All the News That’s Fit To Ridicule

All the News That’s Fit To Ridicule
by Burt Prelutsky
Saturday, August 6, 2011

These days, the bad news comes at us so quickly, there’s barely time for it to register. So at least let us pause and give some of the more absurd items the attention they so richly deserve.

In Libya, those who have been waging war against Gaddafi have splintered into opposing factions and have taken to killing each other. From my vantage point, that’s a good thing. As I said from the very beginning, anyone who believed the uprisings throughout the Arab and Muslim world were cause for celebration had a few screws loose. The only celebrating should be taking place in Tehran. The Arab spring isn’t an oasis, but merely a toxic mirage.

I keep wondering if Obama is discounting his plummeting approval numbers as a right-wing conspiracy. After all, every time he gives a speech to his big money contributors, college students, union workers at taxpayer-funded windmill factories or the NAACP, he gets standing ovations. You can see where a guy living in such a bubble could be blindsided by reality.

His partner in crime, Joe Biden, has his own troubles. I mean apart from his stupidity and the bad hair transplant. First, he chimes in to agree with Senator Mike Doyle’s assessment of Tea Party congressmen as terrorists, but then, for good measure, we discover that he’s charging the Secret Service $2,200-a-month to rent a cabin on his estate. Inasmuch as it’s the taxpayers footing the bill to pay those guys to protect his worthless hide, I think landlord Biden should forego the $26,000-a-year. If he can’t get by on the $221,100 we’re paying him, perhaps it’s time he retire and start collecting his various over-inflated pensions.

Speaking of retirement, serial sex offender Mike Wu (above right) has followed Rep. Anthony Weiner back into civilian life. The question is why censure or resignation seem to be the only options when our so-called public servants are found guilty of criminal offenses. These two freaks got to resign while Barney Frank and Charley Rangel continue to pile up seniority, whereas people who don’t have “Congressman” in front of their names would have gone to jail for pandering and tax evasion, respectively.

It used to be that one of the major attractions of the Oval Office, at least so far as Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton were concerned, was that it was a great way to meet chicks. But these days even mere congressmen are cashing in on that tacky perk. Which doesn’t say much for our politicians, but it says even less for our young women.

Even though ex-NY congressman Chris Lee, who went online trolling for sex, was a Republican, by and large it’s liberals who can’t seem to keep their mouths or their pants zipped up. It’s no wonder that liberals are forever promoting abortion. They have a vested interest. It also helps explain why they become so personally outraged whenever people try to introduce character, morals and personal values into the political discourse.

Finally, for murdering 76 of his fellow Norwegians, apparently the worst that Anders Breivik (right) can expect is a sentence of 21 years, which works out to about four months-per-murder. I guess he’s lucky they can’t add jaywalking or double-parking to his list of crimes or he might be facing some really severe Norwegian justice.

Just for the record, I think it should be noted that the campers who were massacred on the island of Utoya were not just a bunch of innocent kids on holiday. Under the auspices of Norway’s Labor Party, they were showing their support of the Palestinians. As part of camp activities, the young folks were engaging in anti-Israel rallies and competing in mock flotilla boat races dedicated to breaking Israel’s blockade of Gaza. I’m not saying the young people deserved to be shot down; I am saying they weren’t Boy Scouts and Brownies.

As for Breivik, who could easily take first place in a Julian Assange look-alike contest, if found guilty, he would likely wind up in Halden Prison. This particular lock-up is spread out over 75 wooded acres, with jogging trails; private rooms with baths; refrigerators; large-screen TVs; a state of the art gym, complete with a climbing wall and personal trainers; not to mention a recording studio that is used to encourage the inmates to form bands.

Although Breivik has pled not guilty to the murderous rampage, tens of thousands of his countrymen have stepped forward to confess.
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You Call These Servants?
by Burt Prelutsky
Thursday, August 4, 2011

In the land of the blind, it’s said that the one-eyed man is king. In our own land, it seems that hypocrisy trumps sight. Americans, whose ancestors fought a war to free themselves of monarchs, now find themselves under the thumb of kings, queens, dukes and earls, who deign to pass themselves off as public servants.

Consider that in spite of a dire economy, Obama keeps adding White House staff. The number of fetch-and-carriers is now 454, at a cost to the taxpayers of $37 million-a-year. So, how about the next time the Obamas decide to host a gala for the well-heeled likes of Tom Hanks, Paul McCartney and Jerry Seinfeld, the guests at least pay for their own drinks?

On top of that, the taxpayers had to pony up $800,000, so that Michelle, her mom and the kids, could take a trip to Africa. No doubt they were anxious to see where Barack wasn’t born.

I can’t even count high enough to figure out what it’s costing us to finance Obama’s travels around the country so he can do the all-important work of campaign fund-raising.

Speaking of Obama, the Boston Globe, which even Chris Matthews can’t dismiss as a conservative smear sheet, recently came up with the news that Barack Obama, Sr., a notorious womanizer, tried to foist baby Barack off on the Salvation Army. So now, at long last, we actually know what his father’s dreams amounted to; not really all that different from Casey Anthony’s, it seems..

But, God knows, Barack Obama isn’t the only hypocrite holding down a good-paying job in Washington. What’s ironic is that politicians spend a few trivial hours with prostitutes and it ruins their reputations and sinks their careers, but they spend half their lives being wined and dined by lobbyists, and all it does is increase their chances of getting re-elected.

Come to think of it, it’s the prostitutes who have congressmen as clients who should be ashamed. One just naturally expects them to have higher standards than our elected officials.

I wouldn’t want you to get the idea that ours are the only politicians who should be horse-whipped in the public square on a regular basis. In the wake of Eric Holder’s latest calamity, the ATF debacle code-named “Fast and Furious,” which saw scores of guns sent to south of the border drug cartels, Mexican politicians have been bitching about our ignoring Mexico’s sovereignty. This is the same country that has spent decades doing all it can to encourage their poor, their illiterate and their criminals, to treat our sovereignty with the same respect one normally extends to used piñatas.

Recently, I wrote an article in which I made fun of gays for inventing a mental disorder they call homophobia as a way of demeaning those people who oppose same-sex marriages or are merely sick and tired of Gay Pride parades disrupting traffic. I don’t happen to know anyone who has an irrational fear of homosexuals. In the piece, I stated that gays were the only group that had the chutzpah to suggest that questioning their behavior was tantamount to a mental derangement.

Well, a reader reminded me that there is something Muslims and the media like to call Islamophobia. In rebuttal, though, I pointed out that Islamists are ignorant, blood-thirsty cretins, and there is nothing irrational about being terrified of these sociopathic Neanderthals. They are creatures, barely human, after all, who have apparently decided that having explosives surgically implanted in their bodies is one swell way of expressing their religious faith.

Finally, a question I am often asked is how it is that such arrogant, unappealing men, with such obnoxious personalities and grating voices, as Charles Schumer, Barney Frank, Harry Reid and Henry Waxman, can convince so many people to keep re-electing them. The simple answer is that they’re running against other politicians, who generally suffer from similar shortcomings.

It also explains why women who look and sound like Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Sheila Jackson Lee and Hillary Clinton, have been able to achieve such status and power in the wacky world of politics. But, to me, the truly amazing thing about these females is that, against all odds, their husbands weren’t devoured immediately after mating.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.