On Christmas 2.0, Or, Who Might Be The New Santa?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the evolution of Christmas, and I’ve been thinking that there is a lot about the current practice that we can admire.

Peace and good will, of course, and cookies and candy canes, and happy kids – and this is also the time we think the most about those less fortunate, as do Jews and Muslims, who also have holiday celebrations this time of the year that include a component of charity.

But if there is anything that I could change about the modern practice of Christmas, it would be the installation of Santa Claus as an icon of consumer spending, more or less to the exclusion of everything else.

As an intellectual exercise, I started thinking about what a different Santa might be like; today’s story lays out who a few candidates might be for “Santa 2.0” and why.

So go grab a cookie, and, perhaps, a refreshing beverage…and let’s have some post-Christmas fun.

Chipmunk Family Reunion…
…someone stole the nuts…
…squirrel jail…
…Justice.

--“Flo”, the Progressive Insurance Representative, in a recent commercial

To help everyone understand my choices, I’m partial to the kind of Santa who might be inclined to be a force for good in society, even when Christmas isn’t around; that concept’s central to these selections.

I also tried to pick folks who would make the gift-giving role Santa fills interesting and, above all, fun; with all that in mind let’s jump right in and see where this thing goes:

In a tough economy, you want to save where you can, with that in mind my first nomination for the new Santa is Michael Moore, if for no other reason than he fact that he already fits the suit.

He’s from Michigan, you know, so the cold weather up there at the North Pole is something he’s already used to – and you can imagine that the Elves will finally be getting the health care and retirement benefits that they’ve been negotiating for these past several years.

But beyond that, I could see Mike coming down the chimney and giving people jobs if he could apply the Santa power that way, and I figure he likes cookies and milk, too, so we wouldn’t have to change that part of the deal – and all that suggests he’d be really good for the economy.

Plus, if he had all of Santa’s powers, he’d always know where Roger is, and that’s pretty cool, too, eh?

Now our next choice is a bit unusual, but I think we’re on the right path nonetheless, and that’s Meghan McCain, daughter of the Senator from Arizona.

She seems to be a really nice person, which is a good place to start, she’s blonde, which, again, works with the red suit, and I get the impression that she’d be OK with dealing with kids all day.

As for her Santa power…she’s an outspoken critic of the Crazy Right, and it’s entirely possible that she’ll bring some degree of rationality and reason from way up North to the GOP, which would be a present we could all use.

Some of y’all might be a bit put off by the idea that she appears to be the kind of person who, if a 13-year-old boy asked, would get him a gun, but I got a Godson who was given his first rifle younger than that, and he turned out to be a nonviolent person, so, you know, maybe Santa would turn out to support the Second Amendment, but that doesn’t automatically have to be a bad thing.

For our next nomination, we’re going way off the track to select someone you’ve probably never heard of: Yetta Kurland.

Ye-who What, you say?

Yetta Kurland is an attorney in New York City, and for the past few years, if you are a member of the LBGT community, and you’re interested in civil rights litigation, Yetta Kurland’s has been a pretty good name to know.

But beyond that, Yetta’s been working as a member of the National Lawyer’s Guild as one of the on-site attorneys for Occupy Wall Street, right down there at New York City’s Zucotti Park – and that means our Santa nominee’s been working day and night, literally out on the barricades, fighting for the rights of every one of us.

Animal rights are also a big focus for Yetta, and that suggests a Santa who would be thinking about all the kids, even the ones covered in fur…and that also means a Santa who might be particularly interested in bringing good homes to abandoned animals, which is as worthy a cause as anyone could wish for.

The best part is that Kurland is already interested in the arts, as is the potential Ms. Claus (Kurland’s partner, Elizabeth Koke); that’s good news for the Elves going forward, and for anyone who would be getting presents designed and manufactured at the North Pole Workshops.

Finally, the nomination for Claus 2.0 that I consider the most serendipitous – and potentially the most interesting of all: Lady Gaga.

She’s already known, loved, and admired around the world, which is exactly what you want in a Santa, she’s bound to do something interesting to the costume every year, which seems like a “great leap forward”, and she’s already used to dealing with great volumes of fan interaction – and if Lady Gaga were the next Santa, you could expect social media to become a big, big, deal at the North Pole.

It was entirely coincidental, but I happened to catch ”Gaga by Gaultier” the other night, and as it turns out Gaga is looking to recreate The Factory, the storied workshop and studios of Andy Warhol…which could not be more perfect for a Santa with artistic ambitions, since the North Pole Workshops are full of skilled technicians who have been cranking out a mixture of art and fun as long as there’s been a Santa Claus, for Goodness sake.

As for her Santa power: imagine if someone could visit all the bullied boys and girls, all in one night, just to let them know that things can “get better”…and leave coal and access to social services for the bullies…well, that’s a pretty good power, and if Santa could do all that while singing “I Was Born This Way” – then I think we may have a winner.

So how about that? Four alternative Santas, each with a set of unique qualifications, all of whom could make things fun even as they’re stirring things up a bit, and all of whom bring their own interesting personality characteristics to this thought exercise.

Toss it around in your head a bit, see what you think, and let’s have a bit more fun fleshing out the thinking here in an effort to see who might really be the best choice for Santa 2.0.

In other words, now that I’ve reported – you decide.

On The Question Of Virginity, Or, “Starter? I Can’t Make Her Stop!”

I got a weird little story about my friend Blitz Krieger to bring to you today.

He’s had a crazy car problem, he has, and over the past few months he thought he had found a solution – in fact, he thought he had found the solution of his dreams – but in the end, he’s discovered that the things you dream about often don’t go according to plan.

The way it’s worked out for him so far, it’s been a lot of anticipation followed by a sudden wave of frustration, but I feel like he’s a lot better off having his particular problem with his car…because if he’d had cancer instead, he’d surely be dead by now.

The community is always embarrassed by the drag queens because straight society says, “A faggot always dresses in drag, or he’s effeminate.” But you got to be who you are. Passing for straight is like a light-skinned woman or man passing for white. I refuse to pass. I couldn’t have passed, not in this lifetime.

--Sylvia Rivera, describing the founding of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), quoted in the book “Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America”

So here’s what happened to Blitz: he waited forever to buy his first car because he wanted, more than anything else in life, to drive his “perfect” car: a 1982 American Motors Eagle SX/4.

It’s a wild car: it was designed as a small hatchback…with a V-8 engine…and “switchable” 4WD…which allowed it to travel easily in snow in a way that virtually no other passenger car at the time could manage.

So he waited all this time, and two years ago, in California, he literally found a little old lady from Pasadena who sold him his “Dream Car”, which, ironically, was the same brown color as Al Bundy’s Dodge.

It drove great for about six months, but it’s been suffering from a strange malady that presents as a horrible grinding noise when he tries to start the car. He has no idea what to do – and standing in the way of a solution is an obsession that I find a bit strange:

He is absolutely determined that he is not going to go to just any mechanic.

Instead, Blitz told me that since it’s the first time the Dream Car needs to be repaired, he intends to go to a mechanic who has never worked on any car before his – and he says he wants to do this because he feels the experience of having the work done this way will make it more “special” for the both of them.

It took him almost a year to find someone, but when he did, it was truly perfect: he met a woman named Jenna Talia who wanted more than anything to be a mechanic.

She’d been studying through one of those “learn at home” programs, and, amazingly, she had an attitude similar to my friend Blitz’s: she knew about how to fix a car from what she’d read in a book, but she refused to actually repair one until she got the chance to work on her Dream Car – and even more amazingly, her Dream Car…was a 1982 American Motors Eagle SX/4.

They actually met on the bus (Blitz, naturally, refused to drive any other car except the Dream Car), and after a few months of knowing each other, Blitz proposed that Jenna might work on his car in his garage, and she agreed.

Fun Fact I Just Made Up: In a recent poll, 32% of voters thought the Iowa Caucuses were a country located near the former Soviet Georgia.

So we’re going out last Saturday night, and I get a call from Blitz asking if I could come by and pick ‘em both up there at his house, and I’m OK with that, because with two drinks in a night being a big evening for me I’m more or less a permanent designated driver.

I was wondering how it was going with the car, and what I saw was stunning: the upper half of the engine was sitting in the living room, entirely disassembled. There were rockers and rods and all kinds of stuff there, neatly arranged for easy reassembly, and it looked like they had really put a lot of effort into the thing, but it was clear that they just couldn’t get it quite figured out…which isn’t surprising, considering it was the first time for both of them.

And you could see, in just that first second, that the two of them were some kind of frustrated. But it gets worse: Blitz told me that this was her third “diagnosis”, and that, now that she was actually face-to-face with a real car, she seemed to be entirely confused about exactly what to do.

Apparently things had gone so bad that Jenna wouldn’t even leave his house at night to go home until she could get things figured out…and, from what he’s telling me, he’s ready to throw her out, buy a different car, and get that car fixed by a mechanic who’s been there and done that – a lot.

To put it another way, he’s ready to dump his virgin mechanic…for a slut.

Now here’s the really crazy part of the story: I’ve had a bit of experience with cars breaking down over time, and I knew what was wrong from the beginning, as many of you probably did, too: the starter was bad – and that’s located on the very bottom of the engine, not the top, which means everything they’d been doing was pretty much pointless.

But I couldn’t tell them that in the beginning…because, again, it would’ve just spoiled the experience…and I sure wasn’t gonna say “I told you so” now…so even though I could have offered them both useful advice about how ignorance ain’t bliss, they surely didn’t want to hear it.

