Current Events: Did JD Vance Turn Indian?

From The Times

A picture really is worth a thousand words, right Mr. Trump?  If the decades-old picture you posted of Kamala Harris wearing a sari as a child is proof as you claim that she is Indian and not black, then I guess a much more recent photo of Vance in traditional Indian wedding apparel must be proof that Vance has indeed turned Indian!  Am I understanding your logic here, Mr. Trump?  Does the fact that you favor Brioni suits mean that you are turning Italian?  Hey, I think I am starting to get it - according to Trump logic, you are what you wear!

Current Events: Meet the Dumb and Dumber Team 2.0 (Try, Try Again)!

From BBC

Apparently the first attempt at a Dumb and Dumber Dream Team was not good enough, so here we go again - meet "Dumb Joke" (the late great Hannibal Lecter is real!) Trump and his new running mate "Just Dumb" (I hate childless cat ladies!) Vance.  Looks like Trump is already having second thoughts about his choice in this photo.  Oh well, if Trump changes his mind about the Vance pick, he can always blame it on his two older sons as the ones who made him do it.  Far from forming a dream team, the Republican presidential candidate has instead managed to create the perfect Dumb and Dumber Weird Team.  Way to go, Trump!

This 'n That Thursdays: The Scariest Type of YouTube Video Just in Time For Halloween - Vote Him Away (The Liar Tweets Tonight)

What is the scariest type of YouTube video for Halloween 2020?  Well obviously that would be a political pre-election music video, of course!  This one, brought to my attention by one of my neighbors, is actually pretty funny and very well made, although Trump supporters may not be amused.  You have to admit, though, that whatever your political leanings, this sort of video is perfect for Halloween.  Enjoy it or not, but I have a feeling that November 3rd will be even more frightening than October 31st this year.  (Even so, please remember to vote - in fact, I hope you already have!)

And if you want to hear the original "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", watch this YouTube video (and just try to get this earworm out of your head for the rest of the day!):

Current Events: And the Fly Steals the Show!

From USA Today

 "Lorded over by a fly."

(Sorry, I just could not resist!)

Current Events: Vladimir Putin, Please Go Away!

(Click to enlarge)

I think we are all just a little tired of Vladimir Putin's Machiavellian machinations when it comes to our nation's presidential elections, so I decided it was time to come up with a slogan to express exactly how we in the United States feel about his actions.  So here it is, Vlad - my belated Presidents' Day gift to you!  I do hope you enjoy the sentiment, because we mean this sincerely.  Pack up your high-tech toys and go home, Mr. Putin, because we don't want you playing around in our nation's politics any more.  Good-bye, and don't let the door bang you in the behind when you leave.
             

Current Events: U.S. History According to Trump

The rain made him do it!
(from Hollywood Life)

"Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over airports, it did everything it had to do... "And at Fort McHenry, under the rocket's red glare, had nothing but victory.  When dawn came, the star-spangled banner waved defiant."

Okay, I know I declared I would no longer post comments about our feckless leader, but after his Independence Day speech how could I resist?  That little snippet above about our Revolutionary War from the president's speech had me laughing so hard I did not even notice the evening fireworks in our town on the Fourth of July.  Of all the possibilities I was expecting from Trump's teleprompter talk, the day's best comic relief was not even on the list!

Of course there was much bafflement about the supposed 18th century American airports, and many people were quick to point out that the paraphrased "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written about events during the War of 1812 and not the Revolutionary War.  I suppose our Army had to man the air, whatever that means, as the Air Force did not even exist at the time (and neither did planes!), but why in the world would we ram our own ramparts?

And Trump's cherry on top of his delightfully nonsensical statement?  Our president blamed the rain, which knocked out the teleprompter and forced him to rely on his excellent memory to continue his speech. Which means that the gaffe-filled remarks were all completely of his own making!  I think Trump missed his true calling as a stand-up comedian - who else could possibly come up with such an onslaught of hilariously erroneous historical commentary so effortlessly?  Thanks for the laughs, Mr. President - you put on a truly mind-boggling and surreal spectacle of a show as only you can do, for all the world to watch!

Nobody hugs the nation's flag better than our feckless leader!

             

Current Events: Just Don't Look - It's Time to Ignore Lard Lad and Make Him Go Away

Top image from Imgur; bottom image from Simpsons World.

