Newer News…by Will Durst
One thing you got to give him, the Oval Office occupant knows his way around a misdirection. Every day the magnificent media magician manages to conjure up some wacky stunt, verbal flub or piece of shocking news designed to distract the spotlight from his staggering pile of emerging scandals in the manner of sawing a lady lobbyist in half in the front glass lobby of a children’s library. A partial chronicle of his repertoire consists of name- calling, fact- mangling, verbal burps, Russian hugs and making stuff up while denying stuff that everyone agrees on. Accompanied by loud crashes, bright…
IMAGINE OBAMA…by Will Durst
Interesting how the Republican Party’s attitude towards the office of the Presidency has changed in three short years. During the tenure of the previous POTUS, any imagined breach of protocol provoked outpourings of outrage with spokespeople twitching and yelling and waving their arms like one of those wind puppets parked outside used car lots. First Lady Michelle Obama once was chastised for baring her shoulders at a State Dinner; then the GOP went ballistic for a week because her husband wore a tan suit. During the days of the 44th president, opponents were so desperate for any hint of controversy, Sean…
Green-washing The White House…by Will Durst
In a recent speech by the president, the former golf resort magnate claimed his administration had done more for the environment than any other presidency, ever. Yes, he did. He said that. Out loud. Trotted out some facts and figures and studies to support his wacky assertions and managed to convey a deep condescending concern with a fairly straight face. Well, a fairly orange face. A very organic color for a Florida fruit. Donald Trump called himself an environmentalist. And reporters reported it. And viewers saw it. And listeners heard it. And absolutely nobody stood up and said, “No, no,…
Internet Privacy…by Will Durst
Internet privacy. Forget about it. It’s another of those oxymorons you hear so much about; like gluten- free dim sum or fully satisfied Game of Thrones fan or Donald Trump’s Modern Guide to Etiquette and Manners. You got a better chance of finding a pod of humpback whales in your office cubicle than online security. And the greatest threat in this confidentiality crisis is Facebook, the information octopus that disguises its sticky tentacles with cute kitten videos and pictures of grandmas blowing out birthday cake candles while it records your every keystroke. Every “like” of every post. Your favorite porn…
The report From Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Investigation…by Will Durst
The eagerly awaited Report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Investigation was finally released and cleared up the situation like a forty- pound dirtball dropped from the roof of a ten- story penthouse. Into a child’s wading pool. With children in it. Imaginary children, of course. The report was 448 pages long, only 52 short of a ream. Although both President Donald Trump and the Democratic Congress must be feeling like the full weight of a ream is banging them in the head. He, for what it said, and they, for what it didn’t. As surprising as a 420 run on…
RICH IS AS RICH DOES…by Will Durst
Stop the presses. Hold the phone. Call the queen. Ring a bell. Do the math. Cut the cheese. Bring the hurt. Mind the gap. Get a clue. Catch a break. Hook me up. Cancel lunch. Aid and abet. Alert the media. Blow the shofar. The cause of all this consternation? Evidence has emerged that rich people use their money to access privileges that poor folks can’t afford. I know, right? What next: the Pacific Ocean is moist? Plumbers are expensive? Landlords opposed to rent control? Couch cushions in suburban Midwestern basements soiled with beer stains? This isn’t just about being able to…
PEACHES: THE WALL . . . by Will Durst
President Donald Trump loves him some wall. Not the wall of corruption he’s surrounded himself with. Not that karmic wall of wasting all his political capital sucking up to superstitious xenophobes. Nor the huge self- erected wall that keeps him from learning or uttering or even caring about the truth. No, not those thick as a brick walls. We’re talking about his obsession with a physical structure on our Southern border. Which he’s variously described as being “big and beautiful, see- through, transparent, steel slats, concrete, fences, barriers, whatever you want to call it, you can call it Peaches.” So…
AFTER XMAS GIFT WISH LIST…by Will Durst
Way past time to congratulate the baby Jesus on the anniversary of his birth but especially for blessedly ending all those annoying unending ads for the Christmas sales only to be replaced by all those annoying unending ads for the after- Christmas sales. A major difference being- much fewer jingle bells on the soundtracks. It’s also a relief to have the traditional holiday music stuffed back into the poisonous mistletoe vault, meaning we’ll have to wait nine whole months to hear the same thirty songs sung by the same thirty dead white men. And Nat King Cole. As we throw…
TOP TEN COMEDIC NEWS STORIES OF 2018
Sit the kids down. Let the dogs out. Prop the grandparents up. The nation’s patience has been richly rewarded, because the eagerly awaited list of the Top Ten Comedic News Stories of 2018 has been officially released. This truly is the most wonderful time of the year. But first a caution: please do not confuse this list with the top ten legitimate news stories of 2018. No. No. No. They are as different as charcoal sketches of historic steam engines and a bucket of compost. Like golden- stitched, sequined blue jean jackets are to chocolate brownies. Bow ties and dirt…
GIVING THANKS 2018…by Will Durst
One thing we should all be grateful for this year, is that Thanksgiving is making its annual appearance at the earliest possible point on the 22nd. And it could not come at a better time, conveniently laying down a soft muffling blanket of brightly colored leaves over the scorched ruts of one of the most contentious elections in our nation’s history and 712 days before the next most contentious election in our nation’s history. One that officially kicked off on Wednesday November 7. The Fourth Thursday of November is the best of American holidays, a non- denominational feast of friends,…
Choreographed Twitching…by Will Durst
