The Trump Files

In September 2019, Trump wanted to bring Taliban leaders to Camp David to show there were no hard feelings about 9/11 until advisers persuaded him that might not be a good idea. Undeterred, president Deals 'R Us outfoxed the Taliban by getting them to sign an accord under which the U.S. not only agreed to withdraw its troops by May 2021, it also sanctioned the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, and another thousand in the following months. Oh, and the Trump White House agreed to help lift all international sanctions against the Taliban. In return, the Taliban agreed to start peace talks with the Afghan government (how did that work out?) and to stop shooting at American soldiers while they were preparing to leave the country.

Ever the hands-on half-wit, Trump later spoke with Baradar by phone, reporting that they "had a very good talk." The relationship with the mullah is "very good," he said, adding that "they [the Taliban] want to cease violence," a day after the Taliban launched dozens of well-planned attacks against Afghans and Americans.

Now Afghanistan has fallen and is in the hands of the fanatical Taliban militants. As Trump would say, "It is what it is." As for the ever-compassionate Hannity, he hasn't let the dire situation in that country go unnoticed, offering these sage words of advice on his daily radio show: "How would you like to be in Kabul today, as an American, and you can't get to the airport? Where are you thinking your life is headed? If you're one of those family members, I bet you're not sleeping...MyPillow.com. That's where I go. I fall asleep faster, I stay asleep longer. These are going to be sleepless nights for so many of our fellow Americans. We've got to get them home."

Yes, you read that right. Sean Hannity, Trump's go-to guy when it comes to fake news and conspiracy theories, turned the fall of Afghanistan into a COMMERCIAL for MY PILLOW!—neatly wrapped in the American flag and faux "concern" for Americans and their families caught up in the turmoil. Whatever else happens in Afghanistan, Hannity wanted to make sure that Mike Lindell comes out a winner. And right now, Lindell needs all the help he can muster, having failed to "reinstall" Trump in the White House as he faces a billion-dollar lawsuit over his serial lies about Dominion machines' role in voter fraud. Thanks for the helping hand, Sean. Much appreciated.

Speaking of Ted Cruz, as we were earlier (I'll pause here while you run and fetch a barf bag), he must be an avid reader, as he clearly has one of the more enviable libraries among his senate colleagues. Senator Blunderbuss built that library meticulously, directing his campaign to spend $153,000 on "books" at the retailer Books-a-Million—as fate would have it, a scant two months after Cruz's book, One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History, was released. A coincidence? No doubt about that. Remarkably like the "coincidence" in 2015, when Cruz's campaign shoveled $122,000 into the pockets of HarperCollins, which had published his earlier book, A Time for Truth. Of course, there is nothing illegal about US senators purchasing their own books, a fact that Cruz plans to make perfectly clear in his next book, How to Buy Your Way to a Best Seller (Without Really Trying).

On the brighter side...

Javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk of Poland, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games, decided that a better use for the medal than as a trophy would be to use it to help someone in need. After finding that eight-year-old Milosek Malysa, who suffers from a rare heart condition, needed expensive surgery to survive, Andrejczyk decided to auction the medal to help pay Malysa's bills. The winning bid, from Polish convenience store chain Zabka Polska, was $125,000, which Andrejczyk plans to donate to Malysa's family. After ponying up the money, Zabka Polska said in a Facebook post that Andrejcyzk could keep the medal with their thanks for thinking of others.

After finishing fourth in the javelin in 2016 at the Rio Olympics, Andrejczyk was diagnosed with cancer. She battled back to win the silver in Tokyo, then showed the world she'd be a winner even if she had placed dead last.

August 23, 2021

Of course! It's so obvious! Why couldn't I have seen it before?

Those horrendous scenes of chaos, confusion and carnage telecast to our homes from the Karzai Airport in Kabul—Afghan citizens fleeing for their lives, pleading with American soldiers and marines to find them seats on departing planes, tossing babies and toddlers over barbed-wire fences, desperately waving papers proving they had worked for the US military, and looking over their shoulders to make sure they were one step ahead of the Taliban militants who now controlled the country and their fate—it has all been an elaborate hoax! That's right —a four-alarm, nail-biting, all-hands-on-deck forty-carat HOAX! cleverly designed and brilliantly orchestrated by president Joe Biden (and no doubt directed by the ghost of Cecil B. DeMille) to distract attention from the any-day-now release of election audit results in Arizona, which will prove beyond any doubt that former president Donald ("You heard it here first!") Trump won the state and should be reinstalled in the White House—that is, as soon as the returns from Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin come in (they've been experiencing some technical difficulties).