Do you remember the The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VI segment called "Attack of the 50 Foot Eyesores", where advertising icons came to life, caused mass chaos and destruction, and were only defeated when they were ignored by all Springfield residents?  Even Lard Lad succumbed after Homer was scolded by his family to stop paying attention to the giant doughnut boy's insincere promises.  If you do not remember or never saw this segment, you can watch it below:

I have come to the conclusion that our president thrives in the same way that Lard Lad and his cohorts did.  The more attention Trump can garner, good or bad, the more he seems to feel that his existence as president is justified.  Whenever attention is diverted away from the POTUS, he will resort to any measure, no matter how ridiculous, to bring the focus back to himself.  Unfortunately, the more oddly he behaves, the more likely we are to look in his direction again, which simply reinforces Trump's tendency to do anything to steal the limelight.

So what is the solution?  I believe that Lisa Simpson and Paul Anka got it right with their "Just Don't Look" jingle!  The only way to diminish Trump's influence is to downplay the man's increasingly outrageous actions as mere clownish showmanship, and to instead concentrate on the actions and ideas of people who truly deserve our attention.  With a presidential election coming up in 2020, it is time to focus on Trump's successor.  Our current president will no longer be getting any attention from me.   If the man is out of sight then hopefully he will soon be out of mind (or will go out of his mind, perhaps, although some will argue that he already has).  The more people are willing to ignore Trump's follies the more likely this solution will work, so I hope others will follow suit.

However, I could not resist one last comparison:

Eerily similar!
(image at left from YouTube; image at right from Woke Sloth)

 In the immortal words of Maggie Simpson, "This is indeed a disturbing universe!"

             

Current Events: Awkward Presidential Moments - the Shrugs Say It All, and I Really Wish the President Would Stop Hugging Our Flag!

I doubt that the lovely ladies were at fault for the awkward moment shown above when the President and the Czech Prime Minister abandoned them on the steps of the White House.  Did the husbands not notice that their wives were not with them?  Or did they just not care?  The two women, after a presumed eye roll and noticeable shrug, handled the situation gracefully, but who does not think that the men got an earful in private later on?

And on to another awkward moment, when Trump decided to once again hug the nation's flag at a political event a little over a week ago.  At first I thought I was the only one who found his rather graceless gesture odd if not downright creepy.  Then I found this blog post which made me realize there were indeed others who thought his gesture was uncomfortably similar to inappropriate canine behavior:

Heaven help us, even their facial expressions are similar!
(image at left from YouTube; image at right from Sowetan Live)

Oh dear, once you see this eye worm there is just no un-seeing it (sorry, folks!).  Please, Mr. Trump, if you must hug Old Glory at least give her a one-armed buddy-type embrace, rather than a full-body throttle that just looks perverse!
             

Current Events: "Where Is the Love You Said Was Mine All Mine..."

Poor little Donnie Trump would like to dedicate the above song to both Kim Jong-Un and Michael Cohen, former bromance buddies who made his life miserable last week.  For those who would rather just see the lyrics:

Where is the Love
(Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)

Where is the love (7 times)

Where is the love
You said you'd give to me
Soon as you were free,
Will it ever be,
Where is the love?

You told me that you didn't love him
And you were gonna say goodbye,
But if you really didn't mean it
Why did you have to lie?

Where is the love,
You said was mine all mine,
till the end of time,
Was it just a lie,
Where is the love?

If you had had a sudden change of heart
I wish that you would tell me so,
Don't leave me hangin' on the promises,
You've got to let me know.

Oh how I wish I never met you!
I guess it must have been my fate
To fall in love with someone else's love,
All I can do is wait
(that's all I can do).
Yeah yeah yeah

Where is the love (vamp until end)

(Songwriters: Ralph Mcdonald / William Salter Antisia

Where Is The Love lyrics © BMG Rights Management US, LLC)

💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔😂💔

So where exactly is that love now?  Well, if I had to guess...

Image at left from The Straits Times; image at right from The Daily Courier

Image at left from Fortune; image at right from Time Magazine

Poor little Donnie Trump, now a two-time loser in the bromance wars:

Created using SuperLame! with image from Deutsche Welle and
quote from "Gone with the Wind" (1939).

           

Current Events: With Friends Like These...

Created using SuperLame! with image from Asia News Network.

As our president prepares to wing his way to Hanoi for a rendezvous with his beloved Kim, we were reminded once again last week that little Donnie Trump may not be the best judge of character:

Trump with New England Patriots owner and major Trump donor
Robert Kraft, recently charged with solicitation of prostitution at a
 massage parlor suspected of involvement in human trafficking
(image from The Boston Globe).