So look, folks, we could have a lot more fun following out this comic premise, but there’s a bigger point: I don’t want a virgin mechanic, and surely not a virgin doctor – and they don’t even allow virgin pilots to carry passengers.

What is it about sex (and politics, for that matter) that makes people think they’ll be able to simply “get it” with no experience at all? What is it that makes them think that celebrating their own ignorance is the best way to show they’re ready to take on something that, frankly, requires a bit of trial…and error…before you really get it right?

I don’t know the answer, but the next time someone tells you how their ignorance makes them a lot smarter about something, do me a favor and think about Blitz and Jenna and the Dream Car – and the living room full of engine parts – and if that person’s running for office, run the other way. Quickly.

I’d appreciate it; so will you – and if I know Blitz, he will, too.

On Speaking To Power, Or, When Sanity’s Gone, There’s Always Satire

So everybody’s hearing the news, right?

There is a tentative debt ceiling deal, and this Administration and Congressional Democrats seem to have won everything they wanted: Republicans get to have multiple “we don’t approve” votes before 2012 on raising the debt ceiling, there won’t be any new revenue, there’s going to be another “hostage-taking” event around Christmastime, for many Democrats the issue of the Ryan Budget and the dismantling of Medicare is likely off the table for the 2012 electoral cycle, and the Administration seems to have figured out a way to not involve itself in shaping the way that entitlement reform will work out.

All in all, it’s some pretty slick negotiating, and I’m sure this Administration and Democratic Congressional leaders must be very proud.

Even on bad days, however, you gotta have some fun, and that’s why I’m encouraging everyone to take a minute today to say #thanksalot.

“This is tremendous, Don, just tremendous. The atmosphere heavy, uncertain, overtones of ugliness; a reminder in a way of how it was in March of 1964, at Miami Beach, when Clay met Liston for the first time and nobody was certain how it would turn out.”

--Howard Cosell, from the Woody Allen movie “Bananas”

There are a thousand other people today who will detail exactly where this went wrong, but I’m all about at least sending some kind of message; in order to say “thanks a lot” I’ve been Tweeting satire to the White House, and I’m hoping you’ll take some time today to do the same thing, using the #thanksalot hashtag.

“But I don’t Twibble, or Twister, or whatever they do on twitter”, you might say “and I don’t really get how it works”.

No problem.

If you want to send a message to a twitter user, you just put an “@” in front of their name, as in @whitehouse, usually right at the beginning of your message.

Hashtags are keywords that allow for lots of similar messages to be located, all together; when you put an “#” in front of a “word” it becomes a hashtag, as in #thanksalot or #arentyoutiredof. Popular hashtags become “trending” hashtags, and that’s one way how you make a big public statement on twitter (“Retweeting” someone else’s message is another way it’s done; retweeting and the sending of hastagged messages often occur symbiotically.)

Just to get you in the sarcastic spirit of the thing, here are some of the Tweets I’ve sent so far today:

@whitehouse Obama visits fallen building, a collapsed trench, and Carlsbad Caverns; says he'll "never cave" on debt deal. #thanksalot

@whitehouse republicans propose "logan's run", obama seeks reasonable compromise. #thanksalot

@whitehouse offers 1 Wet-Nap for each American thrown under bus yesterday; Republicans protest new "entitlement" #thanksalot

@whitehouse Prozac pill commits suicide; says in note that White House caving once again is "too depressing" #thanksalot

@whitehouse To avoid uncertainty in December, Obama Administration announces today they're caving on Bush tax cut extension #thanksalot

@whitehouse Dec. 23, 2011-Boehner: "We'll agree to revenue increases when both houses have a clean vote to repeal Obamacare..." #thanksalot

@whitehouse Dec 25, 2011-Administration announces entitlement compromise: cat food now food stamp-eligible #thanksalot

@whitehouse Obama Administration announces they prefer to negotiate with hostage-takers: "It makes us feel less guilty..." #thanksalot

@whitehouse Obama Administration "feels America's pain", announces nationwide program to distribute K-Y after debt deal #thanksalot

@whitehouse is there some sort of political viagra that could make obama "stand firm", just once? #thanksalot

At this point it looks like the only way this stinker goes down is if House Democrats vote against this bill and take the “Debt Ceiling Sword of Damocles” that the President has placed over their heads and put it right back on his, forcing either a 14th Amendment solution or a “clean” debt limit increase; if they do they not only stop this next hostage-taking dead in its tracks, but they create, for this Administration, the same level of fear that the Tea Party has today, and if that happens, then we move into the next stage of debt reduction negotiations from a position of strength.

If they fail to stop this deal, then when Medicare gets whacked in December the Democrats become co-conspirators – and at that point, for a Congressional Democrat up for reelection in ‘12 it’s gonna be either go down with all the other incumbents or run against Obama.

And at that point, the most interesting political question might be: did Obama depress turnout enough to cause Democrats to lose even more seats in Congress, or, when the details are better-known, is there going to be a huge “throw out all the bastards” vote that hammers Republicans just as ferociously as it does Democrats?

And what about Michelle Bachmann?

I don’t know, but it should be quite a soap opera between now and then, so stay tuned, make sure to say #thanksalot…and then do it a few times more…and most importantly of all, try to have as much fun in a bad situation as you can.

After all, as long as it’s happening to everyone else, it’s still comedy; until it finally does hit you…it’s not yet officially tragedy.

Hitler Holds News Conference, Blames Balanced Budget Amendment For U.S. Defeat

(FNS - Washington, New Germany, April 17, 1947) America’s new Führer, Adolf Hitler, announced today that his official War History would in fact acknowledge that one of the biggest contributing factors to the defeat of the Allies was the insistence of the former United States of America on sticking to its Balanced Budget Amendment, which left them unable to fund the wartime conversion of the US economy for the benefit of the Alliance.

“All those ideas Mr. Roosevelt spoke of”, said Hitler, “Lend-Lease, modular shipbuilding, War Bonds, secret weapons…in the end, all of them were just words, since the Americans’ Congress was never willing to allow the country to fully fund its war effort.”

As has been previously disclosed, Waffen SS historians have already located caches of documents in Washington describing plans to fund a massive military expansion in the former United States by selling War Bonds.

These debt instruments would have allowed the Roosevelt Administration to spend up to 40% of the Gross Domestic Product of the former Nation in defending itself, the former United Kingdom, and other nations against the Fatherland, but for reasons that are still not well understood Conservative politicians demanded that the former US Government never “take on debt for outsiders”, or, in the words of Mae Cadoodie, leader of the American Tea Party movement, “Never invite a foreign entanglement that raises our taxes”.

Had the Americans been allowed to sell War Bonds, or to raise taxes to fund the War, it is estimated that they could have provided tens of thousands of aircraft, millions of military vehicles, and hundreds of ships, but the Balanced Budget Amendment prevented any of that.

This represents the end of a series of political arguments that had been taking place since the 1930s, when some American economists were suggesting that a new idea called “deficit spending” could be helpful in bringing the former USA out of the Great Depression; at that time the Roosevelt Administration was unable to establish agencies such as the Work Projects Administration, which would have built public works projects throughout the USA in an effort to revive the moribund economy.

Mae Cadoodie and others fought back successfully against these ideas, pointing out that the last thing the US economy needed in a bad economy was new taxes; they made the same arguments when the Roosevelt Administration first proposed Lend-Lease as a war emergency measure.

“We cannot inflict punishing new taxes on American industry at this fragile time in our recovery” Cadoodie said in a famous speech in 1939, “and if the market is really there for this military materiel, if it’s not just some boondoggle manufactured by Roosevelt to take money out of the pockets of the American people, then I’m sure the British will be able to find the funding they need from the markets or from charitable donations”.

Cadoodie was unavailable for comment, as she and most other former American politicians are still serving on the Eastern Front, and will be for the foreseeable future.

In a related story, the conversion of the remainder of the American industrial base is underway for the fight against the Russians, and millions of otherwise unemployed Americans are being drafted into the military services in preparation for the final assault.

On Being Bumped, Or, Let’s Have Another Roundup

So I thought I was going to have another Jay Inslee story for y’all today, but it turns out that I’m going to have to do more research before we can “come to press” with that one.

But that’s OK, because the world’s been busy doing a lot of other things – and while many of them get media coverage, some don’t get a lot of notice at all.

And of course, there are also those stories that look one way at first glance…but look a lot different when you dig a bit deeper.

We’ll hit a few of those today, have a bit of fun doing it, and get ready for what promises to be another busy week of strategically not doing things in Washington.

To make things even better, some of the stories will be real, and some won’t.

We’ll see if you can tell the difference.

Wat baten kaars en bril, als den uil niet zienen wil?
(“What use are candle and glasses, if the owl does not want to see?”)

--Traditional Dutch saying quoted in Peter Tate’s book “Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition”

Let’s begin by closing out some business from our last story: I mentioned that I received a parking ticket from Seattle Parking Enforcement Office J. Hell, on Republican Street, while attending an event hosted by a Democratic candidate for Governor, and I suspect that some of you think I made all that up.

For proof, I was going to copy the ticket and post it for folks to see…but, instead, check this out: Officer Hell actually made the “Seattle Times” back in June, and you can see her hard at work in that story booting a car, which Seattle does after four unpaid parking tickets.

And now, on to the new business:

Have you seen the Viagra commercial where the guy is driving his horse trailer, and it gets stuck in the mud, and he uses the horses to pull himself out?

Well, think about it just a minute: he’s a guy, and he already has a great big pickup truck, a cowboy hat, and horses…which he’s actually using to pull his great big pickup truck…and you’re telling me he doesn’t already have a boner?

If he can’t achieve an erection at that point, what the hell good is Viagra gonna do?