Sadly fascinating to endure another predictable dance performed on the national stage by our elected politicians in response to the recent horrendous concert shooting in Las Vegas. Well, not a dance, really, more like the choreographed twitching of an unruly mob. Both parties retired to their respective corners while spasmodically jerking and mumbling hushed gobbledygook that even first graders could recite verbatim in a show and tell version of Hypocritical Clichés. As surprising as milk- soaked hay after a missile strike on a dairy farm, Republicans slowly shook their heads somberly intoning that in the wake of such a tragic…
F’ing Chutes and Ladders…by Will Durst
Here’s the deal: You don’t start out by calling someone an “f’ing moron.” That’s a final exclamatory heave after exhausting all other slanders. Fool. Jerk. Pinhead. Nitwit. Idiot. Nincompoop. Moron. Until finally… f’ing moron. It doesn’t quite scale the heights of “total f’ing moron” or “banana faced monkey dribbler,” but it’s close. So Rex Tillerson must have been at the end of his rope when he flung that particular phrase of scorn and contempt at Donald Trump. Sounds like a spontaneous human explosion stemming from a well of frustration so deep it echoes. The sort of expletive one blurts out…
Hateful Haters Hating Hate…by Will Durst
Someone please tell the radical left to stop getting their panties in a bundle and quit calling our president a Nazi. Donald Trump proved himself a great friend of freedom when he promoted equivalency between the organized hate movement and people disgusted by them. Anyone who hates haters is equally responsible for hateful hating. That is obvious. After a riot broke out during a Unite the Right March in Charlottesville, Virginia, there was, according to President Trump, violence “on many sides.” He then sagely observed there are two sides to every story. Which is true. There are two sides to…
Thermonuclear Chicken…by Will Durst
Time to dig a bomb shelter. Stockpile some Kool- Aid. Nibble some Tootsie Rolls while catching a double feature at the drive- in. Pull out your pedal pushers and Hula- hoops. Stick a transistor radio in a front shirt pocket and Twist yourself into the ground replicating the gyrations of Elvis. Presley. Not Costello. Hipsters with clunky glasses and skinny ties should feel right at home as the world sinks back into the Eisenhower Era, with a new Missile Crisis currently and clumsily unfolding before our very eyes. It’s a knock- down, drag- out battle of incendiary rhetoric between the…
Make America Jurassic Again…by Will durst
President Donald Trump possesses a style described by friends as virile and intuitive and by foes as oafish and oblivious. Some see him a breath of fresh air, with a disarming directness and others consider him a blustering bully with the grace of a pile of crumbling cement blocks cascading off a flatbed truck. Passionate versus fool-hardy. Eager slash hasty. Swift or rash. But these are principally domestic arguments. The international community is not so divided. They view our new Chief Executive as a brutish barbarian whose goal is to antagonize the rest of the planet. Not just the other…
PRESIDENT RASKOLNIKOV
The firing of FBI Director James Comey by the President of the United States slammed Washington with the suddenness of a two- story bowling ball hitting the South Portico after being dropped from a blimp. And the repercussions have shot across the Capitol like a flurry of Kansas tornadoes, causing the entire Beltway to chant, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” A variety of reasons were given for the hasty dismissal. The FBI is in turmoil. Comey lost the confidence of the FBI rank and file. He did a lousy job. Way too tall. Has weird…
COVEY OF CAUCUSES…by Will Durst
During the Trump Care Meltdown, when the same Republicans that chanted “Repeal & Replace” for 7 years, folded like a broken down lawn chair in a category 5 hurricane, we learned about a couple mysterious Republican Congressional Caucuses instrumental in torpedoing the AHCA. These two groups come from such opposite sides of the political spectrum they undoubtedly have dartboards with each other’s pictures tacked to the middle. The Freedom Caucus is made up of members that formerly self- identified as Tea Partiers but changed their name to interact with civilized people. Of course we’re referring to those unsung heroes of…
BROKEN NEWS…by Will Durst
Supposedly, the Chinese or the Arabs or the Scientologists or one of those ancient inscrutable cultures, has a saying that goes “May you live in interesting times.” It is generally considered to be a curse. And America right now is living in the most interesting of times. It’s breathtaking how thrilling and frenetic the news has gotten. Every single day. Almost too exciting. Starting to look like one of those pre-opening credits sequences of a science- fiction movie that takes place in the ruins of a dystopian civilization. “And Then All Hell Broke Loose.” It’s not just we news junkies;…
The Trumpish Cabinet…by Will Durst
In typical liberal fashion, the mean weenie left has called Donald Trump’s cabinet horrible things. “Corrupt nitwits.” “Career criminals.” “Greedy thugs.” “Clueless dunces.” “Bad dancers.” But no one accuses them of being poor. Depending on whether you believe Bloomberg or the Wall Street Journal, the administration’s brain trust will be worth between 8 and 16 billion dollars. Trump’s not just going to drain the swamp, he’s going to subdivide it. Yes, he railed against Goldman- Sachs during the campaign, but a Commander- in- Chief knows the importance of expert money management, and The Donald has chosen a slew of people…
Skewered and Plattered by Will Durst
Shattered. Splattered. Scattered. Battered. Tattered. Skewered and Plattered. Barely mattered. That was the Democrats after November’s election. But surely in the months since, they’d come together to stand aligned in the face of the flaky imperiousness of our so- called President. You’d think. And ripe bananas make a fine masonry grout. The Democrats have lost their direction so completely they need a compass to wipe their butts. Incontestably, incontrovertibly and incredibly… useless. We are not speaking of a trifling of uselessness here. “Totally and utterly and unconditionally useless”- barely scratches the surface. The exact extent of the uselessosity exhibited by…
