feminist has previously taken on big money and degenerate institutional political power. And even though she lost the 2024 race for U.S. Senate she helped oust longtime company man and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, sending the Israeli apologist and white, male chauvinist into comfortable retirement as a washed-up misogynist.

In a June 8, 2024 column in The Scranton City News I wrote:

“Expect much more pro-Israel money for Casey’s campaign as long as he continues to do Israel’s bidding. Pro-Israeli manipulators are flush with cash to buy American politicians as long as our servile elected representatives keep following orders to feed the Israeli killing machine.”

The same goes for Cognetti and Bresnahan.

In that column I wrote, “Hazou, a Palestinian woman, says ‘she can no longer sit idly by and witness her country openly support the ongoing oppression funded by U.S. taxpayers.’”

Hazou’s integrity has only become stronger.

“Never trust a hypocrite,” I wrote about Casey.

That gospel now goes for two more hypocrites.

Free Palestine.

No data centers.

Abolish ICE.

Vote Leila Hazou.

In my first novel Blood Red Syrah I invented the Crushers, a crude California outlaw motorcycle club based in and around the self-absorbed beautiful people of Santa Barbara. My renegade imaginary club returned with a vengeance in my third novel Weed Wine Magic.

I’ve recently finished writing a collection of more than 50 short short-story vignettes called Up Shit Creek: Outlaw Tales of the Crushers Motorcycle Club. Outlaw editor Stephanie Bressler begins editing tomorrow. If all goes well, and we have no reason to think otherwise, outlaw Avventura Press publisher Lee Sebastiani will publish the more than 200-page book in September.

The eclectic collection presents a mixture of fact and fiction I call faction, a more than appropriate word since I earned a living for decades taking sides as a mainstream journalist. In the book I alternate hard-truth essays with some sawed-off fiction fired from both barrels of past and present contemporary reality.

All the tales share the same setting where I lived during my teenage years, a place called the Cove located five miles from the Appalachian Trail which runs down the middle of Market Street, Duncannon’s main street in a rural, white piece of Central Pennsylvania called Perry County.

In my stories the late Pagan’s Motorcycle Club regional chapter president Sonny Drake, my closest friend who lived in the trailer park next door during those years, occasionally interacts with a fictitious protagonist in the book. Sonny and fictitious Sarge become friends before Sonny dies. Until the end of the book Sonny’s spirit drifts in and out of the narrative like the warrior Pagan spirit he is.

Dope Ventura, the imaginary Crushers national president, comes east to collect the body parts of his brother who died in a Perry County vehicle accident and fire on his way to New York to drop off a U-Haul full of fentanyl-treated weed. Dope meets Sarge, a Marine who served in Afghanistan as a fire team leader. A few days after Dope anoints Sarge president of the first East Coast Crushers chapter, Dope disappears and the club’s sole West Coast chapter folds.

Sarge and 20 or so ragtag local bikers he rides with in and around Duncannon now have themselves a motorcycle club they don’t really know what to do with. Except for Sarge, who is more than a cut above the rest, the brothers are a combination of hard asses and half asses and mostly not up to standard to be recruited by the Pagan’s Appalachian Chapter with Sonny as the leader of that outlaw pack.

My story collection begins with a personal essay called “Up Shit Creek” about Sonny and me coming of age in houses that sat beside a seemingly endless trickling creek strewn with raw sewage. This true hardcore reflection sets the stage for make-believe stories about a jagged, ragged piece of backwater America, blue- collar heart, country-fried soul and Appalachian American struggle.

The fiction is grim, funny, sad, silly, violent and absurd. Not all my characters are rednecks or bikers or both, but they all share a sacred piece of community whether they like the hand life dealt them or not. My stories all describe untamed “Purry County” wildlife that helped make me the very human animal I am today. True or false, the stories are dirty, cracked mirrors reflecting slices of life in good times and in bad.

