Aboard the Trumptanic

Welcome aboard. Pity the poor crewman who told the Donald that the Trumptanic has sprung a leak.

“A leak you say? Nonsense, who says so?”

“The polls, sir.”

“Which Poles?”

“All of them.”

“No, it can't be all of them. That's like saying all Ukrainians love Manafort. Only some of them [presumably the ones who are ethnic Russians] say they love Manafort, and many of them lie about it. Believe me, I know Poles and they lie as much as the Ukrainians do!”

“No, sir. I'm not talking about the Poles I'm talking about the survey takers.”

“You mean surveyors! What the hell do they have to do with it? Believe me, I know surveyors. I've even stiffed a few of them, but I guess I shouldn't say that. Lets just say I got the best deal from them on my developments.”

“No sir. I mean the people who ask potential voters what they think of the candidates and who they intend to vote for.”

“Oh them. Can you trust them?”

“The last candidate who said you can't was Mit Romney.”

“He's an idiot! He doesn't even support me. I can negotiate much better deals than he can.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Donald had now turned red or at least ruddier than normal, and his protruding, pouting lips gave him a duck mouth. A decision now descended or ascended upon him, depending on your optical, theological, or ideological prospective. And he bellowed: “Damn it!” I'll do what got me here!”

“You mean on this iceberg?”

“I mean here!” The Donald shouted. “Full speed ahead! Push the damn iceberg out of the way!”

“We can't do that, sir.”

“The hell we can't. Get someone up here who will do it!”

And with that Paul Manafort was escorted off the bridge while Stephen Bannon was hoisted up to the bridge. It was a bit like replacing Yosemite Sam with the Tasmanian Devil.

But do not worry about Paul Manafort; if the worst happens there will be a place for him in a Trump administration, probably dealing with Putin and the Ukraine – he is so good at that, don't you know?

No Saber-Tooth Tigers!

What makes more sense: passing a law that prohibits anyone from keeping a saber-tooth tiger as a pet or passing a law that prohibits the replacement of our current laws with sharia law? Strictly form a legal standpoint keeping a saber-tooth tiger as a pet is viable whereas replacing our current laws with sharia law is not. Keeping a saber-tooth tiger as a pet does not violate the first amendment or any of the other amendments to our constitution. Replacing our laws with sharia law, on the other hand, violates the first amendment and several other amendments to our constitution. In other words, sharia law could not survive the scrutiny of any appellate court. It poses no more of a threat than saber-tooth tigers do. Yet here we have Newt Gingrich advocating the passage of a law to prohibit replacing our current laws with sharia law. If Mr. Gingrich succeeded in passing such a law, he could wait several years and claim that it worked because no one replaced our laws with sharia law. If I succeeded in passing a law prohibiting anyone from keeping a saber-tooth tiger as a pet, I could also wait several years and say the prohibition worked because no one resurrected one of those creatures to keep as a pet.

I know this is not a political blog, but I cannot ignore Mr. Gingrich’s inadvertent satire. This man was once the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was considered the leader of the Republican Party and its leading intellectual. Is he really that ignorant about our constitution and judicial review? I hope so. If that is not the reason he is advocating such an absurd law, I will have to conclude that he is arrogant enough to think he can sell the American people legislative snake oil. This means he is insulting our educational system and/or the retention level of anyone who successfully completed a seventh grade civics course. Is he so bereft of any thoughts about how we might deal with our real problems that he has to drum up such an obviously phony issue? Is he cynical enough to think we are so ignorant and gullible that we will thank him for saving us from such an imaginary threat?

Maybe he is trying to appeal to low information voters, but what he is advocating is so ludicrous that it falls well below the lowest common denominator. It is almost as if he is mocking irrational fears. Could that be what he is doing? Is he trying to compete with Stephen Colbert or John Stewart? Is he doing a parody of a right wing demagogue? Frankly, I do not think he is that bright or that funny. Better leave the comedy to the professionals, Newt. Believe me, you are no Pat Paulsen!

This was first published in macsbackporch.foxtail-farms on Sept. 22, 2010.  The reason why I am posting again is to remind people of how absurd the Republicans are and how vicious they became under Gingrich's leadership.  I want to remind people of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I want to remind the voters of when partisan interests became more important to Republicans than the interests of this nation.  Elections have consequences and the consequences of the last election could be dire!

