I AM NOT A CROOK, EITHER – WHO ATE THE STRAWBERRIES?!
Nixonian patina;
Trumpian tint;
The latter slightly green-uh
And lesser bent.
The arrogance? The same stuff
We’ve come to know –
The same way certain fish puff,
Those they call, “Blow...”
“What knows this president, now?”
Nostalgia asks.
“We want to know when, where, how –
Hoping Truth basks.”
By what luck did we get here?
Are we that daft?
What ordered us to not peer
Into the shaft?
If history’s the teacher,
What did we learn?
We just skipped the main feature,
Ignored, “The Bern.”
The solons, there, are silent;
Bullied are they –
Just waiting to be, “Soylent” –
They’ve naught to say.
Who, then, will call it, “Treason”
What else will fit?
Have we all lost our reason?
Shit smells like shit!
A man-boy says he’s playing –
Fake guns, and all.
We fail to see he’s straying
Into reeds tall.
A mine-field, there, he’s planted,
Things that go, “Boom!”
His thoughts, you see, are slanted –
Out of the room!
Our biases are dangerous;
They do us in.
They tend to re-arrange us,
Make reason thin.
We now must overcome this –
Yes, right away!
What ails the Oval Office
Are feet of clay.
That same must not befall us;
Stalwart be we.
We must not let them call us,
“Herman, Pee Wee!”
Longevity is unsure;
Just look at Rome.
Our history is impure;
We have no home.
“Idealism,” we fashioned
From Earth’s whole cloth.
We’d best become impassioned –
Eschew the sloth.
For, right under our noses,
E’en while we slept,
With buggy whips and hoses,
By night, they crept.
Wake up; your country needs you!
All to the front!
Before chaos bleeds you,
Let each one grunt!
Once, “Sic semper tyrannis”
False filled the air.
Now, quick, before they ban us,
Say it, and care!
The tyrants are abroad now;
‘Mongst us they stand.
Do not before them kow-tow –
This is our land!
Dick Nixon was a crook – not?
Trump is, “Not,” too.
Dick dropped the ball – got too hot.
What will Trump do?
A war, for Queeg, was small fish –
Fing’ring steel balls.
Only strawb’ries in a dish
‘Swhat he recalls.
Is Trump a crook, or crazy?
It could be both.
But, shady he or hazy –
Let him keep his oath!
BRITS NEED BREXIT EXPERT: HENRY VIII
Brexit ain’t no easy exit
When it’s time to go.
E.U. tends to contract a bit
When you’ve gotta blow.
When the Big War’s guns grew silent,
Europe was a mess.
Then the Reds became a giant.
Living was all, “Guess.”
Next, their world-takeover started –
“Minds,” the goal, this time.
Folks were reality-parted –
“Where is the sublime?”
Sam, then, had to change his tactics;
Subtlety was rife.
Here, psychological back-kicks;
There, the drum and fife.
Once the Bear was de-clawed, toothless,
And the world could breathe,
Muslims, Jews, dispossessed Buddhists
Took a great, big heave.
Europe quickly got together;
Trade wise, otherwise.
Many’s better than one feather;
Stronger gals and guys.
England joined, with reservation;
One foot, channel-locked.
Kept the, “pound” in preservation;
Went not off half-cocked.
New European freedom wafted
Cross the Channel line.
Continentals Brits exhausted,
Coming cross the brine.
“They take jobs, now, without papers,”
Pouted so, the Brits.
“How it does give us the vapors –
“Hosting all those shits!”
“Why do they all come upon us,
“While we stay at home?
“Why are they content among us?
“What are we – still Rome?!”
Discontent began to boil up –
Half-hearted, at first.
Then, even the mighty World Cup
Failed to stem the burst.
So, they called a referendum
To salve British pride.
Naturally, the Queen remained mum,
By custom denied.
In the end, a royal shit-house
Did the polls produce?
Turns out that most, out loud, did grouse
“Gainst Euro-abuse.
The British Lion, like the dog
Who, when the chase stops,
Sheds the appetite of a hog –
Tires ain’t pork chops.
Brexit ain’t no easy exit
When it’s time to go.
E.U. tends to contract a bit
When you’ve gotta blow.
TRUMPET – SWEET AND SOUR
The U.S.A. Trumpet sounds a bit flat.
We of the New Millennium don’t worry about that.
The very same Trumpet, in times of yore,
Has emitted more sour notes than these we deplore.
The first, “Yankee Doodle” that ever was played,
When the, “Red, White and Blue” was for the first time displayed,
‘Twas not quite as true as one would have hoped –
The piper boy blew – for the true tone he groped.
Our growing pains grew,
As we stretched to the horizon.
The Trumpet was not so true
When is slew Native and bison?
New Orleans was over-fought,
And Washington City
Was saved from destruction
By Providence’s pity.
By then, we had over-thought
What freedom was about.
We trumpeted, “Destiny” as, “Manifest” –
With notes overwrought.
We rolled right along,
And the plains got clearer.
Then we found ourselves
Facing the mirror.
We then summoned the Trumpet —
This time to save
A wayward strumpet
From an early grave.
This time, the sound of it,
The truest of all,
Managed, bit by bit,
To cushion the big fall.
“Come-back” has a price to pay –
To mitigate the sin –
Even with, “hail Mary’s”
The tambourine sounds thin.
We needed Trumpets true and strong
To set us on the track:
A glorious, celestial chorus
To Trumpet our way back.
But, even in the best of gigs,
There’s always a sour note.
