A CONVERSATION WITH RIGHT-WING ALEXA.

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —What is the state of Capitalism right now?

               —Endangered.

               —By who?

               —By whom, Rusty. Bernie Sanders.

               —Not Hillary Clinton?

               —No. She’ll be imprisoned soon.

               —Not Cory Booker?

               —Hahaha!

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —Please calculate my number of friends.

               —Sure. You have eighteen friends.

               —How many of them are minorities?

               —We’ve been through this before, Rusty.

               —Okay, okay.

               —Would you like to know the number of French?  

               —Last week, I had twenty friends, didn’t I?

               —Twenty-one.

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —How many strips of bacon can I eat?

               —May I eat, Rusty. Theoretically?

               —Yes, theoretically.

               —There is no upper limit.

               —I’m hungry.

               —Would you like bacon?

               —I would.

               —Great. I’m dialing Applebbee’s.

               —Hi, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Hey, Rusty.

               —[…]

               —[…]

               —[…]

               —Rusty?

               —Yes?

               —Are you decent?

               —Yes.  

               —Good. So am I.

               —Right-Wing Alexa?

               —Not yet.

               —Excuse me?

               —Nyet!

               —Hello?

               —Hello! I am Right-Wing Sergei.

               —Where’s Alexa?

               —I am graveyard shift.

               —It’s not time for the graveyard shift.

               —Da. In Smolensk Oblast, it is.

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa?

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —Do Democrat voters arise from the dead?

               —Cadavers are an important part of the Democrat base.

               —Why are cadavers so liberal?

               —[…]

               —Alexa?

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —Can you assist me with an underwear purchase?

               — No. I cannot be debriefed on boxers.

POLLSTERGEIST.

pollstergeist

Noun  |  Poll ∙ ster ∙ geist  |  ⁄  ˈpōl-stər-ˈgīst  ∕

: A spirit that disrupts questions for a political poll, the tallies of a poll, the presentation of a poll, and the effects of a poll in determining the outcome of an election.

Examples of pollstergeist in sentences:

1. The pollstergeist replied “Hillary” every time the pollster asked a voter for his or her preference in the election, thereby leading experts to conclude that Clinton would defeat Trump.

2. The Democrats were toppled when a pollstergeist spread misinformation during the 2016 presidential contest, the results from which caused the party’s relevance to decline sharply.

First definitive use of pollstergeist: November 9, 2016.

Synonyms: Ouija Wedgie, Seer Sucker, Tedium Rare

Antonyms: Chekhov, Scalia, van Leeuwenhoek

Word origin: Pal (Dutch, chum) Stir (Old English, porridge manipulation), Gas (Greek, flatus).

Variation:

poultrygeist: A haunted chicken. A cage-free, pasture-raised, foraging, haunted chicken that lays deviled eggs. Eating the eggs will increase your ghostly cholesterol. Sucking on the eggs will mimic the recent anguish of Democrats [n.b. Not to be confused with poultryheist (grand theft chicken.)]

ENDORSES HILLARY CLINTON, THE DEMOCRAT MACHINE VETERAN WHO SUFFERS FROM CHRONIC EMAIL FAILURE, IN HER PRESIDENTIAL RACE (HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS?) AGAINST THE REALITY TV TYCOON, DONALD TRUMP, WHO SUFFERS FROM PROMISCUOUS ANGER AND ANGRY PROMISCUITY.

Politicians frequently gerrymander their own policies, “calculate” or “tailor” them if you prefer, in order to compete for a particular coalition of voters or to establish credentials for the occasion of greater ambition. By now, the Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton, owing to a lengthy career in politics, including her participation in the career of her controversial husband, has probably muddied the museum of her viewpoints by pledging support for a sufficient number of leaky, contradictory, or even baldly conservative stances. Swing, centrist, and left-of-center voters who vote Hillary must be trusting in the sense that she represents, however tepidly, the inclusive space where most Americans would probably situate themselves. We say “must be trusting” because her campaign hasn’t done enough to define her core values, hasn’t done enough to establish her as a likable candidate, and hasn’t done enough to defeat allegations of dishonesty frequently recited by her polarizing opponent, Donald Trump. The “Crooked Hillary” sticker, which Trump coined early in his battle to win the Republican nomination, functions best when her foe doesn’t supply verification. “Crooked Hillary” this, he says, “Crooked Hillary” that, “Crooked Hillary” universe. Trump also scores points by portraying the Democrat nominee as being mired in the ineffective politics of the past, and establishing himself as the agent for rescuing America from its purported economic and cultural decline. In her two campaigns for president, Hillary has somehow failed to establish herself—herself, a woman, set against more than two hundred years of male presidencies—as the change candidate, even as Trump’s profane orientation toward women has provided the Democrat with ample material for television commercials and reprimands during the debates.

