Republican Hopefuls, America Hopeless

Let’s take a look at the possible Republican presidential candidates:

Fred Karger—Fred was the first person to officially declare that he’s running in 2012. Good thing to because he’s going to need the next 18 months for people to figure out who the hell he is. He’s a retired political consultant who went on some program and made derogatory comments about Obama. Apparently he thinks that’s all he has to do to get the republican nomination. Come to think of it, he may be right.

Herman Cain—Herman is the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and a political activist. He has been quoted as saying he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet if he were elected president because he doesn’t trust them. Yeah! Intolerance and discrimination, the American way! Why doesn’t he trust them? Because they’re trying to impose sharia law on American citizens. Uh, no they’re not. You’re just another fear-mongering sack of republican manure stankin’ up my air.

Mitt Romney—Mittens is coming back for a second round of his Plastic Mormon routine: Every hair in place, perfectly tailored suit, and not a thought in his head. The best part is Obama’s health care plan that Mittens has been railing against is basically the same plan he implemented as governor of Massachusetts. Bye Mitt, one more failure to add to the family scrapbook.

Tim Pawlenty—Governor of Minnesota who mannnnyyy zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Oh! Sorry, I dozed off there for a minute. Tim Pawlenty everyone, let’s hear it for him!

Mitch Daniels—Who?

Newt Gingrich—Blustering, bloated bloviator of all things anti-Democrat, Newt is also a low-life who divorced his first wife while she was in the hospital so he could marry his mistress. Don’t republicans always campaign on FAMILY VALUES? Well, everyone is allowed one mistake, I’m sure Newt regrets his actions. Let me just read a little more of his biography . . . and . . . uh huh, ok, well apparently he divorced the second wife so he could again marry his mistress. I believe this is now known as the John McCain platform.

Mike Pence—see Mitch Daniels

John Thune—A senator from South Dakota, Thune is apparently a rising star in the Republican Party, but let’s be serious: South Dakota? No one from a state south of Iowa is going to vote for a senator from the Dakotas unless he’s bringing cupcakes and fireworks to every polling center in the United States on election night. Even then we won’t vote for him. Oh sure, we’ll take a chocolate cupcake with vanilla icing and a sparkler and politely say thank you, but by the time we’ve cast our vote, the cupcake will be gone and the sparkler burned out, much like our interest in John Thune.

Haley Barbour—The governor of Mississippi is a red-faced, sweating southern baboon who also happens to be a card-carrying racist. His praise for racist groups is well-documented as his mild back-pedaling when he gets caught saying things in public when people are actually listening to his fat ass. Let’s recap: southern, white, and racist. We have a winner! Ding, ding, ding! Ladies and gentleman, your 2012 republican presidential candidate: Haley Barbour!

The Rest of the Story

I was watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 the other day. It was an old Hercules movie and at the end robot Tom Servo was free styling a “what ever happened to Hercules” bit. Tom’s version had old Herc being out of the demi-God business and spending his time on the couch drinking beer and watching game shows while his wife Iole worked data entry at Finger Hut. It’s a very funny skit and it occurred to me it could be a good writing exercise for myself, so what follows is my “what ever happened to the Terminator”. I’m ignoring the 3^rd and 4^th movies and starting from the end of the 2^nd film.

After helping to save the world the Terminator had been restored to about 80% of his original state and for a while he slept on the floor at Sarah and John Connor’s place, but they moved around too much. He got tired of the string of cheap motel rooms and $1 tacos from a local bar so he set out on his own, leaving in the middle of the night to hitch a ride with Smelly Joe, a long-haul trucker out of Dubuque whose body odor was a mixture of spring onions and an infected sore. The Terminator road with Joe as far as Philadelphia, thanking the friendly truck driver by accidentally crushing his hand while shaking it goodbye which got him arrested.

While in the holding cell the Terminator met Dennis LaFontaine, a lawyer from Upper Darby who had been arrested for kidnapping his ex-wife’s cat Sprinkles and entering her in a feline beauty contest where she took 4^th place and was awarded Miss Kitty Congeniality. Dennis offered to defend the Terminator for free if he would help him move a refrigerator from an abandoned building he owned.

Once at the building, the Terminator found out it was actually 6 refrigerators. They were all filled with counterfeit Sony portable DVD players that were built in the Philippines, and set to only play Jean Claude Van Damme movies. He loaded them onto an “El Jeffe Fried Ice Cream” truck Dennis had bought for a pack of Pall Malls in the jail the evening before. Dennis and the Terminator then started driving the truck cross-country, heading for Montana to sell the players at the Butte Butterbean and Biscuits Festival.

Unfortunately they got lost in Illinois and on a dirt road outside of Decatur the truck was pulled over by career highway patrolman and stickler for all things regulatory, Sergeant Barry Uppersweat. A search of the vehicle revealed the illegal DVD players and Dennis and the Terminator were immediately arrested and sent to federal lock-up.

In a swift trial, the Terminator was convicted of transporting illegal material across state lines and larceny while Dennis testified against him, telling authorities the Terminator was the titular head of an electronics counterfeiting ring that spread from Hong Kong to Pittsburg. The Terminator didn’t help himself at trial by simply repeating, “I’m looking for Sarah Connor”, “I’ll be back” and “Hasta la vista baby” over and over.