And speaking of erecting new things…

In what I consider to be one of the best things to happen to politics (and the financing of television productions) in years, Stephen Colbert has been given permission to form his own SuperPAC.

Colbert indicates that he intends to use any money donated to the PAC to produce certain campaign commercials, among other things – but according to the FEC advisory opinion, he is not allowed to expend any of his unlimited corporate contributions to run another effort like 2008’s “Hail to the Cheese” Campaign, which was intended to merge corporate money and politics in an obvious and highly visible way.

By the way, that FEC advisory opinion is available for viewing, if you’re so inclined – and in a most fascinating footnote, it unintentionally explains the existence of Fox News as a legitimate press entity:

A news story, commentary, or editorial that lacks objectivity or is satirical can still be considered part of a press entity’s legitimate press function, even if that news story, commentary, or editorial expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for Federal office.

And speaking of unlimited corporate money…

Monaco was the location of a Royal Wedding this weekend, with Monaco’s Prince Albert, resplendent in his military uniform, taking up the role of groom.

Military uniform?
Monaco?
Really?

As it turns out, tiny little Monaco actually does have a military, and the Prince represents 1/113th of the entire force – which means if they ever try to invade the Vatican, the Swiss Guard will outnumber ‘em by about 19 guys.

(By the way: the Prince is reported to have some DNA testing in his near future to determine the paternity of what could be his third and fourth illegitimate children…which is presumably going to make for a bit of a frosty honeymoon.)

What else is going on?

Well…I was watching CNN and they suggested that people bearing retirement age should try making a budget that would reflect how they’ll be living after retirement and try living on that now.

And I though to myself: “I should try that”.

So I did…and now I’m wanted for bank robbery in four states.

Thanks, CNN.

And finally…

In a story that is exclusive to Your Erstwhile Reporter, I am now able to report that Ohio Governor John Kasich, in an effort to simultaneously reduce unemployment and “send the proper message” to his workforce, will announce on Tuesday that he intends to hire 6,000 new state employees who will have only one duty: to travel around and visit all male State employees, at random, once a month…and kick them in the balls.

In order to help female employees really “get a feel” for the new work environment, former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has been brought back to reform and “restock” the Dannettes; he’ll then be employed as the “Charlie” overseeing Ohio State Government’s newest “Angels”.

So there we are, with this weekend’s Roundup, and we should be back shortly after Tuesday with either the Jay Inslee story that was supposed to be here today - or a substitute, depending on how our research goes.

On Sunday Drinking, Or, Has Satan Been Rendered Irrelevant?

I know better than to go drinking on Sundays, but it’s just been one of those weeks, and I figured I’d grab a few beers, no big deal, and then head hone and get some real work done.

Of course, the reason I don’t drink on Sundays is because that’s when Satan likes to go hang out at my favorite bar – and to be real honest with you, lately Satan’s getting to be a real drag to hang out with once he gets drinking.

I mean, it’s depressing: he’s always talking about how he gets blamed for the economy, even though he claims he has no control over Wall Street, and atheism is a bit of a sore subject – and he’s forever complaining about how all his best customers have been outsourcing more and more work to Varsavarti.

But if you think all that’s a drag to have to deal with…you should hear him complain about Republican Presidential Politics.

They say that heaven is,
10 zillion light years away;
But if there is a God,
we need him now;
Where is your God?

That’s what my friends ask me;
and I say it’s takin’ Him so long,
‘cause we’ve got so far to come.

--From the song “Heaven is 10 Zillion Light Years Away”, by Stevie Wonder

I had no idea what a Tardis was until recently, except that it’s one of the things you have to hit a bunch of times to get to the really good multiballs in the “Doctor Who” pinball game, and it was Satan who told me all about this “Doctor Who” stuff over a few games in the back of the bar (and he would know: he tells me almost every BBC producer, one time or another, has availed themselves of the intercession of the Devil just to get another 12 episodes out of that network); in fact, the way I really got to know Satan was over a whole bunch of games of pinball.

He plays fair, by the way: he gives himself free replays by making the machine “match” his score at the end, but he doesn’t manipulate the gameplay just to rack up results; because of that we have some pretty competitive games, especially after he has a beer or two and really loosens up.

But once he found out I’m a blogger…oh, man, it’s Republicans this and Republicans that – and the thing that really has him upset with this crowd lately is that it’s all sort of gone out of his control.

“There was a time,” (it’s always “there was a time” with Satan) “when a guy who was in favor of private businesses being allowed to be ‘Whites Only’ who also wanted to run for Senate, much less President…well, they wouldn’t have a chance in Hell unless they made a deal with me – and now you got two of ‘em in the same family who went and ran for Congress, and won, without me getting’ a single soul out of the deal, and now Ron Paul’s running for President, and it’s just killin’ me.

And look who else you got over there: you can’t do a deal with Trump, because he’ll try to bankrupt his way out of any agreement you make, and Santorum actually believes he can win without a deal. Me and Dan Savage, though, we fixed him good: Google ‘Santorum’ sometime, and see what you get.

I made a deal with Bachmann…but I did it when I thought she’d only make it to Congress…so I’m gonna get short-changed on that one. I don’t know if Pawlenti wants it bad enough to make a deal, and if he doesn’t run I’ll lose that soul. Romney hasn’t done a deal yet, and I’ve told him three times already that he can’t win without me.

Gingrich was the one I was sure I would get eventually, but he has no shame, so he’s running without my help even though I showed him how bad he looks to the rest of the world…and he’s been trying for years to undercut me by going to the Catholics to get his marriages annulled – and for cash, instead of a soul. The guy’s just pathetic, he really is.

I am negotiating with Daniels, though, so it’s not all bad – and on that deal, I might even get a ‘two-fer’: him and the wife.”

By now I’d been just nailing Daleks and I was in the middle of the three-ball multiball, and collecting Davros jackpots big-time, but even in the middle of all that I had the presence of mind to ask if Satan had any campaign tricks up his sleeve for this bunch?

“Tell me what you think about this: I’m working something up where Christine O’Donnell gets caught up in an affair with one of the candidates – but I can’t figure out who makes a better scandal: linking her romantically to Newt Gingrich…or to Michelle Bachmann?”

And I told him the truth: I was happy indeed that I hadn’t been drinking a beer when he asked, because I would have done a “spit take” for sure.

But, honestly, I’m not sure who would make the better scandal, so I’m going to do what I promised Satan I would: I’m going to throw it open to you, the readers, and we’ll see who y’all think would be the best person for Christine O’Donnell to be, shall we say, “seeing”.

Anyway, by that time I figured I better go, especially before he got all caught up in another big speech about how “Citizens United” screwed him over, or how that guy from the IMF is gonna be calling any time now, so I finished up my pint, and I headed on home to bring you this story of how the Republicans have screwed things up so badly that, for perhaps the first time in history, discord, anarchy, insanity, and ugliness aren’t business opportunities for The Horned One…and, of course, I wanted to get you the “heads up” on the Christine O’Donnell scandal that hasn’t even happened yet – which, if my friend Satan has anything to do with it, soon will.

On Open-Source Entertainment, Or, Today, Jon Kyl Meets Twitter

So Arizona Senator Jon Kyl went and did a stupid thing the other day by claiming on the floor of the Senate that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is related to abortions, and that, by God, we need to cut that Federal funding for abortions, and we need to cut all Federal funding for Planned Parenthood—and we need to do it today.

Of course, that 90% claim was total hooey; it turns out that only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s work relates to abortions. (The Federal funding for abortions part is, too; the Hyde Amendment made such funding illegal decades ago.)

When confronted, Kyl’s office released a statement claiming the Senator’s comments were “not intended to be a factual statement”.

Sir Rev. Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, decided to have a bit of fun with Kyl, and he challenged his audience to Tweet their own “Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement” about Kyl.

I decided to compose a Tweet of my own…and then another…and before I knew it I had an entire story’s worth; that’s why, today, we’ll be taking a taking a short break from the daily grind to have a bit of fun with a man who truly deserves it: Jon Kyl.

...I decided to celebrate Jon Kyl's ground-breaking excystplanation last night by tweeting round-the-clock nonfacts about him:

“For the past ten years Jon Kyl has been two children in a very convincing Jon Kyl suit” and “Jon Kyl calls all Asians ‘Neil’ no matter what their name is”.

Both of which would be libelous if I hadn't added the hashtag notintendedtobeafactualstatement.

Well, Nation, you picked this up and ran with it, using my hashtag to tweet your own nonfacts as an uprece-tweeted rate of 46 per minute!

Which, incidentally, is the rate at which Jon Kyl catapults puppies into the sea.

--Stephen Colbert, speaking on the “Colbert Report”, Wednesday, Apr 13, 2011

So I did a bit of math, and if Colbert is correct about that “46 a minute” thing then about 65,000 tweets went up in the 24 hours following his announcement, and they’re still going up fast; check out #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement at Twitter to get a feel for what I’m talking about.

Two Tweets by other writers sort of “bookmark” the types of missives that have been presented; Ben Cobb, writing as @MoltenPanther, Tweeted…

Jon Kyl started a squirrel farm to form a massive squirrel army in preparation for the coming apocalypse.

…and John Q, writing as @PencilName, wrote:

During an emergency, Jon Kyl can be used as a flotation device.

So with that in mind, here’s a few of my #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement submissions:

Jon Kyl's head once served as a landing light for Senator James Inhofe at the Eufala, Alabama airport.

Jon Kyl listens to Radio Disney--and doesn't know those are cover songs.

Jon Kyl likes KFC better than Popeye's.

