THE IDES HAVE IT!



“May you live in interesting times!”–Ancient Chinese curse, probably apocryphal, definitely germane.

They were candidates once, and young…

“Politics ain’t beanbag,” Richard Nixon famously remarked, and indeed, the elective process in these United States has never been clean, courteous, or open minded. Every era of our history may be argued to exhibit copious amounts of political tom-foolery mixed with downright underhandedness–and yet, the primary season of 2016, for reasons both grand and picayune, stands apart from any similar contest in recent memory.

Who are we calling idiots? Well, not everyone in the game–but even the most awe smitten observer of the Republican pack–or ardent admirer of the Democratic duelists–will admit, if candid, that idiocy is rife amongst the ranks– even if we might not agree on specific idiots. But it would be pusillanimous of us to avoid naming any of them, and since it is always safest to slander the dead, as Clifford Irving observed, we begin by examining the bloated carcasses of those formerly beamish valiants now strewn along the bloody trail. To the left we will espy the remains of Lawrence Lessig. Professor Lessig cannot be an idiot because he teaches law at the Harvard Law School But on the other hand, he was foolish enough to run for president (as a Democrat, of course) and it is only due to his manifest and complete irrelevancy that we spare him closer scrutiny.

And there’s what remains of Lincoln Chafee, whose rugged independence always made him indistinguishable from a Democrat, and who in fact became a Democrat after obtaining Rhode Island’s Governorship. Following a lachrymose term during which his chief accomplishment was renaming the Christmas Tree in front of the State House a “Holiday Tree,” Lincoln’s popularity declined precipitously. He was realistic enough to forget running for a second Gubernatorial term, but oddly deludable concerning the American presidency. He announced his candidacy on June 3rd, 2016, and withdrew on October 23rd following an embarrassing debate performance, a plunge in contributions, and research confirming widespread disinterest in his existence. We suspect Lincoln (now in semi retirement as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies) is probably an idiot.

A nd there’s Jim Webb! Webb, a retired Marine and recipient of the Navy Cross, served as Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy and built the 600-hull fleet. He switched to writing novels, received an Emmy for news casting, taught literature at Annapolis, made a few films, and became a fellow of the Harvard Institute of Politics. We suspect that’s where Jim broke bad and became a Democrat. This might suggest that Jim is an idiot, but we assure he isn’t. As a Virginia Democrat he ran for the senate and won. His senate tenure was unorthodox, like so much of his earthly sojourn. In fact, we believe Jim’s natural contumacy rather than any political instinct led him to run for president, but he dropped out on October 20, 2015. Webb seemed astonished by the diligence with which the liberal media set about ignoring him. He shouldn’t have been. His flamboyant-but-straight-shooting style threatened to resurrect the dreaded “blue dogs,” and nobody at the DNC wanted that–especially after Reid and Pelosi worked so hard exterminating the species while imposing Obamacare on the rest of us. Webb also threatened Hillary’s right flank– so he received zero coverage until he withdrew. He now insists he will not vote for Hillary, but might consider Trump. Webb’s not an idiot; just a rugged individualist who all too often leads with his adrenaline gland…a principle that often works better in combat than in politics.

The next carcass is Martin O’Malley’s. As mayor, Martin so enthusiastically oversaw Baltimore’s municipal deterioration that waves of appreciative, blue-state Marylanders clamored to make him governor. As governor, O’Malley excelled at wearing cut off t-shirts, posing with his guitar for photographers, and boasting about job creation. But O’Malley was actually disastrous for Maryland’s job market despite extravagant bestowals of Obama dollars. He “created” only 5,000 jobs during 96 months in office (and that’s assuming he created those jobs). According to Forbes, O’Malley was dead last for jobs creation behind “any other current or former gubernatorial presidential contender in the field.” But let’s be fair: two-thousand of the aforementioned jobs may well have been created…by Washington. Federal bribery resulted in large segments of the state’s industry shifting to the manufacture of “green” energy products. O’Malley helpfully mandated that no less than 2 percent of Maryland’s electrical power be squeezed from solar sources.

Search these United States thoroughly and you’ll never find a newspaper more devoted to spreading unalloyed left-wing balderdash than the Baltimore Sun. It is therefore all the more astonishing to find so progressive a rag making room for a story critical of their boyish, guitar strumming governor. But lo, it seems that even the egregious Sun can only slop so much lipstick on some pigs before abandoning the effort as futile. In April, 2015, the Sun admitted that O’Malley’s job creation was an artifice attributable to federal subsidization, not the Governor’s touted economic prowess. The paper also acknowledged that when federal outlays decreased in 2011,”Maryland’s gross state product plateaued, dropping the state to 49th in annual growth,” and that once federal infusions were reduced, “Maryland’s poor economic diversification became apparent.” Also, let it not pass unremarked, O’Malley is a rapacious gun grabber in the grand liberal tradition. The Governor announced his bid for the White House on May 30th, 2015, and seems not to have fully recognized the absurdity of the idea until February 1, 2016, when he called it quits and limped back to Annapolis. And why did O’Malley, who isn’t Black, isn’t a huggable relic from the radical ’60s, and who isn’t female, think he had a chance of beating Hillary in the primaries? Simple– he’s an idiot. But he plays guitar, did we mention that?

_________________________________________

The carnage on the right is no less horrible. Take Lindsey Graham for instance. Lindsey was silly to think he could win a bunch of primaries despite the lengthy list of betrayals he visited upon his own base, not to mention such baneful optics as dining with Obama while Rand Paul filibustered against drone attacks on Americans, countenanced by the FAA Reauthorization Act.

R eaders may have dismissed it from mind, but on May 18, 2015, Graham slipped into his faux-conservative livery and announced his candidacy on CBS’s This Morning, assuring viewers he should be the perfect president because “the world is falling apart.” His most memorable statement during his short-lived campaign consisted of telling a CNN interviewer that Donald Trump was a jackass, after which he returned to CBS This Morning to reiterate his belief that Donald Trump was a jackass. Lindsey failed to gain sufficient support to qualify for the CNN debate in August, but he was admitted to the secondary debates on CNN and CNBC in October despite polling a consistent 1 percent. He surrendered to reality on December 21, 2015, “suspending” his campaign and threw his support behind Jeb Bush. It is probably unnecessarily cruel to relate that Graham’s full throated endorsement made not an iota of difference in Jeb’s own miserable poll numbers—but we are all about the details here at WOOF.