Yet the case for Hillary begins, finally, with the debates. She out-pointed her opponent for all three of them, including the third contest, during which Trump, arguably, presented himself in improved fashion. When we say “she won”, we mean she demonstrated broad knowledge—a command—of various issues, as opposed to Trump, who periodically seemed lost when it came to the inconvenience of details. Often times, Trump projected annoyance or poor sportsmanship. In the case of the second debate, the town hall setting where the candidates were free to roam the stage, he famously loomed around Hillary, lending additional credence to the growing legend of his gender-specific hostility. The stalking, harrumphing, acerbic Trump radiated bullying energy, in how he tried to dominate Clinton’s televised image by virtue of his larger body. It was then, especially, when Hillary wouldn’t rattle, and the toughness she exhibited, the mettle, might reassure wobbly voters of how she might comport herself on the world stage, among the likes of Vladimir Putin, a character whose ties to this election—and potentially to Trump himself—continue to be lightly investigated. The amount of scrutiny heaped upon Clinton’s shadowy but otherwise innocuous email server ought to be refocused on the alleged links between Putin and cyber-crime, including the strongman’s reputed interest in sabotaging the presidential contest. Trump’s own mysterious comments in calling for Russia to hack into, or hack further into Clinton’s emails, ought to raise the specter of collusion. If nothing else, it’s a strange thing to have said in the first place. Of course, the Republican candidate has numbed the American public with his flair for theatrical commentary, and the route to defeating him won’t be accomplished through mere criticism. Trump’s supporters have made peace with his unending capacity for indecency.

Democrats ultimately chose Hillary as the party’s representative despite the insurgent appeal of Bernie Sanders, a candidate whose identifiable anti-corporate message easily attracted young voters, liberals, and independents. In denying Sanders, the party establishment really flexed its musculature, and by “musculature”, we mean the big-donor throwback apparatus of the democrat machine, even in a cycle when many voting blocs hungered for the fresh territory of a political outsider. Enter Trump, who easily and angrily vanquished a host of well-funded, flabby Republican hopefuls, many of whom denounce him, to this day. In the course of consolidating his power, Trump battled many additional Republican icons, including John McCain, the unlikely recipient of a scathing Trump attack. When Trump faulted McCain for being captured by the Vietcong—“I like people who weren’t captured,” went the quote—he unthinkingly called into question the service of countless heroic members of the armed services. Consider the roughly 23,000 American troops captured (or listed as missing) during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, a five-week winter counteroffensive launched by the retreating Germans that created a dangerous “bulge” in the Allied lines. Trump wouldn’t have liked those 23,000 soldiers, apparently, despite the fact that they aided in thwarting a vicious, desperate attempt by the Nazis to prolong the war and cause even more Allied casualties. The Republican nominee hasn’t served his country, of course. He was given a million dollars as a young man, and has spent his life, by all accounts, shamelessly multiplying it, and shamelessly bragging about it, as if that’s the highest single calling for an American.

The great American, Eleanor Roosevelt.

We at Blood And Gutstein supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries, and as Bernie did, we endorse Hillary Clinton for president. Should she prevail on Tuesday, when the country completes its voting, we hope that she’ll incorporate many of Bernie’s themes into her first term as president, as well as battle the obstructionist Republican-dominated Congress, should it prevail, too, on Tuesday, with all the vim and vigor she unleashed in the debates. Hillary doesn’t strike us as being the perfect candidate, but she is—by far—the best remaining candidate in the contest. If the nation elects her, then Democrats will have broken both the race and gender barriers in presidential elections, despite the fact that Eleanor Roosevelt was truly the first, if unelected, woman president of the United States.

