GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #955: THE RUMP IS STILL IN TRUMP

I stand against every president we've ever had. But Trump has my special interest. I will stand against Trump for as long as I have breath. For as long as he's in the White House. For as long as he has a breath to utter his crazy and evil bullshit. --me, Goodnight, Fuckers #252

That quote is from a GF written near the end of January 2017, not too long after Trump took office the first time. I've been rereading some of these pieces to get a grip on Inauguration Day: Part Deux, as Trump takes back that office in much the same way Grover Cleveland reclaimed his. Like it or not, Trump sets presidential records. He's got more impeachments than any other president in history, and he's the first presidential felon. For example.

That first time, in 2017, I noted that Trump had the executive and legislative branches, and he almost had the judicial. That was the only thing standing in his way, that one tiny li'l check and balance. He lost Congress at the midterms, but he very shrewdly fixed that judicial problem he had last time. Now he has the whole fuckin' thing. All three branches. No checks and balances. He has, indeed, been given a mandate. I have my doubts about it being from God, but the American people sure seemed eager to give it to him. Trading politically is how politicians survive. It's how citizens make their peace with their electoral choices. And now, I'm flabbergasted if I can see how the American people decided that the economy is more important than people. Then again, this country was made for oligarchs from the start, not the people, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised in the Land of Property Over People. But a lot of folks ought to be ashamed of themselves. They think they're the good guys. When you're doing evil shit, you tend to know it and feel guilty about it, at least a little. When you think you're the good guys doing good deeds? The people trying to stop you, like me, are the evil ones in that scenario.

The fact that Trump is once more in the Oval Office is perverse to me. All the same, what would it be like if Kamala Harris had won? Everything would be kinder, but it wouldn't make much else of a difference. Two heads, one beast.

I don't vote. No, that does *not* mean I can't complain. I am voicing dissent over a system that does not work unless you are upper class. It doesn't work for anyone else. I will not willingly take part in a system that does not give a shit about me or anyone else below a certain salary level. It's a device designed to specifically never change from that primary directive.

"If voting is so inconsequential, why are politicians trying to take that right away from people?" I have to admit, I've thought about that a great deal. Sometimes it even tricks me into backing away from my values. For a couple of years there I'd even started believing the question was an important one, but it isn't. Voting is a good way to distract people, because those votes ultimately don't matter. The Electors decide who is president, and their choice is between two people our corporate overlords have already approved of.

Voting has a second purpose. The true owners of our country have ensured that the president will only ever be a Democrat or a Republican. There is actually only one party, as Gore Vidal tells us: The Property Party. Every four years, I believe our corporate overlords take note of who gets voted in and act accordingly. They floated Trump, the perfect American slob, as a possible dictator in 2016, and we went for it. If we'd reelected him, then hooray! Let's take these suckers for all they're worth. But we went with Biden.

And this time, we went with Trump again. "Oh, they like a dictator, do they?" the cigar-chomping assholes say while having their dicks sucked on their new pedo-island. "Let's give 'em a dictator."

America has chosen fascism, which isn't entirely surprising. Our system is irreparably broken. It works only as a machine to make the rich richer. And we'd better get used to it. Since no one is going to do anything, my advice is to get familiar with cannibalism.

I said something else in that GF I quoted, something about refreshing the tree of liberty, not with the blood of patriots, but of tyrants (the other part of the Jefferson quote that people forget). Voting certainly doesn't work. It only encourages our corporate overlords. So if someone's planning a Tea Party, now's the time.

[I just remembered the Tea Party, as in, the political party. Yeesh. I feel a little sick knowing that some of those swine are still around.]

Trump really is trying to remake America. He can't make it great again. He's nowhere near man enough to figure out how to do that. Please. Putin plays chess. I doubt Trump knows how to even play checkers. You mean to tell me that Trump, the guy who regularly sucks Putin's dick, is going to stop the most villainous dictator currently on the world stage? He couldn't even bluff Droopy Dog *without* the sheriff's badge. But he has a lot of important people backing him up, and he's not making America great again for everyone. America will only be good if you are white, born male (and you stayed that way), hetero and have lots of money. And don't worry about those pesky borders. There won't be any. Canada the 51st state? Taking Greenland and the Panama Canal back? Why stop there when Russia could be the 100th state (when we get around to it)? He's planning big, but he on his own is not a capable man. The capable people are backing the son of a bitch.