I'm not just blowing smoke here. The massive and top-secret hoax has been uncovered and verified by no less than Ron Watkins, former administrator of the website 8kun, which some sharp-eyed readers may recognize as a precursor of QAnon. It doesn't get more credible than that! "The ongoing failure in Afghanistan," Watkins informed his 400,000 followers on Telegram last week, "is just the beginning of a planned distraction campaign so they [presumably Biden and Co.] can ignore the Maricopa County audit results. All eyes on Maricopa County!"

That Arizona audit, Watkins asserts, will somehow trigger a domino effect in other states, leading in the end to the reinstatement of Trump as the rightful winner he has always claimed to be. And the Biden administration will do everything in its power to turn eyes away from those results, even if that means enlisting as extras (some with speaking or screaming parts) every man, woman and child in Kabul (talk about your "cast of thousands")!

Pulling that off has been no mean feat: Biden had to make sure the military was a party to the scheme, not to mention the news media—domestic and foreign—the (former) Afghan government, ordinary men and women in the street, and even the Taliban itself whose main role has been to rough up a few citizens so as to make their frenzied flight to the airport look as authentic as possible. All this presided over by a man who has been painted by alt-right conspiracists as barely able to muster a rational thought or mumble a coherent sentence. He's either a doddering fool or an evil genius; you can't have it both ways, QAnon.

The Taliban, of course, are returning a favor, according to Watkins, who says the Biden administration coordinated the takeover of Afghanistan with the Taliban, also to distract from the Arizona audit. Absolutely shameful! Is there nothing so low that man won't stoop to simply to stay in office? Impeachment is too good for him! (and besides, it takes too long; the sooner Trump is back in office, the better for his family—I mean, for the country).

Lest you think the foregoing is no more than a whimsical fairy tale, that is precisely the kind of harebrained gibberish that has been circulating (without rebuttal) and masquerading as "truth" on QAnon and other fact-free websites. There's not much anyone can do about that; verbal lunacy is protected by the First Amendment. We can, however, point out that any conspiracy of the size and scope promoted by Watkins and other "theorists" would lend new meaning to the word "impossible." There is simply no way that Biden or anyone else—even a "very stable genius" like Trump—could pull that off. Nevertheless, many people are eagerly swallowing the hogwash without a second thought (or even a first). Why? Because the alternative is to live in a world governed by knowledge and facts they'd rather not agree to or accept. That kind of world is far too sensible, and not nearly "red" enough to suit their taste.

August 28, 2021

"Hello, Jones Pharmacy. Snake oil? No, I'm afraid we're fresh out of snake oil... but we do have another excellent product I can recommend. It's called Ivermectin..."

"Ivermectin, you say?"

"That's right. Ivermectin—a new miracle cure-all that has been proven to be every bit as safe and effective as snake oil.'"

"Well, I dunno... is they any needles involved?"

"No, that's one of the beauties of Ivermectin. No vaccines! No injections! It comes in pill form... and sometimes as a liquid... and better still, if we run out of Ivermectin you can buy it at the local feed store..."

"At th' feed store?"

"That's right. Saves you time and money... and you can even buy it there without a prescription!"

"Yeah, that does sound like a really good deal. But are you sure it's safe?..."

"Well, all I can say is it's recommended by America's Frontline Doctors. You think they'd lie to you?"

"No, I guess they wouldn't... but say, ain't none of them front porch doctors named Fauci, is they?"

"No, no Faucis!. These are REAL doctors who know what they're talking about. You can even consult with them online... Just be sure to have your credit card handy..."

"Well, just how much of that Ivermectin should I take?"

"That's another great thing about Ivermectin. There are no doses on the bottle... you get to figure that out for yourself! No government meddling, no FDA, NIH or CDC telling you what to do, robbing you of your freedom of choice. You just take Ivermectin until you're feeling better—and the more you take, the better you feel! Simple as that! And what's even more awesome, if you have a tapeworm, head lice or acne, Ivermectin will take care of them too!"