How many were going to the Reagan Library?

Long after such worthies as Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul exited, “Jeb!” (the artist formerly known as Bush) remained in the game despite an equally lackluster reception and a far less appealing campaign platform. Of Jeb it seems fair to remark: Never have so many placed so much confidence, influence, and treasure behind a surefire nominee only to achieve exactly “nada” as the candidate might say. The Republican establishment, insulated from its own grassroots, saw fit to toss Jeb into the maelstrom without a moment’s thought given to real-world dynamics. Unlike Democrats, the GOP has long professed embarrassment at its own base, beginning with the cursed McCarthyites, and thence to the cursed Goldwaterites, and thence to the cursed Reaganites, and, of course, nowadays all those God-awful Tea Party yokels. This weirdly schizoid policy has long been one of rhetorically praising the “big tent” while snubbing any voter to the right of, say, Susan Collins. But this time, the yokels were ready to rumble.

The embarrassing hayseeds in flyover country were keenly aware of Jeb’s support for Common Core and its insidious assault on their children’s educations. They’d heard him insist that illegal aliens crashing our border did so as “an act of love,” and they knew he told Reuters he was guided by the no-nonsense political philosophy of “a moderate Republican who still has conservative principles,” whatever that means. Into the bargain, his support for the NSA’s collection of metadata and the full corpus of the Patriot Act completely alienated the libertarian right. Too, Jeb often addressed Hispanic audiences in Spanish promising to enact “immigration reform,” which the yokels were pretty certain translated into abandoning the concept of lawful entry and condoning the unchecked flow of illegals across our southern border.

Despite entering battle with the fattest war chest in primary history, Jeb never won a primary. He spoke to rooms of half-dozing oldsters and infamously begged them to “please clap!” When journalists realized he carried toy turtles around in his pockets, handing them out to kids and telling them, “slow and steady wins the race,” they had a field day. And when Jeb tweeted a photo of a turtle crawling across somebody’s lawn and exclaimed, “I met a joyful tortoise on my way to the Reagan Library,” his gravitas was pretty much shot entirely.

Gamely, Jeb barnstormed South Carolina calling it his must-win state. It was here he vowed to stop Trump and emerge victorious. Ever the optimists, both FOX and the liberal media agreed. But even with brother “W” and his mom campaigning for him and the remainder of his $100 million campaign fund fully invested, Jeb went nowhere. Trump won a substantial victory with Rubio a distant second, and Cruz finishing right behind Rubio. Confronted with a humiliating single digit showing, Bush finally took the hint. He suspended his campaign and told a cluster of morose supporters, “The people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken, and I really respect their decision.” If he had evinced a fraction of that respect going in, he might have done a whole lot better—provided he didn’t mention turtles. (Turtles are idiots.)

___________________________________________

Coughing, cackling, and barking we go…

The DNC expected to coronate Hillary this year without a ripple of dissent; but Bernie Sanders, who initially seemed an antic figure mimicking serious competition, became a thoroughgoing nuisance by January. Enough super delegating to rig the scoreboard, some phenomenal luck, such as winning six consecutive coin-tosses to settle district balloting, and the fact that her “Southern Firewall” held, kept Mrs. Clinton in the lead; but not without Bernie’s motley cadres at her heels.

Hillary is an awful campaigner by any standard, but her 2016 game is particularly weird. Besides her usual repertoire of fake rural accents and deranged cackling, she seemed to choke on her words in Iowa and New York, and made a point of barking like a dog in Reno. Her uncontrollable coughing spasms generated numerous rumors (as did her prismatic horn rims). An additional coughing spasm struck her on March 12th, while sermonizing on the sacred obligation to throw more money at our failing schools, and lasted four minutes—longest yet. Hillary’s “special glasses” last adorned her brow during a campaign event at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Some say the glasses mitigate long-term effects from her Benghazi concussion. Huma Abedin’s emails describe Hillary as “easily” and “often confused,” but Huma married Anthony Weiner, so she is obviously extremely confused and may not be a reliable judge.

Big Love (the other hugging incident)

The next bit of gobsmackery was Chris Christie’s baffling endorsement of Donald Trump, who had only recently denounced him as duplicitous in the George Washington Bridge scandal and mocked the big guy’s 2012 “hug”of Barack Obama–a partial embrace immortalized by photographers while Christie and Rappin’ Preezy cavorted seaside in the wake of Super-storm Sandy. Trump thundered, “When I saw it, I said I think he’s going to vote for Obama. Honestly, it was terrible….Obama went to New Jersey and…he was like a little child, Christie….he was like a little boy: ‘oh, I’m with the president.’”

Yet there stood New Jersey’s biggest and most tragically unrequited Bruce Springsteen fan, suspending his campaign and pronouncing himself thrilled to be in Fort Worth endorsing Trump, who he suddenly remembered was a decade-long family friend who would keep his word, restore the nation to greatness, and whom he now perceived to be the “only Republican running who can defeat Hillary Clinton.” For his part, Trump suddenly remembered that the man he’d been lambasting as the commie-hugging little boy cum “Bridgegate” conspirator who cost Romney the election, had been “a wonderful governor,” and a “standout for many years.” Trump’s eagerness to praise those who praise him is no secret–but what was Christie’s motive? Some believe he’s angling for the vice-presidency, but Trump knows his own preternaturally sudden conversion to conservatism is problematic for millions of voters whose doubts would hardly be assuaged should he tap the supersized RINO as his running mate in Cleveland.

