Jeff Whitten, Columnist.

Welcome to another week of the Pembroke Mafia Football League, and now how about a belated welcome to 2025 and all the promise it holds.

There’s something about the beginning of a new year that tends to make one glad all over. It’s like the smell of a new car, or waking up to the aroma of freshly percolated coffee and frying bacon. It just makes you happy to be alive. It also makes you glad to be a member of the human race, which apparently and luckily for us is not good to eat, otherwise those of us who claim to be human and not some furry would be up a creek.

I suspect our lack of tastiness is probably due to all the strange stuff we ingest, like herbal tea and cocktail weenies and prawns.

But never mind that. This week us media types got an official press release from the head of the Georgia Republican Party, Josh McKoon.

I have never met Mr. McKoon, who no doubt is a great American in the strongest Sean Hannity meaning of the word, and probably never will. But here’s what his email said: -----

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 6, 2025 Geoff Duncan Banished from Georgia Republican Party Former Lt. Gov. turned leftist commentator unanimously ousted by Exec. Committee.

The State Executive Committee of the Georgia Republican Party voted unanimously to expel former Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan from any further participation or future association with the party.

The full language of the resolution can be seen here.

The Georgia Republican Party kindly requests that all media organizations to refer to Mr. Duncan as “expelled Republican” in any future media appearances or references as he no longer has any association with our organization. --- No worries. I’m not called Fake News Whitten for nothing. Expelled Republican Duncan it is.

Also, and sorry, but I did not check out the full language of the resolution. I think those get written mostly to keep lawyers from having to get real jobs, like defending clients or suing corporations for turning our drinking water into methane.

So why kick the fellow out and then make a big deal out of it?

Expelled Republican Duncan, you may recall, came out strongly against President-Elect Donald Trump. So did a great many other Republicans, if memory serves, but once Trump won the Grand Old Party’s nomination the majority of good Republicans forgot what a horrible human being they repeatedly said he was and lined up to, well, eat cheese, as we used to say in the Army to describe the action of those who kissed a certain anatomical feature of whoever was in charge.

But not Expelled Republican Duncan. He stuck to his guns, which to me means he’s the kind of guy I’d want in a foxhole with me, instead of someone who’ll throw up his hands and surrender as soon as things get scary.

In fact, should Expelled Republican Duncan decide to run for office as an independent I’ll probably be inclined to vote for him out of principle.

What’s more, now that Expelled Republican Geoff Duncan is no longer allowed any association with the Georgia Republican Party, I officially extend to him an invitation to become an honorary member of the PMFL.

Whether Expelled Republican Duncan accepts or not is a moot point. The invitation is there. I take full responsibility for it, so I may soon be known as Expelled PMFL Member Whitten. Stay tuned.

Onward: There’s other political news afoot, sort of. Our soon-to-be president is reportedly considering whether it’s time to take over Greenland and Panama and Canada, though it seems to me there’s enough to do just finishing a wall and making Mexico pay for it. Maybe he should hire some Mexicans to do it. They work fast, and cheap. They certainly don’t spend all day standing around sipping coffee or soft drinks and eating snacks and watching somebody else tote stuff.

I also wish President-elect Trump, whom I’m starting to think might be the P.T. Barnum of the 21st Century, would spend more time concentrating on fixing all the traffic problems we have around here, like drivers who keep trying to run me off the road.

One thing I’m thinking might help alleviate some of the mess is a congestion tax. Give everybody who lives in Coastal Georgia – which ain’t the Lowcountry, that’s over in my home state of South Carolina – a sticker for their vehicle and make anybody who drives through here uninvited pay through the nose for the privilege.

The money could go to build a roundabout around Georgia.

President-Elect Trump also said he might rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, which of course is just silly and a creation of the fake mainstream news media. I suspect Trump is really thinking of calling it Trump’s Gulf Resort, or the Gulf of Melania.

Four more years, baby.

Standings:

The incomparable Mike Brown is in first with 11 misses. Mike is incomparable because he’s 186. He’s lived so long because he’s been cured, like a ham. You don’t have to refrigerate him, but he does like room temperature kept at 72.

Former District 1 Commissioner Noah Covington, who quit wearing pants now that he’s out of office, and B.J. Clark, who quit wearing pants when he retired from the Navy in 1984, are both tied for second with 13 misses.

Mike Clark, the only PMFL member with groupies, is in third with 15 misses. District 5 County Commissioner Dr. Gene Wallace, DMD, is in fourth with 16 misses. Which is exactly how many teeth he needs to extract to go over the 1 million mark. If he gets it Gene will get a special commemorative coffee cup and a Make Dentistry Great Again flag he can hang out in his yard. If you see Gene with a pair of pliers you might want to run. He really wants that flag.

Former BCN Assistant Editor Ted O’Neil, now winning press awards up one side and down the other of his native Michigan, is tied with the Rev. Lawrence “Liturgical Larry” Butler with 19 misses. I don’t know what liturgical means, but it’s alliterative when you put it beside Larry. Besides, the Rev. Butler is the only PMFL member with his own church.

Retired Fire Chief Freddy Howell, who talks like Mr. Haney on Green Acres, has 20 misses so far. County Administrator Ben Taylor has 21 misses, good enough for seventh place. Ben is from Ashburn, the Fire Ant Capitol of the World and home of Keith-A-Cue and midget county administrators. Technically Ben isn’t a midget. He’s a leprechaun.

County Commission Chairman Carter Infinger, who plans on running again in 2028, is in eighth with 22 misses.

I’m in ninth with 23 misses and District 1 County Commissioner Alex Floyd is in last with 24 misses. I’ve come to realize Floyd, whose family owns every other pine tree in North Bryan, has an evil twin. More on that down the road.

This weeks’ games: The College Football Playoff is down to four teams and happily neither Georgia nor Clemson is one of them. That’s two of the three programs that make up my Unholy Trinity of College football. The other, Ohio State, plays Texas.

Should the Buckeyes win, half the subdivisions in South Bryan will explode with joy because, well, let’s face it, every other Buckeye lives down here now. Should Texas win it’ll reinforce the notion the once mighty Southeastern Conference ain’t what it used to be since the Longhorns just moved in and took over the place.

• Penn State vs. Notre Dame: B.J., Mike Clark and Noah pick the Nittany Lions. The rest of us think the Irish will stay lucky.

• Texas vs. Ohio State: Me, Carter, Noah and Freddy take the Longhorns.

One last thing. Not to pile on Georgia, but somebody posted something on social media late in the game about Georgia fans “who dressed like clowns,” and included a photo of some Dog fans wearing makeup and spiked shoulder pads. Got to admit, I’ve often thought the same thing. But then, to me former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz looks like Pennywise the Clown, without makeup.

Now retired, Jeff Whitten is a former editor of the Bryan County News.