"Can I count on that, Doc?"

"Well, if you have any doubt about it, just go to Fox News and listen to Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham, people whose word you know is good as gold. And if that isn't enough, Ivermectin has been praised by... are you ready for this?...it's been praised by none other than the president himself!..."

"You mean Biden likes it?"

"No, not THAT president! I mean the REAL president!"

"Not...?"

"Yes, Donald the Great—may he soon be enshrined—has shown his support for Ivermectin. And you know he wouldn't recommend anything that wasn't absolutely one hundred percent safe and scientifically proven."

"You got that right. That Clorox sure took care of m' piles..."

"So you'll be giving Ivermectin a try?"

"Sure will, Doc. That's a no-brainer. As the president himself says, what have I got to lose?"

September 3, 2021

On August 29, Hurricane Ida—a Category 4 juggernaut with sustained winds of 150mph—slammed ashore in southwestern Louisiana, causing heavy flooding, uprooting trees, snapping power lines, leveling buildings, flipping cars upside down, burying some towns in sand and debris, leaving more than a million residents without electricity or water, and generally wreaking havoc throughout Louisiana and parts of Mississippi and Alabama before heading north. Almost every American looked upon the scenes of massive devastation with anguish, shock and empathy.

The qualifier "almost" is needed before the words "every American" because there is at least one American who didn't see it that way. In fact, this particular American went on talk radio the following evening to complain that the media were making far too much of that piddling little storm when they could be talking instead about such monumental deeds as the "great agreement" he had made with the Taliban in Afghanistan. By now you must have guessed the name of that Citizen, and it ain't Kane.

..."all they [the news media] want to talk about is the hurricane, or anything else they can talk about," whined former president Donald ("I want my ball back!") Trump, all the while totally ignoring the "great agreement" he had made with the Taliban. After all, he reasoned, a hurricane like Ida only affects several million people, but the Afghanistan "agreement" affects HIM, which is far more important than any run-of-the-mill storm and should be eclipsing any other news coverage.

"The media, which is fake and crooked and corrupt," Trump whimpered, "they're the worst people....They've got to hate our country [translation: they've got to hate ME]!...But the corrupt media shows the hurricane all night long." After listening to his tirade, an aide politely suggested that the former haggler-in-chief might be better served by watching something other than The Weather Channel.

Trump then blasted the Biden administration, saying the crisis in Afghanistan "would have been totally different" if he'd been in charge. "We would have hit them [the Taliban] so hard, and they knew that. I would have taken the equipment out, I would have taken the people out, and then we would have bombed every base but Bagram." Tough words from someone who has zero responsibility for what happens in Afghanistan, and an even slimmer reputation for telling the truth.

Meanwhile, in Texas...

The Republican-led state legislature has passed a draconian law that it believes will put an end to abortions in Texas. It won't. What it may do is lower the boom on LEGAL abortions and force women to retreat to the back alleys to seek out ill-equipped and untrained providers as in the good old days before Roe v Wade. Law or no, abortions will happen. If upheld (and given the makeup of the Supreme Court there's no reason to believe it won't be), the Texas law, which bans abortions after only six weeks, will as a practical matter affect only the SAFETY of abortions, not necessarily the number. It does so not by giving legislators the power to enforce the law, but by making every American—not only those who live and work in Texas—a vigilante and bounty-hunter empowered to sue anyone—yes, ANYONE—who aids and abets an abortion in Texas.

Doctors head the list, of course, but it also includes nurses and other medical personnel, the clergyman or counselor who offers advice, the spouse who gives his consent, and even Aunt Minnie who drives her pregnant niece to a hospital or clinic. This means that anyone with a grudge and a hankering to earn an easy $10,000 can haul almost anyone into court with little to no risk and the prospect of fattening his or her wallet to the tune of thousands of dollars simply by ratting out another innocent (yes, innocent) human being.

