Nursery Rhymes [updated]: Wee Donald Trumpie
Nursery Rhymes [updated]: Trumpty Dumpty
Goodnight POTUS
Sweet dreams. And trust us, you’re going to want to enable full screen for this.
6 Face-Saving Excuses POTUS Can Use to Resign
Dear POTUS,
This governing shit is hard, am I right? Obama made it look easy. He made a chump out of you.
Turns out this whole leader-of-the-free-world gig cuts into the time you have available for golfing, Twitter rants and pussy grabbing.
But I’ve got some good news for you: You don’t have to do this. You can just quit and go back to Trump Tower.
I know, I know, you have a thing about not looking like a loser.
That makes you smart.
So, because I care, I made you a list of reasons you can use to quit and still save some (orange) face.
You’ll like these; they blame someone else for your fai– uh, challenges.
For your convenience, I made them all less than 140 characters.
See? Any reasonable person will understand why you’re quitting and totally not think you’re a pathetic loser. You don’t have to tell them any of the real reasons, like the fact that your coke dealer can’t get past White House security and you’re sick of having to go to Mar-a-Lago every time you need blow.
So don’t wait another minute. Pick a reason and plug it into this handy template I’ve included below. Sign it, take a picture, tweet it. And maybe make a copy and give it to Pence to make it all official.
Then off to the golf course with you! You deserve it! Bigly!
Dear Americans,
I, [your name], hereby submit my resignation from the office of the President of the United State of America. While I would have done GREAT things – YUGE things — for this country, I can’t now because __________________.
So blame ____________________________.
I’m gonna go play golf and tweet about how amazing things would have been if I would have finished my term. And I’m taking Bannon with me.
Sincerely,
______________________
[sign here]
How to Know if Administration Officials are Lying
Everyone wants to believe that their elected officials are telling the truth, or at least only engaging in some harmless “spin.” But lying is a common trait among politicians. It’s our job as citizens to call it out.
The first step in getting your government to be honest is to know when you’re being lied to.
Different administration officials lie for different reasons and in different ways. Let’s take a look at some high profile positions and the signals they send when they’re completely full of shit.
Press Secretary
Why he lies: When it’s your job to step in front of journalists everyday and try to make a lunatic look sane, the temptation to lie can be overpowering. Also, his lunatic boss tells him to.
Learn the signs: Reddening of the cheeks, rising tone, stammering and mispronunciations.
.
National Security Advisor
Why he lies: So he won’t get prosecuted under a 200+ year old law no one else has ever had the balls to break. And probably, his boss told him to.
Learn the signs: Straight out of the Reagan playbook, he may suddenly claim not to remember the details of something he was once adamantly denied.
Counselor to the President
Why she lies: Unclear, but appears either to be a desire to achieve some personal notoriety or a sycophantic wish to appease an orange demagogue. Because, let’s face it, telling the truth just makes him look bad.
Learn the signs: You’ll want to check Politifact before believing so much as a quoted breakfast menu from this woman.
POTUS
Why he lies: Ahem. Small hands.
Learn the signs: Are his lips moving? Are sounds coming out of this mouth? Has he tweeted? Odds are, he’s telling you something so fabricated the hem needs Fray Check®.
What to Do When You Hate Your President’s Friends
Is your president running with the wrong crowd? Are a few bad apples filling his head with morally and constitutionally questionable notions he wouldn’t come up with on his own?
If your president is insecure, he can be susceptible to the influence of corrupt advisors and this could cause him to engage in risky behavior that’s dangerous for him — and the nation.
What can a citizen do? Forbidding the connection probably won’t work and could play right into the hands of the evil aide by strengthening their bond.
Some experts advocate for providing the president with good role models in hopes that decency and good judgment will rub off. Other experts argue that we don’t have time for that shit.
In very serious cases, where the health of our democracy hangs in the balance and lives are at stake, citizens may need to resort to desperate measures.
One such approach is to use reverse psychology. Instead of complaining about your president’s choice of companions, praise the companion over your president. Talk up the advisor’s strength and smarts, and draw an unfavorable comparison with the president’s own qualities. You can even go so far as to imply that the advisor is the one with true control and the president is merely a puppet. The more you can get this idea repeated by “the media,” the better the chance of its success.
Widespread messaging such as this will create a fear in your president that people perceive him as a weak “loser” and he may decide he has no choice but to assert his dominance by firing the offending advisor.
A crude, underhanded strategy, to be sure. But as the saying goes, “Desperate times…”
I Call Same Seats
We were all introduced to the concept of “same seats” in childhood — you get to keep the seat you had before. That very one. Not the one next to it, or behind it, or right up next to the teacher…the same seat you started in.
Same seats is a great policy. For school busses. And classrooms. And the back of your mom’s station wagon or SUV.
Same seats is not applicable to the United States Supreme Court.
Republicans keep insisting that the seat once belonging to Antonin Scalia belongs to a conservative. To a strict constructionist. To someone just like Scalia. They were affronted that, due to Scalia’s unexpected demise, President Obama — liberal, divisive, lame duck, Kenyan-born Obama — had the opportunity to fill the now-empty chair in our nation’s highest court. Scalia died on February 13, 2016. President Obama’s term ended on January 19th, 2017. By any calculation, there was plenty of time, and a Constitutional responsibility, to try to fill the seat. Yet, we all know that Merrick Garland has never been voted on, and the seat remains vacant, splitting the court 4-4.
Now, the Republicans are happy that Trump has the opportunity to fill Scalia’s seat with another conservative. Pundits galore, and Republican politicians, have been talking for nearly a year now about how “Scalia’s seat” should be filled with another conservative…because it’s “Scalia’s seat.”
Same seats is not applicable to the United States Supreme Court.
It’s a child’s game. A way of asserting dominance. Grasping for what you had and making sure no one takes it from you. As an adult, trying to call same seats in a conference room or a waiting room will, at best, get you strange looks. It’s certainly not a way to govern.
However, if you want to apply the concept of same seats, well, strict constructionist, anti-equality Scalia never should have taken Earl Warren’s seat. From 1953 to 1969, Justice Warren presided over a court that “elaborated a doctrine of fairness” in a time of vast social change. The court that, among other successes, outlawed segregation; barred racial discrimination in voting, in marriage laws, in the use of public parks, airports and bus terminals and in housing sales and rentals; extended the boundaries of free speech; ruled out compulsory religious exercises in public schools; held that federal prisoners could sue the government for injuries sustained in jail; and sustained the right to disseminate and receive birth control information.
That’s the kind of same seats I can get behind.