This Weak in Politics Vol. LI
November 24, 2016
It has been a busy week in Lake Worldbegone, aka Washington, DC, as President-Elect Donald Trump’s transition team is wasting no time in monetizing…err organizing…the nascent Trump administration.
As an aside, up until the phrase “Trump administration” entered the vernacular a couple weeks ago, we thought the two most frightening words in the English language were “erectile dysfunction” or perhaps “smooth jazz.” (Our astute reader(s) might well suggest that we would add “Billy Joel” and “Katy’s Engaged” to this list of frightening two word statements…that’s not for us to say.) But back to the news.
In order to get on with the process of ridding Washington of its ethically challenged and morally depraved culture, President-Elect Trump decided to pay a $25 million settlement in the fraud lawsuit in the case of Trump University — in which he defrauded thousands of people in several states in an ethically challenged and morally depraved way. This should free him up to clean up the moral mess in Washington — at least until he files his promised lawsuits against the woman who have accused him of sexually assaulting them in the manner in which he brags he sexually assaults women.
Once that is cleared up, the President-Elect will finally be able to get down to the business of cleaning up Washington, exposing crooked politicians’ conflicts of interest, and ensuring that no one in Washington is viewed as being above the law. He is free to do this, without distraction of having to untangle his conflicts of interest, because he has declared that as president, he is above the law.
In all seriousness, Trump’s myriad business entanglements, and in particular those overseas, raise a very important and serious question. That is…what the fuck is an emolument? It is a question Americans have been asking all week — so much so, in fact, that “what is the emoluments clause?” has, at least for the time being replaced “what’s a MILF*?”as the most Googled question in the continental United States. (In Alaska and Hawaii, the most Googled question is “is it possible to undo that whole statehood thingy?” and in Alabama, the most Googled question is “how far is Maggiano’s in DC from here?” If you don’t get that last one, you will by the end of this edition.)
*Mom, don’t Google MILF. It’s a joke.
Trump’s transition team has moved quicker than its predecessors in terms of naming appointees. So far the incoming administration has named to key posts the chairman of his party, a senator with 2 decades in office and a sitting governor. This is not so much swamp draining as it is swamp relocation. But as his supporters would say, “Lock her up!” Well, other than that, they’d say, “he just said the things he said in order to get elected…he didn’t mean them. He tells it like it is….or he told it like it sounds like we would like it to be, until he changes positions…that’s leadership! Lock her up!”
Trump supporters would indeed be well served to adopt that mindset, as the President-Elect has so far promised to abandon a host of previously promised items including: fighting and winning the Trump University fraud lawsuit, draining the swamp, investigating and imprisoning Hillary Clinton, backing out of climate agreements, releasing his taxes, building a wall, changing libel laws so he can sue and win lots of money and being a president for all Americans.
In addition to the insiders Trump has appointed to clean up Washington, he is also following through with his promise to bring outsiders — business leaders — to Washington to change the course of our recovering economy and instill a business mindset in government. Nothing says “sound practices” and “good ethics” like having a government run by the heads of Trump University, Breitbart.com and Amway.
Trump is also still dealing with the fallout from appointing Steve Bannon as his counsel and chief strategist. Moderates across the country are wondering how on earth a reckless, alt-right, wild-haired racist has made it to the inner sanctum of the White House. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he then appointed Bannon.
Just how bad is the tenor in Washington and the outlook of the nation? All of America is desperately hoping that Trump, in order to bring sanity to his administration, nominates Mitt Romney for Secretary of State.
Yes, to restore sanity and normalcy to the nation’s capital, America is looking to a man who once strapped his dog to the roof of his car and who irons his clothes while wearing them. There are actually two types of people who support Romney for Secretary of State — people named Romney, and humans, who as a general rule, just want it to be literally anyone other than Rudy Giuliani.
The other big story in DC this week was that the Nazis are back. No…we don’t mean The House Freedom Caucus. We mean actual, heil-to-the-chief, alt-Reich, genuine-article Nazis.
Now, if it provides any solace, they seem to be led not by a tortured, diabolical genius, but rather, by Tila Tequila (the artist formerly known as Ted Nugent). And while they have not yet conquered Europe, they certainly seemed to have overtaken Maggiano’s with little pushback. (See Alabama readers? we told you it was coming!)
In other news, on Wednesday, President Obama continued with the quaint annual tradition of a turkey pardon. President-elect Trump immediately declared he would undo the pardon by executive order and “bomb the shit out of them.” Informed that the pardon was of literal turkeys, “Tater” and “Tot,” and not the nation of Turkey, the president-elect said he knew that all along, that he was being sarcastic and added that the lying media was out to get him. Then he quickly put his pen back in his shirt pocket.
And finally moving away from politics — in sports news, quarterback Kirk Cousins was named NFC Offensive Player of the Week this week. This was made especially fitting as his team, the Washington Redskins, were named Offensive Team Name of the week for the 4,108th straight week, having knocked off the Ethiopian Clowns sometime in the 1930s. Speaking of the 1930s, did we mention Donald trump won the election?
And that’s how the weak spent the week.
But before we part, we thought we’d join in on this Biden/Obama meme craze that has been diverting liberals’ attention from the fact that the world is going to end in 57 days.
Again, astute readers will note that this is just a visual reflection of our occasional very professional and very sincere references to @KatyTurNBC, in an effort to catch her attention. We’ve made these references from time to time, which is the same thing the meme shows (or for you Francophiles, like Katy Tur, —la meme chose the meme shows).
We apologize for that. For better or worse, we were told that chicks dig bilingual wordplay. And by chicks we mean women. And by women we mean @KatyTurNBC.
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