I think he intends to rule the world. How do you stand in the way of something like that without prodigious amounts of violence and bloodshed?

America has not been great for a very long time. Our country is in the twilight of its years as the Leader of the Free World (TM). It should be. We started our country with genocide, got it built and kept it moving through "the peculiar institution" and now we have to get rid of all the nonwhites, all the LGBTQ+ people, most of the women. We'll keep the white women. The white men need to reproduce, and it's frowned upon not to stick to one's own race. But if we could get rid of the white women, we would!

It occurs to me that, while these pricks are busy doing that garbage, that we'd be very vulnerable to attack. If the rest of the world ganged up on us, they might actually stand a chance, and that would be their moment to strike. This is, of course, science fiction. A parallel universe where they can all put aside all their differences and tackle the Big Bad together. See? No, that's obviously not *our* world. The Big Bad is the US of A. That's mirror world shit. Right? Someone do a goatee check on me.

When we (mostly McKinley and Theodore Rex) started worrying about our place in the world, just before the beginning of The American Century (please envision those words in an Indiana Jones swoop), we killed thousands of Filipinos (in their own country!) to have a foothold in Asia. How many thousands? No one knows for sure (possibly 200,000), but I suspect we were angry with Hitler for taking the Genocidal World Record from us, which we did, indeed, previously have. This genocide was so wanton that Mark Twain said, in response, that our flag for the Philippines should be an American flag with black stripes instead of white, and a skull and crossbones in the place of stars.

I suspect we may have a use for that flag, ourselves.

Some of you might be saying, "It's only four years. Then some other asshole is going to be in charge." Steve Bannon already floated the idea of getting rid of term limits for Trump. One of his underlings presents it in the House. And so it flies through Congress, which belongs to Trump, all the way up to his very own desk. What's he going to do, veto it? It'll be interesting to see if we actually have an election in 2028. If we do, I'll be surprised if it's a real one, as we very loosely define "real."

One last thing: you might find this amusing, especially when I accuse the 2016 election of being rigged. If you lose an election and don't accuse it of being rigged, did you even run for president? In case you've forgotten I did run for the White House that year as a book promotion, which is why I refer to not even voting for myself. Which book was I promoting? It wasn't Dong of Frankenstein, was it? Dear God, I think it was! It couldn't have been And Jesus Came Back, that was too late. It had to be Dong!

And I *didn't* win?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

The Death of #VoteBruniDanger2016

Whoo-boy. What an election. It was fun promoting books by running for president. For all of your John Bruni needs, go here. For all of your Danger_Slater needs, go here. Danger was a hell of a sport. I said a lot of crazy things in the name of this campaign, and he rolled with it all. Buy his books.


I guess that puts to rest the least popular hashtag in Twitter's history, #VoteBruniDanger2016. It was so unpopular that no matter how many times I typed it on my phone, it NEVER remembered it. It remembered the time that I fucked up and typed #VoteBr. It remembered that better than it remembered my own phone number. But I could never use auto-fill to get the actual hashtag up. I had to type it out each and every fucking time.


Ah well. Forget it. The election is over. Four years of chaos are upon us.


I just had a horrible thought. Checks and balances are supposed to keep anyone from achieving ultimate power in America. The Republicans have the executive branch. They're the majority of the legislative branch. The only thing standing between President Trump and Emperor Trump is the judicial branch. It's not looking good for the future of the Supreme Court. Check this out.


Yep, the Supreme Court is crumbling. If key members die--and it's very possible, considering how old they are--then Trump gets to appoint replacements. We all know he's not going to put anyone in there who disagrees with him. If that happens, then we no longer have checks and balances. That's kind of scary.


But there's nothing we can do about it (short of a bloody revolution). We're stuck with it, folks. I'm picking up my fiddle, and I'm gonna have me some fun while Rome burns. Embrace the madness. The Deathbird is coming. Get your kicks in while you can. It's time to get familiar with cannibalism.


Seriously, though. You assholes should have voted for me.

THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP

[You know how I'm running for US president this year? Let's go back in time for a moment, back to the year 2000. I was fresh out of college, so I wasn't quite over the age of 35 yet, like I say in the following story. We were gearing up for Bush vs. Gore, still enjoying the debt-free Clinton years. While drinking heavily with Rob Tannahill, my co-creator on The Cocaine! Bros., we wondered what it would be like for us to run for the highest office in the nation. I decided to write the following story. I'm posting it here without editing. I only corrected a couple of typos, so you can all see how far I've come as a writer. Sit back and enjoy the awkwardness. And no, this is not my current election plan. Rob is in jail right now, so he's not likely to help. I do have Danger_Slater as my running mate, so . . .]

THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP

By John Bruni

It all started rather innocently. Rob and I sat on the couch, drinking Jim Beam and watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the millionth time. We knew the movie back and forth, but that didn’t lessen our enjoyment. Still, we were bored as we usually were in those days.

Rob was the one who came up with the idea. I’d just downed my seventh shot and was settling back, enjoying my buzz. He said, “You know what we should do?”

About a thousand witty comments came to mind, but my mouth was less intelligent than my mind. Things just got lost in the translation. I fumbled some line about male hookers. I stuttered. It made no sense.

“No,” Rob said. “We should run for president.”

I laughed. “Yeah. Great idea.”

“I’m serious.” And he really did sound serious.

“How the hell are we going to pull that off?”

“Are we or are we not above the age of thirty-five?”

“We are.”

“Are we not citizens of America, having lived here for at least fourteen years and being born here?”

“We are.”

“Then we’re eligible.”

“We don’t have the kind of money it takes to campaign.”

“I got that figured out already. You sign up for the Democratic ticket, and I’ll go Republican. They’ll give us the money.”

“Wait, we’ll be running against each other?”

“Yeah! It’ll be fun! Think of all the debates we could have!”

“That would be pretty funny.”

“We could act like we’re getting really pissed off at each other, and we could stage a fist fight.”

“We’ll need to stock up on blood capsules.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“What happens if one of us actually wins?” I asked.

“Then the winner will make the loser his vice-president. Imagine the media backlash! That alone is worth the price of the ticket. And let us not forget the games we could play with the American people once we have the power to back them up.”

“Yeah. Remember the time Reagan joked about how we were going to bomb the Russians when he thought the mic was off?”

“Except we’d know the mic’s on. Imagine the havoc.”

I laughed as he took a shot of Beam. “Yeah, we could run for president. Or we could just go get a burger somewhere.”

“I’m serious. Look, the DNC’s in town in a month. We’ll get you nominated. I’ll make sure of it. Then you can return the favor for me at the RNC.”

“What if I want to be the Republican candidate?”

“No way. I got dibs on that.”

“Come on. It’s not as much fun, pretending to be a Democrat.”

“Sure it will be. Think of the fun we could have when it comes to the mudslinging part. We could set up some pictures of you soliciting prostitutes. You can get pictures of me with a goat. Then I’ll get pictures of you with a harem of dogs, and you can get one of me jerking off with a hamster.”

“Then, when you present pictures of me with a hollowed out pineapple and conjoined sextuplets, I’ll actually throw mud at you.”

“You’re a natural at this.” He grinned. “Of course in the face of such irrefutable evidence as undoctored photographs we must deny everything to the last drop.”

“Of course.”

“Do you have any love children?” Rob asked.

“Love children?”

“As in, children you had as the result of a secret affair?”

“I know what a love child is. And no, you know I don’t.”

“Then we’ll make some up. We’ll also need wives.”

“How are we going to get them?” I asked.

“Well, I’ll just get a girlfriend. We’ll have to buy a woman for you.”

“We can hardly afford a prostitute’s hourly rates,” I said, passing on his feeble attempt at humor. “Buying a wife could be a mite impractical.”

“Well, if we go to the ghetto we could get you a crack whore for a nickel.”

“Yeah, but she’ll always be asking for crack.”

“True.” He sighed. “Are mail order brides still a thing?”

“Sounds a bit like slavery. Probably not.”

“We’ll look into it, anyway.”

We lapsed into silence long enough to finish off the Beam. As Rob took down the last shot, he laughed. “I can’t wait for the convention. We’re going to kick so much ass.”

“Wait a minute. You’re not really serious about this, are you?”