Carousel Of Clowns

“Oh, the horses go up and down. The merry goes round and round…”

The music plays as Republican clowns riding papier-mâché horses made from special interest checks slide up and down the polls. Herman Cain is showing a rather remarkable dexterity. It is not easy to give voice to your ignorance while tripping over your own dick. The joke is not funny to the women he has landed on. Rick Perry is the better clown. Mr. Perry’s pratfalls on his cerebral frost are actually funny. The joke with Newt Gingrich is that the hawking of his snake oil is being disrupted by the ride. Unfortunately for him his calls of “look at me” are actually causing people to look at him rather than the snake oil he is trying to sell. Denying that he ever worked as a lobbyist simply reminds us of the violations of ethics that cost him his seat in the House of Representatives. Loosely attached to one of the horses is an empty suit with the brand name of Mitt Romney. That horse does not rise and fall as much as the other horses, but the empty suit still draws our attention by waving in any direction the political wind is blowing. Most of the pundits are predicting that the empty suit be at the top when the Republican carrousel stops.

The real joke is that there are actually people who are taking those clowns seriously. All of those clowns have one thing in common; they all advocate the same failed economic policies that ran us into the ditch and caused such a great disparity in the distribution of the wealth of this nation! Clowns are often called fools and those fools are so intellectually bankrupt that they do not even heed the words of Henry Ford, who is often called our greatest industrialist. It was Henry Ford who told us that everyone prospers when the people who make the products can afford to buy the products! It will not matter which clown is on top when the Republican carrousel stops. If you vote for any of them, the joke is on you!

Oops!

As most of you probably know, I have a fiction blog as well as this blog. The goal of the fiction blog is simply to entertain. You also know from reading this blog that I have some very strong political views. Lately my frustration over what the Republican Party is doing has made me so angry that it was difficult to think of anything else. I simply cannot believe that the voters are not up in arms over the tactics and dark world the Republicans want to create. This anger and frustration has prompted me to write several political pieces that I posted on my fiction blog. The last of those was posted last week. It was inspired by the brilliant comic strip, Pogo, and as in the comic strip I was thinking of animal characters. In re-reading it I discovered that it was a bit brutal. Apparently others had the same opinion. I did not receive any comments about it, but all the links people had formed to my fiction blog suddenly disappeared. I must admit that posting that satire on my fiction blog was bad manners because it is not what people expect when they visit that Blog. I do not know if the people deleting links to that blog did so because they were offended by my bad manners or because they are afraid of the right wing. Regardless of their motives I am strongly considering deleting some of the political things from that blog. That is why I am now posting the satire inspired by Pogo on this blog. It is as follows:

Oligopolmy Swamp

I recently looked up the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly. It was comic strip I greatly enjoyed in years past. The characters and satires were wonderful. The following is my attempt to honor Mr. Kelly’s work by writing something similar, but without the art work and, I must admit, without the brilliance. Hey, we all have to give up something in this economy.

“Oligopolmy Swamp,” the name always brought a smile to the faces of the more prominent citizens there. The only store in the swamp was the Shop ‘n Buy Mart owned by Daddy Swampbucks. Daddy Swampbucks also owned the Crabapple Pie Company, which made the most popular pies sold at his store. The pies were reasonably priced because the little old ladies working at the Crabapple Apple Pie Company were paid in ready to fry opossum legs and the hair nets the ladies had to wear on the job.

It was a cold day by swamp standards. Thick black smoke, caused by burning Cockbros Swamp Moss in stoves made by Cockbros Energy, drifted throughout the swamp. Much of that smoke came from the stovepipe protruding through the tin roof of the Shop ‘n Buy Mart.

Warming him self next to the moss burning stove at the Shop ‘n Buy was Apol Grumpypaws. A blinding flash lit up the store and tossed Apol’s shadow across the room. Seeing his shadow thrown about in such an abrupt manner frightened him.

“Damn! What was Dat?” he asked.

“It’s just the Cockbros dryin’ the moss,” Daddy Swampbucks replied.