Near the end of the book Sonny asks Sarge if he might be interested in joining the Pagan’s, Sonny’s one-percenter club Sonny loves and with which Sarge always wanted to ride. I share some of Sonny’s deepest thoughts from a nonfiction column I wrote about him and me after he died, including personal material drawn from my decade-long formative years living in the Cove from ages 12 to 22.

 One of the last chapters appears as a true question and answer dialogue between Sonny and me that I wrote drawn from long talks he and I had before he died at 71. The Q&A documents his loyalty to the Pagan’s. Live Pagan. Die Pagan. One of Sonny’s club brothers read that piece at Sonny’s packed memorial gathering at the Pagan’s farm a few years ago.

A Marine and former American Legion commander, Sonny’s remains are interred at the Indiantown Gap National Cemetery in Lebanon County, a righteous place where I joined a crowd of mourners including about 75 Pagan’s brothers who rode in for Sonny’s 2023 funeral.

Sonny’s chronicle of his outlaw life raises awareness to the power of the Appalachian American spirit and the continuing influence of the Pagan’s Motorcycle Club in a fast-changing society. The book’s ending also helps keep Sonny Drake’s honorable legacy alive. My fact and fiction draw from sociology, anthropology and psychology with a touch of pathology and astrology tossed in for good measure.

From the 1953 movie The Wild One with Marlon Brando to the seven seasons of the FX series Sons of Anarchy from 2008 to 2014, America refuses to turn away from fascination with and fear of the iron horses and their masters stampeding across the land. As my friend of more than 50 years and former New York City Pagan’s chapter president John Hall says, the outlaw spirit thrives in those of us willing to go Riding on the Edge, the title of the published memoir he wrote about his life with the Pagan’s in the 1960s.

Up Shit Creek: Outlaw Tales of the Crushers Motorcycle Club drives a fearless reader to feel alive, edgy and ready to roll.

We knew she was for sale.

Now it’s official.

Scranton Mayor and 8^th Congressional District candidate Paige Cognetti is for rent as well.

When The Scranton City News’ guerrilla photographer stopped by Cognetti’s recently opened Scranton campaign headquarters at 301 Mulberry Street, from across the street our photojournalist could barely make out the tiny campaign posters in the windows. Down on their luck city pizza joints advertise stromboli and hoagie specials with signs bigger than the pale Cognetti posters.

What did stand out was the “FOR RENT” sign that hangs like a shadow of gloom over Cognetti’s new office space and darkens her hoped-for entry to Congress with visions of empty store fronts and vacant business shells all over town. “FOR RENT” in Scranton too often means barren, vacated and even abandoned.

Cognetti focuses way too much on the groovy boutiques and poser restaurants in Central City that received Covid money and then went belly up or now struggle to placate picky beautiful people sipping rooftop cocktails through straws. These so-called young professionals actually feel entitled to foodie small plates in contemporary casual and even premium casual haunts where Gen XYZ Cognetti supporters congregate to sing her praises. Meanwhile traditional working-class neighborhoods from West Side to South Side fear and face blue-collar economic decay as Cognetti rarely if ever shows up to walk the streets where Scranton immigrants and other hard-working people struggle with real problems every day.

I’ve lived in the Hill Section of Scranton almost 20 years and never once saw Cognetti walk on or even drive down any street in my neighborhood, not even door-knocking near Election Day when candidates appear on doorsteps like bugs at a picnic.

The Chamber of Commerce sits catty-cornered from Cognetti’s new headquarters. I imagine she’s visited there. The Gino J. Merli Veterans’ Center sits across the street on another corner of the intersection. How many times has Cognetti stopped by the center and talked with military veterans who have seen better days in Scranton and reflect back on their almost spent lives. Cognetti regularly boasts about the city ammunition plant where workers make Israel-bound artillery shells that kill innocent Palestinian men, women and children. The very least warmonger Cognetti can do is rent herself out to sing the national anthem to the vets on bingo night.

