Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Trumpty together again.
Uncategorized
A Crisis of Trust: A Time to Act
David Brooks, NYT columnist, NPR commentator, and moderate Republican is right: What we have in this country is a crisis involving trust, namely a lack of it. I got my ballot in the mail today, filled it out, and read the instructions for delivery. Here’s what it said, “If you have concerns regarding delivery of your ballot by the USPS, you may use one of our 20 ballot boxes.” That from the state of Washington Elections Department. So that’s what it’s come to: an official state elections agency cautioning us about the possibility of our post office intentionally not delivering our ballot by the deadline. That is something I’ve never had to consider before, and it distresses me to no end. I struggle now what what to do with my ballot: take a chance and put it in a post box or drive around and put it in an official ballot drop box or drive downtown and hand it directly in to the elections office. And this is supposedly one of the world’s most stable democracies! I also worry, with the atmosphere of violence that is permeating the air around the election, that someone will torch a drop box, ruining and disqualifying all the ballots inside; or that armed militia might patrol polling places around the country as the president of our country has requested, thus intimidating voters not to vote at all. Trust. Or lack of it.
Vaccines are another issue. Trump is pushing companies with his project Warp Speed to fast track vaccine research to get a vaccine ready before the election to obviously help his chances. Would I, or anyone in their right mind, take such a vaccine? Not hardly. Again, trust. Or lack of it.
Or take this bogus Supreme Court nomination being pushed through the Senate so the Republicans can pack the court with another conservative just in case Trump loses, and that Trump can have a Justice that will rule in his favor in case the election is contested as it was in [Read more…] about A Crisis of Trust: A Time to Act
Trump’s Plans for Buying Breakable News have Broken Down
Because of my brother Hank’s direct appeal, Breakable News Board of Mis-Directors (BOMD) has rejected the Trump organization’s hostile bid to buy the world-ignored fake news agency for three billion USD. “You, your brother, and your whole antifa outfit are phony liberal radical left wing commies, intent on destroying American cities run by Dems and fueled by methane gas from cows and your other followers,” a steroid-infused Trump tweeted Thursday night. Nonetheless, we are adhering to our BOMD’s decision and will soldier on providing you, our loyal and limited readers, with news you probably shouldn’t bother reading. We will continue with a generous $250 grant from the Sioux City Iowa Kiwanis along with reader contributions, giving us a grand total of $252.50 in our war chest (thanks to my cousin in LA for that late arriving donation).
In appreciation to Hank for directing us away from that nasty three billion, we decided to hire him as our new head of our Breakable Sports department, with all the sports news you never knew that you needed to know but was presented to you regardless. We hired HRA immediately after he knew the answer to what was Richie Ashburn’s batting average in 1958. Both my brother who is six years older, and I grew close when we suffered through the Phillies cellar teams of the 50’s, culminating in the woebegone ’64 team, run by Gene Mauch that took a nose dive after leading the league in September and lost a sure-thing pennant. After that we, and pretty much the entire population of the City of Brotherly Love, lost all hope, and, as for Hank and I, took to the streets and pursued a life of destitution, retribution, and tribulation (I kid my brother!). Anyway, all was rectified when his daughter Ellen, my niece, married the perfect man and sports maven, and now Hank’s son in law from heaven, Mike Barkann, the best, and most respected, sports show host (and great guy) for over 20 years in Philly, a town that eats some sports figures for breakfast. Mike refers to Hank often to fill the gaps in his sports history knowledge (true, that).
And check out their wonderful family-run Barkann Foundation to discover the healing work they are doing in the community (the preceding was a bona fide Breakable News plug and, contrary to most of the other news we offer, is totally true, attaining multiple seals of approval).
Well, now that I’ve uncovered much of my brother’s and my sordid history (payback, Hank, for when you pinned me to the floor when I was 8, and tormented me, with our mother too out of range to hear my screams!), I’ll just say that we’re thrilled to have Hank, a great Overbrook High basketball player in his own right, who once played schoolyard ball with a young Wilt Chamberlain (true, that), is on staff. He will, I’m sad to say, need to accept vouchers as remuneration, and will still have to pay out of pocket for travel expenses, but, he will not have to stay at Trump hotels as the Orange man had required for the deal to go through.
Now that Breakable News has wasted most your morning with news you didn’t need to hear, we’ll conclude with a word from our (only) fake sponsor, the Sioux City Kiwanis Club:
What Me Worry? Just Vote, and make sure it’s Blue not Orange!