Apparently, the Supreme Court sees nothing wrong with the law, as it had a chance to intercede and chose to remain silent. Given that silence, similar laws are sure to follow. It shouldn't be long before Covid vaccinations and mask-wearing are declared unlawful in certain (red) states, and citizens are given the power to sue anyone who violates the "law." In those same states, Christianity will become the state religion, and anyone who worships otherwise will run the risk of being sued for apostasy. The pledge of allegiance will become obligatory, as will prayer in schools, and woe betide those who fail to bow their heads or place hand over heart and utter the sacred text while saluting the flag. The bounty-hunters will be on them like ketchup on fries—as they will those who protest the inclusion of a handgun as an essential part of every newborn's wardrobe.

Sounds ridiculous? Of course it does. But remember, the precedent has been set. If Texas can seek to curb abortion by entrusting law enforcement to vigilantes and bounty-hunters (shades of Steve McQueen in "Wanted: Dead or Alive") and the Supreme Court bestows its blessing, it follows that any state may pass similar legislation to derail any behavior it deems unlawful. And having agreed that vigilante law is sanctioned by the Constitution, as it did in Texas v Common Sense, SCOTUS would have little choice but to agree. Welcome to Dodge City, amigos, where the law is what we say it is. And if you don't comply, we'll soon be introducing you to Judge Roy Bean.

September 10, 2021

By now, two decades after the fact, most Americans know well the meaning of 9/11, a grim and horrendous day in US history when two passenger-laden planes, hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists, crashed headlong into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third slammed into the Pentagon building in Arlington, VA, and a fourth, whose presumed target was the White House or Capitol, was commandeered and brought down by passengers in a field near Shanksville, PA, with no survivors.

The Twin Towers devastation, which cost more than 2,900 American lives, could have been even worse had it not been for the heroic efforts of an ordinary citizen named Donald Trump who immediately rushed to the scene, pulled survivors from the rubble, helped organize the response and recruited a team of more than 100 others to lend badly needed hands, risking life and limb to save their fellow Americans.

At least that's how Donald Trump remembers it. "I was down there right after the event," former president Pinocchio said on Newsmax last week. "I brought a big crew of people down and I helped, a lot of other people helped (Trump's unquestioned heroism is exceeded only by his remarkable modesty). Bone spurs? Never gave 'em a thought. My only focus was, my country needs me. It's time to roll up the sleeves and get to work." Danger? According to Trump, he lives for it. "I'm telling you, we were hearing creaks," he recalled. "I think the United States Steel building it was called at the time, and it was 50 stories high, and we heard creaks. I said 'that building's going to come down,' and two big firemen grabbed me, and grabbed other people... [The building] never came down...but I'd never heard a noise like that..." (and you can take that to the bank, as it's the only part of the entire fairy tale that is beyond a doubt true).

It's also a pretty sure bet that no one has ever heard an improvised fable quite like that either. In spite of his heroics, no one who was there that day recalls having seen Trump anywhere near the site, nor have fact-checkers been able to find any evidence that Trump personally helped in the recovery effort. As for his recruiting "100 men" or more to help (the fabrications vary), Richard Alles, who was NYC Fire Department battalion chief during the attacks, says he "never witnessed" Trump at the site, and as for his claim of having sent 100 men to help in the rescue effort, Alles says "there would be a record of that," as "everyone worked under the direct supervision of the police and fire department and the joint commander for emergency services," adding that "I know of no one who ever witnessed him [Trump] there."

Trump simply shrugged off Alles' remarks, as he knows his unhinged base will believe anything he says, no matter how demonstrably false or outlandish. And anyone who contradicts him, as Alles has, is no doubt doing so for "political reasons" and conducting a "witch hunt." When the Twin Towers fell, it is therefore undeniably true that Donald Trump was in the thick of recovery at Ground Zero, bruised and bloodied but undeterred, carrying men and women to safety while directing his team of eager but unschooled recruits, as he had during the Viet Cong's assault on Saigon back in '75. Oh, you hadn't heard about that? Well, give Trump enough time and you will...

One thing that Trump and his fellow Americans can agree on is the solemnity of the anniversary of 9/11. As the day approached, Trump could be seen giving serious thought as to how to honor those who had perished in the horrific and unprecedented attacks. After weighing all the options, he decided the best way to commemorate the occasion and honor those whose lives had been lost would be to offer guest commentary during a "boxing match" between 58-YEAR-0LD former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and his 44-year-old opponent, Vitor Belford, at the Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, FL.