___________________________________

Mitt scolds the Trumpeteers

On March 3rd a deeply troubled RINO establishment, stripped of champions like Lindsey, Jeb, and Christie, sent Mitt Romney out to carefully and patiently explain to to all the silly voters why Donald Trump “has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president.” WOOF doesn’t doubt Mitt’s sincerity, and he made some solid points–but the GOP’s dopey certitude that Romney would leave Trump supporters slapping their foreheads and exclaiming, “Gadzooks, what fools we’ve been!” was risible. Even stupid people don’t like having their intelligence insulted–and a lot of Trump’s supporters (witness Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Bill O’Reilly) aren’t even stupid. Mitt’s homily ricocheted, of course, functioning as a de facto pep rally for its intended victim.

Don’t shoot, G-men, don’t shoot!

Meanwhile, the FBI is reportedly amassing ever-more lurid and damnatory evidence of treasonable misconduct by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton despite which Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department will not lift a finger, leading to rumors that Valerie Jarrett may once again have issued a stand-down order. However we’ve also learned Hillary’s personal computer geek recently received immunity from prosecution. This only occurs when a grand-jury investigation in progress–and this presupposes a suspect about whom the jury is even now hearing testimony. Dast we assume that it’s Hillary? More on this as developments warrant! (See what we did there?)

The frost is off the bumpkin!

B ill Clinton is losing his mojo. It began during the 2008 election when the newly Obama-crazed media discovered for the first time that Bill was a liar, a perjurer, an adulterer, and even, for a week or two, a racist. It doesn’t help matters that the once boyish Bubba has aged poorly, resembling at this point a stooped, slim-wristed, nearly-androgynous oldster whose Viagra-swollen eyes bulge eerily beneath a matronly helmet of fastidiously cosseted hair– hair so white it amplifies the pallor of Slick Willy’s dissipated physiognomy. And when Mr. Clinton gets angry (which is more and more often, we’ve noticed) the effect is trebled.

Oversights happen. The press forgot to keep Bill’s flame alive, so busy were they propping up the real first Black president. Today, millennials look at Bill Clinton and see the rickety old perv who gave Juanita Broaddrick a fat lip, sexually assaulted Kathleen Willey, paid off Paula Jones, and lied to the entire country about Monica Lewinsky. They don’t see Huck Finn in a power tie when Bill walks in the room; they just see a douche bag.

Recently, Bill was in the midst of lying his brains out on Hillary’s behalf in front of an audience in Bluffton, South Carolina, when a former Marine interrupted him. “The thing is,” the Marine pointed out, “we had four lives in Benghazi killed and your wife tried to cover it up.” Even more horrifying than this surreal breach of the official liberal immunity credo was the fact that perhaps a third of the room cheered the at this point, and there was no Don Lemon to insist on going to commercial. The Marine continued elaborating on Benghazi and Mrs. Clinton’s falsehoods, until Sheriff’s deputies hauled him out of the room. Clinton shouted “Do you have the courage to listen to my answer?” (This to a United States Marine, mind you), and “Don’t throw him out. Shut up and listen to my answer. I’ll answer it!” But the deputies had by then dragged the man out of the gymnasium. Clinton caught his breath and after a moment’s refocusing, defaulted to the vast-right-wing-conspiracy defense, shouting, “Can I just say something? That’s what’s wrong! His mind has been poisoned by lies and he won’t listen!” This is where a swell of cheers and applause always used to reach an affirmatory crescendo, but the magic is gone—the frost is off the bumpkin. Some other guy yelled “Bullsh*t!” only without the asterisk, and a lady jumped up and shouted, “Hillary lied over four coffins, she lied and she lied to those families. So all those families are liars?”

“Will you listen to my answer?” the Bubba pleaded; “Did she lie?” the woman demanded; “Are you afraid of my answer?” countered Clinton; “No I’m not afraid because I know you’re going to lie,” the woman responded, at which point she too was seized by Sheriff’s deputies and dragged from the hall while Clinton continued to roar, “Why are you afraid of my answer? Will you let me answer?” But the Bubba was drained–atremble with barely suppressed rage, one raspy voice marooned in a gymnasium awash with murmurings and angry bursts of dissent. These reminders that his glory days were behind him seemed to leave Clinton adrift. Perhaps this is why, as Olaf Ekberg reported in the American Mirror, “Clinton never did answer.”

_________________________

When scary things happen to good liberals….

It seems to have started in San Francisco where pioneering psychologist Alison Howard discovered a substantial number of patients succumbing to a previously unheard of affliction resembling a standard phobia but with a tincture of culture-related panic disorder thrown in. And while the exact nosology of the problem remains elusive, the cause is apparent: Howard’s clients have it in common that their fragile liberal psyches cannot cope with the existential threat of Donald Trump. Less severe cases report obsessing over such concerns as “What …happened to Trump during his childhood…to make him such a bad person?” Others are more traumatized than quizzical, wrestling with the perceived dissonance of it all. “We’ve been told our whole lives not to say bad things about people, to not be bullies, to not ostracize people based on their skin color,” Howard explains. “We have these social mores and he breaks all of them and he’s successful. And people are wondering how he gets away with it!”

Liberals also sought counseling in the wake of George “W” Bush’s victory over John Kerry in 2004, remember? Actually, psychology’s valiant struggle to cope with the expanding threat of political and ideative diversity is traceable to earlier manifestations. Readers who are long enough in the tooth may recall that during the crest of McCarthyism in the early ‘50s, psychiatric heavyweight Karl Menninger, (Director of the famed clinic that bears his name) became so innervated by Joe’s “sadism” that he found it necessary to take pen to paper and complain to Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, that “many people delight in the vulgarity, irresponsibility, and, to my mind, viciousness of Senator McCarthy…” which Menninger proceeded to associate, however oddly, with the success of detective novels by Mickey Spillane. (In fact, the author and the Junior Senator never met, although Spillane once opined that McCarthy was “a slob,” which Joe really kind of was, when we think about it.)

