Author Archives: nclawyer
Top Ten Similarities Between Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump
There have been a lot of right-wing blogs and Fox News contributors frothing at the mouth lately about how Donald Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering America is EXACTLY THE SAME as what President Jimmy Carter did when Iranian visas were canceled upon the severing of diplomatic relations with that country during the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1980.
Of course, most of you can read that last sentence and see that those are not at all the same thing, because you are rational human beings with functioning brains. I could give you an exhaustive explanation for why 
that comparison is moronic and dishonest (seriously, I’ve already written it), but (A) people who know Trump is an idiot don’t need the history lesson, and (B) Trump supporters don’t care about facts so it’s a waste of time to try and educate them.
BUT, despite that stupidity, there actually are many legitimate comparisons that can be made between Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump. Here are the Top Ten (or, at least, the first ten I could think of):
#1 – Hall of Fame Inductions
– Jimmy Carter was elected to the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2006.
– Donald Trump was elected to the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2013.
#2 – Famous Siblings
– Donald Trump has a sister who is a federal court judge.
– Jimmy Carter had a brother who was the spokesman for “Billy Beer” and one time urinated on an airport runway in front of a group of reporters. Carter obviously wins this comparison, hands down.
#3 – Adultery
– Jimmy Carter once famously said he was guilty of adultery because the Bible says adultery includes “lusting in his heart,” even though he had 
never physically cheated on his wife.
– Donald Trump has committed actual adultery many, many, many times.
#4 – Building
– Jimmy Carter’s charity, Habitat for Humanity, has built homes for nearly 7 million underprivileged Americans.
– Donald Trump has built a lot of monuments to himself.
You could house a lot of poor people in that monstrosity.
#5 – Vietnam Draft
– Upon taking office, Jimmy Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft dodgers.
– Donald Trump was a Vietnam draft dodger.
#6 – Opposition to Abortion
– Jimmy Carter has always believed that abortion should be illegal.
– Donald Trump has believed abortion should be illegal for, like, the past four years.
“I was fer it before I was agin it!”
#7 – Christianity
– Jimmy Carter has been a devout Christian his entire life.
– At the Values Voter Summit in September, 2015, Donald Trump held up a Bible he probably found in the night stand of his hotel room.
#8 – Nuts
– Jimmy Carter is well-known for growing nuts before seeking political office.
– Donald Trump is well-known as a nut seeking political office.
#9 – College Degrees
– In 1947, Jimmy Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy.
– In 2010, Donald Trump received an honorary Doctorate of Business from Robert Gordon University in Scotland. (Editors Note: Robert Gordon University revoked this honorary degree in 2015 after finally realizing that Trump is a huge asshole)
#10 – Noble Boycotts
– In 1980, Jimmy Carter led the international community in boycotting the Summer Olympics in Moscow after the Soviet Union’s illegal invasion of Afghanistan.
– In 2015, Donald Trump called for a boycott of Macy’s department stores because they decided not to sell his crappy Made in China clothing line anymore once Trump publicly revealed himself to be a horrible racist shithead.
So, there you go. They’re practically twins. Well, fraternal twins, maybe. Who can’t stand each other. And have nothing of substance in common. And have different parents. But, still, practically twins.
Priorities, Man
Reasons Obama Won’t Say “ISIS”
As you certainly have noticed by now, while most politicians, media, and, oh hell, everybody else on the planet, refers to the Islamic State terrorist group as “ISIS,” President Obama insists on always calling them “ISIL.” Now, “ISIL” may be technically more correct, but Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson tell me that correctness is destroying this nation (and they never add a “just kidding” after, so it must be true), so there must be other reasons for it. At long last, somebody (me) has finally mustered up the courage to call the White House and just ask the Commander-in-Chief what that’s all about. Accordingly, here are the many reasons why Barack Obama refuses to call the Middle Eastern terrorist group by the name “ISIS”:
1. “ISIS” rhymes with “Crisis” and the President doesn’t want anybody to get the idea that a heavily-armed America-hating cult shooting up California office parties, causing thousands of refugees to flee their homes, and cutting off reporters’ heads might constitute some kind of crisis.