The first question is: Why?

The second question is: Why not?

And the answer to both questions is: Because Trump's fanatical partisans don't give a shit. Whatever he says or does is fine with them. In other words, whatever he's selling, they're buying. Which leads to another question: Why are so many otherwise presumably rational people, who would scream bloody murder if anyone else did something that absurd and farcical on such a hallowed occasion, willing to look the other way when Donald Trump does it? Here is one possible answer (among many):

Of all the unendurable tasks that human beings are called upon to perform, perhaps the hardest one of all is to admit to having made a mistake. Hear me out. When Trump lied his way to the presidency, many Americans—for reasons of their own, some sensible, others ludicrous—bought into the lies, as they did when Trump lied his way through his lone term in office and compounded the lie by claiming the 2020 election had somehow been "stolen" from him by the treacherous Democrats. No proof was given, nor was any needed, as most (not all) of those who had swallowed Trump's falsehoods and fallacies were in so deep and so overwhelmed by his duplicity that they were unable to admit—even to themselves—that they'd made a mistake, had been flimflammed by a con man who is so adept at what he does that the result is roughly one step removed from hypnotic. It's basically the same sound "reasoning" they use when choosing to suffer and die rather than be vaccinated against Covid.

When Trump boasted during his campaign in 2016 that he could shoot someone dead in Times Square in broad daylight and get away with it, that was hyperbole. Now, thanks to his incessant torrent of lies and the number of people who believe they are true, it's far closer to reality. Sure, he'd be tried for that—after all, Trump was impeached, not once but twice—but what would be the chances of empaneling a jury that would convict him? Slim to none, I'd guess. And so he is able to attend a "fight" on 9/11, not in the least caring or concerned about how that may look, as he knows the dimwits in this country—whose numbers are legion—are held securely captive in his hip pocket.

Overlook Trump's oafish behavior? Most of his misguided and ill-informed dunderheads and pawns can hardly wait to vote for him in 2024...

September 27, 2021

In the classic Aesop fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," a young shepherd repeatedly deludes townspeople—by "crying wolf"—into believing a ravenous carnivore is attacking the town's flock. When a real wolf does appear, however, and the boy again cries for help, the villagers believe it's simply another false alarm and go about their business as the sheep are eaten by the wolf. In some versions of the story, the wolf also devours the shepherd.

The moral at the end of the Greek version is, "this shows how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them." Which is a roundabout way of saying that today's Republican Party has become that shepherd boy. Whenever something doesn't go their way—say, for example, a presidential election—Republicans don't take it lying down. Instead, they "cry wolf," as vehemently and as often as they can. In today's world, however, that tantrum is known as "the Big Lie," and Republicans have used it so effectively that in a recent poll, 78 percent of their fellow travelers believed the 2020 election was "stolen" from Donald ("say it loud, say it proud!") Trump by the left-wing, Commie-loving, blood-sucking, toddler-hating Democrats, and that Joe Biden isn't the country's legitimate president. And Biden has been in office for more than eight months!

If Republicans have been unable to rescind or reverse those election results, it hasn't been for lack of trying. The former commander-in-hokum had his lawyers file lawsuit after lawsuit in states across the country, none of which was upheld and many of which were all but laughed out of court. Failing that, he urged his peasant hordes to storm the US Capitol on January 6 and take it by force to prevent Congress from certifying the election results. That worked about as well as the lawsuits.

Among the more recent examples of the GOP's "cry wolf" syndrome is Arizona's long and costly "fraudit," conducted by no less than the Cyber Ninjas themselves (or himself). The Ninjas were hired by Arizona's Republican lawmakers because they had a perfect record in auditing elections (in other words, NO record). The audit, begun in April, was supposed to last for a few weeks at most. Now, some five months later, the results have at last been made public. In spite of early betting (fueled by Trump, of course) that the audit would confirm that he had either won the election in Arizona outright or had come so perilously close that another audit might be needed, the reverse was true. Not only did Biden win Maricopa County (a GOP stronghold and focus of the audit), insult was added to that injury when the Ninjas reported that Biden had actually earned 261 more votes there while Trump lost 99.

