March
... when Washington is consumed by Russia Mania, to the point where the panels of expert speculators on CNN are being fed intravenously on-air so they don’t have to take even a moment’s break from speculating about all the alleged things that the Russians have allegedly been up to. Adding fuel to the fire is FBI Director James Comey, who tells a hearing of the House Committee on Holding Hearings that the Russians definitely were involved in the 2016 election and currently control the Department of Commerce, the Coast Guard and as many as eight state legislatures.
For his part, President Tweet declares — and Fox News confirms — that the allegations that Russia helped him are FAKE NEWS and furthermore the Russians had numerous contacts with Democrats, including Barack Obama, the Clintons, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. This raises the question: If all these Russians were over here making contacts and interfering with our elections, who the hell was running Russia? Poland?
On the legislative front, the big story is Obamacare, which the Republicans have been running against for seven straight years. Their message has been: “Vote for us, and we WILL get rid of Obamacare!” So now that they control the White House and both houses of Congress, there can be no stopping them. It’s time to deliver! GET READY FOR A REPUBLICAN-LEADERSHIP-STYLE BUTT-WHUPPIN’, OBAMACARE!
When the smoke clears, Obamacare is sitting at the bar, unscathed, sipping a whiskey and flirting with the barmaid. Republican congressional leaders are strewn all over the barroom floor, noses bleeding, underpants pulled over their foreheads. But this setback does not deter them for long. They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, tuck themselves back in and start making plans for their next bold legislative masterstroke. For that is the kind of leadership they are.
On a much sadder note, Chuck Berry , a genuine original American genius, duckwalks off to that big bandstand in the sky. His songs told stories; his guitar made you dance; his lyrics made you smile. Nobody else could have written (to pick one of many examples) this analysis, from the basically perfect song “Maybellene,” of automotive thermodynamics:
The rainwater blowin’ all under my hood
I knew that was doin’ my motor good
In sports, National Football Concussion League team owners approve the moveof the Oakland Raiders to Nevada, where the team will be known as the Las Vegas Point Spreads. NFCL Commissioner Roger Goodell, asked if he thought a Las Vegas team could consistently draw adequate crowds, answers: “Two words: topless cheerleaders.”
Speaking of excitement, in ...
April
... tension mounts on the Korean Peninsula when Vice President Pence visits South Korea and, while expressing resolve and gazing sternly across the DMZ, is brushed by an extremely low-flying North Korean missile that leaves him clothed in nothing but boxer shorts and a red necktie. In response, Trump vows to “send some really huge Navy boats over there, believe me.” Pentagon sources note that this threat is contingent upon the Navy being able to get the engines started.
The Senate confirms the Neil Gorsuch nomination by a 54-to-45 vote after Republican senators invoke the “nuclear option” under which nobody is allowed to go to the bathroom until a vote has been taken. This brings the Supreme Court back to its full complement of nine justices, at least six of whom are believed to still be alive.
In a break with tradition, Trump does not attend the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, despite assurances from the association that it will be “a fun evening” featuring “lighthearted nonpartisan entertainment” including “a traditional dunk tank.” But another Washington tradition is upheld as the president and first lady host the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which the president, using his height and weight advantage, wins easily. CNN broadcasts a Special Report alleging that Easter is also a thing in Russia.
Bill O’Reilly, beset by accusations of sexual harassment, is fired by Fox News and immediately hired as director of new project development by the Weinstein Co.
In aviation news, United Airlines (“The Fidget Spinner of Airlines”) breaks new customer-service ground when it decides that a 69-year-old passenger who has already boarded his flight must be “re-accommodated” via a technique similar to the one the Mexican army used to re-accommodate the Texans at the Alamo, leaving him with a concussion, broken teeth and a broken nose. At first United’s CEO defends the airline’s actions on the grounds that, quote, “We have the collective IQ of a starfish.” But after a firestorm of public outrage he apologizes and promises that in the future United will employ a “more humane” re-accommodation policy based on “respect for our customers and, when needed, tranquilizer darts.”
In college basketball, the NCAA men’s tournament — which epitomizes the true spirit of American amateur athletics — concludes when a Nike team, which got to the finals by beating another Nike team, wins the championship by defeating yet another Nike team, triggering jubilant celebrations far into the night at Nike corporate headquarters.
Speaking of triggering, in ...
May
... Trump fires FBI Director James Comey in an effort to get rid of this pesky FAKE NEWS — as confirmed by Fox News — Russia distraction so the administration can get on with the critical work of failing to enact its agenda. The result of the firing, of course, is that the political-media complex becomes even MORE obsessed with the Russians, who, according to CNN sources, now make up 47 percent of the population of Washington, D.C. Under intense pressure to do something, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whose name can be rearranged to spell “Snootier Nerds,” appoints former FBI director Robert Mueller (“Mr. Leer Trouble”) as special counsel, with the power to, quote, “investigate this Russian thing until the Earth crashes into the sun.”
In other political developments, Greg Gianforte, a Republican running for Montana’s vacant congressional seat, gets national headlines when he body-slams a reporter for the Guardian newspaper. He is immediately hired as director of customer relations by United Airlines.
No, seriously, despite being charged with assault, Gianforte wins easily, yet another indication that in much of the nation journalists enjoy the same level of popularity as head lice.