It used to be John Kyl...but he lost the "h" in 1979 after a night of drinking, and now he can't find it.

"The KylBot AZ Mark II v.3.6505 is experiencing software malfunctions. Please try again later..."

Kyl's head brushed against Trump's hair on an airport runway last night. 450 passengers aboard, 0 injured.

On Saturday nights, John Kyl likes to dress up as a giant pretzel and get "stuffed in an M&M"

Why is Kyl so crazy? He gets 5 cents per page view every time he's in The Onion--and he needs the money.

Jon Kyl once caught Larry Craig eating Cheeze Whiz right out of the can.

Jon Kyl once impersonated Flip Wilson so he could appear in the movie "Uptown Saturday Night".

The most popular strain of medicinal marijuana in the United States today is "Jon Kyl".

Jon Kyl can see Russia from his house.

Jon Kyl's Malcolm X poster is covered by a Robert Mapplethorpe poster...so that no one will ever know...

Jon Kyl once snorted coke, but the bubbles really hurt his nose.

215,856 of Jon Kyl's constituents signed a petition asking him to start smoking.

Jon Kyl's iPhone has a dial.

Joe Arpaio is blackmailing Kyl with whatever's on his original birth certificate.

I know where Lemmywinks is tonight--and so does Jon Kyl's colon.

If Jon Kyl was a chicken-fried steak at Denny's he would give you diarrhea the next morning.

Jon Kyl's skull recently committed suicide. It was leading an empty life.

Jon Kyl never got that "Mulva" joke.

Powdered Toast Man once told Jon Kyl to go butter himself.

Jon Kyl once tried phone sex, but he didn't have enough lube, so he had to quit.

Jon Kyl's favorite kink is to dress up like a fence and play "Border Crossing".

From 1977 to 1981, Jon Kyl appeared onstage as Tommy Chong. Cheech Marin was never told of the deception.

Jon Kyl used whiffleball bats for his entire Major League Baseball career.

On his days off, Kyl plays Carl on "Aqua Teen Hunger Force".

Jon Kyl provides sanctuary for up to 800 illegal immigrants at a time in his at-home underground bunkers.

Wendy Williams' wig head Shakeetha has a restraining order out on Jon Kyl.

Jon Kyl once had Hansen's Disease--but then he got his "Mmm Bop" removed.

If Jon Kyl was in "Star Wars" he'd be known as Luke NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement-Walker.

Jon Kyl's Danny has never met its Dingo.

Jon Kyl once tried to Baskin his Robbins.

Jon Kyl's brain has seen the news reports, and now it doesn't want to come back from vacation.

Every defibrillator in Arizona recently signed a letter refusing to revive Jon Kyl.

If John Boehner's tears ever touch Jon Kyl, he'll dissolve.

So there you go: now that we’ve started the day out with a bit of fun, why not waste a bit of your boss’ time and direct a few Tweets of your own to Kyl?

And don’t forget: be smart, be funny, and be sure to add #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement to those Tweets—because after all, you don’t want to be out committing libel now, do you?

On “La Dolce Vita”, Or, The Real Life Of A State Worker

What with all the attacks on Labor in states like Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, there has been just so much misunderstanding out there these past couple weeks about what things are actually like for State workers.

Are the conditions decent?
Is there excessive pay?
Is there even a need for State workers?

Well, I can’t answer every question, but I can sure tell you what it’s like in our house…and the reason my words carry the “voice of authority” is because The Girlfriend has been working for the State of Washington for the past 15 years.

Bona fides established, let’s get to telling the story:

Good morrow to the day so fair;
Good morning, Sir, to you:
Good morrow to mine own torn hair
Bedabbled with the dew

--From “The Mad Maid’s Song”, a selection from “The Hesperides & Noble Numbers”, by Robert Herrick

So as to make this story more fully informative, I went to work with The Girlfriend the other night, and what you’ll be reading today is basically my eyewitness report of what conditions are like at her workplace.

To be completely fair, she tells me that conditions at her facility are not as nice as the other comparable locations the State operates, so we'll have to establish right up front that this might not be a complete picture of how things are everywhere.

She is a nurse, The Girlfriend is, and she’s been working for the past 16 years with clients who live in what’s called a Residential Habilitation Center, and, to quote the State, her job is to “is to provide specialized care and support to people with developmental disabilities who have challenging needs”.

At the moment, the State operates five of these facilities, although that number is expected to be lower after this year; this because the number of clients being served has declined over time.

So the first thing we better talk about is the pay.

Ever since the labor unions took over State Government in Washington, wages for State workers have somewhat improved. The Girlfriend is earning in the middle of her pay range, which means she’s making about $870,000 a year, even though other nurses at her location jack in a million two or more.

(Washington State’s AFSCME is proud that they finally got our last State worker above $100,000; this was accomplished by changing Legislative Intern positions to Legislative Intern Level 7 positions and making step-pay increases part of that change.)

Of course, that’s not the whole package.

We woke up last night to the ringing of the call. On the line was the Facility Concierge, Lester, cheerfully waking us up.

We’re dressed, and heading out the door, and of course now the question is whether it’s a good idea to take the Bentley to work, what with the wintry weather and all, or to go with our SUV. You see, thanks to her State salary, we were able to purchase one of the two 2009 Lamborghini lm 800 SUV prototypes that were produced before the idea were abandoned…and even though—well, let’s just say there’s a “deal”.

See, the thing is, the valets at her facility are a bit sketchy, ever since the State outsourced the work (hey, the unions can’t win ‘em all)…and the Bentley can be replaced…and losing the Lamborghini would be a really big “deal”, because one of the other nurses owns one of those crazy Russian SUVs (she bought the Dartz Monaco Red Diamond Edition, even after they decided not to go with the whale penis leather seats), and there’s a lot of “keeping up with the Joneses” at her place…but we went with the Lambo anyway.

Lucky for us, two of our favorite valets (Tendei Furlough and Jenna Talia) were working, and we know the Lambo would be in safe hands with them.

I was starving, and she was, too; luckily for us the omelette and crêpe bar was still open at the cafeteria, which provides meals for State workers at no charge.

The cooks, as usual, had an excellent selection of Washington State food and beverage products available. I had crêpes with Yakima pheasant, Walla Walla sweet onions, and local champignon morel, all bound up in a lovely sauce Béchamel with just that little hint of clove that really makes it work for me.

She went for the Puget Sound King Crab omelette with freshly-gathered oyster mushrooms and Cougar Gold Dill Garlic cheese straight from the Washington State University creamery—which, I must say, was also an excellent choice.

The cooks apologized for the absence of fresh spot prawns, venison, and line-caught salmon tonight, but what with the State having to economize these days…what can you do?

At the table, our sommelier had something very special: some of the last of the 1996 Leonetti Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon out there anywhere—and I have to tell you, many people would not have chosen it with pheasant, but it was so nice that in this case I did not mind breaking convention. For a white, we had the 2008 Cadaretta "SBS" Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc-Sémillon; I gave it a taste, and I had to agree that it was indeed a 91-point wine.

Dessert was a lovely apple tart with fresh local cream and a glass of local Port, and then it was off to fitness and uniform services.

To help prevent on-the-job injuries, workers attend a paid two-hour workout session before each workday begins, and our guest fitness instructors this week had been brought in from markanthony’s of London, who are working out a deal with the State to bring “fitness podcast” to all workers at home.

After a shower, it’s back to the cafeteria for a break: scones, blueberry preserves, and mint tea for her (gathered from the on-campus garden), and a lovely slice of Remlinger Farm marionberry pie and an espresso doppio for me from one of the three baristas that are on duty at all times to meet the coffee needs of the 200 or so workers at the facility.

Tonight there’s an important union meeting and updates from State officials on new initiatives to come, so the next two hours is spent at The Conference Center, a building located next to the Japanese Garden and Koi pond and decorated in an Asian motif, with silk-covered chairs and teak and ebony furniture and many ornamental “panel” units scattered about the rooms.

A simple lunch was prepared and served tableside at The Conference Center by the Center’s catering staff: in honor of Hispanic Heritage Week and the former Caesar’s Restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, we had the salad that bears the name, along with freshly made cranberry and walnut rolls and local creamery butter.

After our hour lunch break, which we spent shopping at the artisan mall that operates on the facility grounds (she’s having a hat made, I hit the tailor shop and ordered a dozen black turtleneck shirts, half in black, half in darker black, in case any “adventures” come up), we hit the “five hour on the clock mark”…and in Washington State, all State workers work five hours and get paid for eight.

So we caught the Campus Shuttle (there are electric vehicles available, on call, that carry workers from building to building) back to the valet station, collected the Lambo, and called it a day.

So that’s a great story, ain’t it?

Well, the reality is that Tendei Furlough is a name I invented because State workers are, this year, getting an unpaid ten day furlough, which means you just lost two weeks’ of pay this year.

Nurses? The reality is that most everyone she works with, nurses and nursing assistants alike, have been injured at one time or another because the staff is short and the clients might assault you or you might have to bear their weight unexpectedly.

The money is now better in the private sector, and benefits are catching up fast. (The “defined benefit” retirement system went away long ago, and today’s State workers, including The Girlfriend, with more than 15 years on the job, are in a “defined contribution” plan.)

There really haven’t been any raises, as any money they get on one end goes right back out the other in things like higher co-pays and—oh, yeah, that two weeks of pay they just sort of…lost.

There are fewer workers than before, but the workload is much higher than it was 15 years ago, which means even getting a break is now a “maybe, sometimes” kind of a deal.

Cafeteria? Valet? Please.

There is free parking, which is better than a lot of people have, but as far as amenities go, that’s about it.