M enninger seemed driven to expound on what he considered a malevolent consanguinity linking the author and the Junior Senator, and he expressed particular dismay over Spillane’s best-seller One Lonely Night in which the fictional hero, Mike Hammer, guns down 40 communist spies with a Thompson submachine gun. (In the manuscript, it was 80, but Spillane’s publisher thought 80 was too gory.) By way of emphasizing this tenuous linkage, Menninger no sooner finished his ardent denunciation of McCarthy than he added, as if the one thought naturally begat the other,“over twenty-four million copies of these various Mickey Spillane books have been snapped up by someone! ”

A loosely held together person…

Clearly, the willingness of America’s psychotherapeutic professionals to serve as champions of the progressive cause predates the rise of Donald Trump. And Before you dismiss all this with a sneer, gentle readers–before you shrug off the magnitude of Trump-centered anxiety in the present epoch–consider the very real cost in human terms! According to Washington Post reporter Paul Schwartzman:

Emma Taylor lies abed restively in Los Angeles where she reports: “I literally can’t sleep because I just thought about how Trump may actually win the Presidency and now I’m having a panic attack.”

Another Californian explains: “He’s extremely reactionary and that’s what scares me the most. I feel totally powerless and it’s horrible.”

Whitney Royston, a 30 year old resident of Littleton, Colorado confides, “If he were to become president, I fear that our world would come tumbling down.”

Nancy Lauro, 52, an art teacher, sits at her computer in Brooklyn, frantically Googling information on how to become an Italian citizen should Trump become president—or, she thinks, possibly a citizen of Ireland because it turns out they speak English.

Judith Schweiger Levy, a New York psychologist, reports that she is currently rendering assistance to a “middle-aged business woman” who made the traumatic discovery earlier this month that her sister is thinking about voting for Trump. Worse still, Dr. Levy admits that she, too, is developing symptoms, telling the interviewer, “I’m starting to feel anxious just talking about him.” Levy is not alone. Psychologist Mary Libbey of Central Park West describes similar abreactions. Couching her analysis in concise, professional terms, Dr. Libbey explains, “I’m terrified that he could win. His impulsivity, his incomplete sentences, his strange, squinty eyes — to my mind, he’s a loosely held together person.” Loosely-held-together Personality Disorder isn’t in the DSM, however, so it’s hard to confirm the diagnosis.

______________________

Ted eats a bug?

So what was that glowing white blob that appeared on candidate Cruz’s lower lip in the widely circulated video from the recent FOX debate? Whatever it is/was, the Senator swept it up with a deft flick of his tongue, and appeared to ingest it.

With no superior insights available, not even any “Barker Street Irregulars” reporting in, we have no recourse but to repeat the current internet speculation, which goes as follows: ONE: Ted ate a bug–although it would have been a strange bug–possibly a louse. One site speculates on the existence of albino tics, but we checked and they don’t exist. TWO: One Holly Anderson took to Twitter to opine that the mystery item was a chunk of styrofoam packing peanut. Holly does not follow WOOF on Twitter, (we checked) so we can’t vouch for her judgment. THREE: While opinions on Reddit are legion, the booger theory has established a substantial lead, but this may be because the booger theory is the most immediately cringe inducing and most Reddit posters are unemployed cellar dwellers who obsess over things like boogers routinely. FOUR: It might have been a tonsil stone– this theory is gaining in circulation since it was originally proposed by someone named Ana on The Young Turks. We don’t want to look into tonsil stones, though because they sound really disgusting.

Marco pops a pill

Marco Rubio has several times been observed furtively popping as-yet-unidentified pills into his mouth. The fact that he attempts to get away with this while on camera in the midst of minutely scrutinized debates suggests he either desperately needs the pills to control some medical condition, or that he is succumbing to some irresistible addictive impulse. If the pills are truly innocuous, let’s say breath mints or Rolaids—why fish them from his pockets during televised debate segments? Yet a video of the his last FOX performance shows Rubio sneaking a pill into his mouth, and the Senator has been glimpsed popping pills often enough that rumors are growing in number and floridity.

Opinions on Twitter range from “pills keep his body from rejecting the control chip implanted in his brain,” to “he’s popping Xanax or Beta Blockers, which explains his robotic bullsh*t!” But popping benzos on camera seems ill advised and, one might hope, unnecessary. Beta blockers are sometimes used to address the nervousness associated with public speaking, and, one would assume, debating Donald Trump. Diabetes might require pills and explain the candidates preoccupation with chugging designer water—but again, why not appear on stage with your blood sugar already stabilized? Or has the Senator entered the brave new world of “nootropics,” or their not-so-distant cousins, amphetamines? “New-tropics” like Provigil are marketed as speed without the consequences—no crash, no addiction—just extra energy, wakefulness, and heightened mental acuity. Nootropics, like amphetamines, are available in pill form and can result in thirst and dehydration, especially when abused. Is Rubio sharpening his brain with Provigil before wading into eristic combat? Perhaps, although a less charitable blog might note the absence of any conspicuous result.

______________________________

Hillary denies being one…

No wonder the Democrat debates draw comparatively paltry ratings. The field is two people, one an overt socialist, and the other a costumed, dissembled socialist who cannot, when asked, name a single distinction between herself and any other socialist. “What’s the difference between a socialist and a Democrat?” Chris Matthews asked Her Magnificence (to coin Tina Brown’s goo-goo-eyed cognomen for Mrs. Clinton) on Hardball, realizing in that awful, frozen moment that he had accidentally bollixed his guest. Readers who are not liberals may be slow to comprehend how often the progressive mind actually subscribes to the very flummeries its propaganda machine heaps upon liberal politicians. Thus Matthews may have fallen into the trap of supposing that Clinton was the brilliant, accomplished lioness described by the lickspittle media. Surely she’d have an answer at hand, or be able to compose one after a moment’s thought. But alas, nyet. Her magnificence was utterly flustered. She defaulted to, “Well, I can tell you what I am. I am a progressive Democrat.” Again Matthews asked, “How’s that different than a Socialist?” Mrs. Clinton explained, “I’m a progressive Democrat who likes to get things done…” Matthews said “Okay… well, see, I’m asking you. You’re a Democrat, he’s a Socialist. You — would you like someone to call you a Socialist?” Hillary fired back, “But I’m not one.” Matthews’ eyes grew glassier. He began massaging his frontal lobe and murmured “Okay…” but Mrs. Clinton sought to clarify the matter further by adding, “I’m not one.”