A fully stocked ATM machine sits nearby as well. That machine likely means more to Cognetti that any voter in the entire 8^th Congressional District. “Cash Cognetti” knows where the money is and how to tap into its seemingly unlimited source.

Democratic Party power brokers across the country (including pro-Israel Zionists and data center proponents like her mentor/political boss Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro who is both Zionist and pro data center) will continue to contribute increasing support and skyrocketing amounts of cash to Cognetti’s campaign. She’s OK renting herself out to these out-of-town hustlers but most 8^th District voters do not welcome Cognetti’s carpetbaggers. That goes triple for generations of native Scrantonians whose ancestors labored in coal mines, dress factories and  the button mill to help create better lives for their descendants.

I also seriously doubt Cognetti’s campaign headquarters landlord will allow a glaring “Cognetti for Congress” banner to hang from the building’s roof for fear of driving away potential tenants who despise Cognetti, her politics and her meddling backers.

Scranton political candidates have historically shown up at wakes and funerals, particularly at large Irish gatherings in the Minooka section of town. Paige might start complying with this sacred tradition by renting herself out as a pall bearer. She’ll need practice if on Election Day she becomes the head mourner when her campaign sinks into a grave deeper than one of the countless pot holes around town.

Because of Cognetti’s affinity for all things Israel, including Palestinian genocide in Gaza, she can also show up at Bat and Bar Mitzvahs to juggle a few matzo balls to entertain the crowd. At Jewish weddings she can shake her bagels and dance to Hava Nagila.

The Polish can hire her to do the polka.  The possibilities are endless for people of color even if Cognetti has done little for Scranton’s so-called minorities. If she has a dream, it’s for herself.

If successful, Rent-a-Cognetti might even put U-Haul out of business. If Cognetti loses, though, she might need a rental truck to move back to Oregon or Harvard or Washington D.C., wherever she best fits with her snooty, opportunistic elitist ways.

Cognetti-4-rent?

You can bet your reused snap-on black tuxedo bow tie on it.

Cognetti’s integrity comes cheap.

What better way to exercise the rebellious spirit of the American Revolution and celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence than by burning an American flag?

Nothing could cause MAGA conservatives, vanilla soft-serve Republicans and more than a few liberal Democrats to freak out worse than the incendiary thought of torching Old Glory. The mere idea of a modern-day Thomas Paine-in-the-ass-radical lighting up our sacred symbol of freedom drives groin-directed knee-jerk reaction more than any symbolic act of liberation that comes to mind.

Just how tough are we as a democracy? We the people seem to get weaker by the day. Greasy fried fast food controls our dietary weakness. Microaggression makes Gen XYZ sissies cry. Flabby, huff-and-puff out-of-shape military recruits can’t even pass already low-bar physical conditioning tests. Are we confident enough in our constitutional prowess to stand a true trial by fire? Can we handle the truth put forth in our Declaration of Independence and ignite the flag as raw yet pure political protest?

“Burn the Flag Day” pushes our national resolve more than the most grizzled battle-tested Marine drill sergeant ever could. Firing up the stars and stripes in a supremely legal and protected act of defiance to the political status quo sets the stage for good old-fashioned American fighting words, the ultimate mixed martial art of a gutsy constitutional republic.

Today is June 14, Flag Day, when a new breed of macho species will compete on a gaudy testosterone-loaded blood and guts stage erected on the White House grounds to host a gladiatorial spectacle of professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fights to coincide and celebrate President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.

This savage display of barbarian bloodlust appeals to our devolving human species’ most inane and innate primitive instincts. Humans once took satisfaction in eating raw meat. Our 21st Century mutation of mostly rare flesh-eating men now wave the flag while beating their chests and domesticating their women, many of whom squeal with joy while the beasts sling them over a Neanderthal shoulder and carry them off to the cave. An increasing number of vicious bloodthirsty MMA women now also compete to show off their brawn in a twisted form of equality and emancipation.