End of story? Not on your spurious conspiracy theory. Several other states, apparently elated by the results in Arizona, are paving the way for audits of their own—and they won't stop until Biden has widened his margin of victory within their precincts as well. Will they ever throw in the towel and admit that Trump lied to them, that there was no widespread fraud, no stolen election, and that Biden won the presidency fair and square? In a word, no. They simply have too much blood, sweat and tears invested in the Big Lie—and would rather be hanged for a month by their thumbs than dare to cross Trump. And so Republicans will continue to "cry wolf" until a real crisis arrives, at which point the townspeople will shrug, sigh and murmur "yes, we've heard that song before" as the GOP is literally swallowed whole by the very beast it has created.

In our opinion, that is not a matter of if, only of when. On the other hand, should the Big Lie prove to be more durable than envisioned, and the Republican Party somehow manage to survive its corrosive influence, well...we can dream, can't we?

In other Trump-world news...

On the heels of the Arizona fiasco, the former wastrel-in-chief thought it would be a great idea if Texas were to do an audit of its own, even though he WON the state by a wide margin in the '20 election. "Despite my big win in Texas," Trump said in a missive to Texas governor Abbott (Costello wasn't available), "I hear Texans want an election audit (Trump never says from where he has "heard" anything). You know your fellow Texans have big questions about the November 2020 election." Well, not ALL Texans, he suggested; only those in the state's four largest counties, three of which were carried by Joe Biden. "What a coincidence!" the Texas secretary of state's office responded. "We were just about to do that! We'll get right on it." And so it shall be, if Texas has its way in the Republican-packed courts. When the boss man says "Jump!," Abbott and Co. have only one response: "How high?"

Meanwhile, Mike Lindell (remember him? the My Pillow guy and would-be Nostradamus?), having failed in his prediction that former president "hand me my pitching wedge" would be "reinstalled" in the White House by mid-August, has dusted off his crystal ball and revised that forecast. Now, he says with his usual assurance, his liege will be returned to office no later than New Year's Eve (and we thought 2020 was a horrendous year!). Lindell based his guesswork on the hugely successful "cyber symposium" he hosted in South Dakota that showed "beyond the shadow of a doubt" that he and his highly touted cyber "experts" were definitely full of something but it wasn't knowledge. Lindell cried foul (not wolf), saying he had more than enough "proof" to sink Biden's canoe but the nefarious (and well-hidden) group, Antifa, had infiltrated the event to sabotage him (most likely taking with them the Dominion voting machines he said were in his possession—you know, the ones that use "Serbian technology with Chinese characteristics"). As for Trump's reinstatement...

"It has to happen now," Lindell told the Right Side Broadcasting Network. ("Right Side"—get it?) "It's Trump 2021. 100 percent Trump 2021! And remember, everybody," he added with his usual unerring sense of humor, "we have to melt down the [voting] machines to make prison bars out of them!" Prison bars—an interesting concept, and one we hope Lindell soon learns much more about from personal experience.

And finally...

If you've been looking for some sound medical counsel to help you through the devastating Coronavirus pandemic, try this:

Wear a mask
Live a clean, healthy life.
Bathe frequently.
Wash your hands before each meal.
Live in an abundance of fresh air, day and night.

Respect quarantine regulations.
Report early symptoms to the doctor at once.
Avoid crowds.
Avoid persons who sneeze or cough.
Do not think you are entitled to special privileges.

Do not think it is impossible for you to get or transmit [the virus].
Do not neglect your mask.
Do not disregard the advice of a specialist just because you do not understand it.

Words to live by, and certainly splendid anti-Covid advice, as published in the Douglas Island News on NOVEMBER 15, 1918! Things really haven't changed much, have they, since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 laid waste to the country, taking as many lives as coronavirus has (so far) in the US and an estimated 25-50 million lives worldwide. And yet, more than a century later, some people still haven't learned those lessons, or refuse to believe them because they are at odds with their "political" beliefs. The fact is that those beliefs mean nothing to Covid; the truth doesn't change to suit them, and your failure to acknowledge the truth—for any reason—can kill you.