You set aside the noisy pigs;
Boot the annoying goat.
Thus, it is, fellow citizens;
Thus, it was before.
We’ve always been the, “Outs and Ins”
Behind the power door
So, when you hear the Trumpet,
Today, or some tomorrow,
Be not dismayed at the sour notes;
They only tend to borrow
From past events that will not die,
But live on to dismay
Our future selves this morning –
Or later in the day.
Now, when you hear the Trumpet
Blare notes not sweet, but sour,
Such as, “Let us live again...”
Those years we know were door --
Don’t let it get you off the track;
Stay strong and keep North-true.
For soon the monkey’s off our back –
Gone are the sour notes the latest Trumpet blew!
THE GOOD OL’ DEVIL GOES TO GEORGIA
SENATOR Excuse me, Ah’d like to speak to the Secretary of State.
SECRETARY: At your service, suh.
SENATOR: You probably don’t know who ah am...
SECRETARY: You that Senator from South Carolina, raht?
SENATOR: Ah thank you foah the recognition.
SECRETARY: What can I do for you, suh?
SENATOR: It’s about your recount.
SECRETARY: What is yoah interest in the Georgia election?
SENATOR: Waal, I thought, just...
SECRETARY: Just one good ol’ boy toanother, raht”
SENATOR: Yeah, swonderin’ if you coujldget rid o’ some of those write-ins from Fulton County.
SECRETARY: Tha’s raht anebelllum, ain’t it? – Considerin’ the area you picked for nulllificatin. You got me consused with the former Secretary of State, who is now Governr
SENATOR: Yes, ah was on friendlier terms with him than ah seem to be with you.
SECRETARY: He would not recuse himself from this position, and ultimately withheld hundreds of thousands of votes – which assured his election.
SENATOR: Yes, that’s the idea ah had in mind, uh...
SECRETARY: You got the wrong good ol’ boy, this time, Senator. I go by the book.
SENATOR: Ah appreciate that – and, uh, I would also appreciate youh discretion...
SECRETARY:As ah said, Senator: By the book.
After Trump
At this point it is a safe bet that Donald Trump will be impeached or removed by some mechanism from the executive office...
In my sweetest fantasy, it would be something like an Independent investigator or the FBI filling actual criminal charges against everyone involved in the Trump campaign's Russian collusion and the acts of corruption since and then all those who have participated in the massive attempted cover-up. This means that much of the top of the Republican Party will do the “perp walk” right from the White House and Capitol Building (be still my beating heart) with no one left to pardon any of them. This would result in an unprecedented Constitutional crisis with no option but to hand the keys to Hillary Clinton or call a Special Election, essentially a do-over, where ALL Executive orders and legislation signed by the traitorous pretender are nullified and everything restored to anteelection normality.
Of course that is just my pipe dream...
The more likely scenario is Trump and maybe Pence being impeached and removed from office... Then the Constitution kicks in within a defined framework:
3 U.S. Code § 19 - Vacancy in offices of both President and Vice President; officers eligible to act
(a)
(1)
If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.
(2)
The same rule shall apply in the case of the death, resignation, removal from office, or inability of an individual acting as President under this subsection.
(b)
If, at the time when under subsection (a) of this section a Speaker is to begin the discharge of the powers and duties of the office of President, there is no Speaker, or the Speaker fails to qualify as Acting President, then the President pro tempore of the Senate shall, upon his resignation as President pro tempore and as Senator, act as President.
(c) An individual acting as President under subsection (a) or subsection (b) of this section shall continue to act until the expiration of the then current Presidential term, except that—
(1)
if his discharge of the powers and duties of the office is founded in whole or in part on the failure of both the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect to qualify, then he shall act only until a President or Vice President qualifies; and
(2)
if his discharge of the powers and duties of the office is founded in whole or in part on the inability of the President or Vice President, then he shall act only until the removal of the disability of one of such individuals.
(d)
(1)
If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is no President pro tempore to act as President under subsection (b) of this section, then the officer of the United States who is highest on the following list, and who is not under disability to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President shall act as President: Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security.
(2)
An individual acting as President under this subsection shall continue so to do until the expiration of the then current Presidential term, but not after a qualified and prior-entitled individual is able to act, except that the removal of the disability of an individual higher on the list contained in paragraph (1) of this subsection or the ability to qualify on the part of an individual higher on such list shall not terminate his service.
(3)
The taking of the oath of office by an individual specified in the list in paragraph (1) of this subsection shall be held to constitute his resignation from the office by virtue of the holding of which he qualifies to act as President.
(e)
Subsections (a), (b), and (d) of this section shall apply only to such officers as are eligible to the office of President under the Constitution. Subsection (d) of this section shall apply only to officers appointed, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, prior to the time of the death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, of the President pro tempore, and only to officers not under impeachment by the House of Representatives at the time the powers and duties of the office of President devolve upon them.
(f)
During the period that any individual acts as President under this section, his compensation shall be at the rate then provided by law in the case of the President.
Which means that depending how far the chain the arrest warrants go, one of the people on this list would be the next President of the United States.
Line of Presidential succession:
3. President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch
4. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
5. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
6. Defense Secretary James Mattis
7. Attorney General Jeff Sessions
8. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke
9. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue
10. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
11. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta
12. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price
13. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson
14. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao
15. Energy Secretary Rick Perry
16. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos
17. Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin
18. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly
So the big question we need to start thinking about is; At what point is one of them “acceptable”?