“Did one of dere dryin’ ovens blow up?”

“No, they decided the ovens take too long to dry the moss. They’re now dryin’ it by settin’ off the clouds of swamp gas.”

“But dem clouds shift with de wind. How do dey know where da flash of fire’s gonna go?”

“It don’t matter. There’s moss growin’ everywhere.”

“Dere’s also folks livin’ everywhere.”

“Wet as it is here they’ll just get singed a bit. Besides, swamp gas is really bad for you. The Cockbros think the government will even subsidize them for gettin’ rid of it.”

This is when Hog Holler entered the store.

“Say, I just seen ol’ Skunkbutt Doublespeak go inta dat odd, round buildin’.”

“That’s the Cockbros’ new stink tank,” Daddy Swampbucks said.

“Stink tank you say?”

“Yeah, the Cockbros want ‘ol Skunkbutt to convince folks that them tea dunkers are doin’ the right thing if they shut down the government in order to keep it from protectin’ lady parts and the environment.”

“Don’t sound too smart to me,” Apol said.

“You don’t have to be smart iffen you can buy smarts.”

“And rich folks can buy anything dey wants from de government now dat’ city-sons been un-knighted,” Hog Holler said.

Apol looked annoyed. “Dis conversation’s meanderin’ like moss smoke. How’er dem Cockbros gonna buy government subsidizin’ for clearin’ out de swamp gas if de government ain’t open for business?”

Apol’s question went unanswered because there was another blinding flash of fire. Hog Holler looked out the window. He then turned to Apol, who was checking to see if his shadow had returned to its proper place.

“Looks like de Cockbros just burnt de bark off de wall of your log cabin, Apol.”

“Damn it! Dat means I might have to paint de place.”

Daddy Swampbucks looked out the window. He clearly saw how he could profit from what the Cockbros were doing.

“Only the front wall, and I got some dandy paint I can sell you. Iffen you want to buy enough to paint the whole cabin I’ll even throw in a piece of Crabapple pie.”

Say No To Change!

From the Commentaries of Salamander Pingrich:

Change is dangerous! We do not need it now and have never needed it. It is time to get back to the original intent of our founding fathers. Our Constitution was perfect as first written. Get rid of all the amendments, including the first ten. The first ten amendments set the dangerous precedent of changing our government. They were not in the original Constitution, and we all know they were propagated by the liberal Democratic-Republicans. Hell, those damn liberals were not even bright enough to figure out whether they were Democrats or Republicans. How dare they tell us we have to let folks with strange ideas pray however they want and worship cows or whatever else they feel like worshiping. We do not need any of those other, so called, rights either. Well, except for the right to bear arms, but we have the NRA to protect that right and the guns to enforce it. It is a good thing too. Because of that right hostile Indians have not attacked us in centuries. And what is wrong with only white, property owning males having the right to vote? It seems to me they did pretty good. It was when we allowed all those other people to vote that we started down the wrong path. It was after that that we got all the socialistic things like public education, Social Security, Veteran’s Administration hospitals, bank depositor’s insurance and such. None of which would have been possible if the Federal Government did not have the power to tax us.

Now that I think about it, the original Constitution was not so perfect after all. Having a federal government that can tax people is dangerous. We should go back to the original intent of our founding fathers. We should go back to the Confederation. No, not the Confederation created just before the War Between the States. I mean the one that did not have the power to tax anyone. I mean the one that won our independence. If it was good enough to do that, it is good enough for me.
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I know I said I would try to keep this blog non-political. I obviously blew that, but I have tried to provide some balance to my own views by presenting the above excerpts from Mr. Pingrich’s Commentaries. What I have written below is simply the truth.

During the August 16, 2009 edition of Meet the Press the panel was asked about all the apparent threats made by people who are opposed to health care reform. Tom Colburn of Oklahoma said it was not just health care reform that had people so upset. He said people were upset about a wide range of changes, and he implied that the threats were justified. Dick Army also seemed to be making excuses for the threats. We Democrats follow the Constitution and say it with ballets rather than bullets. We did so even when George W. Bush was throwing our economy into the toilet and getting us into an unnecessary war. The people of this country have spoken, and they have voted overwhelmingly for change!