Stuck between a rook and a hard-to-take place

A look at a depressing debate...

It would appear that our two choices for President of the United States are an energetic liar or a feeble geezer and while I’ll still vote for the geezer, I won’t feel very good about it.

Over the years the bar for presidential debates has been set incredibly low and yet this one still managed to be disappointing because it made you realize you can either vote for a bag of hot air that thinks Benito Mussolini had some really good ideas or a guy who has to be reminded to zip up his pants before leaving the men’s room.

Yikes.

And if you feel like blaming someone after this depressing debate I’d go with the Republican and Democratic parties who theoretically scoured the country for the two best candidates to run America and came up with these guys and left us to choose between a convicted felon and a nursing home candidate.

It makes you wonder how RFK is getting along with that brain worm.

The day before the debate, CNN ran two articles about the policies Joe Biden and Donald Trump say they would enact if given a second term and my first response was: “What, like raising the minimum wage or building a border wall Mexico is going to pay for?”

As you may have already noticed, politicians have a habit of saying one thing before they’re elected and doing another thing afterwards.

For example:

According to the Poynter Institute’s Politifact fact-checking website, of the 99 most important promises Joe Biden made during his 2020 campaign for president, he’s kept 28 of them, but 9 of them wound up in a compromise and 3 were broken and 30 were stalled and 28 were “in the works” and if “in the works” means the same thing as my “in the works” weight loss you can pretty much forget about them ever happening.

Also, 28 plus 70 isn’t 99 so apparently there’s a loose promise running around the Poynter Institute like that baby alien that gave Sigourney Weaver so much trouble and redefined the phrase “hard to swallow.”

Just in case you were wondering, Politifact says of Donald Trump’s 100 most important 2016 campaign promises, 24 were kept and 23 wound up in a compromise and 53 were flat-out broken (50 more broken promises than Joe Biden if that means anything to you) and 0 were stalled and 0 “were in the works” which I think means Trump just decided he wasn’t even going to pretend to do that stuff.

So do the math and according to the last two presidential campaigns, whatever a politician says he’s going to do once he’s elected there’s about a 74% chance he won’t actually do it. Which is just one of the many reasons I don’t take most presidential debates or campaign speeches all that seriously.

Also…

According to the Reuters news agency about 20% of voters are still undecided about the candidates which makes me wonder just when they came out of their medically-induced coma because how the hell do you live through the past eight years and not have a pretty solid opinion about Donald Trump and, to a lesser degree, the quite-a-bit-less-energetic Joe Biden?

Not having an opinion about Donald Trump’s suitability for the Oval Office in 2024 is like not having an opinion about Adolf Hitler’s foreign policies in 1946. 

(And if you’re one of those people who say the first one to bring up Hitler loses an argument, in my experience the people who say that just lost an argument and regret not bringing up Hitler sooner.)

As the above cartoon predicted, during the debate at times both candidates stooped to childish insults about things like how far Joe Biden could hit a golf ball and how much Donald Trump actually weighs and who should be labeled a “sucker” or “loser” and right now I’m thinking those labels most accurately apply to us voters who will have to decide which hot mess to send to the White House.

And now on to the other cartoons in hopes of making you temporarily forget the frying pan/fire choice we’ll be making this November.

On June 24^th temperatures in Kansas City reached 100 degrees which is bad sign because we still have July and August – the really hot months – to go.

Which – if you’re profanity averse – unfortunately reminds that when a journalist (and I’m pretty sure it was Bob Costas) asked Japanese baseball star Ichiro Suzuki if his Seattle Mariners teammates had taught him any English phrases since he came to America, Ichiro replied:

“Kansas City in August is hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock.”

Then, with a very straight face, added:

“I have very bad teammates.”

But while they may have taught Ichiro a phrase he couldn’t use in a eulogy or an eighth-grade commencement speech or a presidential debate, they weren’t wrong about Kansas City weather.

According to the following story from CNN, Donald Trump suggested that UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) form a league of migrant fighters, but UFC President Dana White didn’t like the idea which is probably a good thing because next thing you know we’d have the homeless fighting tag team Steel Cage Death Matches that we could bet on or food stamp recipients taking on packs of rabid Rottweilers in double elimination tournaments or billionaires being allowed to hunt hobos at a million dollars a hobo and I’m not 100 percent sure that last thing isn’t happening already.

Y’know all those weird private gatherings like Bohemian Grove or the World Economic Forum or one of those Sweet Sixteen parties held on Jeffrey Epstein’s island that the rest of us aren’t invited to?

I’m pretty sure they also hold Hobo Hunts which is why they don’t want us around; we’re not poor enough to qualify as hobos or rich enough to hunt one.

Anyway…

Trump revealed his migrant fighting league suggestion at a gathering of Christian conservatives because it’s just the kind of thing Jesus would have approved of and apparently it went over well enough with conservative Christians that Trump repeated the remarks at a campaign rally in Philadelphia.

Despite the UFC’s reluctance to have migrant workers fight each other for our entertainment, Trump said: “It’s not the worst idea I ever had.”

And for once I agree with him.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/22/politics/trump-migrants-ufc/index.html

So I read a couple stories about a new political ad campaign Joe Biden and the Democrats were putting together and the stories said the ads were going to focus on Donald Trump’s criminal record.

My first thought was maybe bringing up criminal records wasn’t such a hot idea because Hunter Biden had just been found guilty on three felony counts of being a jackass.

A thought which led to this cartoon:

Turns out, bringing up Trump’s criminal record might not be a great idea for another reason: since Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies, campaign donations have surged because his MAGA supporters have convinced themselves that being found guilty of 34 felonies proves the Deep State is out to get their hero.

Which is kind of like John Dillinger claiming the government is out to get him and the correct response to that is:

“No shit, dude…you robbed 24 banks.”

Today’s Lesson

In no particular order:

• Don’t believe 74% of campaign promises…

• Or trust a ballplayer who offers to teach you a new language…

• Or forget to bring up Hitler when you’re arguing with your spouse about who’s turn it is to take out the garbage…

• And you should be OK, unless you’re hobo and in that case you should turn down suspicious invitations to the World Economic Forum.

And if you want to avoid clinical depression, don’t watch any more presidential debates.

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