Breakable News Special: Voter Suppression Investigative Report Gone Wrong
OK, gather your cats round the computer, Love Bugs. Breakable News, in our continuing Cats Rule segment, has a treat for you today. We sent our voter suppression correspondent Charlie Helpdo out on assignment to investigate alleged suppression in Utah and he unfortunately stumbled upon a cougar den with newborn cubs. In a fake news, pretty much real, special report, here are Charlie’s extraordinary videos from the front lines. Charle’s a bit directionally deficient , btw, since our assignment stipulated a voting place at a Mormon Church in downtown Salt Lake City.
First, Charlie stealthfully approaches the den with cubs and their mom. A heartwarming scene, and obviously, our ace reporter surmises, no voter suppression there.
Now assuming you’ve seen the preceding video of moma and her cubs, check out this segue where Charlie gets a wee bit too close, arousing the ire of moma cougar. And it finally occurs to our dear ace reporter that perhaps he’s mistaken in assuming this is a legitimate voting place…unless…unless Moma thinks Charlie is a Proud Boy, Charlie ponders.
So herd those cats and watch this exciting conclusion to today’s Cats Rule special. This is a non-continuing story since Charlie, a bit confused after the encounter, has no intention of returning to this particular Church, he reported as he faded into the sunset.
Breakable News/ Oct.10/ President Threatens to Prosecute All Available Democrats
Breakable News/ Oct 10/ Trump Threatens to prosecute all available Democrats before the election
BN staff are dropping like flies (no offense to any flies), but in keeping with our commitment to report fake news that is covered by almost no other news source in the world, today’s report involves a president who is absolutely under the gun and over the top. This is looking more and more like a WWI documentary, but Hollywood couldn’t write this stuff. Trump is ordering AG Bill Barr, better known as Wild Bill Barr, to indict as many Democrats as he can fit on a writ of habeas whatever, before the election 22 days from now. We attempted to interview AG Barr, but he was shaking so hard in his boots, words were unavailable to him. He issued several grunting noises over the phone that sounded like Koko the gorilla, only Koko was far more intelligible. So instead, we went ahead and interviewed a close relative of Koko’s named Little Koko since Koko Sr. passed in 2018.
BN: Little Koko, what do think about the president’s efforts to prosecute Democratic leaders past and present before the election.
LK: Look, where I come from, we would take that First Moron, hang him from a tree, and use him for a tetherball. That’s all he’s good for.
BN: A tetherball?
LK: I know that sounds harsh, but in the law of the jungle we respect all sentient beings. Trump is no sentient being, so yes, swat him this way and that like a tetherball. In the jungle we call a spade a spade, tit for tat, Quid pro quo. An eye for an eye. We don’t take no shit.
BN: Would you give him a fair trial?
LK: Has he given anyone a fair trial with his tweets and lies and career-busting nicknames, and the rest of his monkey business—no offense to our chimp cousins? In the jungle, it’s judge, jury, and executioner, and I can tell you, as a gorilla who knows, Trump is toast. And as toast, he’s in a panic. And when T rump is in a panic he does stupid things like wanting to take Democrats like Hillary, Obama, and even Biden to court 20 days before the election. That would be like Idi Amin choosing Tel Aviv for a vacation back in the day. Trump, who reminds me of Amin, should be committed to a mental hospital.
BN: Well, thanks so much Little Koko for your candidness and transparency. By the way, how did you learn to speak such good English?
LK: Ah, long story short: Watching old John Wayne movies.
BN: Right.
And that concludes our coverage of another of Trump’s rapid fire actions seemingly to deflect attention from his poor ratings in the polls.
In other news, 12 white supremacist terrorists were accused and arrested on charges of planning to kidnap and kill the Governor of Michigan. So far, there’s been no comment from the White House or Attorney General Barr’s office, neither of whom knew about the FBI infiltration. Trump reportedly did say he wanted to be thanked for the arrests, despite his never being informed of the agency’s efforts.
***
Today’s Breakable News recipe for the day: Bouillon tea
Ingredient: 1 or 2 Bouillon cube(s)
Instructions: Boil enough water to fill a cup. Pour.
Drop in one or two cube(s), to taste. Serve and drink. Caution: Those on salt-restricted diets should drink something else.
And that concludes another mis-informative edition of Breakable News for whatever day it is. We beg you to return tomorrow and be more misinformed than with any other news source (with the exception of the White House website and/or press secretary, or any tweets from the president himself).