“How many times do I have to say it? Yes, I’m serious.”

“Then we’d better figure out our policies.”

“Easy. We’ll run as extremists. Since I’m going to be Republican, I’ll pound the Bible and yap about prayer in school. I’ll protect big business interests and gun lobbyists. I’ll try to enact a law that will deport black people back to Africa.”

“You’re not really going to say that.”

“Yes, I am. I’m trying to be Republican, remember?”

“But—”

“We’re playing a joke on America, get it? It’s just a joke. I’m not really going to make being black in America illegal.”

“A lot of rednecks are going to take you seriously.”

“That’s the point.”

“Okay, then how am I going to run?”

“Simple. You go against everything I say, except you also rail for women’s rights while sexually harassing them at the same time.”

“Oh.”

“But don’t worry. In the end we’ll be the same because we’ll be solicited by big business. We’ll be representing their interests.”

I laughed. “Sounds accurate.”

“Don’t forget to talk about the children a lot. That’s very important.”

“Okay.”

We watched the rest of the movie in silence. When the video was rewinding Rob said, “I’m hungry. Let’s get a taco.”

Ever appreciative of a Reservoir Dogs reference, I laughed, and we went to Taco Bell for food. And Mom, if you’re reading this, we hired a cab. Honest.

-

They wouldn’t let us in at the DNC. Regardless, there were way too many cops, and the place was filled beyond limit. Dejected, we shuffled off to a nearby park where we sat on a bench. Rob lit up a cigarette.

“So much for that idea,” I said.

“Yeah. Too bad. We could’ve had a lot of fun. I guess we’ll have to go independent.”

“You still want to run for president?”

“Hell yeah. Of course we’ll now have to run together, and our campaign will be serious, but once we get to the White House the real fun’ll—”

“How are we going to run without money?” I asked.

“Campaign donations from the simple folk, John. Our slogan: ‘Let’s Return America to a Simpler Time.’ It’ll be very grassroots with a lot of morals. People love that kind of nonsense.”

“You’re insane.”

He ignored me. “We’ll need gimmicks. Do you know where we can buy a midget? Like the one in O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

“Buy a midget?”

“Are you kidding? Everyone loves midgets. There’s, like, a midget renaissance going on.”

“Buy a midget?”

“Or maybe we should go the Bulworth route. We’ll get the wigger vote.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I understand monkeys are quite the fashion, so we’ll need a few of those, too.”

“Monkeys?”

“Wipe that confused yet awed sheen from your face, chum. We’re politicians now.”

-

So we ran for president. Actually, Rob ran for president. I ran as his vice-president. There’s not much to say here, nothing humorous. We poured on the simpler time stuff pretty heavily, and people bought it hook, line, and sinker. I felt like a strange new breed of televangelist for taking their donations, but it went to a good cause: to satisfy our idle hands.

When we started to get national notice, the big businesses started making hefty donations. Naturally we cashed them but denied doing so in public. It was because of this money that we were able to pop full into the limelight, where we proved to be stronger than the Republicans and Democrats thought we were. Neither of their candidates wanted to take Rob’s offer of a debate (he desperately wanted to face off against the incumbent president). The majority of electoral votes went to us. The “simpler time” card really worked.

-

It all started falling apart with Rob’s inaugural speech. After giving his thanks to the nation, he said, “First and foremost, I’m going to see what I can do about eliminating the separation between church and state.”

Many started shouting angrily, but there were also a few cheers.

“From here on out,” he continued, “those who don’t believe in the one true Christian God will be executed without trial.”

More yelling came from the crowd, and I heard someone shout something about the Bill of Rights.

“Thanks for reminding me,” Rob said. “The Bill of Rights, considering how it was written more than two centuries ago, is now archaic and outdated. So we’ll be getting rid of that, too.”

If not for the police, already dressed in riot gear, I’m sure the audience would have charged the stage.

“We will also begin shipping black people back to Africa, as per the wishes of real Americans. Any black people wishing to stay may do so, but only as slaves.”

At that point the violence got to be too much, so the Secret Service hustled Rob off stage. While Rob was completely joking about all of that stuff, it’s worth noting that quite a few people cheered him on when he started talking about African Americans being shipped away. I guess we’re not all that far from the nineteenth century.