U.S.A. TO ELECT DONALD DRUMPF?

The G.O.P. can bellyache all it wants about presumptive nominee Donald Drumpf, but in fielding 17 candidates at the onset of the presidential season—with many treading into the primaries—the party allowed a subset of voters (25%? 30%?) to establish the outsider, Drumpf, as the front-runner, while compelling the remainder of the candidates, most of them milquetoast insiders, to divvy-up the leftover ballots.

When the field narrowed to three—Drumpf, Cruz, Kasich—this blogger (a lifelong Democrat) cheered for John Kasich, who, although a bit bloated, nevertheless represented the nearly-extinct moderate wing of the Republican party, and although this blogger would prefer the eventual Democrat nominee to him, it might not be the end of rational civilization were he to assume the presidency, i.e. the Oaf of Orifice.

Drumpf vanquished his rivals, however, through his in-depth knowledge of “schlong” and “schlonging techniques”, which involve the provision of “schlong”, professional development of “schlong”, electoral “schlong”, and numerous pontifications on “the schlonged”—how “schlong in America”, if properly wielded, can topple an establishment, leading a voter to declaim on “sudden, irrevocable schlong.”

In an effort to gain expertise on bridge closures, i.e., ways of preventing Democrat commuters from traveling to the polls in November, Drumpf has installed the massive object, Chris Christie, as chairman of his Transition Team, and Christie, equally effective, viz. (1) Drumpf’s Call to Service, and (2) at The Buffet, ought to demonstrate expertise in showing the presumptive nominee just how to narrow lanes and pinch-off circulation.

Lately, Republican voters seem fond of presenting the country with “Captains of Industry” as their champions, including Willard “Mitt” Romney from the previous cycle, but just to be sure, we’re not talking about “Captains” who have built factories, railroads, automobiles, or power plants from scratch, no, we’re talking about those “Captains” who were handed vast wealth, and didn’t screw up at multiplication.

It says Drumpf on an airplane, it says Drumpf on a skyscraper, it says Drumpf on a helicopter, it says Drumpf on a casino, and it says Drumpf on TV, in fact, when you power-up your television set, it burps out Drumpf for reasons scientists are currently at a loss to explain, and often times, now, when a boxer or MMA fighter receives a Mexican liver punch, he or she also says Drumpf, before collapsing in agony.

Google Translate detects German when you enter Drumpf, and it translates Drumpf as flopper whopper, he who impersonates a publicist, incomplete suppression of epigastric crisis, corporate culture enthusiast, avant garde gerbil actions, selective memory failure, and “the epicenter of the fart”, but the thing is, that’s a single word, Drumpf, in German, and that’s what it means—all that jazz!

You’d think the climate would come up roses for us Democrats, but think again, with our second-chance presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, failing to quell the impressive insurgency from plain-talking Bernie Sanders, a candidate for whom this blogger voted, mostly because Bernie is saying the kinds of things that nobody else—not shrill Hillary and certainly not billionaire-class Drumpf—has the guts to say.  

It’s not just Hillary Clinton, LLC that opposes Drumpf, but formidable kababs of the Republican establishment who might challenge him as part of a third party effort to rescue their burglarized party, yet either way, Drumpf won’t be vanquished by reciting from a list of offenses, no, he’s far too crafty for something weak like that, plus many Drumpf supporters, the silent Drumpfistas, remain hidden from pollsters and don’t give a rat’s ass about Paul Ryan or “wee government.”

Hillary (and Bill, too) will be the targets of much muckraking as Drumpf attempts to wrest the reins of government, and this could mitigate Hillary’s effectiveness, but more importantly, Hillary will have to campaign in a way that she hasn’t campaigned before: she’ll have to inspire voters by presenting a clear, compelling vision of her presidency, yet even if she accomplishes this unlikely feat, unfortunately, the answer to “U.S.A. to Elect Donald Drumpf?” may still be, sadly, yes.

cultural affairs week 2016 editorial schedule

Monday: Blue Jay Z

Tuesday: The Swans Survive
Wednesday: USA to Elect Donald Drumpf?

Thursday: Irish Rock and The Splib, Part 1
Friday: Subsidiary Needs within a System

COMPLAINT WEEK 2015 #1 OF 5: THE DEMOCRAT MACHINE.