Now the conversation is about how much more everyone’s pay can be cut…and I’m gonna tell ya, when you are on the way to becoming the lowest-paying job in town there is a point where things like providing client care and a decent education for your kids and keeping the prisoners inside the walls are going to be seriously impacted.

We just had a corrections worker killed on the job, and recent staff cutbacks might have been part of the reason why—and if you add declining pay to understaffing you end up with something like dollar store jail guards, which, as I mentioned above, is not gonna be good value for the taxpayer dollar.

By the way: does any of this sound like Governors are the stooges of labor leaders?

I hate to say it folks, and there are few politicians who will, but you cannot just cut taxes to zero and expect it to all work out.

Government costs money, people have to do the jobs, and hiring good people, just like in any other business, is a smart idea…and you don’t get good people if you just make the environment worse and worse and worse.

Governments have to decide how to spend money, and they have to spend wisely and well, and we all know that…but continually cutting, no matter what the cost, often leads to decisions that are neither wise nor well.

Often, over the negotiating table, government is forced to make better decisions about things like class sizes and buying bullet-resistant vests for cops, even if the elected leaders would rather do nothing but cut taxes, no matter what the cost, and when you strip away the voice of workers, you pretty much guarantee that the workplace won’t be a better place, either for the workers, or for the customers.

Those customers, of course, are you and me, and if you want the business of government that you’re paying those taxes to run to run well…then it’s time to support your State’s workers—and to get loud about it.

If we do we can make it plenty painful for the elected officials who, right now, are so busy trying to advance their careers by screwing over State workers that they might as well change all their last names to either Phillips, Slotted, or PoziDriv #4…and, as Martha Stewart would say, “that’s a good thing”.

Campaign Manifesto #3: On The Road, Defending Social Security

So it’s Day 3 of my fake campaign for Congress, and we’ve run into our first obstacle

The Fake Campaign, as you may recall, is fake headed for Wisconsin, to show solidarity, and we’ve fake hitched a ride on a delivery truck headed for Rush Limbaugh’s Florida broadcasting studios—but we fake found ourselves caught up in the all-too-real Giant Grip Of Winter that has seized the Midwest over the past week.

We’re back on the road now, but we were stuck for darn near a half-day there at Wall…and if you know anything about South Dakota, you know there are really only two things to do in the City of Wall: you can shuffle back and forth between Gold Diggers and the Badlands Bar, partaking of numerous intoxicating liquors along the way…or you can head on into Wall Drug (the same one that's on all those bumper stickers and signs) and partake of the finest display of Giant Jackalopia on the planet.

The Campaign, naturally, chose Jackalopia—and that’s why today’s Manifesto is all about the fake impromptu 5-cent-coffee-fueled Social Security Town Hall that we held in the Wall Drug Mall for several hours while we waited for I-90 to reopen.

Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, grass grows by Itself.

--From the “Zenrin Kushu”, attributed to Toyo Eicho

I-90, the main route from West to East (if your fake trip begins in Seattle, as ours did), was closed at Wall, South Dakota for about 24 hours this week, but this particular delivery truck just absolutely has to be in Florida by Monday…and the delivery is so important that to get us back on the road we now have a special escort of two South Dakota Department of Transportation snowplows and two 2011 “new and improved” South Dakota Highway Patrol Dodge Charger Pursuits (now with longer lasting brakes!) to make sure we get to the Wisconsin line in the shortest time possible.

With the weather being what it is, Jenna and Tendei, our driving team, have been earning their money, in a big way, this trip, and for the moment Tendei is asleep, while Jenna and I mull over the conversations we had tonight, me and the caravan of Wall Drug customers who gathered, first by the snake-oil salesman (that’s not hyperbole, either: they actually have an anamatronic snake-oil salesman), then out in front of the Western bookstore, and finally over by one of the 5-cent coffee stations.

It was my fault: standing next to the snake-oil salesman got me thinking about all the lies we hear every day about Social Security…which I mentioned to the 30-something couple standing next to me, young son in tow.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d guess the next words out of his mouth are going to be: ‘I’ll never see a dollar of my Social Security anyway, so who cares how they fix it?’.”

He looked back at me, all surprised: “We’re not ever going to see any; they tell us that all the time.”

“Yeah, I know…but it’s a big ol’ load of hooey, and I’ll tell you why: Social Security is funded by payroll taxes that are, for the most part, paid out as they’re collected, that means there’ll always be money that we will use to pay benefits, unless we just quit collecting that money altogether, which is not likely.”

We were beginning to gather a few others around us (hey, we were all stuck there—nothing else to do…); that means my gestures were getting a bit bigger—but there’s a nice echo in there, and you can be heard.

“The way things work now, if nothing changes, there will be enough money to pay out all the benefits we expect to pay until 2037. After that, if the ‘pessimistic projection’ plays out, even if nothing else changes, we can still pay 75% of what we expect to pay for about 50 years after that. We only look out 75 years at a time, so we don’t have a projection that goes out past 2084…but, pretty much, as long as we keep collecting the money, we’ll still be able to pay the benefits.”

I looked over at a 40-ish couple that had come over to listen: “What about you two? Right now there’s a lot of talk about ‘fixing’ Social Security by making you wait longer to retire or by making sure cost-of-living increases don’t really keep up with inflation. Don’t y’all feel like if they do that, you’re just getting screwed?”

It was almost like Parliament and “Question Time” in there for a second (which is not a George Clinton reference) as the 15 or so folks listening began to “harrumph” in agreement.

“Well how about if I were to tell you that I could fix this problem, and that I could do it without raising the retirement age or messing with your cost-of-living…and that I could do this in a way that gives every person in this room a tax cut at the same time…and that, even though I’m running for Congress, I’m not a snake-oil salesman?”

About two lives ago I used to be a failed stand-up comic (true!), and it is possible to know when the crowd is turning—and this was one of those moments.

The 40-ish husband looked at me and said, basically, that I did sound like a Congressman—and not in a good way.

“I know you don’t believe me, but listen to this: if you turn a wrench or carry a tray or do anything that makes under, basically, $105,000 a year in wages, all your income is taxed for Social Security…but if you make a million a year, you don’t pay any tax at all on the last $890,000…and if that income was taxed, we wouldn’t have a Social Security problem.

Now you don’t hear much about this back in Washington, and there’s a couple of reasons why: right off the bat, this President and this Congress don’t want to be accused of ‘raising anyone’s taxes’; beyond that, 2012 is coming fast, and both the President and the Grim Weeper are trying to be the one who can look at the voters and say: ‘I’m The Slasher, and I will cut the deficit and balance the budget faster than the other guy’.

Lots of people think cutting Social Security will somehow cut the deficit and reduce the debt, even though it has nothing to do with it at all, and some of them figure that if they campaign around cutting everything that government does it’s gonna help their political future, and that includes cutting benefits for people just like you, instead of just funding Social Security with a flat tax for everyone…even the rich.”

This argument, I might add, was starting to gain traction.

“Look at where we are right this very second: standing in front of a Western bookstore…and if you go in there you’ll see stories of how people died of starvation and how land barons ruled counties with an iron fist and how we fought range wars with imported hired guns and shootouts in the streets.

Is that what we want to go back to?

It’s not what they wanted. The pioneers didn’t just build isolated ranches, they built towns, and towns with a schoolhouse, so that the kids on those ranches didn’t have to rely on a home school education. They had a Sheriff or a Marshal and a Town Council and a Judge, because they knew that they had to create some rules and establish some government.

Some towns in the Wild West, and you know I’m telling the truth about this, didn’t even allow guns inside the town limits…just like when Wyatt Earp was the Marshal in Dodge City and you had to check your guns if you were going north of the railroad tracks.”

You know what? This was working: the crowd began to nod with me, and I figured while I had the advantage I’d press the thing home:

“Now a lot of people probably think the fix is in, and what’s the point…but I don’t agree. There was an effort at the beginning of this Congress to force these cuts by threatening to stop providing any money for the Government at the beginning of March if the ‘Wrecking Crew” didn’t get their way, and the Tea Party folks came in here with a big ol’ war cry about ‘shut it all down’ and all that…but now that March 4th is actually drawing close, and the public is starting to figure out what’s up, the message is suddenly all about ‘maybe we can extend the funding after all’.

That tells me that the people who think cutting everything in sight because it looks good are finding out it doesn’t always look good to just go around cutting everything in sight.

Tell ya something else. A lot of the people who want to change Social Security want to change it into a system that rewards people who manage Social Security accounts, not the people who own the accounts, and if you look at what ‘privatizing’ the system is all about, that’s what it is: it’s just a plan to get more money out of you in the form of fees and charges, which is going to be a great big reward to great big political donors who have been trying to make this happen since the 1980s.

So here’s the reality: there is enough money in the system to pay for you and your kids to have benefits, even if no changes are made, and if you just make Social Security a flat tax, even for the rich, we are pretty much guaranteed to have every dollar we need until at least 2084, and we don’t have to cut benefits or raise the retirement age, or do any of that crazy stuff…and we don’t have to give up our hard-earned money to big banks and Wall Street in the form of new fees and charges on your Social Security accounts.

So I came here in a truck, and it has to be in Florida in a couple days, and my driver friend is walking over here, and that means I gotta go, but I hope I told you something about Social Security you didn’t know a while ago…and if any of you are fake voting for a fake Congressional candidate in 2012, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.”

And with that, I fake shook a few hands, jumped in our fake truck, and headed off to Wisconsin.