Opinion: Washington State Election for 17th Legislative district
I recommend the censure and, if possible, impeachment of Washington state Rep. Vicki Kraft. Her language in relation to Gov. Inslee goes beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable under the First Amendment. 17th Legislative District representative Kraft compared the Governor to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. When asked about the symbols of white supremacy at the rallies she recently attended, she argued that any Nazi flags flown at those events weren’t symbols of hate. Rather, they were a symbol of protest to Governor Inslee’s implementation of the ‘Stay Home, Stay Healthy’ order, which makes him a dictator. This is beyond the pale in inciting hatred and violence towards the Governor who is doing his best to protect the citizens of our state from this horrible pandemic. As we’ve now seen in Michigan, it doesn’t take much to trigger these white nationalist militias to put into effect violent plans—plans that included the psychotic kidnapping and murder of a sitting governor, along with targeting state police officials.
If nothing else, Rep. Kraft should certainly be defeated in the coming election by her Democratic opponent, Daniel Smith, a certified social worker who has specialized in the care of the mentally ill for over 20 years as a practitioner and administrator.
Breakable News Flash/ Monday/October 5
Breakable News Flash/Monday, Oct. 5/All the news unfit to print
Breaking tradition of only printing fake news, breakable news has a story today that appears fake but is true, mostly. We apologize for the digression and we hope our four, maybe three, readers will stay with us out of loyalty to our brand. If we lost all of you, basic math would tell us we’d have no readers and thus lose our identity as the world’s sort of only true and complete fake news source. So stick with us , dear ones.
Our white noise correspondent reports that yesterday president trump escaped from his hospital room to ride in a limo, masked and somehow lifting his arm to wave at trump flag waving supporters lining the street, in the words of one, “to tell the president we love him.” Asked what he did for a living, the supporter said, “this, this is what I do. Otherwise I’d have nothing to do,” he said returning to yelling and screaming at the president, who looked quite pale wearing somewhat rumpled clothing that looked suspiciously like the ones he wore a couple days before when he entered hospital. His hair though was impeccably quaffed, indicating that he may well have brought his full time stylist with him. Trump also waved to his doctors giving a press briefing at the same time, who seemed quite aghast seeing their patient, who they had given oxygen, steroids, and perhaps disinfectant of some sort-that from a White House source-and who just hours before “was not out of the woods yet.” The doctors’ collective jaws were well dropped as trump’s car cruised past filled with captive secret service guys, also masked, who later said, “ Your damn right we’re pissed. We’ve got to quarantine now because of this jokers joyride?”
Later, back in his room, back on oxygen, DJT tweeted, “FEEL GREAT. Loved the love fest. Sorry about the mask. Virus? What virus? I am the strongest president in American history and can actually leap tall buildings in a single bound. Nasty SS guys complained the whole way. Bad Boys, these proud boys. Ha Ha. Ok, back to the intravenous bs. Where’s my doc. I’m so tired. Anyway, I’m so outta here.”
And now our Breakable news recipe for the day: chicken’s chicken.
Ingredients: one whole chicken
Directions: put plucked bird into large pot. Fill to brim with water (tap). High heat for a long time. Remove bird from pot. Serve.
Tomorrow’s recipe: eggs’ eggs
And stay tuned for a Monday special: A retired guy’s guide to fashion.
The Need for Nuance
We live in a country that honors free speech, and that is wonderful. But what I’ve noticed is that people get overly judgmental and tend toward one extreme opinion or the other. And so we have great polarity in our country. We’re like two boxers in our respective corners, occasionally coming out to battle each other, then separating and returning to our corners for a time. We talk, but seldom to each other. And even then, we don’t listen to the other’s viewpoint. We react with a preconceived notion. We seldom come to a meeting of minds. We are, then, a divided country, perhaps even several divided countries within these supposedly United States.
We have our opinions, about abortion, about same sex marriage, about our political affiliation, about gun violence, about police brutality, about our religious beliefs, about race and racism, about diet, about sexual orientation, about our next door neighbor’s choice of car. And we build walls around these opinions and beliefs. Solid, high walls, complete with barbed wire on top. A political campaign begins and we know who we’ll vote for right from the start. And nothing will convince us otherwise. From politicians down to the trash collector, we ignore nuance. We become rigid in our thinking, because it’s safest to do so. It’s safest because we don’t have to [Read more…] about The Need for Nuance