The next morning Rob resigned from office. This is a transcript of his farewell speech:

“Good morning, my fellow Americans. It is with tremendous grief that I must announce my resignation and ask for your forgiveness. Yesterday I played a most horrendous joke on the people of this great nation, and many took it seriously. I admit it was tasteless and wrong, and I apologize.

“This afternoon Vice-President John Bruni will be sworn in as your new leader. John has been kind enough to offer the office of the vice-presidency to me. I have graciously accepted it.

“Once again, I am perennially sorry for my flippant actions. Goodbye, and God bless America.”

-

I’m sure a lot of people would have been happy if not for my inaugural speech. After thanking everybody and pardoning Rob publicly, I presented my audience with my new idea.

“In the past half-year I’ve traveled all over this great country of ours. The most popular remark I heard was that, and I quote, ‘What this country needs is a good war,’ end-quote. To satisfy these people—and it is my job to make the people of America happy—I have decided to start a war. My aides have written out the names of every country in the world, and we’ve put them all in this top hat.” I showed them the hat. “Whichever name I pull out, we’ll bomb it.”

A murmur went through the crowd, and most people looked absolutely horrified as I reached into the hat. I plucked out a piece of paper and unfolded it. “And our new national arch enemy is . . . Alabama? Okay, who’s the joker?”

Some chuckles came from the audience, but most were still taking this seriously.

I threw the paper away and tried again. “This time, no fooling.” I unfolded the next piece of paper. “I think you’ll all like this one. Looks like we’re going back to Vietnam!”

The crowd went wild, not with joy, but with anger. I could tell Rob was trying desperately not to laugh when I did this.

“I knew you’d be up for it. Those bastards’ll never see us coming. It’s time to finish the job and set history straight. Bombing starts in twenty-four hours. Thank you, and God bless America.”

The resulting riot was quelled three hours later by the cops. The worries of the other nations, however, would go on for much longer. All night the White House phones rang off the hooks with calls from kings, presidents, and other heads of state from all over the world. China threatened to side with Vietnam, as did a number of other countries.

I tendered my resignation the next morning. This is the transcript:

“My fellow Americans, I am dreadfully sorry for the events of last night. To those who don’t believe I was joking, I present to you the fact that I, as president of the United States, could not force what I was talking about last night. That’s Congress’s job. The system of checks and balances prevents such injustices.

“It was a horrible joke, and I apologize profusely.

“Vice-President Robert Tannahill will be sworn in again at noon as your leader. He has been kind enough to ask me to stay on as his vice-president. I have accepted his offer.

“Again, I apologize. Thank you, and God bless America.”

-

I think by the time Rob was finished with his second inaugural address, people were starting to realize we were joking.

“I’d first like to apologize for John’s tasteless joke,” he said. “Now to new business. Instead of shipping black people back to Africa, we’ll be shipping all the white people back to Europe.”

There were some laughs, but the majority—now realizing what a joke we were—were not angry but disgusted.

“Oh come on,” Rob said. “I thought you’d be with me on this one. I can’t win with you fuckers, can I?”

Need I present a transcription of his resignation speech?

-

Very few people showed up for my second inaugural speech. That was too bad, considering how serious the speech was. I didn’t say one controversial thing. We’d decided to revert to our “return to a simpler America” deal.

Then I went on a world tour at the taxpayers’ expense. Honestly I was disappointed. The architecture is great in other countries, but you can’t find a decent cheeseburger outside the States.

By the time I’d returned our next scandal was well underway. Newspapers all over the country published pictures of me at an orgy, goat and all. The headlines proclaimed me a sex maniac with strange fetishes. Is this man a good role model for our children?

Naturally I resigned, bringing Rob back into the presidency. He played this inauguration straight, but not many people were there to notice.

The nation was sick and tired of us. They said we were making a mockery of America and sullying the good office of the US president. As if we were the first to be guilty of that.

They started shouting for impeachment. At this point we had to wonder, “What would Dick Nixon do?”

So we both resigned. I guess that wasn’t too bad. The joke was starting to get old, anyway.

Instead of writing our own farewell speech, we used Nixon’s. For a bit of fun we added at the end, “This is our last press conference. You won’t have us to kick around anymore.”