2. President Obama has a rare kind of lisp that only allows him to pronounce an “S” sound correctly once in each word. This also explains why he never campaigns in Mississippi.
Of course, there may be other reasons why Obama doesn’t visit Mississippi much…
3. The Information Science and Information Studies program at Duke University has a well-funded lobby, and, to our knowledge, hasn’t decapitated anyone in at least the past ten years.
4. The President is a huge fan of the 1970’s all-female horn-rock band, “Isis.”
5. President Obama doesn’t want to piss off this goddess:
6. The first time Obama said “ISIS,” one of his daughters thought he was saying “eye cyst” and told him he was totally gross, which hurt his delicate feelings.
7. “Isis” reminds everybody of the time Bill Clinton debated what the meaning of “Is is.”
“That Egyptian chick up there is pretty hot, am I right?”
Walmart Pulls Billy Idol Albums From Shelves
In the wake of calls by Republican politicians to remove the confederate battle flag from the South Carolina state capitol grounds, Walmart has announced that effective immediately, all Billy Idol albums are being removed from its stores. The official press release reads as follows:
“After watching in awe as bandwagon-jumping Republican politicians temporarily leap off the crazy train of hate-mongering GOP rhetoric and pretend to support rational, compassionate modern thinking, we at the Walmart Corporation realized it would be bad business not to act like we care more about people than profits, at least during this crisis. So, after very little thought and much public opinion polling, we have decided to remove all traces of Billy Idol’s music from our North American locations. With his pro-slavery anthem “Rebel Yell,” anti-interracial marriage screed “White Wedding,” and obvious ode to the confederate flag-flying capital of South Carolina, “Hot in the City,” Mr. Idol built a career oppressing both minorities and those with musical taste alike. We have also informed Universal Pictures that we will not be stocking Pitch Perfect 2 on DVD because of the presence of Ms. Wilson, just in case.”
Elected to the SC State Senate twice
While most Americans are blindly supporting this pandering measure, at least one group is willing to voice its displeasure with the move. Jethro McCrackerson, the Grand Hoohah of the Grandsons Of Daughters of Confederate Officers Nation (GODCON), strongly feels that Walmart is unnecessarily alienating its core customer base. “Look, Walmart sells a lot of guns,” he explained, “and we like guns a whole lot, so, well, I forget what we was talkin’ about, but we really like guns, OK?”
When informed of the decision, Billy Idol was beyond shocked: “Bloody hell! You could still buy my albums somewhere?”
NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES KEPT ON CLINTON’S KINDLE
Swipe left, swipe left, swipe left…
The conservative elite media is having one of their standard hissy fits over the revelation that America’s nuclear launch codes were stored on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal Kindle Fire. In typically hysterical fashion, Fox News correspondents have been fretting all day about “unacceptable recklessness” and “national security” and “nuclear holocaust” (whatever that means – sounds like some made-up anti-Semitic nonsense).
When a nosy reporter with too much time on his hands asked why she would keep such sensitive information on her Kindle, Secretary Clinton cleverly pointed out that “Computer networks are compromised all the time, but you never hear about anybody’s mobile device getting hacked, do you?” The reporter, who had obviously read too many tabloids in the checkout line, then started to tell some fanciful story about cell phones being hacked, but Clinton just cackled, as she does, and told the reporter he would need to go to the back of the line if he wanted any further contact with her.
To get ahead of any possible (fabricated) controversy, President Obama granted an exclusive interview to neutral, unbiased MSNBC anchorwoman, Rachel Maddow, a partial transcript of which follows:
Maddow: Good morning, Mr. President, you are looking exceedingly Presidential today, sir.
Obama: Thank you, Rachel. I appreciate your nonpartisan compliments, as always.
Maddow: OK, what’s all this garbage about launch codes on Hillary’s Kindle?
Obama: Secretary Clinton had our nuclear launch codes on her Kindle.
Maddow: You are so refreshingly honest. How did this happen?
Obama: Look, I don’t micromanage every federal government employee. Do you know how many federal government employees there are?
Maddow: Not nearly enough!
Obama: You got that right!
(A fist bump is shared between the two.)
Maddow: But, of course, your racist critics will say this wasn’t some low-level IRS agent, this was the Secretary of State.