Campaign Manifesto #2: In Which We Travel To Wisconsin

So when we were last together, as you all know, I announced that I’m fake running for Congress in Washington State’s 8th District—and that I’m doing it because, so far as I know, the best way to get a candidate to truly “come out Liberal” is to be a fake candidate…and to make good and sure The Campaign isn’t out chasing money when it’s being done.

Having made the announcement, we’re already making our first campaign trip—and oddly enough, our first trip as a Congressional candidate will take us to Madison, Wisconsin, where we’ll link up with a few folks who, apparently inspired by me, have taken to the streets in a very big way.

When we get there I’ll need a parka, a nice hat, a thermos of coffee, and a big fat Sharpie—so let me go get it all together, and then we’ll be on our way.

All sober enquiries after truth, ancient and modern, Pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity consists in virtue. Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates, Mahomet, not to mention authorities really sacred, have agreed in this.

If there is a form of government then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men, in whose breasts it predominates, so stupid, and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.

--From “Thoughts on Government”, by John Adams, 1776

Now for those who did not know, I am personally responsible for the marches and demonstrations that have been taking place in Madison, Wisconsin for the past several days.

What happened was that, just about two weeks ago, I posted a story at Uppity Wisconsin asking, literally, “Where’s Our Tahrir Square?”—and obviously, inspired by my posting and Scott Walker’s mad rush to power, the citizens of Wisconsin have responded to the call, and now the fight is on.

I need to get over there immediately and see what else I can get going—and if I can have this kind of impact in a State where I don’t even live, obviously my fake candidacy is off to a very, very, good start.

So the first thing I had to do was to arrange transit to Madison—as you’ll recall the campaign does not accept donations, so no private jet for this fake candidate—but lucky for me I have a few connections in “low places”.

As it happens, there’s a full shipping container of Oxycodone that arrives at the Port of Seattle every week from a certain Asian gray-market supplier, and that shipping container has to be in the back parking lot of Excellence In Broadcasting’s Network Broadcast Origination Center in Palm Beach, Florida by 6:13 AM the following Monday morning…and if it doesn’t make it, The Rush Limbaugh Show cannot go on the air that week.

I know the two drivers of that truck, and before 10 PM we were already passing through George, Washington (and, of course, the Martha Inn Cafe) and getting ready to cross the Columbia River on I-90.

It’s a late night driving across Eastern Washington, Idaho, and Western Montana, and before long the talk turned to bribery.

Tendei and Jenna (the truck drivers) wanted to know how I would get along in “the other” Washington, what with all the corruption and all, and that’s when we got to talking about my revolutionary new “corruption policy”.

“Well I’ll tell ya what” I said over the pretty much constant sound of Jenna playing “Bejeweled” from the desk in the sleeper (there’s a satellite internet connection…and I think Jenna may have stolen a few of those Oxycodones for herself) “the way I see it we already have bribery…we just call it campaign donations or soft money or corporate free speech or whatever, so what I propose to do is just make it all open and transparent.

Here’s what I mean: in the 112th Congress, Republicans are supposedly going to add statements to bills that explain where the Constitutional foundation for the bill comes from; what I’m going to do is add a statement to every bill that I introduce that explains just who paid for the bill, and how much.”

“No more moves!” Jenna started yelling from the back. “That…sucks!”

“Anyway” I said to Tendei, ignoring the sound of Jenna’s mouse smacking against the desk “in my bills, it would say something like ‘Platinum Contributors for this bill ($1,000,000) are the US Chamber of Commerce, Lockheed Martin, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Gold Contributors ($500,000) are Boeing, Xe, and the EG&G Division of the URS Corporation.’

So we’d list everyone, and that way you’d know who was paying for whatever hustle was about to be put on you.

I’m also thinking about ‘Bill Sponsorships’, which would allow naming rights for bills to be purchased by either interested corporations, private individuals, or groups.

For example, if we decided to lower the blood alcohol count for drunk driving in National Parks and other Federal Lands, we might end up with something like the…uh…the ‘Jack Daniels Cares About Drunk Driving Act of 2011”—but we’d be taking bids from all interested parties, and we’d probably need to get a least a million for something like that.

Tendei looked over from the driver’s seat: “But what about the bribes that get paid where no bill ever gets written?”

“Great question. What I’m thinking is that we set up a page on my Congressional website that works as a ‘Bribe Tracker’. When we get approached by a lobbyist who is looking to give us something, we put up a listing, and then if the bribe—sorry, ‘legal donation’—actually gets paid, we update the listing, so everyone knows who is paying what.

We could also add an EBay-like function, again, so that we can take bids on some bills when an auction looks like the best way to bump the price.

But all that only accounts for the incoming money. My voters want to know where the money is going to go after it comes in—and that’s where I’m really gonna get crazy.

I have two ideas for where the money could go. The first, of course, is right into the Federal Treasury, to lower the Federal deficit each fiscal year we run the program.

But the other idea is to let charities ‘bid’ for the money. In other words, charities would submit an explanation of what they would do with the money and how many private dollars they could ‘match’ for each one of ours…and the best bids win the money.

So what I’m going to do is let my voters decide what to do; The Campaign is setting up a poll and, as your fake humble public servant, I’m gonna let the decision be yours.”

Tendei looked impressed…but it was getting pretty late for both of us, with pretty much all of Montana yet to cross and Jenna looking to take the wheel for a few hundred more miles…so today’s Campaign Manifesto ends with Tendei taking the bottom bunk and the fake candidate taking the top.

Campaign Manifesto #1: In A World Of Phonies, It’s Time For A Fake Candidate

We have spent the past two years watching as insanity has gripped Congress, and even more so with Republicans now running the House.

We have a wavering President, far too many feckless Democrats, and Republicans that have decided to dive headfirst into total “insane mode” in a full-blown effort to destroy this country just as fast as possible.

To give but one example, in my own District, WA-08, we are represented by the absolutely useless Republican Dave Reichert, whose best-known legislative achievement is that he has virtually no record of any legislative achievement whatever.

Now we’ve had a very interesting relationship, you and I, over these past few years; in my efforts to “bring you the story” I’ve been a fake political consultant, a fake lobbyist, even a fake historian…and now, I think it’s time to try to bring our relationship to a new level.

And that’s why, America, I’m announcing my fake candidacy for Congress.

It was almost too good to be true. Richard Milhous Nixon, the main villain of my political consciousness for as long as I can remember, was finally biting that bullet that he’s been talking about all these years. The man that not even Goldwater or Eisenhower could tolerate had finally gone too far—and now he was walking the plank, on national TV, six hours a day—with The Whole World Watching, as it were.

That phrase is permanently etched on some grey rim on the back of my brain. Nobody who was at the corner of Michigan and Balboa on that Wednesday night in August of 1968 will ever forget it.

Richard Nixon is living in the White House today because of what happened that night in Chicago. Hubert Humphrey lost that election by a handful of votes—mine among them—and I had it to do again I would still vote for Dick Gregory.

--From “ Fear and Loathing in the Bunker ”, by Hunter S. Thompson

So let’s start with the obvious question: why a fake candidacy?

Well…why not?

Obviously, I can be just as fake as any real politician, and, as we discussed before, we have years of history together to prove it.

Can I be more useful to the District than Reichert?
Hey…even a fake me can do that.

After all, it’s not like there’s a high bar to jump over or anything.

It was four years in office before he actually got anything passed…and according to Congress.org, by 2008 he was ranked number 401 out of 435 in terms of how much power he exerts in the House…and that’s 9th out of 9 for the Washington State delegation. (Reichert’s own Congressional website reports he was ranked 166th out of 435 in 2006—and that means he fell more than 250 spots in a single term.)

So basically, all I have to do is take the Oath of Office…and we’re pretty much tied.

Now Dave tries to some extent to “ straddle the middle ”, as a result he supports environmental legislation but he’s against “card check”; he also voted to extend children’s health care coverage. He supported the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

His stance on Social Security?

Do a search for Social Security on his Congressional website, and you get “No documents matched your query”. Look for Social Security as an issue on his site and you can find this:

Congressman Reichert has fought to protect seniors’ Medicare and Social Security benefits, preserve their access to needed health care services, and make prescription drugs more affordable

(You have to look under “ Seniors ” to find it…but at least it’s there.)

According to FreedomWorks, Reichert had no position worth reporting on Social Security when they attended his April ’05 Social Security workshop…although another attendee reports he had this to say about removing that “tax cap” that represents a giant tax dodge for the richest among us:

Raising the cap was portrayed by all three as a tax hike, which they oppose because “the government shouldn’t be taking any more out of families’ hard earned budgets.”

OnTheIssues has this to say about his Social Security record:

No issue stance yet recorded by OnTheIssues.org.

By the way…did I mention that Reichert is currently serving on the House Subcommittee on Social Security ?

That’s a pretty high level of useless, and it’s exactly this kind of “get up and go” that explains how Reichert managed to fight his way right on up to number 401 in effectiveness among those 435 Members of Congress.

Me, I support the “Rich People Pay, Too” approach: no matter what your wage income might be, you gotta pay Social Security tax. No more “once you get rich, it’s a free ride”.

And guess what? If we just made all wage income taxable for Social Security purposes…the problem is actually solved —and it might not even require that much reform.

Law and order?

Reichert is a former Sheriff, and a man who cultivates the image that he personally caught the Green River Killer . When a bill came up to get the Justice Department off the backs of medical marijuana users, Reichert voted “ no ”.