And that is the tale of the strangest presidency in the history of America.

-

A year later Rob and I sat on the couch, drinking Jim Beam, and watching Bloodsucking Freaks. Our shenanigans had long since been forgotten, and we no longer qualified as celebrities (despite the fact that Comedy Central bought the movie rights and aired the wretched product starring Adam Sandler as Rob and David Spade as me; no one watched it). We found ourselves bored once again with nothing better to do than drink and watch cult classics.

Suddenly Rob said, “You know what we should do?”

“Run for US president again?”

“No. We should start a religion.”

I laughed.

“What, you think I’m kidding?”

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #235: #VOTEBRUNIDANGER2016

For my entire life I have been unsettled by our government and the way it is run. Our system is fucked. It's unfair. It's garbage. Long time readers will remember this from years ago, when I complained about how rich white men make all the decisions in this country, and that's the way our system was designed from way back when, back when democracy meant practically nothing.


For the most part I still believe this. Our whole system, which is fucking ancient, needs to be retooled. This garbage makes no sense now. BUT! I've done a lot of thinking about this, and it sucks. I might have been wrong back then. Not about the rich white men doing shit. That's always been the case. No, I mean that maybe I was wrong about going with the popular vote.


In my youthful naivety I forgot about one thing: human beings are pieces of shit. The public should not be allowed to make important decisions. They are guided by one thing and one thing only: ME. Fuck everyone else. It's ME I'm concerned with. Fair enough. We all want to preserve our own way of life. But human beings, for the most part, can't be bothered with other ways of life. We're tribal. If something falls outside of our belief system we feel a moral obligation to fuck it to death with our mind dicks.


I feel more impotent than I've ever felt in my entire life. There's no sane way out of this. We can let America's id run rampant and get Trump into office, or we can let our superego let Clinton win the White House. But there's no way to make us all happy.


Fuck Trump. Fuck Clinton. Fuck all these other assholes who will never win but are still somehow on the ballot. Fuck this country. We need something new. Something different.


Do you realize how insane this year has been? This election? If it had happened 50 years ago, everyone would have been executed for the best of our nation. Trump and Clinton are sick dogs that need to be put down so we can actually do something creative with our country.


I'd say to vote for me and Danger Slater, but even that's a joke. I wouldn't know what to do with this shit show that 2016 is. But what the hell? If I was president I might sell more books. Same for Danger, who is an amazing writer. The dude is unstoppable.


Yeah, it would be funny. But it would be pointless. Fuck everybody.


What follows is a quote from the smartest person on Twitter, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I take a lot of comfort in this quote, and I probably shouldn't. I love life, and I love our potential, but a philosophy professor once told me that he hates the word "potential." He said, holding his empty hand aloft, "Right now I'm holding a potential sandwich."


True. Enjoy the following words from a great astrophysicist. And try not to lose too much sleep. What we do here is meaningless. Our only purpose is to make life easier for each other. Don't hate. Love. In the end we're all dead. Let's make this journey as pleasant as possible. Fuckers.


In 5-billion yrs the Sun will expand & engulf our orbit as the charred ember that was once Earth vaporizes. Have a nice day.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #226: WHEN TRUMP LOSES . . .

. . . and he will, I assure you. The first time I was aware of the political system was during the '88 election. That was the one and only time I've ever been wrong. My family was pro-Dukakis, so I figured I had to be, too. My grandfather is 100% Greek, and I suspect, in hindsight, that was the reason. I fully believed Dukakis would wipe the walls with Bush I. Whoops. In gambling that's known as betting your heart. Don't ever do that.


Every election since then I have considered everything very carefully. I was right about Bill Clinton twice. I was right about Bush II twice. I was right about Obama twice. And I'm going to be right about Hillary Clinton this year. I can't stand anyone on the ballot (except for maybe me, #VoteBruniDanger2016), but Clinton is the best qualified. She's a fucking sleazy politician. She knows so many underhanded techniques that no one else would be able to run this country. Hopefully Bill Clinton's slimy tendencies have rubbed off on her, and she'll do what no other president in recent memory has done: balance the fucking budget.