___________________

“As Maine goes…”

And then came Maine, where most residents outside urban areas hold arguably right-of-center views (witness the election and re-election of Paul LePage as governor) but so pride themselves on fierce Yankee independence that they are immediately duped by any leftist wearing Bean boots and plaid claiming to be an Independent (especially if he configures his bumper stickers to replicate the MOXIE logo, as did the wily Senator Angus King (Independent, read: Democrat). Predictably, therefore, Maine handed Sanders his 4th primary win…while Maine’s Republican caucus opted for Ted Cruz. Bernie’s rumpled, threadbare style appeals to “indy” liberals who’ve wearied of sticking up for a pack of incorrigible liars whose policies invariably fail; especially when the liars have been at it so long, so clumsily, and so loudly, that people are noticing. Is it any wonder Bernie appeals to voters ignorant of the mathematical ludicrousness of his prescriptions? Historically, such prescriptions invariably conduce toward hell on earth, but folks like a guy who honestly says he’ll lead them there.

___________________________

Hillary’s nomination= President Trump?

C ould Bernie Sanders prove tougher than Hillary for Trump to beat in a general election? To examine this relatively heterodox viewpoint, WOOF visited the effete sanctums of Salon and checked out Steve Almond’s article, “Hillary will never survive the Trump onslaught: It’s not fair, but it makes her a weak nominee.” Almond is a Bernie supporter whose analysis might therefore be regarded as biased—although he professes great admiration for Hillary as well. Hillary, he insists, brings too much baggage to the table to survive a clash with Trump. Worse, Almond worries that “no matter who the GOP nominee is, the battle plan against Hillary will be the same: a tawdry and unrelenting re-litigation of all the phony scandals cooked up by the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ that she identified nearly two decades ago.”

Mr. Almond wisely avoids revisiting the context in which Her Magnificence excogitated that lurid term, preferring to enumerate the sundry “phony scandals” we at WOOF, in conjunction with “vast” numbers of right-wing co-conspirators, apparently “cooked up.” These include: “Whitewater, Travelgate, Troopergate, Lewinskygate…Vince Foster Murdergate… the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Pardons… Benghazi, the private email server, [and] the Wall Street speeches.” Wow, we’ve been busy! But Almond also warns that the “dark corporate money and talented propagandists aligned against Hillary will make the Swift Boat Veterans look like toy soldiers.” …So, they’ll look like John Kerry? That’s sad.

One additional impediment, Almond notes, is “the reality…that Hillary is among the most hated politicians in America.” Almond’s article seemed a rarity at first, but suddenly a bumper crop of articles and essays sprang up echoing his sentiments. For reasons that remain semi-mysterious, more and more liberal opinionists are issuing dire warnings that Her Magnificence cannot prevail in a general election. WOOF would congratulate Almond on his courage in presenting the bellwether piece on this theme were it not for the fact that he ends his bold monograph by assuring his readers that, “None of this is to suggest that Hillary won’t beat Trump, if they wind up as the nominees.” What? Either Almond’s editor insisted on a more Clinton-friendly postscript, or the author got to the end of his piece and decided he’d been wrong the whole time, in which case, shouldn’t he have torn it up?

Bernie’s blues

Which reminds us: Bernie has consistently performed better than anyone expected in Democratic primary contests. But it never seems to help much. The liberal establishment networks continued to portray him as a laughable, idiosyncratic wannabe tilting at windmills even as Hillary (whom they extol) seems to emerge from every discomfiture another few delegates ahead. Bernie took Michigan 50 percent to Clinton’s 48 percent, despite the fact that every available poll showed Clinton with an insurmountable advantage, often as much as 20 points. But just when the battling Bolshevik from Vermont almost broke a smile, Hillary turned in a phenomenal win in Mississippi, grabbing 83 percent of the voters to Bernie’s 16. This placed La Clinton in the lead with more than 200 pledged delegates. When Bernie racked up primary wins in Colorado, Minnesota, and Oklahoma (okay, that was weird), Hillary’s southern strategy held like a stone wall. Southerners tend to detest socialists, which is why Hillary wears a pantsuit and calls herself a progressive, which was good enough for Democrats in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

___________________________

Trump: The real terrorist!

On March 11th Bill Ayers (socially acceptable Weather Underground terrorist, Obama groomer) entered the nominative fray by organizing an anti-Trump protest at the University of Chicago. Ayers addressed approximately 9,000 leftwing supporters, inveighing against Trump whom the protesters’ signage branded “the real terrorist.” WOOF regrets we cannot locate a pull quote from Ayers’s remarks, because one would surely contribute to the drollery of this post, but the main question is: who would instigate such a freak show? The obvious double dative by which detectives would arrive at a suspect is Cicero’s famous inquiry “cui bono?” or “who benefits?” The answer is Trump. After all, nobody who attended the protest is likely to vote for anyone other than Bernie Sanders, everybody there already hates Trump, while vacillating voters throughout the American homeland are doubtless galvanized into solidarity with Trump at the mere sight of Ayers once again jackassing it up for the media. Subsequently, a couple of Trump appearances were cancelled because the unemployed proletarians were rioting. And again, this will serve mainly to rally undecided Americans to the billionaire’s campaign. However Trump arranged this, whether by subtle manipulation or outright financial disbursement, it was a brilliant gambit. Ayers, you sucker!

__________________________

Sister Sarah is not amused!