I am most assuredly not a former Sheriff…and as a fake candidate, I would propose a different approach:

If you elect me, and we can get the bill passed, once a week I will personally dose up Members like Louie Gohmert and Michelle Bachmann and Joe Barton with large amounts of LSD…and I will then transport them right back to the House floor…and then one hour a day we’ll set up something like the obstacle course on “ MXC ” and then have them run it…and I will introduce a bill to set up a special “Premium Content” partnership with C-SPAN that charges $14.95 a month so that you can see the uncensored “GoDaddy” version of the video, with the money to be used to lower the Federal deficit.

I support medical marijuana—but I would limit the co-pay, by law, to $10.

Civil rights?

Reichert opposes same-sex marriage, and only gets a 50% rating from the NAACP…and I’m one of the only people you’ll ever meet who was officially notified he was gay by email —and if one of my family members had a “homosexual relationship”, unlike some Members, I wouldn’t keep it on the “ down low ”.

I’m more or less broke, just like you—and they tell me that, if you win, there’s pretty good health insurance —but I’m not looking for donations, from any source…with one exception:

At the moment this is a fake candidacy, but I’m thinking about asking a group to consider underwriting this as a comedic art project—and if they do, that would be the only money the “fake campaign” would accept.

So there you go: from here on out, there will be more “Manifestos” from the fake campaign—and in the next one, we’ll be talking, once again, about how you can support a candidate like Reichert, who’s basically a joke…or you can support a candidate like me, who really is one.

Oklahoma Shari'a Law Controversy: The Secret Plot Is Finally Uncovered

OKLAHOMA CITY (FNS)—After an exhaustive 18-month investigation, FNS is able to exclusively report that, contrary to popular opinion, Oklahoma’s controversial State Question 755, which is intended to prevent State courts from considering Shari’a law when making legal decisions, was intended to counter an effort already underway to impose such a legal code on the citizens of the State, perhaps as soon as this fall.

Amazingly, the effort to impose Islamic law involves some of Oklahoma’s most prominent business leaders, the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art.

Here’s the story, as it can now be reported:

Clay Bennett, the Chair of the ownership group which owns the Oklahoma City (OKC) Thunder, was a student at Cairo University during the early 1980s. At that time he was introduced into the community by his father’s business associate (real estate has been at the core of the family business), Tendei El-Furlough, who had been helping to steer Mideast money to the Oklahoma real estate investment group.

Even though membership was illegal at the time, El-Furlough was a senior representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, and over the family dinner table Bennett and another Oklahoma exchange student, Brook “Boots” Hall, Jr., who would later serve as an executive in his family business, the Fred Jones Companies, Inc., would hear tales of the Caliphate and how such a political arrangement would help the plight of those in the country where Bennett was living, and across the Arab world.

(Hall’s presence in the country was related to the family’s, and El-Furlough’s, multi-decade association with Braniff Airways)

In the dark days of the late 1990s and the early 2000s, it was very difficult to be a part of the Brotherhood, and as Mubarak’s Government clamped down on any potential political opposition, Bennett’s friend El-Furlough, along with other Muslim Brotherhood leaders such as Hari Al-Paratestes, began to reach out to see if a safe place could be found where the Muslim Brotherhood leadership could escape, lay low for some length of time, and then either return to Egypt when things were more hospitable, or begin the creation of the Caliphate from a new, safer, location.

Bennett and Hall were interested, but he knew it would take several years before his plan could come to fruition.

They knew if they were going to create such a haven in Oklahoma that there would have to be some presence in the State that would serve as a focal point for creating cultural change, and they later determined that a sports team could be such a vehicle.

This was most likely going to be a professional basketball team, and as it happens the NBA has been looking to expand their international presence. Conversations were held with Commissioner David Stern, and he was induced to consider making a deal that might lead to the Muslim Brotherhood moving to Oklahoma—and the NBA expanding to several cities in the oil-rich Middle East.

The OKC ownership group first attempted contacts with the Charlotte Hornets, with whom a relationship was established. After two seasons, it was determined that the team was unwilling to be controlled by the OKC ownership group, and the relationship was terminated. (There are rumors that the Charlotte ownership group and numerous players threatened to “spill the beans” regarding the “cultural change” element of the deal, and that payments were made to keep them quiet; this has not been fully confirmed.)

Stern next suggested a team from a “liberal” city: Seattle.

Contacts were made, a deal was struck, and certain Seattle players were “brought in” on the deal with certain cash payments and ownership rights. The new team is known as the “OKC Thunder”.

Bennett began using the team as a “vehicle for change” from the very beginning. For example, before each game, a member of he clergy comes to the floor and leads a prayer; plans are afoot to have more Islamic Imams leading those prayers as this year ends and next year begins.

The changes in the team rosters also reflect the new cultural focus: gone are players like Wally Szczerbiak, Eddie Gill, and Ronald Dupree. Now the Thunder sports players such as Thabo El-Sefolosha, Nenad Al-Krstic, and there are persistent rumors that they’re trying to acquire Lewis Al-Rashad (his birth name) from the Washington Wizards. Serge Ibaka, of course, is the only Chechen in the NBA, and he was brought on board fairly easily.

The Fred Jones Museum (where “Boots” Hall is a Board member) is assisting in the process of “acculturating” Oklahoma residents with their “Mediterranea” exhibit, which will run on the Sooner campus from March to May of 2011, just as the Thunder begins rolling out their Islamic pre-game prayers.

The exhibit will highlight how American artists such as Max Kuehne, William Stanley Haseltine, and Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow were influenced by “the legacy of the Greco-Roman past and the influence of Christianity and Islam”, to quote the exhibit’s website.

More than four dozen similar events have been organized during the next few months throughout the State in an effort to prepare the way for a bill to be introduced in the Oklahoma Legislature in early 2012 that would allow the use of Shari’a law for disputes between Islamic persons; this is one of the preconditions for Muslim Brotherhood leaders to be able to move to the State.

Efforts have been made to “smooth the way” with Oklahoma’s new Governor, Mary Fallin; one example was the group’s substantial donation to the Governor-elect’s transition/inauguration committee, augmented by other donations from groups with energy interests, including The Williams Companies and Devon Energy. Avalon Staffing, the private prison operator who would like to operate in Egypt one day, is also associated with the group and donated $26,000 to the committee.

All of this—the purchase of the team, arranging the change in prayers, the NBA expansion to the Middle East, the Headquarters-in-exile of the Caliphate itself—was put at risk when Rex Duncan came to the table with his State Question (SQ) 755, which will, to quote Duncan directly “constitute a pre-emptive strike against Shari’a law coming to Oklahoma."

The Question (officially known as the “Oklahoma International Law Amendment”), which would, if passed, become an Amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution, passed in November of 2010, with a 70%-30% “yes” vote.

Despite the efforts of Duncan and others across the State, the Bennett/Hall “Muslim Brotherhood Alliance” group was able to quickly obtain a court order barring enforcement of the law; that order remains in effect today.

As a result, the effort to bring Shari’a law to Oklahoma is again moving forward, unless Duncan and his allies can again stop the process and save the Sooner State from this previously undisclosed international plot.

Sources in Egypt indicate that the Brotherhood is anxious for the new legal code to be adopted as quickly as possible, just in case President Mubarak begins a sudden crackdown and plans and people associated with the Caliphate have to be brought out of the country.

FNS was unable to obtain a comment by press time from any of the involved parties; we are continuing to seek any available statement from press sources.

Halliburton Gets $2 Billion Contract For Florida "Cardboard Condos"

Miami, Florida, September 13, 2018 (FNS)—Facing pressure from voters to “do something” following the disaster caused by the privatization of Social Security, the White House today announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is awarding a $2 billion contract to the Halliburton Company for the purchase of 22,000 “cardboard condos” that will be installed in public parks around the Miami area in an effort to alleviate the problem of homelessness among the impoverished elderly.

“Having homeless senior citizens drag their appliance boxes all over the city reduces the community’s aesthetic appeal and leads to complaints”, said Halliburton spokesman Tendei Furlough. “The new modular design, combined with our ability to print attractive images on the outside of the boxes, guarantees both increased protection from winter weather and fewer complaints from affected neighborhoods.”

FEMA’s Director of Emergency Housing Resources Spike Fromula agreed: “We thought we had a real problem with homelessness in a number of our major cities after the Social Security safety net collapsed...but now, we think...well, we think we have a way to wrap the problem up in a neat little package.”

Nearly two years in development, the new product, officially known as the Emergency Living Device, Experimental, Regular Length, Yard (ELDERLY), is a response to the 2014 privatization of the Social Security program and the 2016 stock market collapse that occurred after the secret effort to sell “futures” in Republican Party policies and programs came to light, creating a national scandal which is still having repercussions across the United States.

These two events led to almost 18 million of the nearly 60 million elderly Americans now on Social Security losing all their future retirement income; almost 3 million of that 18 million now live in the Miami area, creating a massive homelessness problem that has overwhelmed every community in South Florida.

At today’s press event, Halliburton displayed a “block” of the ELDERLY boxes, which combine various pastel colors in a manner that makes them entirely compatible with the Miami “style”, and it was easy to see how effective the design will be:

“The boxes open on both ends to make them comfortable in the summer” Furlough told me, “and the people who occupy the boxes in the middle will be very comfortable in the winter as well, thanks to the insulation provided by the boxes on the ends of the rows.”

The Social Security Administration plans to distribute “ELDERLY vouchers” throughout South Florida over the next several months in order to provide an organized path to “home ownership” for some of those who lost all they owned in the market collapse; some have suggested that this may be the only asset most of the newly-destitute 18 million Social Security account holders will ever recover.