Trump with Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, recently charged with
illegally concealing a plea agreement with wealthy hedge fund manager
Jeffrey Epstein, convicted sex offender who abused dozens of
underage women (image from Vox).

Trump with former campaign manager Paul Manafort, convicted last year
on tax fraud charges and recently found guilty of lying to the FBI,
Robert Mueller's investigators, and the grand jury after pleading guilty
to conspiracy and agreeing to cooperate with the Mueller team's
investigation (image from Chicago Tribune).

Trump with former campaign advisor Roger Stone, recently charged
with lying to Congress and obstructing the House Intelligence Committee's
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election,
 and now barred from speaking about the criminal case against him after
posting a threatening photo of the judge assigned to his case
(image from Decider).

These examples are just the most recent in a long list of Trump associations gone awry.  Let's hope he has better luck with the North Korean dictator.  Or if not, perhaps Trump would be better off further pursuing his friendship with another Kim (since somehow this post seems to have ended up highlighting some of Trump's and his friends' sartorial selections as well):

Created using SuperLame! with image from Daily Express.

             

Current Events: Presidents Day Update

From Wallimpex

On this Presidents Day, we find ourselves in a state of national emergency over a southern border wall.  Naturally, right after declaring said emergency last Friday, our fearless leader immediately left town for a leisurely long weekend of golf in Florida (because that is what you do when you consider the nation to be in crisis?).  In case you missed it, you can watch Donald Trump's extremely long and confusingly rambling speech here, or you can enjoy yourself and watch the much shorter and definitely more coherent Saturday Night Live version below:

As a bonus, here is the Weekend Update segment from SNL, also covering the national emergency declaration:

Of course, little Donnie does have other things to worry about besides a national emergency.  He just completed his annual physical, and the verdict is in - Trump is now officially obese.  He probably decided that a weekend of golf was a good way to start a personal weight loss campaign.

From MLive

But maybe he should have addressed this issue last year when he was warned that he was only one pound away from obesity and was given guidelines for a healthier diet and more exercise by his favorite physician.  Instead, little Donnie felt that it was a great idea to serve fast food burgers, fries, and pizza at an official White House event, and also proceeded to go into self-imposed (and presumably physically inactive) confinement in Washington to protest not getting exactly what he wanted for his southern border wall.  No wonder he gained four pounds instead of losing the 10 to 15 recommended last year!

On this Presidents Day, when many federal workers and government contractors are still trying to deal with the aftermath of the longest government shutdown in history, political leaders of both parties grapple with the repercussions of a baseless national emergency, and our capricious president, like some modern day Nero, plays golf while the nation is in turmoil, let's try to enjoy our official government holiday.  Strange days indeed!

From Kiwi Hellenist

                 

Current Events: Working Hard, or Hardly Working?

Donald Trump's favorite way to start the day - watching
televised new stories about Donald Trump
(created using SuperLame! with image from Outside the Beltway).

I doubt that anyone was surprised to find out from the leaked information about Donald Trump's private schedule that he spends very little time actually engaged in presidential activities.  Only 15% of his day is spent in meetings, mostly made up of his daily presidential briefings (with an emphasis on "brief"), but a whopping 60% of his time is spent on activities such as watching television, reading newspapers, and tweeting or making phone calls in response to what he sees and reads:

Donald Trump, large and in charge - of the TV remote
(created using SuperLame! with image from Time).

The President's day starts very early, but he spends the first five hours in his private residence rather than in the Oval Office engaged in these unstructured activities, euphemistically dubbed "executive time" by his administration (but known in the real world as "recess", of course!).  It is no secret that the man who once claimed that he does not watch much television in reality watches about 4 to 8 hours a day.  And why does he watch so much TV?  Here is his own explanation:

No caption needed here! (image from Grabien)

Because who knew that governing the nation would be so much work, and why would you meet with federal government bureau and department experts in person for in depth discussions of important issues when you can just turn on the boob tube and let it tell you what to do?

               

Current Events: The Devil Is in the Details

From The Hill

Well, this is a new take on little Donnie Trump's presidency!  According to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, God wanted Donald Trump to be President of the United States.  I'm sorry, Sarah, but I'm afraid it's becoming more and more obvious that it was the Devil himself who was involved in the details of that particular election:

From Left Futures

                

Current Events: "Hamberder King" Donnie Trump, the Poster Boy for a Fast Food Diet?

*Hamberders, anyone?  A fast food feast at the White House
(created using SuperLame! with image from Vox).

Seriously, is this any way to make America great again?

                

Current Events: Little Donnie Trump's Vanity Wall

Created using SuperLame! with images from Mashable, Washington
Examiner, and TransparentPNG.