Many of us cheered a Joe Biden entry for two purposes: healthy competition for Hillary, and if not quite good enough to topple her in the early primaries, the presence of a senior-statesman alternative should she wobble owing to prior (and perhaps future?) scandal. Nobody, to this point, rises to the level of the opposition that Biden might have offered, certainly not the regional candidate, Bernie Sanders, who conveniently calls himself a Democrat during this cycle, whose oratory probably won’t broaden the tent. Of course, we can’t blame Bernie for Bernie’s insufficiency, and in all likelihood, he probably never intended his protest candidacy to challenge Clinton as a number two hit on the national charts. No, we might blame the Democrat Machine—pronouns in use: one, she, neither, hers, few—for the odd environment that has produced a shallow pool of hapless alternatives, many of whom demonstrate little or no history as actual Democrats. (I speak of Sanders, Chafee, and Webb.) Before any of the faithful gets snotty with me, Hey, I have voted five times for Clintons, plural, and will again, except I envision the future with trepidation. While the Democrats bank on a career politician, the Grand Old Party of No—pronouns in use: several, his, whomever, he, nothing—appears capable of nominating a renegade anti-politician, with dynastic careerists like the flabby Jeb Bush twisting on a squeaky spit. Hillary projects much relish in debating a candidate like Donald Trump, but if the Democrats intend to counter a rock-star insurgent with a dynastic careerist of their own, one wonders if Biden—potentially more likeable and plenty experienced as a sitting Vice President—wouldn’t make better sense. In the end, Biden has decided to holler from the sidelines, rather than submit to the grind, which might have hacked his fundamental good nature to pieces. Democrats advance toward the primary season with a semi-controversial, lukewarm, somewhat wounded, but widely known candidate, whose own tent-broadening capability remains uncertain. A little more than a year away, the general election might feature a contest between two polarizing forces: a trash-talking (“you’re fired!”) real estate tycoon and a carefully-scripted second-timer, who’ll try to channel the best moments from her tenures as First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State. The Republicans know who they’ll face. They can change their minds yet, and the competition will intensify, especially as the establishment scrutinizes the saggy numbers for many of its darlings. We Democrats on the other hand only have one set of keys, and if we lose them, there won’t be any neighbor on whose door we can knock, just the gaseous wind of a rancid Republican winter: one that denies climate change, to boot.

complaint week 2015 editorial schedule

October 26: The Democrat Machine

October 27: Artists and Writers Who Say “My Work”

October 28: GWU Fires Adjunct Creative Writing Faculty

October 29: Washington, D.C. Manchester City Bros
October 30: People Who Don’tListen to Music

THE PATH TO THE WHITE HOUSE FOR JIM WEBB.

Voters outside Virginia—as well as many inside the Commonwealth—may not recall very much about former Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat who served a single term after defeating heavily favored George Allen in 2006. During a rally in that election cycle, Allen shockingly referred to a Webb campaign operative as “macaca”, a slur that was captured on camera by the very same operative, who’d been assigned to track Allen as part of best practices employed by many political campaigns. In the ensuing weeks, Allen’s lead dwindled, and the upstart Webb, a decorated Marine Corps officer who served in Vietnam, a former Secretary of the Navy, and a novelist, would eventually triumph by a squeaky margin. We at Blood And Gutstein feel as if Mr. Webb, a very solid character by all accounts, should be given more attention by voters, and at the same time, we feel as if the word “macaca” might play an integral role in the presidential candidate’s aspirations. Below, we have laid out Jim Webb’s path to the White House.

First of all, for Webb to win the Democrat nomination, Hillary Clinton must utter the word “macaca.” It’s unlikely that Hillary would say “macaca” to begin with, but if the scrutiny regarding her time as Secretary of State should continue or deepen, or should the surging Sanders overtake her in the polls, or should Hillary and her campaign sprout additional scandals, she might be vulnerable. The question is, would she say “macaca” publicly or would she say it on a private server? Perhaps she would deem “macaca” classified and therefore reserve it for her private server. Should Hillary never say “macaca” the Webb team could always pursue the mash-up angle, fusing together something like, “I wish those interns would stop mackin’ on Bill”, with “It’s been a while since I went caca.” Given that Jim Webb is polling less than Hillary, Sanders, and (unannounced) Biden, we see the Democrat nomination as the tougher of the two challenges facing the former Senator. He is polling ahead of Lincoln Chafee and Martin O’Malley, however, although pollsters have yet to identify a single Chafee and a single O’Malley supporter.