J ust ahead of the March 10 debate on CNN, Ted Cruz saw fit to borrow a phrase from Rush Limbaugh, telling a CBN interviewer that. “Donald does well with voters who have relatively low information…” The Senator may have meant to recruit previously benighted Trump fans, brought thus to sudden wisdom, but in the event he merely ignited the ever-coruscative Sarah Palin, who took to her Facebook page and lambasted Cruz for his efforts. “Ted Cruz’s insinuation reeks of all the reasons America knows ‘the status quo has got to go,’” raged Sister Sarah, adding. “Cruz’s latest dig strays from humorous into downright nasty. Cruz is right, though – independent, America-first, commonsense conservatives supporting Donald Trump ARE ‘low information’ when it comes to having any information on Cruz’s ability to expand the conservative movement, beat Hillary Clinton, unify or lead the nation.” Yipes! There was a lot more, too, but you get the picture. Sarah Palin is all in when she’s in, and she takes her partisanship seriously. Palin ended her diatribe with the nastiest obloquy one can hurl at a conservative icon, to wit: “Ted Cruz is just like any other politician!” So there! At least Sarah’s beautiful when she’s angry!

_____________________________

Pretty reporter mauled by ape?

Okay, next, Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields claimed she was assaulted at a March rally by Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who, she said, grabbed her and forced her from the stage as she approached Trump to ask a few questions. At first, it seemed cut and dry: Trump’s ape of a campaign manager roughed up the pretty reporter for trying to do her job. But then came Lewandowski’s denial. He insisted he’d never touched Fields, whom he dismissed as “totally delusional.” And video? In one of those oddities that seem to characterize this primary season, despite myriad cameras recording the event, no footage of the occurrence depicts the alleged tussle with sufficient clarity to permit a conclusion. True, The Daily Beast posted video, announcing it “shows the moment Lewandowski grabbed Fields,” except the video, in our famously unbiased view, is so mirky it might as well be said to show the lady in the polka-dot dress aiming a revolver at Bobby Kennedy–because we can’t see that happening either. Breitbart, of course, demanded an apology from the Trump camp.

Fields next accused the Trump bunch of traducing her good name, telling FOX’s Megan Kelly, “They released a statement calling me a liar. They have basically done a character assassination on me. They’re linking to blogs with conspiracies about me, and they’re not telling the truth.” Worse, by Sunday, Fields began to suspect her own company’s support was eroding. She tweeted that Breitbart was suddenly refusing to defend her character or vouch for her professional credibility– so she quit her job. But before you conclude that an attention seeking reporter misled the public in an effort to gain notoriety only to be found out by her employers who withdrew their support whereupon she affected to quit before the axe fell– well, consider the next turn of events…

Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro (whom WOOF considers a solid conservative and an asset to the cause) not only packed up his desk and bade his incredulous co-workers adieu, he next issued a statement averring that “Breitbart News not only stood by and did nothing outside of tepidly asking for an apology, they then attempted to abandon Michelle by silencing staff from tweeting or talking about the issue.” Shapiro added that “[Andrew Breitbart’s] life mission has been betrayed, Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy.” Yipes! Fields next filed a criminal complaint against Lewandowski in Jupiter, Florida near the site of whatever did or didn’t happen. WOOF will continue to report developments in an utterly neutral fashion (perhaps for the first time ever) unless we discover that by staunchly defending Fields we might induce Trump’s campaign to offer us a substantial cash “donation” to switch sides–to which idea we should simply like to say we are not entirely ill-disposed.

______________________________

Possible child molester endorses Trump!

T rump’s views of his competitors change a lot–perhaps you’ve noticed. Ted Cruz went from being a nice guy to a horrible man whom nobody likes. Obama went from being exactly what the country needed to the worst president ever. Hillary went from being “very, very capable” to “evil,” although we suppose those two concepts are not mutually exclusive. People can also improve themselves, meaning that reprobates can attain virtual sainthood once their views and remarks advance Trump’s interests. Example: former presidential candidate Ben Carson was elevated in the immediate wake of his endorsement of Trump, which occurred shortly after Carson’s withdrawal from the race. Trump only weeks earlier berated Carson’s autobiography as implausible, asking aloud, “How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?” He called Carson a liar, and threw in “pathological” for good measure, insisting during one interview that “It’s in [Carson’s ] book that he’s got a pathological temper, that’s a big problem because you don’t cure that … as an example: child molesting. You don’t cure these people. You don’t cure a child molester. There’s no cure for it. Pathological, there’s no cure for that.” Well–Carson was at least correct that Trump misunderstood the word pathological, and was right in saying the billionaire hadn’t actually called him a child molester. Still, it wasn’t until he endorsed Trump that Trump realized Ben Carson was “a terrific guy, loved by everybody…just really liked and respected by everybody.” In Carson’s transformation, surely, hope may be found for each of us earnestly seeking redemption.

_____________________________

Dangerously religious?!

On March 11th, countless devotees of Drudge were shocked by a headline proclaiming: ‘TED IS THE ANOINTED ONE!’ HOLY GHOST VIDEO REVEALED; DAD SPEAKING IN TONGUES; SUPPORTERS ‘LAY HANDS’ ON CRUZ AT RALLY! Curious clickers were shunted to a conspiracy-oriented link denouncing Cruz as a closet Pentecostal (yipes?) who only pretends membership in the First Baptist Church in Houston to deceive his gullible supporters. Worse still, if that’s even possible, the site revealed Cruz’s wife was raised by Seventh Day Adventists! But it gets even worse! The article references a Pew Research Center study proving Pentecostalism “emphasizes such practices as speaking in tongues, prophesying, divine healing and other miraculous signs of the Holy Spirit” and these psychotics are scheming to take over America and turn us into a fundamentalist theocracy, and Cruz is their means to this end! (A kind of Melchizedekian Candidate–see what we did there?) And as if this wasn’t horrifying enough, there’s video! Drudge’s headline ballyhooed shocking scenes of Cruz engaged in all manner of depraved rituals. Per Drudge, we expected at bare minimum to witness the Senator jabbering in tongues kissing rattlesnakes, chugging cyanide, and declaring himself the reborn Elijah– or maybe John the Beloved–or at least John from Cincinnati, all the while flouncing about in lurid robes like some Pentecostal Aleister Crowley amidst The Babalon Working…maybe sporting a pyramidic headdress adorned with the all-seeing eye of Horus…maybe knifing a hapless goat? We barely possessed the gumption to witness such a paradigm-shattering expose, but summoning all our courage, we clicked the arrow! n March 11th, countless devotees of Drudge were shocked by a headline proclaiming: ‘TED IS THE ANOINTED ONE!’ HOLY GHOST VIDEO REVEALED; DAD SPEAKING IN TONGUES; SUPPORTERS ‘LAY HANDS’ ON CRUZ AT RALLY! Curious clickers were shunted to a conspiracy-oriented link denouncing Cruz as a closet Pentecostal (yipes?) who only pretends membership in the First Baptist Church in Houston to deceive his gullible supporters. Worse still, if that’s even possible, the site revealed Cruz’s wife was raised by Seventh Day Adventists! But it gets even worse! The article references a Pew Research Center study proving Pentecostalism “emphasizes such practices as speaking in tongues, prophesying, divine healing and other miraculous signs of the Holy Spirit” and these psychotics are scheming to take over America and turn us into a fundamentalist theocracy, and Cruz is their means to this end! (A kind of Melchizedekian Candidate–see what we did there?) And as if this wasn’t horrifying enough, there’s video! Drudge’s headline ballyhooed shocking scenes of Cruz engaged in all manner of depraved rituals. Per Drudge, we expected at bare minimum to witness the Senator jabbering in tongues kissing rattlesnakes, chugging cyanide, and declaring himself the reborn Elijah– or maybe John the Beloved–or at least John from Cincinnati, all the while flouncing about in lurid robes like some Pentecostal Aleister Crowley amidst The Babalon Working…maybe sporting a pyramidic headdress adorned with the all-seeing eye of Horus…maybe knifing a hapless goat? We barely possessed the gumption to witness such a paradigm-shattering expose, but summoning all our courage, we clicked the arrow!