Little Donnie Trump is truly obsessed with his border wall idea.  He has dug in like a blood-sucking tick with his demand for a bloated 5+ billion dollars to build this wall.  But make no mistake, the border wall has little to do with border security and everything to do with stoking his ego.  It is his vanity wall.  So here's an idea - instead of concrete or even steel, why not construct the wall from smoke and mirrors, which is a much more accurate representation of how Trump's wall will function anyway.
             

Current Events: Little Donnie Trump Explains His Border Wall

Main image from FanSided; transparency from Viral Donald Trump.

". ..why will you say that I am mad? ...It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night... You fancy me mad.  Madmen know nothing.  But you should have seen me.  You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight -- with what dissimulation I went to work! ...would a madman have been so wise as this..." (Edgar Allen Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart")
             

Current Events: Setting Boundaries

From Zazzle

The only border walls (or is it fences? or slats?) our nation truly needs are the ones around little Donnie Trump's adult day care playpen!

                

Current Events: Love Them or Hate Them?

From Yahoo! Finance

The 2018 White House Christmas decorations were revealed last week, and one area in particular has caught the attention of the internet.  The hallway of conical red trees devoid of decorations drew a number of negative comments ("blood red" was used often to describe them), forcing Melania Trump to defend the look.  Apparently a similar slew of negative comments was directed at a different hallway of trees last Christmas, this one featuring two rows of arching icy bare branches:

From Elite Daily

So what do you think?  Personally, I rather like a minimalist look and the red trees don't bother me, but I do think that the rather bilious green carpet should be replaced.  Maybe when the holiday season is over the White House could auction off the trees and use the funds for new hallway flooring.  Wood or tile would be a better choice anyway, but if carpet must be used please at least do not choose this pattern, Melania (although the red trees would probably feel right at home):

From Idyllopus Press

Here's a thought - perhaps it is time to continue this new White House Christmas tradition of the annual holiday hallway of horrors!  People are probably going to complain about some aspect of the décor anyway.  Why not have some fun with it and just give them what they want?  I'm wondering if subconsciously Melania is riffing on a theme here, as I am seeing a similarity between these images,

From New Haven Register

From The Grio

and this scene from the 1946 French film "La Belle et La Bête" (The Beauty and the Beast):

The captive beauty, the frightening mansion... the only thing missing from these images is the Beast (although we all know he is probably lurking somewhere in the building petulantly tweeting away, and highly unlikely to ever transform into a kind prince)!  Melania, might I suggest a corridor of arm-held Christmas candelabras for next year's holiday hallway?

Or how about two rows of giant nutcrackers with chomping mechanical mouths (after all, the The Nutcracker ballet is based on a rather scary tale by E. T. A. Hoffman, a writer of Gothic horror stories)?  What an image that would be with Melania walking down the middle of all those snapping jaws!  Maybe they will remind her of the news media?

There is always the theme of Christmas ghosts and greed from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Heartless and avaricious Scrooge would be the perfect representation of our current president.  President Scrooge could be visited by the ghosts of presidents past, present, and future - maybe they can convince him to mend his ways?

I wonder if Melania grew up with the tradition of parkelj, the Slovenian version of creepy Krampus?  If so, this image will probably strike terror into her heart:

From Imgur

Come to think of it, a lot of Yuletide traditions are rather frightening, and who better to highlight these traditions at the White House than the terrifying Trump administration?

Only if the truth is a witch, little Donnie, only if the truth is a witch
(from The Everett Herald). 

             

Current Events: Words Fail Me...

Created using SuperLame! with image from New York Post

I am truly dumbfounded by the recent revelation that Ivanka Trump used her personal e-mail for official government business.  Was she in some sort of a walking coma for the duration of her father's presidential campaign and then well into his term as president?  Or perhaps she has perfected the art of tuning out everything her father says after years of listening to his wild and often untrue rambling statements.  I wish we could all be so blasé about her father's blathering!  Note to Trump family - you might want to put this under the Christmas tree for Ivanka this year:

From Amazon

             

Current Events: Somebody Needs to Take a Basic Ecology Course...

Created using SuperLame! with image from Quartz.

It would have been nice if Trump's trip to California had been a learning experience for him, so that he stops coming up with nonsensical solutions to a serious problem (and no, Finland's president did not tell him that they control wildfires by raking).  Unfortunately, this does not seem to have been a teachable moment for our president (is anyone surprised?).

Created using SuperLame! with image from Vox.