True hardcore American guerrilla patriots of all genders, however, will burn the flag, turning Trump’s sad spectacle of brutal entertainment on its cauliflower ear by continuing to train to one day place a naked chokehold on the mercilessness of his violent Reich-style Administration.

Flag burners refuse to be put in a cage.

No silly lame look-at-me No King’s protest for these warriors. No megaprofit Bruce Springsteen concert loaded with predictable blue-collar protest songs from Springsteen’s ultra-privileged world of pampered, multi-million-dollar capitalism masquerading as blue-collar, working-class toughness. No too-cool-for-America’s-own-good Barack Obama, either.

“Burn the Flag Day” is born of white-hot insurgency, a nonviolent act of rebellion our Founding Fathers might approve as societal defense against Trump’s authoritarianism, a free-for-all free expression facing off against fascist dictators and goose-stepping storm troopers everywhere. Exercising All-American civil rights, freewheeling firebugs will take to the public arena with all the honor of David against Goliath to defend our flagging nation and face off against savages who dishonor and disgrace its values.

Our national grandeur matters.

“Burn the Flag Day” pays homage to the true power of free speech. Turning a flag upside down signals distress. Burning the Stars and Stripes signals defiance.

Like Grace Slick sang on the 1969 Volunteers album:

We are forces of chaos and anarchy

Everything they say we are we are

And we are very proud of ourselves.

Instead of remaining passive, take action today to celebrate liberty and justice for all.

Be an outlaw in the eyes of America.

Burn a flag today.

1

Standing on new hip

Overlooking Zen garden

Muscle cells grow strong

2

Cherry blossoms come

Cherry blossoms also go

Life and death will visit

3

Zendo peace cranes fly

Dancing in Mother Tree’s breath

Soaring in goodness

4

Old parts find new parts

Junkyard better than graveyard

Polish and drive on

5

Practice Aipeedo

When patients can’t urinate

Just go with the flow

Last night a friend in Santa Maria, California, where Stephanie and I lived for five years, sent me an audio/video clip of the third episode of Michael Jackson: The Verdict, the three-part docuseries streaming on Netflix about Jackson’s 2005 child molestation trial.

There I was standing in the Santa Maria Courthouse parking lot tent city wearing my Mexican straw cowboy hat and briefly taking questions during a Los Angeles NBC news interview about the criminal trial I covered every day for almost five months for Sky News and the Santa Maria Times where I worked full-time as a news columnist.

I couldn’t quite catch what I said in the short clip and don’t subscribe to Netflix so I won’t be watching the show. I know how it ends, though, because I played a role in the spectacle and know far more behind-the-scenes revelations than the documentary reports.

Laughing jurors in a tented break area mocking a youth pastor who had just testified Jackson sexually molested him as a child. Media members sent home for having sex in a satellite truck. Me getting assaulted by a city cop as I showed my press pass and jogged alongside Jackson’s vehicle guarded by Black Muslim bodyguards. One of Jackson’s local investigators I knew who shot and killed himself after the trial.

Mostly, I remember Michael Jackson walking slowly to where I sat alone in the courtroom one day, the last person other than him to leave during a break, stopping, reaching out his hand, leaning in close and whispering, “How are you?”

“Good,” I said. “How are you?”

I took Jackson’s pale oversized hand, felt him squeeze my fingers and not let go until I pulled my hand away when the moment felt awkward and just plain weird. We stared silently at each other for a few intense seconds until he moved on like the nightmarish ghost of the Bad World Tour past.

Michael Jackson knew I knew he was guilty.

Michael Jackson was afraid.

Although I can’t draw well, I later sketched an ink portrait of him sitting at the defense table. I called the drawing “The Michael Jackson Death Mask.” The superstar defendant looked dead. He just didn’t know it.

Before the trial started Jackson publicist Raymone Baine, who is interviewed in the Netflex story, told me Jackson was reading my early columns about his arrest. She said he liked them so much he invited me to visit his home at Neverland. I’ll always remember Baine sitting on Geraldo Rivera’s lap behind me on the little train that circled the freaky Neverland amusement park.