____________________________

Darn that rascally Matt Drudge! Not since theater-goers paid good money to attend the premier of Plan 9 from Outer Space has any production fallen so pathetically short of audience expectations. Not only were zero goats sacrificed, the videos provided nothing more traumatizing than a melange of activities that would shock nobody even glancingly familiar with fundamentalist or evangelical practices. Cruz never lays hands on anybody, but we watch as he receives a blessing from Pastor Gaylon Wiley, who baptized Cruz and converted his parents from atheism. Cruz is seen receiving a laying on of hands, but this is no dark ritual by which Pentecostal cult leaders imbue their minions with powers of mass deception—it is a practice common to many sects of Christianity and to many forms of Judaism. It is also routine in the Mormon Church, although Drudge backed Mitt Romney without reservation in 2012. Sarah Palin was raised in a Pentecostal denomination, which fact never alarmed Drudge–and only last September Donald Trump received an ecumenical laying on of hands by clerics asking God to direct his actions. We guess Matt missed that event– but we know he can’t be everywhere.

________________

KKK for Hillary! A certified Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan’s California chapter, who bears responsibility for recruitment in the western United States and presumably speaks for all the Klantons (not a typo) under his authority, has declared wholehearted support for Hillary. “We want Hillary Clinton to win,” insists Klansman Will Quigg, explaining, “She is telling everybody one thing, but she has a hidden agenda. She’s telling everybody what they want to hear so she can get elected…[but] once she’s in the presidency, she’s going to come out and her true colors are going to show.” Sadly for those of us not in the loop, Grand Dragon Quigg (whose initiative will surely see him elevated to Grand Wizard shortly) is unwilling to say precisely how he came upon his knowledge of Hillary’s “hidden agenda,” or even what that agenda might be. Should Quigg see fit to enlighten us, we will immediately inform our readers. Meanwhile, we counsel a level head and a tranquil demeanor. After all, whatever Hillary Clinton’s secret agenda may be, assuming it exists at all, it is almost certain to be superior to the one she’s promoting publicly. ___________________________ Donald ascendant/ Kasich reborn! On Tuesday the 15th, Donald Trump won Florida, humiliating “Little Marco”and walking away with all 99 delegates, leaving the “favorite son” to bleed out. The Donald also found favor in Illinois and North Carolina. Despite this, the previously ignorable John Kasich found cause to wax ecstatic, reanimated by his first ever primary victory (in Ohio, where he happens, coincidentally, to be governor). He told reporters he was now in it to win. Lovers of the Kafkaesque will enjoy monitoring the sudden outbreak of seemingly serious discussion on cable news networks to the effect that Kasich, having finally won a primary, is suddenly Trump’s major competition for the nomination. The intellectual validity of such discussion is on a par with say, a round robin of newscasters earnestly mulling over the likelihood that planet Nibiru will collide with Earth this summer–but by now you’ve probably noticed the media are fantasy prone.

Wait, is that line from “Key Largo,” or “Little Marco?”

With the grey dawn of March 16th came an additional casualty report—the demise of Little Marco. We have long felt that when this (pretty much inevitable) moment arrived, the candidate should make the shortest speech yet uttered by any politician suspending a campaign—we thought it would be admirable, campy, and quick, if he just stepped up to the microphone and quoted Edward G. Robinson’s classic last line from Little Caesar (Warner Bros., 1931), namely, “Oh, mother of mercy—is this the end of Marco?” Okay, yes we know–Robinson’s character was Rico, not Marco, but the facile wit of the paraphrase plus the uncanny parallelism surely justifies the adaptation.

Symbolic of the entire RINO delusion, Rubio really believed he would take Florida handsomely—whereas he only succeeded in preventing Cruz from gaining momentum, and ensured victory for Trump, whom he purports to loathe. With classic RINO timing, Rubio blocked Cruz from pulling ahead in several states, and decided to get out of the way only once he’d rendered the Texan’s odds nearly prohibitive. Even more irksome, Rubio ignored our Edward G. Robinson idea, opting instead to condemn America’s immersion in “the politics of resentment.” Such politics, Marco cautioned in parting, could only fracture our communities, divide our citizens, and “leave us as a nation where people literally hate each other because they have different political opinions!” The young Senator seemed strangely unaware of the fact that President Obama accomplished all of that years ago.