FEMA’s Fromula was enthusiastic about the new partnership: “Once again we’ve shown, that, given a problem, the free market can provide a solution, and we are grateful to Halliburton for stepping up with ELDERLY technology, and for doing it at the very affordable contract price of under $9500 per unit, including delivery, setup, and assembly. Barring cost overruns, we expect to be able to provide a shelter for every homeless person in Florida for about $3 trillion dollars, assuming that sufficient taxpayer funding can be provided.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The fine folks at the Campaign for America’s Future are thinking about what would happen if Social Security were to be privatized because it’s something a lot of Republicans are thinking about right now...and it’s something you better be thinking about, too.

After Bathtub Accident, O'Donnell Changes Position

Dover, Delaware (FNS)—Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell shocked the crowd at a Delaware political breakfast meeting when she announced that she has changed her thinking about masturbation following a weekend bathtub “incident”.

Spike Fromula, O’Donnell’s press secretary, explained to the press gaggle today that O’Donnell now realizes that it is possible to “masturbate without lust in your heart” after Saturday night’s revelatory event, which Fromula described as a “slip and fall episode”.

“It wasn’t exactly ‘The Passion of the Showerhead’” said Fromula, in a reference to her former work as a marketing consultant to the Mel Gibson movie of a similar name, “but there is no doubt that her thinking on the issue has evolved”.

O’Donnell’s new position, said to be one of several she assumed during Saturday’s “Eureka Moment”, is that a situation such as hers in now acceptable: individuals who are either showering or bathing while thinking about policy issues or Scripture, who accidentally either drop their soap or spill a certain quantity of shampoo on the “floor” of their bathing area, can accidentally masturbate, and as long as they continue to think about either Scripture or policy issues while that happens, no sin has occurred.

This is obviously a completely different perspective on this issue than what has been reported in the past; O’Donnell is famous for her claim that is impossible to masturbate without lust in one’s heart, therefore, it’s a practice that’s forbidden by Scripture.

Efforts to reach O’Donnell herself for clarification on the issue have been stymied by the fact that she has either taken up residence in her bathroom or become suddenly far more involved in policy analysis, depending on which version of the story is to be believed; Fromula, when asked about the sudden change in her schedule, had no comment to offer.

A number of observers have questioned whether her appearance in a campaign ad directly denying that she’s a witch at the same time this announcement was made is related to fears that she may have again resumed the practice, but Fromula was anxious to deny that Ms. O’Donnell is now spending her evenings with steaming cauldrons of any sort.

It is currently unknown exactly how many other Americans who subscribe to O’Donnell’s previous views on this issue might also be open to a reconsideration of the matter, but there is the potential for economic stimulus if the demand for Jacuzzi tubs were to increase, just to give one example. Another new potential business: applying new handrails and “extra-slip” coatings to currently installed bathtubs.

“The important thing to remember” Fromula said “is that now you know when Christine O’Donnell says ‘When I go to Washington I’ll do what you do’, she’s being more truthful than ever...and that’s the kind of magic American politics needs”.

On Homeland Security, Or, We Visit A Terrorist Gathering Place

They better not build that mosque down by Ground Zero, we’re being told, not just because it’s insensitive, but because we have no idea what they’ll be up to down there.

I mean, where did the money come from?

Who does this Imam hang out with, anyway?

And, at a time when our Nation faces more threats than ever, why would we let these Muslim madmen situate their “terror command posts” anywhere?

Well, I don’t know about all of that...but I do know a place where lots of these Islamic terrorists go to obtain the equipment and supplies they need to support their particular craft, and I decided to make a bit of an undercover visit to the spot, so that I might “observe and report” on what goes on at this specific location.

So put on your dark glasses...and let’s go see what we can find out.

I can’t give away too many details, for security reasons, but I can tell you that this particular distribution center is located about three miles from the Boeing Company’s Renton, Washington, manufacturing site. (The assembly lines for the 737 family of aircraft and the US Navy’s P-8A Poseidon antisubmarine patrol aircraft are all located on the property.)

Off to the southwest of the Boeing plant are dozens of nondescript commercial buildings, all one or two stories tall—including some that store, produce, or process components and subassemblies that will eventually make their way over to that Boeing plant.

We approach the unmarked building that interests us from the west, and even as we enter the parking lot we can see the terrorists gathering and going up the ramp to get inside—and it’s already clear that one of the warnings I was given has already come to pass: they’re operating under deep cover.

I didn’t let their cover fool me, though: it only takes a quick glance to know these are hardened veterans of jihad, and before I went in, I made sure I had taken every precaution.

You can see terrorists coming out of the building with large sacks of what I can only assume must be ammonium nitrate; to protect their cover they’re carrying the bags in what look like ordinary shopping carts.

I could see that everyone who enters grabbed one of these carts first, presumably as a signal to the guards (who are hidden from view as I enter) that they belong there; I grab one of them as well and pass through the portals to the inner sanctum.

Once inside I can see that there’s no further pretense of trying to hide their presence; terrorists are everywhere, in costume, wandering about freely...and for the moment, at least, they seem unperturbed by my presence.

The effort to maintain a cover story, however, even continues inside, as terrorist “sleeper cells” group up in what look like ordinary families, with a male and female, often accompanied by “terror children” and the occasional older terrorist “mentor”, who were apparently disguised to look like grandparents.

As I went inside the gathering of terrorist supplies continued, even in my presence—and it was amazing to see how effectively even ordinary looking objects could be “reinvented” as tools of terror.

At least 1/3 of the facility is devoted to devices that appear to resemble ordinary produce but have obviously been repurposed for terrorist purposes; in that area I saw terror tomatoes, terror shallots, and even terrorist-enhanced pineapples openly on display...and the costumed devils who had come to this location were grabbing them up as if they were...well, pineapples.

“Terror Tea” is evidently required if you hope to overthrow the infidels, and at least 20 different varieties of what must have been explosive materials (some of it was actually described as “gunpowder tea”) were on display, some in tiny bags small enough to smuggle on aircraft; other “bulk” packages were as large as 400 grams.

For those who seek to formulate their own materials, there is an entire “island” in the center of the store covered with bags of various powders that can be mixed together to achieve various effects; to maintain cover these were also innocently labeled as though they were exotic spices, unknown on this continent. I saw “turmeric”, “fenugreek”, and “cardamom” among the nonsense names that are obviously being used to throw off the English speaker.

They had strange fuels available as well, including “cooking” oil that they claimed was made from the seeds of grapes and some sort of what I assume was liquid explosive that was labeled “ghee”.

All sorts of “canned goods” and bizarre objects in jars were available, obviously intended to allow terrorists to infiltrate decent American homes and plant “booby traps”...but just as Japanese clothing designers seem to have trouble getting the English just right, there were subtle differences that can be observed by a real American.

For example, the word “ZerGüt”, which would never be used on an American product, appears on many of the jars (I couldn’t confirm this on the scene, for reasons of personal safety, but I assume ZerGüt means “Die, haters of Islam!” in Arabic).

Those large bags: they were stacked around the building, and as I approached some of them I saw even more patently ridiculous English labels, clearly intended to throw off Customs and Border Protection inspectors, such as “Brown Jasmine Rice” and “Red Cargo Rice”...and based on how much inventory they had on hand, there’s no doubt that the ruse was working.

The most insidious part of the story I saved for last: the use of cookies and candies as a mechanism for distributing certain unknown pastes that were concealed inside the cookies and candies, and the fact that this type of weapon is especially targeted toward American children.

You could see it from 50 feet away, as the “children” of the sleeper cells would gather around the cases of weapons, often choosing the most brightly colored packaging in what must have been a tactical decision to use that packaging to attract other children later when the cookies are handed out to innocent victims.

Mind control pastes?
Novel explosives?
A means to bankrupt us by spreading diabetes?

It’s impossible to say, but whatever their plot is, it must be diabolical to use such weapons as these.

In an effort to determine exactly what was going on, I obtained several of these packages of weapons. Disassembly and sampling have not enabled me to fully discern exactly what properties these unknown pastes might exhibit, but I do know that they contain high levels of sugar, which could be helpful if you’re looking to make “formed explosives”.

Due to the variety of hues encountered when examining the pastes, I assume there is some sort of color code that I have not yet figured out.

Obviously, I’ll continue to sample the various packages obtained until the scientific data within is more fully revealed.

Despite the fact that I was not dressed as the others in attendance were, I was moved through the money-changing process efficiently, in English (that’s how good they are...), and I was able to return to my vehicle and leave the area without being tailed.

An analysis for active and passive sensing and sending devices (on my vehicle and among the objects obtained) seems to offer no new data compared to a baseline analysis I conducted before visiting this site, so I’m fairly confident I escaped without the potential for future incident...which means the biggest issue remaining is probably assuring the safe disposal of the samples that were collected; as we’ve noted, that process is already underway.

So what did we learn?

We now know that an active distribution network exists to put various booby-trap weapons and other devices in the hands of terrorists—and we know that this activity is occurring within just a few miles of a commercial aircraft assembly facility that also does work for the militaries of this Nation and several others.

The devices are astounding in their similarity to actual items that might be seen in American households...and the terrorists are so good at maintaining cover that, in my presence, they kept themselves in the characters they were taught by their handlers, even to the point of the “children” keeping up the appearance of sticking with their “parents”.

But the most important thing we learned is that we can not take any chances on allowing these terrorists to gain any more footholds in our Homeland.

We don’t know what their diabolical plan is, but we have to act now to stop any further command centers from coming on-line—and most importantly of all, we have to make sure that these terrorists don’t get a chance to take their sleeper cells to a “Community Center” anywhere near Ground Zero, where they might try to play Terror Basketball or cook up “recipes” in a Terror Kitchen...and if we have to throw out the Constitution to make that happen, well, what’s more important, being free, or being safe from being free?