Here's some more recent advice:

"There is a virus here. It kills people. And the only way to prevent it is to get vaccinated, to wear masks, to do social distancing, washing your hands all the time, and not just think about, 'Well, my freedom is being kind of disturbed here.' No. Screw your freedom! With freedom comes obligations and responsibilities. We cannot just say 'I have the right to do x, y and z.' When you infect other people, that is when it gets serious. It's no different than a traffic light. We put the traffic light in the intersection so that someone doesn't kill someone else by accident."—Arnold Schwarzenegger, August 2021

October 7, 2021

"Hello."

"Hello, Mr president. This is Mike."

"Mike? Mike who?"

"Mike Pence, sir."

"Did you say Fence?"

"No, Mr president. It's Mike PENCE. P-E-N-C-E."

"Oh, yes. Of course. Mike Pence. Didn't you once work for me?"

"Mr president, I was your second-in-command. Surely you can't have forgotten those years we spent together in that foxhole..."

"Foxhole? I remember spending some time in a bunker but not in a foxhole. Wouldn't have been good for the bone spurs..."

"It's only a figure of speech, Mr president. I didn't mean an actual foxhole, just that we worked closely together..."

"Did we? Oh... wait a minute! Hold on! Are you the guy with the white hair, the one who was always standing behind me and a bit to the left?"

"Yes, that was me, Mr president!"

"Well, smear my mascara and call me Rudy. I thought you were a statue!"

"(Chuckling). Nice one, Mr president. I can see the sense of humor's as sharp as ever..."

"Yes, it's been almost a year since the election was stolen, and people are still laughing at my playful ad-libs about it... but tell me, Mike, did you ever get rid of that fly in your hair?"

"Yes, Mr president. He flew into a world of his own right after the cameras stopped rolling."

"Sort of what I used to do. But that reminds me, Mike... didn't I say I'd never speak to you again?"

"Yes, you did, Mr president, but I never took that seriously..."

"Well, there must have been a reason... Oh, wait... now I remember! You refused to decertify the results of the 2020 election and declare me the winner!"

"Now, Mr president, you know it wasn't exactly like that. I really WANTED to overturn the results but there was no way I could do that. It would have been unconstitutional..."

"Unconsti...what? Who told you that? And what does the constitution have to do with it? That piece of paper is anything I say it is! And the Supreme Court would back me up on that!"

"But, Mr president, Dan Quayle told me..."

"Dan Quayle? Dan Quayle? I've met Dan Quayle, and he's no Jack Kennedy!..."

"Perhaps not, Mr president, but he did serve as vice-president and he does know the law..."

"Look, Mike whatever-your-name-is, you should know by now that the law doesn't apply to me. I've been filing and dodging lawsuits all my life, and the law hasn't laid a finger on me! Never will!"

"Yes, I know that, mein Fuhrer... sorry, Mr President... but what I really want to know is, when you run again in 2024, will you forgive me that one slight trespass and consider me as your running mate?"

"Who told you I was running in '24? Wasn't that Quayle guy, was it?"

"No, Mr president, but the word does get around..."

"Well, I may run or I may not run. I like to hold the cards close to my vest. Right now I'm only 99 percent sure. So there's a lot of wiggle room there..."

"But if you do choose to run, Mr president, please remember... I'm the perfect man for vice-president. I have no opinion about anything, only one facial expression, and whenever you need someone to kiss your ass I'm only a knee-bend away..."

"Yes, I'll admit your resume is impressive. However, I still can't overlook or forgive that small blunder on January 6..."

"But Mr president, didn't you see my Fox News interview? I swore on Mike Lindell's fluffiest pillow that the election was STOLEN, that you were an innocent victim of one of the most massive yet well-hidden frauds in American history! The election was taken from you, there's no doubt about that. In fact, it's so obvious that no one even asks for proof. As for me, I can't wait to go on NewsMax and One America to tell it to their listeners—both of them!"

"Well, I do appreciate your loyalty..."

"Oh, thank you, Mr president! Thank you! Does that mean you'll consider my offer to serve as vice-president when...I mean, if...you decide to run in 2024?"

"I'll definitely think about it. But first, as I'm fond of saying, I'd like you to do me a small favor..."

"Of course, Mr president. Anything you wish, Mr president."

"Well, when you're making the rounds on the TV shows, besides letting everyone know the election was stolen from me, work on trying to convince them I spent four years in a foxhole..."

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