KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES: Sightings of unidentified drones over the night skies of New Jersey have spread to a larger region and other states as the phenomenon borders on becoming a national hysteria. It’s like a 1950s alien/red- scare movie come to life.

  Donald Trump has joined in, posting on his Truth Social website; “Mystery Drone sightings all over the Country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!! DJT” And he’s going to be the leader of the free world.

  New Jersey residents have said they’ve seen drones as big as small cars, sometimes in clusters. 

  One Reddit poster said, “I have been seeing the drones every night since December 3^rd,” and  “I believe the drones are being made to observe certain areas at a time, before eventually making their way past Hudson County to probably the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Another said; “It WOULD make sense to disguise reconnaissance drones as aircraft to sow confusion. I can see militaries doing this. Imagine that IS what’s happening look at how effective it is at getting people online to aggressively dismiss something possibly nefarious.”

  With no official explanation, posters on social media are creating their own.

  Federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, have said they are unable to corroborate the drone sightings, and that many of the objects might be manned aircraft, such as airplanes or helicopters. Mayorkas said, “We know of no threat, we know of no nefarious activity.”

  A lot of people don’t buy it. New Jersey Republican Assemblyman Erik Petersen said on CNN this morning , “They’re lying to us. First they say you’re not seeing what you’re seeing, there’s nothing here to be seen. And then they tell us that they are not, they don’t know what it is, what’s happening. It’s all a lie.” 

BIG SHOTS: With anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nominated to be in charge of public health, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel, a survivor of childhood polio, said in a shot across the bow of the new Trump administration that,  “Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous.” 

  McConnel spoke up after The NY Times reported that the lawyer helping Kennedy pick federal health officials for the incoming administration has petitioned the government to revoke approval of the polio vaccine, which has protected millions of people around the world from a virus that can cause paralysis or death. The lawyer, Aaron Siri, has also petitioned to pause distribution of 13 other vaccines.

  McConnel, now 82, still walks with a bit of a hitch from the polio he had when he was two. He said that, “From the age of 2, normal life without paralysis was only possible for me because of the miraculous combination of modern medicine and a mother’s love. But for millions who came after me, the real miracle was the saving power of the polio vaccine.”

  And he warned about moves against the vaccine that, “Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.” 

THE OBIT PAGE: Gerd Heidemann, the globe-trotting German journalist whose career crashed when he reported having obtained Adolph Hitler’s secret diaries only to have them quickly debunked as forgeries, has died at age 93.  He was once one of the highest-paid journalists in Germany.

  The writings in the 62 notebooks read almost like satire; that Hitler was largely unaware of the Holocaust, that he had bad breath, chronic flatulence, and a rocky relationship with his mistress, Eva Braun. Heidemann told reporters he had bought the diaries  from a dissident East German general who had found them in a barn near Leipzig.

  Instead of having the scoop of a lifetime, Hedemann quickly became a global joke. He said; “We all were gullible. I did not think they were forgeries. The forgers must have had tremendous knowledge.”

THE SPIN RACK: New York police were tipped to the identity of CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione by the San Francisco police before he was detained in Pennsylvania, they now say. The New York cops knew who Mangione was, but not where he was. — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in a hospital in Luxembourg after suffering an unexplained injury during a congressional trip. She’s reported to be basically okay. —  South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached today and suspended from office for having declared martial law. He vows to fight it in the Constitutional Court. — Following the fall of the al-Assad regime, Russia is reported to be packing up its military assets in Syria and getting out. — The Biden administration is expected before the President leaves office to grant California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. Donald Trump has said, “I will terminate that.” — Right wing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a New York doctor for sending abortion pills to patients in Texas. New York has laws to shield care givers from such lawsuits or prosecutions from out of state.

BELOW THE FOLD: Donald Trump Jr. told the NY Post that he and ex- fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle “will never stop caring for each other and will always keep a special bond.” He has traded the 55-year-old Guilfoyle for a Palm Beach socialite who is 17 years younger and appears to have her original face. 

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