Obama: Well, I certainly wouldn’t MICROmanage such a MAJOR position.
Maddow: That’s totally logical. Now, my understanding is that this non-issue is no longer an issue.
Obama: That’s correct. Secretary Clinton deleted the launch codes from her Kindle.
Maddow: Hear that, American people? Only President Obama has access to the codes.
Obama: Well, not exactly.
Maddow: What do you mean?
Obama: Secretary Clinton’s copy of the launch codes was our only copy.
Maddow: So…we can’t launch our nuclear weapons?
Obama: The nuclear option is off the table.
Maddow: Oh. Maybe you shouldn’t have told me that.
Obama: What do you mean?
Maddow: Well, publicly taking military options off the table might embolden our enemies, right? Isn’t this the kind of thing that should be kept secret?
Obama: Transparency is one of the hallmarks of my administration, Rachel.
Maddow: Well done, sir. It was an honor to conduct this neutral, unbiased interview.
Honesty. Transparency. No micromanaging. The country remains in good hands, people. Nothing to see here. Move along. Clinton in 2016.
FIFA AWARDS IRON THRONE TO HODOR
In a shocking move, despite applications from several potential rulers with legitimate succession claims, FIFA has awarded the coveted Iron Throne to lovable but dim servant Hodor. Almost immediately, accusations of bribery began echoing throughout the Seven Kingdoms.
(SPOILERS BELOW)
“This is total bullshit!” growled Stannis Baratheon. “I burned my own daughter alive, I impregnated a fire-crotched witch with a freaking smoke-baby I then used to kill my younger brother, and they give the throne to that simpleton? It’s completely immoral! Have they no sense of decency?!?”
Outgoing FIFA President Sepp Blatter explained at a hastily thrown together press conference that after awarding the world’s most popular sporting event to Qatar, a country with less than half the population of South Carolina, and an only slightly better human rights record, the organization sees the decision as a public relations coup. “People like Hodor the way I like snuff films, and I LOVE snuff films,” crowed Blatter.
Far away in Mereen, Daenerys Targaryen seems to have made peace with the decision, abandoning her quest for the throne in favor of a new career in stand-up comedy. She recently booked a gig warming up the crowd in the fighting pits before the main event:
“I would be sitting on the Iron Throne already if my pets didn’t keep dragon me all over the place! Get it? ‘Dragon’ me? Whew, tough crowd. Is this thing on? OK, let’s try another one: Tyrion Lannister is soooo short….”
In a move obviously calculated to curry favor with the public, king-elect Hodor sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl last night. Taking a stance sure to rally the masses, Hodor promised that within the first 100 days of his reign, he would Hodor, and guaranteed that the realm would achieve Hodor, Hodor, and possibly even Hodor before the next Winter comes.
The news was a particularly brutal blow to the Lannister family, who were forced to flee King’s Landing and regroup in Casterly Rock to figure out their next move. “I would have given my right arm to win that bid,” moaned Jaime Lannister. Huddled in the corner with a queen-sized box of Franzia white zinfandel, Cersei Lannister hissed, “I swear upon the lives of my inbred children that I will make Sepp Blatter pay for this injustice! Unless, of course, I find out he’s related to me, in which case I will make sweet, sweet love to him at every opportunity.”
In the North, the outrage over FIFA’s decision doesn’t appear to be nearly as strong. When asked if this was the greatest injustice she had ever experienced, Winterfell heir Sansa Stark replied incredulously, “What? No. Not even close. No. Jesus Christ, seriously?”
Duke Reverses Decision on Admitting Women
Female students react to the news in typically hysterical fashion.
One day after caving in to pressure from the Christian right over allowing a Muslim call to prayer from the chapel tower, Duke University has reversed course on another issue which is sure to delight conservatives everywhere. The University has decided that it will no longer admit female students after evangelist-by-birth Willie Graham tweeted, “Now that we have removed three minutes of diversity from that campus, I call on donors to withhold all donations from Duke University until they stop admitting women, the way Jehovah intended.”
