Donald Trump – con man in chief

News with a Twist

Around the Block reveals where little Donald learned his flimflammery

Satire from Ted Block

As we head deeper and deeper into a full-fledged Constitutional crisis, a crisis in which democracy as we know it is on the precipice, a crisis of which Paul Krugman opined today, “…if democracy survives — which is by no means certain — it will largely be thanks to one unpredictable piece of good luck: Donald Trump’s mental deficiency,” I started thinking, who is this man, Donald Trump? The man Krugman characterizes as not stupid because “a stupid man couldn’t have managed to defraud so many people over so many years.”

The answer is well-known and easy: Donald Trump is a con man, a “lazy, utterly incurious, insecure” one, according to Krugman, but a con man.

But, is this just his nature, or was there an event, a happening, an experience that formed Trump’s character?

And then it hit me. Donald Trump became the hustler he is today on Saturday, November 3, 1956 when he, along with millions of other kids, watched as CBS reintroduced the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, to the American public. Little Donald watched in amazement as the film went from the black and white of Kansas to the technicolor Land of Oz (most of us watched in amazement as well but for one thing: we couldn’t see the transition to color because unlike the Trumps we didn’t have a color TV), he knew instantly who he wanted to be – the greatest con man of all time: the Great and Powerful Oz!

Well as luck would have it, little Donald became president of the United States, a president who, in just the last few days has uttered the most incredible and amazing statements ever attributed to an American president (I could go back further than the last few days but even I have space limitations):

“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).” 

“They (the Kurds) are  fighting for their land. And as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn’t help us in the Second World War. They didn’t help us with Normandy, as an example.”

“Well they (ISIS fighters) are going to be escaping to Europe, that’s where they want to go.” 

Regarding former Vice President Biden: “He was only a good vice president because he knew how to kiss Barack Obama’s ass.”

Regarding Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “She’s either really stupid or she’s really lost it — or maybe there’s a certain dishonesty in there.”

(Note: Last two statements were made at a campaign rally in Minneapolis which drew “roars of approval.”)

If only, as in the “real” The Wizard of Oz, there was little Toto to pull the curtain (or at least flush these statements down the, well, Toto) and reveal the true man. Someone, anyone who could finally tell us to “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” 

Someone, perhaps a Lindsey Graham, or a Mitch McConnell, or a Kevin McCarthy who could finally, finally tell us:

“If he only had a brain!”

“If he only had a heart!”

“If he only had some courage.”

“But he doesn’t So, until he does, Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”  

Times’ Leonhardt: Trump up to 42 potential impeachable offenses

News with a Twist

“Lower the Bar” Barr’s DO(I)J “Trump Protection Squad” working to end Congressional “Illegal Witch Hunt”

Satire from Ted Block

Last week, David Leonhardt of the NY Times detailed 40 potentially impeachable offenses Trump has said or done.  

Leonhardt reported today, in a message entitled, “41, 42…”, that “the president of the United States accused one of his congressional critics of treason yesterday morning and said that the critic should be arrested. And yet it might not even have been the most outrageous thing that the country learned about President Trump yesterday.

“That distinction could also belong to the news, broken by Times reporters, that during a phone call with the prime minister of Australia, Trump pressured him to produce information discrediting Robert Mueller’s recent investigation. White House aides took the unusual step of restricting access to the transcript of the phone call, in a sign they believed it was problematic. It was the same step they had taken after Trump’s July call with Ukraine’s president.”

After having part of Leonhardt’s column read to him, we’ve learned that Attorney General William “Lower the Bar” Barr has charged his Department of Injustice’s (DOIJ) “Trump Protection Squad” (TPS) to find ways to end the “illegal Congressional witch hunt.

Sources inside the DOIJ have told Around the Block, on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss illegal department activities, that Barr has demanded his minions find some law, statute or even hearsay, that would put an end to, in his words, the “illegal, Congressional witch hunt being run by the traitor, Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

In a potential breakthrough for Team Trump coach Barr, our sources indicate that a very low level, but very deep state junior department attorney who, incidentally, most recently interned for White House advisor Stephen Miller, has found the answer: An obscure DOIJ Office of Illegal Counsel (OILC) rule reads, “There is a limit to the number of impeachable offenses that a president can be accused of; that number is 50. Once 51 offenses are reported, the impeachment inquiry must be abandoned and no further action can be taken to impeach and, of course, remove the president.” Given that, a member of Barr’s DOIJ team, posing as a left-wing whistleblower, has been charged with feeding Leonhardt more potential Trump transgressions in the anticipation that in the next few days and weeks, Leonhardt will reach the magic number, 51, and publish his findings…thus ending the impeachment inquiry.

Barr, in a meeting with his DOIJ TPS reportedly awarded this junior attorney the DOIJ “Medal of Unfreedom” medal saying, “Thanks to this young man we are only nine presidential wrongdoings away from making this horrifyingly illegal witch hunt go away and we can get back to work opining in favor of other injustices to the detriment of the people.”