______________________

The walking dead…

Kasich and Sanders have something in common besides loathing Donald Trump–both men are determined to go the distance despite having no perceptible path to victory. Some say Sanders will stay in the fight because he loves getting campaign donations. Can it be? The austere, Aveo driving socialist has a history of dipping into campaign funds for nepotistic enrichment. He once handed his wife $150,000 and told the Federal Election Commission it was a “consulting fee.” And that was before he was raising the big bucks. Consider this: Although Bernie’s recent clean sweep of Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii barely diminished Hillary’s advantage (she remains in front by 280 pledged delegates and 440 superdelegates), it performed a different but perhaps equally important function. As the New York Times noted, “the wins are likely to bestow on the Sanders campaign a surge of online donations,” greatly enhancing his ability to advertise for even more campaign donations. (But hey, at least he’s honest.) Kasich, on the other hand, mainly loves Kasich, with a kind of amaurotic self-absorption. The RINOs adore his faux-conservative history of aisle-crossing, compromise and accommodationism and want him kept in play as a possible means of toppling Trump the Barbarian. This will, of course, only ruin Cruz and advance Trump, but RINOs (okay, Rhinos) are not particularly intelligent creatures and often forget why they’re charging in the midst of the charge. We looked it up.

Run, run, it’s the Great Uniter!

On March 16 the willfully phlegmatic John Boehner, whom we all fervently hoped we’d heard the last of, materialized like a conjured Tulpa in Boca Raton, Florida. Regarding the primaries, he puffed, “They all had a chance to win, none of them won. So I’m for none of the above. I’m for Paul Ryan to be our nominee!” Wuhh? Okay, true, the convention may arrive without anyone landing the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the nomination and true, this may trigger a brokered convention—but we carefully counted Paul Ryan’s delegates so far, and -he doesn’t have any. Oh, and as soon as he “learned” Boehner nominated him, Ryan (aka “none of the above”) dashed to a CNBC microphone to recite, “I’m not running for president. I made that decision, consciously…I don’t see that happening. I’m not thinking about it.” And if you don’t find that string of prefabricated mendacities absolutely side splitting, you just don’t know funny! Prepare yourselves, gentle readers, to be “saved” by Paul Ryan, “the great uniter.”

_________

More March madness…

March 17, Bernie the Battling Bolshevik concedes that Hillary won the Missouri primary—which everyone else already knew.

March 21, Bill Clinton exhorts a roomful of Hillary supporters to “put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us.” Does that include his wife? Bill is now missing from the campaign.

March 21, Mitt Romney endorses Ted Cruz, accusing Kasich, whom he endorsed in Ohio and now un-endorses, of staying in the race solely to deny Cruz the nomination.

March 22: Prior to the primary, Trump predicts the people of Utah will shun “Lying” Ted Cruz because “Mormons hate liars!” Utah responds by handing Lying Ted all its delegates in an avalanche of apparent support for mendacity!

March 22: Trump counter punches by sweeping Arizona with more delegates than Utah—and that’s no lie.

March 22: Hillary prevails in Arizona’s primary, whereas feisty old Bernie grabs Utah and Idaho. Maybe Donald was wrong and Mormons just don’t like Clintons.

March 23: With exquisite RINO timing, Jeb Bush endorses Ted Cruz. Can we slap you now, Jeb?

March 23, several Barker Street Irregulars in positions to know begin telling WOOF that Hillary is on the verge of being indicted and FBI boss James Comey told Loretta Lynch he’ll walk out with most of his staff if action is not sanctioned…we cannot confirm this, and our prophylactic pessimism restrains us from believing it, but we sure keep hearing it.

March 24: Ted Cruz takes Texican values to Manhattan’s posh 3 West Club where he sensibly advised New Yorkers to quit electing progressives whose “liberal, left-wing values” denied New Yorkers 16-ounce sodas and baby bottles, drove away business, and sent crime rates soaring. He also made fun of Comrade Bill de Blasio whose consternation was marvelous to behold.

March 25, Hillary tells Jimmy Kimmel that when elected she will open the files on Area 51 to all Americans, unless national security dictates otherwise, which of course it will. Kimmel shares the common belief that crashed saucers and pickled aliens are hidden there. The UFO party last ran a candidate in 1972 when saucer buff Gabriel Green lost to Richard Nixon. Some see Clinton’s remarks as intended to enlist Green’s old base, but WOOF sees them as ridiculous. Everyone knows they took all the alien stuff to Wright Patterson decades ago!

March 25: The senior House Republican leadership predicts the coming of President Paul Ryan,(who doesn’t want the job, wink, wink) The way the RINOs tell it, Ryan’s nomination is practically inevitable. Sorting through the leadership’s vast outpouring of magical thinking on this subject, we were unable to isolate a single instance in which anybody made sense.

March 26:-The National Enquirer claims Ted Cruz had affairs with “a hooker, a teacher, and [several] coworkers ” We won’t believe it, of course, until we hear it from Drudge– but the ooze is spreading.

March 28: John Kasich announces he is going to walk away with the Pennsylvania primary…and because it’s always fun to close with a joke, here’s this:

As March marches away…

U nwilling to wait for April 1 to tender further proofs of foolishness, Lindsey Graham announced that despite his endorsement of Jeb Bush, (now moribund) and his subsequent endorsement of Ted Cruz, he believes John Kasich would be a much better nominee– except, he says, Kasich can’t win—which sounds like a not-so-good nominee. Graham next told MSNBC “I think Ted would make it a competitive race,” which seems supportive enough, except when Joe Scarborough asked him “Would [Cruz] make a good president?” Lindsey replied, “No, I don’t think so.” But not to worry! By way of clarifying his sentiments, Senator Graham subsequently announced that any misinterpretation of his comments as inconsistent might as well be dismissed from mind inasmuch as “The GOP will probably lose in 2016.” One of those misguided news sources that accused Lindsey of inconsistency is a charmingly heterodox blog called FITS News. FITS takes the understandable position that “LINDSEY GRAHAM IS CONFUSED…” but with all due respect, FITS is overthinking the matter. Trust us on this one, gentle readers: Lindsey Graham is not confused. He’s an idiot.