Vice-Provost Walter “Whitey” McCrackerson explained, “Having girls around campus has proven to be a huge distraction for our male students. I know a lot of these girls have great ambition, and they came to Duke hoping to find husbands, but honestly, if they haven’t latched onto a man by the time they graduate high school, there’s a 34% chance they were going to end up as miserable, childless spinsters anyway.” When asked if male students could be upset with the absence of women on campus, McCrackerson pointed out that “most of the girls at Duke spend their nights studying anyway. If our men want to sow their oats with willing girls, Chapel Hill is just a few miles down the road.”
“You see,” added Graham, “when women live together, they end up all getting on the same cycle, if you know what I’m saying. If the Lord wanted women to all be on the same cycle, then he would have created them that way, right? If my Daddy weren’t still alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave just thinking about that perversion of God’s creation.” Furthermore, McCrackerson claims the policy provides the extra benefit of eliminating sexual assault claims on campus so “the Judicial Board can focus on real crimes like cursing your mother and father or sowing different seeds in the same field.”
In related news, the Duke Chapel will hereafter be known as “Koch Chapel at Duke University,” following a generous overnight donation to the school.
The Original Mattress Factory – Republican Shill?
Commercials by The Original Mattress Factory are constantly airing on television and radio, usually talking about how great their springs are or something, but I recently heard one on my car radio that never really mentioned their product at all. The ad, apparently titled “The Declaration,” is an ode to the Declaration of Independence in anticipation of the impending July 4th holiday. Toward the end of the commercial, I was surprised to hear the following:
“Our Founders intended this government to be one of limited power, created expressly to protect our rights.
As time has progressed, however, it has become less limited in scope and our rights less secure.”
Hey, wait a minute! Did company spokesman Ron Trzcinski just sneak some Republican propaganda into what I expected to be an innocuous mattress ad? Certainly not, since Ron claims to have left his job as President of the Ohio Mattress Company because he objected to their “cash is king” philosophy. That anti-capitalist idea doesn’t sound very conservative.
However, if you poke around the information superhighway, you find that this is not the first time Independence Day has inspired Mr. Trzcinski to share his views on the problems caused by big government. In the summer of 2012, the ad which aired in the weeks before July 4th was apparently called “American Dream.” According to Mr. Trzcinski, people now believed that the American Dream was:
“something that ought to be handed out. It is expected, demanded even, and the sense of entitlement
has led to record debt and persistent joblessness.”“Um, yes, I was promised there would be some extra-firm Queens available in this establishment?”
Thanks to Mr. Trzcinski, we learned that the national debt was not enhanced by fighting George W. Bush’s war in Iraq and the unemployment rate was not a result of the economic recession that began under President Bush, but rather we can chalk these problems up to the laziness of poor people. Really? You’d think a company like this would market their product to all people rather than blame the most vulnerable of them for problems they couldn’t have possibly caused. And you would also think that after all of the Republican sex scandals (Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Mark Sanford, Bob Allen, Phil Hinkle, Edward Schrock, the list goes on and on…), the party wouldn’t be thrilled to be associated with a mattress company these days.
Reagan in 2016? It Could Never Happen Today
A recent interview with former Republican standard-bearer Bob Dole has rekindled a debate I’ve had in the past with some of my Republican friends (Know your enemy – Sun Tzu). Today’s conservatives speak with breathless reverence about former President Ronald Reagan when they’re looking to score easy political points, but would their hero have a chance to be President in today’s Republican party? Upon a rational analysis, the answer is that it would be highly unlikely, if not impossible. Let’s examine some of the reasons why:
Rational Republicans Agree
If YOU woke up one morning and realized these idiots were running your party, you would have trouble getting excited about anything, too
In the interview cited above, Dole says the Republican Party should be “closed for repairs” because current party members are more interested in obstructing than governing. As for Ronald Reagan’s chances of becoming President today, Dole asserts, “Reagan wouldn’t have made it . . . because he had ideas.” Jeb Bush, Florida Governor and son of Reagan’s Vice-President, created a bit of a stir last year when he said Reagan “would have a hard time” co-existing with a Republican Party so intent on getting nothing done and “would be criticized” for his willingness to work together with Democrats.
