As The Donald Turns is back with the episode:
Literally, Figuratively and Seriously
The phrases are getting thrown around in discussion because media and politicians alike are forced to debate whether we should take Donald literally. Or figuratively. And yes, sadly there is a debate as to which things he says or tweets that we should take seriously. We are debating about what to take seriously from the President of the United States.
- Wire Tapping. Apparently it is not literal when you tweet that President Obama is wire “tapping” your office and home as Donald claimed three weeks ago. Wednesday night, he did an interview with Tucker Carlson. It is clear that the original claim is complete garbage, so now Donald is pivoting….not the kind of pivoting to presidential demeanor like his supporters promised we would get. No, this is cover-your-backside-because-you-are-full-of-crud kind of pivoting. Trump told Carlson that the concept of wire taping “covers a lot of different things.” No, Donald, actually it does not. It is very specific. Why does this guy talk to us like we are infants and he can tell us whatever he wants? I mean most of the country is smarter than he is. “Nobody ever talks about the fact that [the words ‘wires tapped’] was in quotes [in the tweet], but that’s a very important thing.” Oh…well, then that is a whole different issue. Child, please…..
- Donald also told Tucker that he has evidence of the “wire tapping,” (see Donald, we know where the quotation marks are on the keyboard also). “We will be submitting things very soon,” Donald said of the ongoing investigation that has come with zero substantiation for anything he said. First he has to read what evidence Breitbart and Alex Jones have for him to give to Congress. Devin Nunes, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said earlier this week that to take Donald literally is a mistake. Of course, to take Donald at all, in any capacity, is a mistake as far as most of us are concerned.
- Wednesday was not a good day for Donald. He was doing another re-election campaign stop…this time in Tennessee. Just before giving the pep rally address, he found out that federal court Judge Derrick Watson put a temporary stop to Donald’s new travel ban. Later, District Court Judge Theodore Chuang of Maryland did the same. Trump was decidedly un-peppy at the pep rally after getting the news. He said this was just a watered down version of the first Muslim ban and that they should have stuck to the first one and fought it all the way through. Hey, Donald, you’re the president….it’s your call. Stand up and fight or sit down and shut up.
- You know what happened with these two judges? They took Donald seriously…or literally…heck, I can’t remember now. The point being that public statements by Donald, by Stephen Miller, and by other advisers were used in the case against the ban. Judge Watson even quoted Stepford Stephen when he said to Fox a couple of weeks ago, “Fundamentally, you’re still going to have the same basic policy outcome for the country, but you’re going to be responsive to a lot of very technical issues that were brought up by the court and those will be addressed. But in terms of protecting the country, those basic policies are still going to be in effect.” In other words, we changed some wording for some shell game, but it is the same thing. Guess what Stephen…most of us are smarter than you, and certainly the judges were because they saw right through cups and found the nut…so to speak….The other point made by both judges is that the administration rushed the first one through because of an alleged imminent threat to the US, and then plodded through the next month because they had no proof there was a real imminent threat. I mean, if we are to take the administration literally…I mean seriously.
- Clearly Donald is so pissed he is going to make America pay for this…literally…..Donald released his proposed federal budget Thursday. This thing had more cuts than Rocky Balboa’s face in the first Rocky movie.
- Meals on wheels for seniors is gone. This is to be taken literally. I mean of seniors keep eating then they will need medical care and we are trying to cut everyone’s medical care, so let’s stop feeding people.
- Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB got $455 million last year out of a $4 trillion dollar federal budget. Clearly if we stop feeding Big Bird, he will not stay alive and we will not have to give him health insurance, and Bert and Ernie are just a pain when it comes to LGBTQ rights….so under this plan, the federal government will no longer give money to PBS because with the savings we can cover 6 more trips to Mar A Lago for the Trumps.
- The EPA and Agriculture departments will be gutted. How many times do I have to tell you? If we give people food and clean water and clean air they are going to live longer and the TrumpCare plan does not have the money to cover them.
- The State Department budget will be cut by at least 30%. Less diplomacy and more military actions means fewer people living, oh….you get where I am going, right?
- The Labor Department is going to be cut drastically because…well because Donald does not really like Labor and those blue collar folks who thought otherwise and voted for him….the literalism, I mean the joke, is on you.
- National Endowment for the Arts gets cut. The National Institute for Health gets huge budget cuts because…..well health is bad, because people will live longer….
So who does not get cuts? The Defense Department. Oh and the project for the wall that Mexico was going to pay for ….if you took Donald seriously. In all, Trumps proposals take the government budget from $4 trillion to $1.3 trillion in one year and will end about 6,000 jobs. Good thing there are manufacturing jobs for all those people to go to….oh…wait…I was not being serious…or literal. At the Thursday briefing, Press Secretary Sparkle Pony said people get confused when they assume spending less money on a program is the same as a budget cut. Seriously, he said that.
- Since we have been serious, and literal, maybe it is time for a joke….a joke like Roger Stone. He of course if the former Nixon aide who helped coin the phrase “rat f-ing” to refer to dirty tactics meant to take out political opposition. He has been a closet aide for Trump even though he technically left the campaign during the Summer . Stone says some of the worst things imaginable about people and writes it off political gamesmanship. Well someone may have gotten tired of it. According to Stone, the car he was riding in was t-boned as part of what he called a suspicious hit and run accident in Florida Wednesday. Now…literally…there was an accident and the car that Stone was riding in was hit and the other driver did leave. But Stone says this is no normal hit-and-run. “It comes on the exact day in which the House Democrats and the House Republicans called on me to testify in front of Congress on the question of possible Russian collusion in the Trump campaign. That is a subject I am anxious to testify about.” Yes, Stone thinks the dark underbelly of the government is trying to silence him. “I think it is possible that this was an effort to either incapacitate me, or to warn me. I am told that in the intelligence services, when you want to kill somebody, this is a common way.” He literally has no idea that he is such a piece of garbage that the list of people looking to take him out is probably pages deep.
- Since every joke needs a punchline, we go to Alex Jones, the purveyor of all conspiracies and newly minted “news” source for Donald. This week on his “radio show” and “internet broadcast,” Jones begged for God to take out Alec Baldwin. Yep…pleaded with God to just rid the nation of him. Apparently God is taking neither seriously or literally because today, Saturday Night Live announced that its highest rated season in 20 years will end with the final four episodes being broadcast live across the country.
Ok, I seriously and literally am leaving this here for now so I can focus on how bad my basketball brackets are right now.
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