An Evening with the Spicers

"Hello, Mrs. Spicer, this is Mrs. Kroft, the principal at your son's school."
"Oh my, is something wrong?"
"I hope not, it's just that his behavior has been a little strange lately."
"Really?  How?"
"Well his teachers tell me that he has become disruptive.  If the teacher tells the class that 2+2=4, he will just yell out, 'no, it's 5.'  If the teacher tells them that the Declaration of Independence was issued in 1776, he will yell out, 'no, I'm sure it was earlier.'  It's becoming a real problem.  I'm sure it's just a phase, but I hope you will talk to him."
"You can count on it."
Mrs. Spicer puts down the phone and that moment hears her husband Sean walk in the door after a hard day at the White House.  She repeats what the principal told her and asks her husband to talk to her son.
Mr. Spicer goes to his son's room.
"Son, what's this I hear about you just yelling out in class while the teacher's talking, and that you said 2+2=5 and that the Declaration of Independence was not issued in 1776.  Is that true?"
"Yes, sir."
"How many times do I have to tell that you need to raise your hand before you speak in class?"
"It won't happen again, dad."
"Okay.  Good talk.  Let's eat."

Mystery of Low Inauguration Turnout Explained

As Washington smirked over photos of empty podiums during the inaugural parade and the Trump Administration invoked "alternative facts" to defend its crowd estimates, an unpleasant surprise awaited Melania Trump when she returned to her apartment in New York and found several large boxes in the foyer.  "Oh no, the invitations!  How could I have forgotten?"  In fact, in the weeks since the election the new First Lady rarely appeared outside Trump Towers because she was hard at work in her first duty as presidential spouse, personally addressing and stamping thousands of invitations to her husband's most loyal supporters around the country.  "Donald's in the hospitality business, so he knows how important the personal touch is.  And he always said I have nice penmanship.  I was sure I asked one of Donald's new assistants to drop them by the post office."  Here, Mrs. Trump nervously pointed at one of her husband's Secret Service detail.  She continued, in a whisper, "They're such snobs.  They think they're too good to accept a tip."

Bowling Green Man Can't Wait for TrumpCare

A Bowling Green (Ky.) man who asked to be identified as “Harvey” expressed relief at President-Elect Trump’s announcement that under his health insurance plan everyone would be covered.  “Oh that Donald, he took it down to the wire, but I’d knew he would come through.”  Harvey explained that he currently depends on an ACA-subsidized plan to cover the care and medication for his Hepatitis C.  “Thank God, Trump is getting rid of that Obamacare.  Man, I felt like a slave.  All those forms Cindy [Harvey’s wife] had to fill out, and the premiums, just shoot me.”  Harvey was unimpressed to learn that the cost of his medication alone cost over $100K.  Asked how much his premiums were, Harvey pled ignorance.  “Cindy writes all the checks.  She’s the quiet type, so she doesn’t complain too much, but I can tell they’re steep.”  Harvey was equally hard pressed to explain what makes him think the Trump plan will provide the same level of care at a lower price.  “You media types just don’t get it.  Donald Trump is a friend of the working man.  If he says health insurance for everyone, that means everyone will be able to afford it.”

Trump Still Unaware that 'Women March' is a Protest

On the eve of his improbable inauguration as the nation's 45th president, Donald Trump is still under the impression that the 'Million Women March on Washington,' planned for the following day is intended as a protest against his inauguration, according to his aides.  "No kidding.  It's actually kind of creepy.  He seems to think that this is some kind of mass apology from American women for all their 'vicious attacks' during the campaign -- his words."  Trump was even considering staying in Washington over the weekend so he could attend the event rather than going to New York, but his staff was able to convince him that the Secret Service had not verified the security.  "You wouldn't believe it.  He really expected to just show up, recycle a couple of Hillary jokes, make a couple remarks about what 'classy dames' they were, then soak in the applause from a million women -- though he's pretty sure more than a million will show up."  "But what am I going to do?" Mr. Trump was quoted as saying, "the 'ball-and-chain' wants me to go to New York."

