THE LIGHTER SIDE

God bless America, and how’s everybody?

Sacramento certified a petition ■

Tuesday to be circulated to try to get enough signatures to go on next year’s ballot that calls for California to secede from the Union. Every Southerner who has moved to Los Angeles had the same reaction. Just when I thought I’d gotten out, they drag me back in.

Fox News aired cellphone video taken of a

■ maximum-security prison break staged by a black man, a Hispanic man and a Middle Eastern inmate. Their photos are everywhere. If captured, they should be required to speak to Congress about the benefits of working together despite our differences.

The Dallas Cowboys cut wide receiver Lucky

■

Whitehead after they heard he’d been arrested for shoplifting in Virginia. Turns out the Lucky Whitehead arrested was another man, but the Cowboys cut him anyway. The least he can do to straighten out his life is give up the nickname Lucky.

The White House decision to ban transgender ■ people from the military stemmed from an argument over defense bill medical coverage. It’s politics. Republicans were mad because the legislation paid for gender reassignment surgery, and Democrats were mad because it gave a soldier only two options.