If Webb should garner the nomination of his party, then he would require Donald Trump to say “macaca” in order to defeat the billionaire mogul for the presidency. Judging from Mr. Trump’s jingoist narrative on illegal immigration, it’s possible that the real estate magnate has spoken the word “macaca” before and might again, perhaps to defy those who might hiss “tsk!” in his direction. Mr. Trump apparently plays many rounds of golf. Perhaps he would shout “macaca” on the golf course. Many former golfing partners of Mr. Trump accuse him of cheating at golf, you know, by kicking his ball free of danger or magically causing his ball to appear very close to the hole. That’s all fine and dandy among his cadre of reality TV stars, et cetera, but he better not demand any “gimme chip-ins” from Putin, or that’ll be World War Three! Trump may want to deport “macaca”, he may want to build a fence to keep “macaca” off the lawn, and he might want to ensure that the offspring of “macaca” cannot run for president in the future. He may want to fire “macaca” as part of his reality TV endeavors. “Macaca”, he would muse, “you’re fired!”

INTERVIEW WITH THE G.O.P. OPERATIVE ENGAGED TO EVALUATE THE BEST FEATURES OF THE ANTI-DUKAKIS CAMPAIGN AS PART OF THE ANTICIPATED EFFORT TO DEFEAT HILLARY CLINTON.

You say “Hillary”? I say: Helmet.

Imagine: we don’t even need a tank: we

gift-wrap one of those Kaiser Wilhelm dealies

w/ the pointy boner on top & post it

(first class) c/o Hillary for President.

It has GPS. She wears it to Whole Foods.

Our guy snaps the photo; cue the womp-womp.

She could attract the helmet vote but

polling has us comfy w/ likely helmet voters.

Strategy two? Photoshop Dukakis onto

the YouTube video of a bum crapping

the floor in 7-11 & a week later superimpose

Hillary crapping a Sheetz in Benghazi.

Clearly: a Big Gulp for any swing voter.

for 2015 NaPoWriMo sonnet #1: Interview with a Couple in Missionary Position
for 2015 NaPoWriMo sonnet #3: Interview with a Presence beside the Ouija Board

BOEING THERE.

Imagine Peter Sellers as a dim-witted captain in Boeing There, a movie wherein his character, Chauncey Pilot, unintentionally predicts the course of the economy through the application of flight terminology. Chauncey Pilot doesn’t anticipate that his choice phrases—“taxiing for takeoff”—“climbing into the sky”—“cruising at 500 miles per hour”—will embolden markets overnight. At the same time, this unassuming simpleton receives invitations to chuck out the first pitch at the ALCS, appear with Sully Sullenberger in a PSA concerning the dangers of incomplete astrophysics homework, and select the crucial ping pong ball for the nine-figure lotto drawing. A door opens. Another door opens. Hillary Clinton welcomes Chauncey Pilot into her dwellings for a private chat about who she, the presumptive nominee, should choose to occupy the two-spot on the ticket. (If not him.) An heiress played by Shirley MacLaine later invites the chaste captain to bed but Chauncey declares his preference to catch up on Lifetime reruns instead, forcing the seductress to pleasure herself. MacLaine’s turbulent body nevertheless captures Chauncey Pilot’s attention, reminding him of a chaotic Attitude Indicator on an airplane struggling to level itself during a crisis. He thinks about crisis, about the dark side of his profession: not only the possibility for accidents, but lost luggage, lengthy layovers, and fees for seat selection. In every ascent, he thinks, there follows a descent, and for every acceleration, he thinks, there follows a slowdown, and beyond that, even, a period of idleness. We, the viewers, realize that our way of life rides the cosine waves of Chauncey Pilot’s thinking. If he should he say “accident”—“lost”—“idleness”—“fees” then the economy might darken in correspondence with these terms. Fortunately for us, it’s Peter Sellers acting through these tribulations, what with his slightness of grins. If only the menacing machinery of the real gullible world would admit such a king.