The Terminator was sent to the Forrest City Federal Correctional Complex in Arkansas to serve out his sentence and that’s where he remains today. He has become a mentor to many of the younger prisoners and was allowed to create a business selling earthworms for jellybeans and Pez to the local fishing club, “Goober Finch’s Caterwaulin’ Catfishers”. He is set for release in 2016 and is already planning a world-wide book tour for his memoir: “Trapped in Time and Arkansas”.

Now that story would make a really bad movie. Starring Jean Claude Van Damme.

Waiting for My Audit

I did my federal taxes over the weekend using a free tax prep website, but I don’t think I chose wisely. I could have gone with H&R Block or TurboTax. Instead I somehow ended up on www.taxesnyet.com. It started with a six page screed against paying taxes at all, written entirely in a Ukrainian dialect of Russian. I decided the prudent thing to do was pay even though the diatribe made a valid point about communist apparatchiks stealing from the proletariat thus negating any loyalty the hoi polloi should feel for the trenchant power-mongers of Mother Russia.

I loaded the forms and started answering the questions. I had my W-2 ready but the program instead asked me if I had received a “TS-2x work order for services rendered”. Very unsure of myself I went ahead and filled in the boxes with my information although I ended up with 37 rectangles containing binary code, a parallelogram that asked for my shoe size and an attachment with a recipe for spicy chicken salad.

Clicking through the screens on income I was asked if I had made at least 27% of my money through giraffe farming. Luckily I had sold Uncle McTavish’s Wild African Animal Preserve and Tire Repair Center last year so I didn’t have to pay that pesky Keep the Veldt Green import tax. Another screen wanted to know if I had been working on the railroad all the live-long day and if so, did I want to take the engineers’ coveralls-and-hat clothing deduction.

There were many odd questions. How many dependents did I have that would be considered “expendable”? Did I receive over $123 in tips from grave robbing? Had I taken out a loan from a man named Sal who lived in a Lincoln town car parked behind Cavatelli’s dry-cleaners in South Jersey? Do you own more than 3 pair of socks? And the strangest one of all: how much wood did your woodchuck chuck and did you sell it at a profit or a loss? What a ridiculous question. Everyone knows the chucked wood market has been stagnant for a decade; of course I took a loss.

I’m dubious about filing these tax forms but I spent seven and half hours filling them out so I guess I’ll mail all 231 pages off to Washington along with the coupon for a lower tax bracket if I pay quarterly next year on my eBay business selling Don Knotts memorabilia. What the hell, at least I’m getting a refund of 37,000 rubles and a goat.

Replacing Glenn Beck

I hear Fox News may not renew Glenn Beck’s contract when it’s up at the end of the year. This will leave them sans a conspiracy-theorizing zeppelin-sized gas bag and I thought I would try out for the job. Here is my audition piece:

The unrest in Wisconsin was predicted by me over a year ago because I am privy to information others are not. There are prophecies, arcane messages, whose meanings are given to only a chosen few. I didn’t ask to be one of the vessels through which this information was funneled. Ok, I did ask for it. It’s a burden I sought out and I bear it for you my fellow Americans.

The voices come to me while I’m in my Chamber of Secrets, a sensory deprivation tank constructed of aged oak cut from a tree that grew out of the grave of Edgar Cayce and filled with water blessed by a Zoroastrian priest named Bernie Schwartz whose been reincarnated as the owner of my favorite deli. As I floated placidly, the words bubbled to the surface: The day will pass when in the land of cheese a walking man cuts thousands until they bleed and the demigods flee in terror.

Wisconsin. Let’s look at that name in more detail. Wis-con-sin. I’ll concentrate on the middle part first. CON. This is what the unions are pulling on the republican-led elected government. The con of collective bargaining that is bankrupting this country both morally and financially and its leading to the unrest in the Middle East! Libya would not be in the turmoil it is today if the teacher’s unions had not negotiated 10 sick days! It’s all there people. They see our freedom to stay home and still get paid when we have a sinus infection and they want it for themselves! Don’t be blinded by liberals and socialists or podiatrists and chiropodists who say “we deserve these sick days, we deserve fair wages, we deserve health insurance that will actually say yes to needed procedures.” You deserve what the conservatives say you deserve. You are our sheep and we are the shepherds.

The last part of the name: SIN. It’s a heavy word my friends, but that’s what the people of Wisconsin are doing. The Bible says “Judge not lest ye be judged yourself” and they are judging the good and trustworthy fiscal conservative administration for what they are trying to accomplish. The Bible also says “and God created the heaven and the earth”. It doesn’t say “and God created the ACLU and the pipefitters union local #79.” Citizens of Wisconsin you are Sodomites, you are Philistines, you are vipers in the pit of my stomach trying to keep me from telling the truth . . .

(sobbing) I’m sorry for crying. I just love this country so much and I try to educate my viewers and . . . I’m sorry, I’m ok, let’s continue.

The first part of the name Wisconsin: WIS. . . . . . . . . . . Ok, I don’t know what this means and that itself is dangerous. The name Wisconsin has imperiled this country with its trickery, its sinful ways and the deception of what “wis” means. They have put us all at risk with their . . . wissyness.

People, all I’m asking is that you listen to me and believe every word I’m saying, that’s all. Trust that my psychosis is good for the country. Be afraid. Of everything.

I’m sending this to Fox this weekend. Shoot, I forgot to mention Nazis. I’ll have to go back and add that before I email it. I hope they let me keep Glenn’s blackboard.