Youngstown Socialist Ready to Rally the Working Class

David Green, secretary and last dues-paying member of the Socialist Workers Party in Youngstown, was ecstatic hear a report on NPR that included interviews with workers from the local G.M. plant who complained that the elite does not understand the working class.  “I couldn’t believe it!  The last time I tried to hand out flyers there some guy called me a ‘pinko fag’ and knocked over my card table while his friends just stood there and laughed.  That was just a year ago!”  Green realizes that he needs to instill a revolutionary spirit into this rudimentary class consciousness while it’s fresh.  “They’re not going to master the dialectic right away, so I thought I’d form a reading circle where we went over the classics – the Manifesto, of course, maybe Anti-Dühring, or Anti-Sanders, as I call it.”  Feeling no need to explain this reference, Green looked through his papers for the address to On the Barricades Press, to see what they had in stock.  “I knew this day would come!  I just printed out these flyers to announce the first meeting.”  Notified that the meeting time conflicted with the Super Bowl, thus would probably attract few actual workers, Green’s enthusiasm was undiminished.  “Great!  This will show me who the most conscious workers are. Our Central Committee will be set.”

Melania Trump Reaches Out to Hillary Clinton

As the world was agog over the allegations contained in the so-called Russian Dossier, the soon-to-be northern First Lady Melania Trump decided this week to invite Hillary Clinton for lunch in a little publicized gesture.  According to Mrs. Trump, this had little to do with healing the bitter partisan spirit left over from the recent campaign between her husband and Mrs. Clinton.  "No, I just want a little girl talk.  We have so much in common -- she was First Lady, I'm about to be First Lady, sort of; she lives in New York, I live in New York; we're both mothers; I'm a model, she's famous for her pant suits; and, ..., no, that's it."  When asked if she discussed this with her husband Mrs. Trump said "No" immediately, before nervously adding, "He's so busy now, right?  Why bother him with my silly lunch plans?"  Trump will be happy to leave the choice of venue to Clinton.  "I'm sure she knows a quiet little place where we can sit around and talk about life, our children, lawyers, ..., oh, she is a lawyer, right?"

Could Stolen Towel Trip up Trump?

Ever since being briefed that Russian intelligence operatives claim to have compromising material on him, President-elect Donald Trump has held a series of urgent meetings with his closest advisers speculating what that material might be.  What they know is that this kompromat does not include his history of discriminatory housing practices, multiple bankruptcies, reputation for cheating contractors, mockery of the handicapped, race-baiting, misogyny, or general vulgarity.  So far, Trump's best guess is that this material might involve a momentary lapse in judgement while visiting Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant. "Normally when I travel, I own the hotel, literally, so I don't care what I stuff in my suitcase.  When I got back to New York I remember unpacking and I pulled out this towel with blue and white trim that said 'Hotel Metropole.'  I thought, holy crap, I should return this.  But then I had this big meeting to go over my taxes and it just slipped my mind."  The President-elect sent his soon-to-be counterpart Vladimir Putin an email asking about the stories but has yet to receive a reply.  "I guess he's busy tying up loose ends in Syria -- Syria, right?" 

Foreign State Behind Streep's Film Career?

Donald Trump's transition team suggested this morning that Meryl Streep's overrated reputation as an actress maybe the result of foreign meddling in American film criticism.  "This goes back decades," commented Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway.  "The fact that a middling actress, albeit with a knack for affecting foreign accents, has earned such an elevated status and been nominated for so many of the film industry's most prestigious rewards shows the calculated efforts of a foreign power determined to undermine America's aesthetic judgement."  The Trump camp has been hard-pressed to name a foreign state that would have had any particular interest in promoting Ms. Streep's career, or undermining America's aesthetic judgement, but Conway promised that President-elect Trump will hold a press conference "very soon" where he will identify the foreign power that "inflicted Meryl Streep American film-going public.   Conway had no comment on the veracity of a story that appeared on Breitbart this morning under the headline, "Kim Jong-Un Congratulates 'Soul-mate' Streep on her Golden Globe Lifetime Achievement Reward."