In international news, Trump attends the Group of Seven summit in Sicily, where a major agenda item is climate change, which the president has stated — and Fox News has confirmed — is a HOAX. The summit ends in disappointment when the heads of state of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom inform Trump that he cannot legally fire them.
In sports, the Kentucky Derby is won by a horse with a large swoosh tattooed on its butt.
Speaking of triumphs, in ...
June
... Republican congressional leaders determined to avenge their humiliating defeat at the hands of Obamacare emerge after months of closed-door meetings with a new, smarter repeal strategy. The GOP, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch “Mojo” McConnell, is cagey about the details, but sources say the plan involves a “high cliff” and a “really heavy safe,” which the Republicans plan to purchase from the Acme Corp.
In dramatic testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, former FBI director Comey admits, under intense questioning from Democratic senators, that he cannot say “with absolute certainty” that Vice President Pence is not a Russian citizen.
Meanwhile there are troubling indications that the relationship between the White House and the news media may be worsening:
●Trump orders a drone strike against “Morning Joe.”
● Jim Acosta bites off Sean Spicer’s nose.
In international news, the United Nations Security Council, in its strongest response yet to continued North Korean missile tests, unanimously passes a resolution threatening to suspend Kim Jong Un’s Netflix account.
Amazon.com, the Death Star of Retail, becomes even larger and more powerful when it announces plans to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion, or enough money to buy nearly four pounds of top sirloin at current Whole Foods prices. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Facebook announces that it has reached a total of 2 billion users, who in 2017 alone have already posted a total of 17 trillion impassioned statements of their political views, which have changed a total of zero minds.
Speaking of the informational value of social media, in ...
July
... President Trump, following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, tweets a video clip from the Internet in which he body-slams a wrestler with a CNN logo superimposed over the wrestler’s head. This in itself is so embarrassing that everybody assumes the story cannot get any stupider, but CNN rises to the occasion by announcing that its “KFile” investigative team has ferreted out the identity of the image’s creator, a private citizen who goes by the Internet name “HanA--holeSolo.” (We are not making this up.) In a lengthy story on this journalistic coup, CNN magnanimously declares that it will not reveal HanA--holeSolo’s identity because he apologized and “showed his remorse” for other things he has tweeted that CNN, in its constitutionally prescribed role as Internet police, deemed unacceptable. And thus the republic is saved.
In other news, Trump’s appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director triggers the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer, followed by the departure of chief of staff Reince Priebus, whom Trump replaces with John Kelly, who immediately fires ... Anthony Scaramucci! These events reinforce the growing perception that, in terms of managerial sophistication, the Trump White House is basically a Chuck E. Cheese’s with a Rose Garden.
On the scandal front, Donald Trump Jr. confirms that in 2016 he met with a high-powered Russian lawyer about obtaining incriminating information on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. Trump Jr. claims the meeting was no big deal because — and Fox News confirms this — “it was last year, for God’s sake.”
On Capitol Hill, the Senate Republican leadership executes its plan to repeal Obamacare, which goes smoothly right up until the moment when the Acme Corp. safe, which was supposed to fall on the Affordable Care Act, somehow lands on “Mojo” McConnell instead. Undaunted, the GOP leaders immediately begin working on a new strategy. This one, sources say, will involve a “really heavy anvil.”
In business news, Amazon purchases the state of Montana, which the retail giant plans to use, according to its press release, for “storage.” Coca-Cola says it will replace Coke Zerowith Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, which as the name suggests contains no sugar. It does contain rat poison, but marketing studies show that consumers are much more concerned about sugar.
As the month ends, the Nevada parole board grants parole to O.J. Simpson, who will be released from prison in October, at which time he will join the Customer Compliance Division of United Airlines.
Speaking of violence, in ...
August
... white nationalists and Nazis converge on Charlottesville for a Unite the Right rally that ends in tragedy when a woman protesting the rally is killed by a car driven by a man linked to a white supremacist group. In response, President Trump, displaying a degree of moral discernment seldom seen outside the flatworm community, declares that there was blame “on many sides,” further noting that there were “some very fine people on both sides,” apparently a reference to the Nazi party’s Salvation Army branch.
With emotions running high in the wake of Charlottesville, ESPN executives decide to pull announcer Robert Lee off the broadcast of the University of Virginia football game, out of concern that his name might be disturbing to those viewers who are as stupid as ESPN executives.
In other protest news, police in Berkeley, Calif., battle anti-fascist activists, or “antifa,” who fight fascism by violently assaulting anybody who might do or say or think something the “antifa” deem unacceptable.
On the political front, Steve Bannon resigns as chief White House strategist so he can spend more time killing puppies with a hammer.
International tension mounts when North Korea shoots a missile over Japan, prompting Trump, speaking from his Strategic Golf Club Command Bunker in New Jersey, to warn that North Korea will be met with “fire and fury ... the likes of which the world has never seen before.” Moments later the club’s 15th green is converted into a smoking crater 300 feet across by an explosion that club officials blame on “an electrical short.” This is confirmed by Fox News.
In England, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, retires from public appearances at the age of 96, after palace physicians determine that he actually passed away at age 93.
In a welcome diversion toward the end of this tumultuous month, Americans are treated to a rare celestial display as the sun is totally eclipsed by a 2,000-mile-wide Amazon logo. Fox News declares it to be “the greatest eclipse of any presidential administration ever,” although CNN reports that, according to its sources, there have been “suspiciously similar” eclipses in Russia.
Meanwhile back on Earth, in ...
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