The Circus Comes To Town

Donald Trump’s hush money trial has started and so have the stories about his behavior; one said Trump appeared to fall asleep in the courtroom, another said he got in trouble for muttering during jury selection, another said he was ignoring a gag order and yet another said the fact that the trial wasn’t televised deprived Trump of a TV platform, but allowed him to come out of the courtroom afterwards and lie his ass off about what just happened inside.

For instance, that story about Trump falling asleep.

A New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, was in the courtroom and said Trump appeared to nod off at times, with his mouth going slack and his head dropping on his chest (basically, me, every day at about 3 PM after an Irish coffee that’s about 40% coffee and 60% Irish) and other reporters who were in the courtroom confirmed the story, which is a bad look for someone who likes to call his opponent “Sleepy Joe.”

But since there are no cameras and you could claim pretty much anything you want to, including one of the Wicked Witch of the West Flying Monkeys being seated as a juror, a “Trump campaign spokesperson” denied it ever happened and called it 100% Fake News which came from journalists who weren’t even in the courtroom.

Which is a huge lie, easily disproved, but if you’re the kind of person who already believes Donald Trump won the last election, the COVID pandemic was a hoax, we didn’t land on the moon and Paul McCartney died in the 1960s and was replaced by a remarkably talented impersonator, it’s a huge lie you’re probably willing to believe.

The high probability that this is going to be a Legal Circus with all kinds of sideshow distractions led me to draw the cartoon at the top of this post.

A basic form of comedy is a set-up followed by a punch line (“Take my wife…please”) and if you think about it – and I have – politicians provide the set ups and political cartoonists, comedians and late night talk show hosts provide the punch lines.

So when I read about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign providing voters with options, all I had to do was depict the options.

And speaking of set-up lines: the city of New York decided to control the rat population (and let’s hope that includes some of the people on Wall Street) by setting out rat snack pellets that contain “triptolide” which sterilizes both male and female rats so it definitely sounds like something we ought to put in the appetizers next time anyone in Congress holds a cocktail party.

Apparently the rat birth control plan was also tried in 1967, but the rats out-fucked the sterilization effort, so if you’re going to place a bet on what happens next, bet on a rat’s determination to get laid even though it will eventually result in him being on trial for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels and falling asleep in a courtroom.

In yet another Mideast Pissing Match, Iran shot missiles and rockets into Israel in retaliation for Israel’s airstrike against the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus which Israel did to take out Iranian officers involved in covert operations (you can see where this is going; pretty soon we’ll be talking about Cain and Abel and the Hatfields and McCoys) so I drew what seems like a pretty safe bet:

No matter which side shot which rockets where, there’s a pretty good chance the United States will be drawn into it.

Which Joe Biden is trying to avoid.

The KC Star had a story saying President Biden was trying to convince Israel that defending against the Iranian rocket attack made Israel even with Iran and Israel shouldn’t retaliate again and I’m all for peace, but that argument seems a lot like trying to convince your buddy that he shouldn’t fight back after getting sucker punched in a bar because he’d already impressed everybody with his ability to take a left hook to the head.

Which reminds me…

I once “sparred” with a friend who boxed in college and after our sparring session the only compliment he could think of was: “You sure can take a punch.”

When the ability to get hit in the head and not fall down is your best boxing skill, it’s time to find a new sport…and I did…in which I demonstrated the ability to take a shot to the left kidney.

I never get tired of watching what was – simultaneously – the dumbest and smartest thing I ever did in my Life because while I could have lost a valuable organ that I use a lot, after I did it Alex Gordon said it made the Royals players realize they were dealing with someone “a little different” and coach Doug Sisson said I now had “more street cred than 50 Cent” to which I replied the most amazing thing about that statement was Doug knowing who 50 Cent was. (Just in case you didn’t recognize him, the player who gives me a hard time about getting cocky is Chris Getz, current GM of the Chicago White Sox.)

I’m pretty sure they’ll show this video at my funeral, but if they don’t I’m going to come back and haunt everybody.

Now here’s yet another amazing Donald Trump quote:  “Any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined.”

Trump also said Biden had “totally lost control of the Israel situation” which brings up what would seem to be an obvious question: who hasn't totally lost control of the Israel situation?

(And that includes Israel.)

I used the Trump quote about Jews to question the Christians who support Trump and wonder what attracts those Christians to the former president: is it the lying, the greed, the self-centeredness, the ignorance of the Bible, the lack of church attendance or the sexual abuse of women?

Now here’s Matthew 17: 15-20 from the King James Bible and it describes how to spot a phony:

 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.  You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

As you might have noticed, for a Divinely Inspired piece of literature, the writing and editing of the Bible leaves something to be desired and that passage switches metaphors in the middle of the Wolf-In-Sheep’s-Clothing stream and makes the same point about nine times and for my money and possibly yours, Maya Angelou said the same thing, but said it better:

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

The important word in that sentence is “shows” because what people do is more important than what people say:

• If someone says they love you, but treats you like crap, they don’t love you.

• If someone says they’re your friend, but takes advantage of you and is nowhere to be found when you need to carry that fold-out couch up three flights of stairs, they’re not your friend.

• And if someone claims to be a good Christian and waves a Bible around (which he’s willing to sell to you for $59.99), but acts like Keith Richards on a bender, he’s not a good Christian.

Just in case you didn’t get enough of Maya’s wisdom, here’s an article about 26 of her quotes “that can change your life” and I’m still about 25 life-changing quotes short of that, although here’s the one I came up with at about 1:15 AM after an evening of questionable choices: “Six beers might make you feel good, but 12 beers won’t make you feel twice as good.”

https://exeleonmagazine.com/maya-angelou-quotes/

Anyway…

By the “what fruit do you bear” yardstick you’d have a hard time convincing me Donald Trump is following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ because if Jesus banged a porn star and then paid her off so the Disciples wouldn’t hear about it, the King James Bible failed to mention it.

And if those “Christians” are willing to overlook Donald Trump’s personal behavior because they like his tax policies or his stance on immigrants or his fake patriotism, then it seems to me they’re not all that serious about their Christianity and they’re showing the rest of us who they are.

BTW:

If you’re a Christian and what I wrote just pissed you off, you got this going for you:

If you’re right about the Afterlife Admission Policies, I’m going to have to explain this essay to Saint Peter’s satisfaction or I won’t be allowed into what amounts to a gated community, which makes me wonder if bored people who have already made it inside occasionally wander down to the Pearly Gates to hear the bullshit excuses offered up by potential residents when they have to explain their four divorces, a son who refuses to speak to them and that time they helped bury a dead hooker outside Elko, Nevada.

All of which falls under the category of (and if I ever have to explain some of my choices in Life, like taking a 92-MPH slider in the left kidney, it’s a category I’ll refer to a lot):

“You had to be there.”

Also if you’re a pissed off Christian and serious about your Christianity?

You have to forgive me.

http://kingfeatures.com/comics/editorial-cartoons-a-z/