Help Me
Questions: Am I naive? Am I a fool? Am I whistling in the dark?
Deep down inside, I’m certain it’s impossible for Donald Trump to become president of this holy land. Sure, this nation is chock-full of dopes, rubes, suckers, nitwits, halfwits and no-wits, mouth-breathers, the addle-pated, sausage-eatin’, lite-beer-drinking, jelly bean-addicted, ball-scratching, muffin-top exposing couch monkeys who don’t believe a thing in this cosmos exists unless they see it on TV, but are there enough of them to elect America’s Shart?
Are there some 60 to 70 million such evolutionary failures to elevate Donald Trump into the Oval Office?
How Many?
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I like to think not.
But this feeling is not based on any scientific polling data. It’s mainly faith that a species that can destroy itself, has not yet because there’s something within it stronger, smarter, more sane than everyday observation might indicate. Stronger, smarter, and saner enough not to turn this operation over to Trump.
If Donald Trump is elected president, this nation as a democracy is finished. Democracy itself will have proven to be as moribund a system as Soviet communism a quarter of a century ago. When the body politic can gather behind a grifting, insulting, know-nothing reality TV star and raise him to the position as the most powerful man on the planet, well then, democracy is a failure. And good riddance.
But I don’t want to believe any of that can happen. Can it?
Please tell me no.
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Very Good, Sir
So, Trump’s former butler, who’s now the in-house historian at the Trump villa Mar-a-Lago, takes to social media to recommend that Barack Obama be rubbed out in some way, shape, or form. Either our Army should pump him full of lead or executioners unspecified should hang him or he should be iced by any means necessary. One of the main reasons Obama should be removed from the rolls of the living, says this fellow, Anthony Senecal, is the “corruption” the current president has overseen.
Which is ironic considering what I wrote yesterday — that the Obama admin. has been historically clean, in terms of simple graft, personal gain, and monetary scandal. The “corruption” Senecal refers to, I imagine, is Obama’s putative secret identity as a Muslim Manchurian Candidate. Senecal writes:
I cannot stand the bastard. I don’t believe he’s an American citizen. I think he’s a fraudulent piece of crap that was brought in by the Democrats.
There you have it: Obama was brought in by the Democrats. What in the hell ever that means.
But let’s not be distracted by the depths of this great thinker’s rage and hatred. Let’s keep in mind that Donald Goddamned Trump had — and presumably still has — a freaking butler!
Does he have footmen as well. Groomsmen? Does a chambermaid change his bed linens? Does he dump his excreta out window from its ceramic receptacle every morning upon awakening?
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A butler, for chrissakes.
This whole Trump phenomenon gets more deranged every damned day.
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Feathergate
Men running for president used to participate in the age-old tradition of posing in Indian headdress with members of one Native American group or another. I suppose they don’t do it anymore because, well, it’s tacky as all hell and prob. insulting, considering only a very few tribes wore those stereotypical big headdresses. It’s the whole sneaky Jap, ugly Russian woman, murderous Arab, shiftless Negro thing. Y’know, the Injuns wore feathers and always were on the warpath, right?
So, I went looking for pix of prezes who donned the feathers. Funny thing is, I came across one photo of Barack Obama doing it in the Oval Office. I dunno. It looked awfully PhotoShop-py to me. I can’t imagine BHO engaging in such a thing. Ergo, I’m not posting that photo. Look for it yourself if you’re interested.
Anyway, here you go:
Calvin Coolidge
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Franklin Roosevelt
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Dwight Eisenhower
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Richard Nixon
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Jimmy Carter (With Iron Eyes Cody)
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As an added bonus, here’s Elvis in a war bonnet.
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Flashback
Guess which former US Senator from Indiana, former vice president, and scion of a wealthy newspaper publishing family made the rounds yesterday of the morning talk shows.
Yep, this guy:
James Danforth “Dan” Quayle
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And guess who he loves for president this year.
Nah, don’t. Why ruin your day?
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May 13th Birthdays
Daphne du Maurier — Romantic period novelist whose stories often left readers hanging; she eschewed neat tie-ups and satisfying endings. Her short story, “The Birds,” was adapted by screenwriter Evan Hunter for the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name. Hunter and Hitchcock, as Hollywood types are driven to do, changed much of the original story, stressing the eponymous avians as symbols for the dangerous, frightening sexuality lead character Melanie Daniels introduces to the town of Bodega Bay, California. BTW: Hitchcock apparently was inspired to make the film after the California town of Capitola was overrun with crazed and dying seabirds who suffered shellfish poisoning in 1961.
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Joe Louis — “The Brown Bomber,” Louis was the world’s heavyweight boxing champ in the late 1930s and throughout most of the ’40s. He’s credited with being the first black man to become a national hero in the US, overturning the previously-held attitude that black contenders were villains who were robbing white men of their deserved laurels.
Louis (R) With Muhammad Ali
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Jim Jones — Cult leader who somehow convinced nearly a thousand people to commit mass suicide in the jungles of Guyana in 1978 after members of the group had assassinated Leo Ryan and others when the congressman and his party visited the cult’s camp on a fact-finding mission.
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Harvey Keitel — Member of the stable of actors who perfected the New York amoral tough guy image, especially in films by Martin Scorsese. As a young man, he studied under Lee Strasburg at the Actors Studio. He was originally cast as Captain Willard in Francis Ford Coppolla’s Apocalypse Now but was replaced after a week of shooting by Martin Sheen because the director was dissatisfied with his portrayal.
Keitel (L) With Robert De Niro In “Taxi Driver”
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Armistead Maupin — Author of the Tales of the City novels about gay life in San Francisco. Ironically, early in his career Maupin worked in the newsroom of a TV station run by notorious conservative and future US Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina). Maupin admits to being conservative and even segregationist, like Helms, at the time. Maupin later disavowed any philosophical or moral connection with Helms.
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Manning Marable — Pulitzer Prize winner in history for his biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Marable was a Columbia University professor who also wrote biographies of W.E.B. du Bois and Medgar Evers, among other scholarly works dealing with race in America.
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Stevie Wonder — Born Stevland Hardaway Judkins and who originally performed under the name “Little Stevie,” he was inked to a recording contract with Motown’s Tamla Records when he was only 11 years old. Wonder’s a recognized genius but occasionally slips into treacle when he collaborates with the likes of Paul McCartney and Celine Dion.
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Allison Goldfrapp — Leader of the duo Goldfrapp (her stage partner, Will Gregory, plays the synthesizer), she sang for groups in the ambient techno and trip reggae genres before striking out on her own. Her releases were praised by critics but didn’t sell well until she moved more into the dance genre. Among her many inspirational influences are 1970’s Polish disco.
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On this day in 2013 Dr. Joyce Brothers died. A psychologist, she was the first person to host a TV show featuring relationship advice. She gained fame as the first woman to win the top prize on the $64,000 Question game show, cleaning up in the boxing category. She went on to serve as a commentator during the national TV broadcast of a Sugar Ray Robinson bout before her turn as a relationship expert. She said of herself once: “I invented media psychology. I was the first. The founding mother.” She made a fortune simply by being an extraordinarily smart woman.
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