But Trump? I worry about the li'l fella. What's he going to do when he's proven to be a loser yet again. (Remember, this isn't his first presidential bid.) Well, anyone remember what Samuel Johnson said about patriotism? It's the last refuge of scoundrels. But patriotism is going to fail Trump yet again. Where do you go from rock bottom?


Correction: that is not rock bottom. There's something else he can become. Don't forget that Jordan Belfort, the infamous Wolf of Wall Street, has a career today despite the horrendous financial crimes he committed. How does he have a career? Simple: he went into public speaking.


I think Trump might have a future in that, but I don't mean just any ol' public speaking gig. I'm thinking he could do a PUA type thing. For those unfamiliar with this, PUA stands for Pick Up Artist. These are the scumbags who try to teach men how to worm into the pants of women. They're the ones who try to teach you the right way to say things like, "Nice pants. Think I can get in them?" Or, "I'm glad I brought my library card, because I'm checking you out." Etc.


Trump's first seminar could be titled HOW TO GRAB 'EM BY THE PUSSY AND GET AWAY WITH IT. Or maybe HOW TO BECOME SO FAMOUS YOU CAN KISS BEAUTIFUL WOMEN BEFORE YOU EVEN SAY HI. But it doesn't have to be limited to that. Maybe we can fit in a few like HOW TO MAKE EVERYONE THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN THEM. Or perhaps HOW TO NOT PAY TAXES FOR DECADES ON END. Or best yet, HOW TO MAKE EVERYONE THINK YOU HAVE MORE MONEY THAN YOU DO. Money's a tricky thing. Everyone depends so much on money that doesn't exist that George Carlin is right: without bullshit this country would fall apart.


(My favorite philosophy professor in college hated the word "potential." He demonstrated by holding out his empty hand. He said, "Right now I'm holding a potential sandwich." Every one of us who has a credit card is holding potential money. It doesn't really exist until you pay it off. *If* you pay it off. But that's *my* problem for now, I guess.)


When I was in high school I learned a very important lesson. We had an election in government class. It was me versus a thief versus a sex fiend. I decided I was going to run an honest campaign, and guess what? I came in last. That very important lesson I learned? You have to be a lowlife in order to win in American politics.


But more importantly you have to be a lowlife who knows how politics works. Trump is a so-called businessman and a self-professed outsider (which is a contradiction, by the way). Clinton, on the other hand, is a lifetime politician. She's slimy and a liar and etc. But she has experience, and that's why she's going to win. I'm all right with that, I guess. If anyone was going to win I'd rather it went to the underdog, Sanders. But that's never going to happen because he insists on being, well, honest.


So yeah. Trump, if you need help finding a job after this failed attempt at seizing the White House, give me a call. You've just got to sell me this pen first.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #198: LET'S BAN THE SUN

I've generally been OK with the sun until I got my new job. A few times I've been angry with that ball of flame in the sky, usually because I was hungover at the time. But this is fucking IT.


I walk into the sun every morning on my commute to work. I walk into the sun every evening on my commute home. It renders me into a sweaty pile of flesh both ways, and I'm sick and tired of feeling that way. It's dehumanizing. It's disgusting. It's a crime against humanity.


We need to ban the sun.


Hey, the sun causes cancer. Look it up. I'm sure you'll see that I'm telling the truth. Our government is so dead set against anything that causes cancer (except for cigarettes, of course; can't stop big business in the US) that it bans a lot of stuff. But it never bans the sun. Why?


My grandfather got a healthy dose of cancer from the sun. Luckily he survived that. No thanks to the government, that is.


The US is content with the War on Drugs, but that's insignificant compared to the dangers of the sun. Smoking weed can actually be helpful. Standing under the sun, on the other hand, could give you CANCER.


We need to stop this madness. Trump, forget about the wall between the US and Mexico. We need a bigger wall. We need a wall around the earth to protect us from the cancer-giving sun.


While we're at it, the ocean is scary as fuck. It's full of fish poop and dangerous creatures. Let's ban the oceans, too. Earth is a dangerous place. Let's get some government regulations on that shit before it kills us all.


And it will kill us. Do you want your children to die in the ocean? NO. Do you want your kids to die because of the sun? NO.


Make America safe again. Ban the sun and the oceans.


This has been a public service announcement from the People of America Dedicated to the Election of John Bruni and Danger_Slater 2016. #VoteBruniDanger2016