But as the trial progressed, my newspaper columns and twice-a-day live Sky News commentary that reached dozens of European countries unnerved Jackson. When other journalists asked Jackson how he was feeling during a break, he flinched when I asked if he thought about the anguish he’d experience if he went to prison.

After jurors reached a verdict, sitting in the row behind the Jackson family including Janet and LaToya, I watched Michael sit expressionless as each of 10 not guilty verdicts echoed through the tense yet otherwise silent courtroom.

The Netflix evaluation of the trial and verdict fails to offer a clear position on Jackson’s guilt or innocence.

Only three people I know among more than 2,200 credentialed media from around the world took a bold public stand on Jackson’s guilt or innocence. Vanity Fair’s Maureen Orth, Court TV’s Diane Dimond and I agreed the evidence prosecutors presented at trial proved Jackson guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

Jackson’s guilt seemed clear to me.

More than 20 years later it still does.

Deception is a devious form of political corruption.

But that didn’t stop Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro from trying and failing to bamboozle the good people of Archbald when he showed up unannounced at State Rep. Kyle Mullins’ office for a secret, yet well-staged, meeting with a handful of timid so-called opponents of the borough’s planned siege of artificial intelligence (AI) factories.

No public meeting. No invitation extended to Tamara Misewicz-Healey who co-founded the Stop Archbald Data Centers group that will soon boast 10,000 members. No offer to stand strong with the majority of impacted people who oppose the hellish upheaval of life in their normally bucolic little town. No public accountability to the taxpayers who pay Shapiro’s salary and benefits.

Instead, Shapiro tried to snooker his limited audience into believing he is doing them a favor by offering tax breaks, fast-tracked permits and questionable regulation to shady real estate developers and massive AI corporations headed by profiteers who dismiss the hardworking people of Archbald and the surrounding communities as peons, collateral damage in their powerless battle against the data center invasion.

Shapiro pisses in the punch bowl and calls it champagne. To their credit, increasing numbers of Archbald residents refuse to drink Shapiro’s expensive golden cocktail and swallow his toxic trickery.

Thinking people know supersized AI data mills will do more harm than good, damage even worse than the brutal coal barons did when they ripped into the land and pillaged our dreams. What’s left of a one-time abundance of clean air, unpolluted water and pristine countryside is at stake. Public health is seriously jeopardized. Quality of life hangs precariously in the balance.

Wishy-washy regulation is suspect. Shapiro is suspect. Mullins is suspect. Former mixed martial numbskull State Sen. Marty Flynn is suspect. Not one of them has earned or deserves our trust or support. Grassroots community development means taking action to embarrass the masters, shaming the pampered political princes and making them uncomfortable.

Meek Mullins hosted this servile PR party at taxpayer expense, obediently standing by his high priest’s side during Wednesday’s show like a faithful altar boy. Basking in the scripted passion play of unamazing grace like his political overlord, Mullins acts like he’s doing God’s work. But instead of fighting the good fight to stop data center development, Mullins plans to introduce legislation that green-lights massive AI data factories few people want. Fewer people want lackluster Mullins, either, vowing not to vote for him and instead writing in Tamara Misewicz-Healey who is running against him.

Shapiro has heartily embraced data centers and related corporate donations, depending on huge infusions of business cash to fund his campaign for President of the United States. For months he overlooked mounting problems in Pennsylvania and barnstormed America groveling for handouts and support for his egotistical bid to win the 2028 Democratic Party nomination.

Transparency means nothing to Shapiro. His press office ignored my written questions about Shapiro’s sneak Archbald sideshow. I received no press release announcing the governor’s pop-up visit to Lackawanna County where I live, vote, pay taxes and where generations of my family are buried. Each day Shapiro’s press office inundates the press, including me, with his schedule. But not this time.