Trump Family Spends Quiet Weekend Binge-Watching 'War and Peace'

President-Elect Donald Trump and his family eschewed the bright lights this weekend, preferring to stay in and watch War and Peace videos.  "Can you believe my luck?  My Secret Santa gave me a boxed set of the digitally enhanced Bondarchuk version, all seven hours.  You don't get cheated with this one."  The President-Elect showed a surprising familiarity with the many film versions of the Tolstoy classic.  "The King Vidor version?  What a joke!  I mean Audrey Hepburn was a classy lady, but Natasha Rostova?  Garbage."  Mr. Trump has a definite preference for the Russian versions.  "Hearing the Russian just brings it home, even if you have read all that tiny writing.  And Bondarchuk just has all the grandeur that I think Tolstoy had in mind, you know, before he became a loser and gave all his money away."  During dialog between Pierre Bezukhov and Platon Karataev, Trump turned and asked his wife Melania if the translation was accurate.  Mrs. Trump looked up from her knitting as if she wanted to make a point before mumbling, "Yes, Donald."

Hillary Clinton Warily Logs In For First Time Since Election

Claiming that she just couldn't "find the time," Hillary Clinton finally sat down last weekend and logged into her Dell Inspiron for the first time since the election.  After momentarily forgetting her password, she checked the index card in her desk and remembered that it was GoldwaterGrrl, not GoldwaterGirl.  As the machine whirred and beeped, Clinton nervously glanced around and had the uncomfortable impression that the lights dimmed.  "Need to make sure my Norton Utilities are current.  That's important."  Her immediate concern was to log into her Yahoo account so that she did not lose her username.  "I couldn't believe Grandma_in-Chief wasn't taken!"  Not surprisingly, an avalanche of messages had accumulated in the intervening months.  "I wish I knew how I keep these ads from showing up in my Inbox.  Look at this one, why does 'Tanya from Omsk' want to get to know me?  That's crazy."  After opening a couple of e-cards, Clinton closed her email and checked the Orbis site for their post-holiday clearance sale.

Volunteer Rest Room Monitor Arrested - Claims "Misunderstanding"

Norman Simpkins was arrested when he was caught installing a video camera in the ceiling vent of the women's rest room at the Springfield Friendly's Restaurant.  Ignoring his attorney's advice to refrain from commenting, Simpkins wanted readers to know that it was all a misunderstanding.  "Don't the police get it?  I'm on their side.  I'm just trying to keep the ladies safe.  The second one of those sickos show up, you know, the ones who put on a dress and call themselves Mary Lou, I'll call the police right away."  When asked if this meant he would be monitoring the video feed around the clock.  Simpkins sheepishly replied, "Uh-huh."  Simpkins attorney, Harold Grover, stepped in to halt the interview before Simpkins could say whether he had installed similar security surveillance in other women's rest rooms.  Grover added that any other possible previous arrests, which may or may not have resulted in Simpkins having to register as a Sex Offender, were also due to "Misunderstandings."

Mayor Faces Recall After Token Expression of Racial Tolerance

Mayor David Rowe of Mt. Airy, North Carolina, found himself of a flash recall campaign after a Washington Post profile of the city claimed that "He wouldn’t ... want to go back to the days when there were separate water fountains at the local Sears for whites and blacks."  The effort is being led by Mt. Airy native Darrell Peavy who thinks that Rowe is abandoning the conservative principles that he ran on.  "A fancy northern reporter asks him a question and he goes all soft."  Peavy was quick to point out that the recall isn't about race.  "I just do need the government telling who can or can't use the water fountain, or which water fountain, in my business."  In his case, Peavy runs a print shop that just came out with a commemorative inaugural issue of "Whites Only" signs.  When asked for comment, Mayor Rowe noted that his office plans no new regulations on water fountains.

Vassar Student Returns from Study-Abroad to Find Her Julian Assange Poster Defaced

January 5, 2017

When Dakota C...... decided to travel directly to campus after spending 4 months doing an anthropology internship on a remote Javan island she was looking forward to a return to civilization.  Instead, upon entering her dorm suite she found that someone had drawn a Hitler mustache on her Julian Assange poster and scrawled “Rat Bastard!” beneath.  “Really?  4 months with no Internet, no toilet paper.  I haven’t even had a chance to charge my phone yet.  And I come back to this?  Uncool.”  She is pretty sure which of her 3 roommates is responsible.  “It was probably Heather.  I explained to her that the sexual assault charges were all part of a CIA plot, but she just rolled her eyes.”  Dakota hopes that she and Heather can patch things up so they can get to work on their inauguration party.  “A woman president!  Never thought I’d see it.”