Shapiro kept his tightly controlled invitation-only soiree under the radar as a manipulative, manufactured public relations photo opportunity to use in his self-absorbed bid for higher office. Some fools fell for his amateur craftiness. But more and more people in Archbald and throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania targeted by Shapiro and his data center hitmen see through this dangerous ruse.

Environmental, economic and public health risks loom too great no matter how much oversight Shapiro and the legislature impose on AI data centers run amok. Even one data center’s occasional use of one backup diesel generator pollutes the air, severely damages respiratory health and can potentially kill people including children whom Shapiro claims will benefit from his loyal support for the tech industry.

Archbald stands as ground zero in Pennsylvania in the fight against AI data mills. Archbald also stands as a beacon signaling the beginning of the end of Shapiro’s shameful grandiose political ambition.

This fight is bigger than just us. This fight is about justice from sea to soiled sea where merciless double-dealers sell out to the highest bidders and bottom-feeder Democrats and Republicans make and break the rules in all 50 states.

No data centers means no data centers.

We in Northeastern Pennsylvania long ago learned not to drink contaminated water that flows around abandoned hard coal mines. Now we know not to drink the Democratic Party punch, either.

So get mad.

Then get madder.

Anger is not only acceptable but advisable.

It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on.

About halfway through the 30-second video two arms reach out to shake hands.

The words “Secret Deals” appear on the screen,

Of all the powerful phrases packed into Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan’s “urgent” call to action against the expanding data center invasion, suspicion about secret deals is the most troubling.

And the most dangerous.

What are the names of the dark money shadow people behind massive amounts of cold-hearted cash required to build the 50-plus data centers planned for Lackawanna County? Who will benefit most from these shady agreements? What unethical deals behind closed doors will enrich political and business players in these immoral transactions that imperil the people and the land?

We the people will pay data center costs in more ways than one. Suffering vile consequences, we’ll also never see behind the scenes as unknown campaign donors make promises to political candidates and vice versa.

Don’t expect most elected and appointed officials or their minions to tell the truth about secret pacts to plunder our future for their own benefit, wink-and-nod negotiations that exclude public scrutiny and clear the way for bigger and worse poisonous data centers. Mostly, don’t expect these bait-and-hook wheeler-dealers to play fair, some going so far as to break the law.

Northeastern Pennsylvania’s political reputation deservedly remains one of crime and corruption. No matter how many former Lackawanna County elected officials have walked free from federal prison, we have no reason to believe our system of crooked government has changed for the better.

Gutsy Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan thrives as the only state, county or local NEPA elected official who stands apart from the double-talking, double-dealing status quo money men and women willing to sell out the people.

Gaughan has launched an aggressive public campaign against data centers. The Scranton Democratic leader doesn’t just want to regulate these dangerous AI factories in Archbald and elsewhere, he wants to stop them.

Democratic and independent voters must pressure Gaughan’s Democratic colleagues to join his courageous fight. All voters of conscience must lean on these arrogant public servants to stand with right-minded constituents they are well paid to represent, hardworking people who deserve all the help they can get to prevent punishment by rogue politicians and data center predators.

That means browbeating cagey Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, continuing to connect duplicitous dots to wily State Sen. Marty Flynn, sly State Rep. Kyle Mullins, sneaky State Rep. Kyle Donahue, timid Lackawanna County Commissioner company man Tom Welby, crafty congressional candidate and Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti and any other turncoat who works against the best interests of the public good.

Money and power matter most to these slick quislings. Condescending collaborators all, these spineless elected leeches have shown no trace of a democratic backbone. Turncoats together, they have exploited public service. The fat cat luxury of their disservice is more appealing to them than the privilege of holding office.

Democratic and independent voters must challenge each of these candidates in every election in which he or she runs. Protest at Shapiro’s offices. Disrupt Flynn’s life at home. Stand outside the private gated community where Cognetti vacations at her family ski chalet. Embarrass them. Make them uncomfortable. Show them the dirty errors of their evil ways.

Gutsy Gaughan has incited a movement.

Some fights are just worth fighting.