Abortion Rights
It’s no secret that the Tea Party and religious extremist groups which now dominate the Republican Party have little tolerance for any candidate without a strong anti-abortion profile. In a Delaware Republican primary for Joe Biden’s old Senate seat in 2010, the Tea Party backed an embarrassing candidate (Christine O’Donnell, who was so wacky she aired a television commercial assuring us that she was “not a witch”) over extremely popular former Governor and long-time Republican Congressman Mike Castle, because Castle was pro-choice and favored stem cell research, among other centrist sins. John McCain ended up with unknown and apparently unvetted Sarah Palin as a running mate largely because his preferred options, Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge, were pro-choice and the modern Republican party would not support them. Even the well-respected Kay Bailey Hutchison was derailed in her bid to be Governor of Texas by her allegedly pro-choice views. When Condoleezza Rice was floated as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney, her pro-choice beliefs overshadowed her qualifications for the job and the idea was quickly scrapped.
So, what if California Governor Ronald Reagan had been one of the contenders for the nomination in 2012? Likely, he would have been savaged by his competitors (like Rick Perry, who skewered Hutchison for her views on abortion in the Texas Governor’s race) and the Tea Party/Religious Right as evidenced by the examples in the previous paragraph. In 1967, then Governor Reagan signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act which allowed millions of abortions to be legally performed in California. Although he later supported many pro-life causes as President and said he regretted signing the bill, it seems highly unlikely that a candidate with the “blood on his hands of millions of unborn children” (can’t you imagine Perry or Michelle Bachmann saying something like that?) would have any shot of securing the nomination today.
Gay Rights
These days, Reagan would probably be denied the Republican nomination just for the pink shirt
Another big issue for the forces that now control the Republican party is the restriction of rights for homosexual Americans. The official Republican party platform included an endorsement of traditional marriage. Despite an overall population that has warmed up to the idea of gay marriage, the groups who control the GOP these days have made opposing it one of their biggest issues, especially after it worked so well for George W. Bush in 2004. Michelle Bachmann famously worried that having a gay elementary school teacher could cause students to become gay (for the full quote, read my farewell post to Bachmann).
Well, what would the Religious Right think about Governor Reagan today? Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, recently stated in an interview that her father wouldn’t have thought gay marriage was a big deal. After all, Reagan hired a lesbian couple to serve as nannies for his children. Reagan also obviously had the opposite opinion from Mrs. Bachmann as to the ability of gay adults to somehow convert children to homosexuality. In 1978, there was a bill on the ballot in California known as the Briggs Initiative (technically, California Proposition 6) which would have banned gays and lesbians from working as public school teachers. Even though Reagan was considering a run for President and knew it would displease conservative Republicans, Reagan chose to side with Jimmy Carter and Harvey Milk, among others, in opposing this measure. In an editorial in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Reagan asked citizens to vote against the Briggs Initiative, saying “homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles” and “a child’s teachers do not really influence this.” Would such a gay-tolerant candidate have a snowball’s chance in Hell of surviving the Iowa Caucus? I think not.
Unions
As unions are considered to be bastions of liberalism, presumably for their annoying insistence on fairness, it’s no shock that Tea Partiers can’t stand organized labor. The most obvious example was the Tea Party’s strong support of Minnesota Governor Scott Walker, who ignited furious protests after proposing to restrict the collective bargaining rights of state employees. Although Ronald Reagan was not necessarily considered a friend of organized workers during his Presidency (ask an old air traffic controller), I wonder what today’s ultra-conservatives would think of a Presidential candidate who had served six terms as a union president, was a member of the AFL-CIO, and who believed that the right to join a union was “one of the most elemental human rights.”
Conclusion
Once Reagan became President, he was responsible for approving massive deficit spending, almost tripling the national debt, numerous tax increases, and amnestying millions of illegal immigrants, so it’s pretty impressive how today’s conservatives can praise him with a straight face in such a hypocritical attempt to win the votes of citizens wistful about the 1980’s. Following his time as Governor of California, he would have no doubt generated far less praise from his party as a presidential candidate today (a queer-loving, baby-murdering, union-backing candidate!) than what he has routinely received posthumously. I suppose he could have returned to making bad movies like another former California Governor who is tolerant on social issues, but a Presidential run would have likely never gotten off the ground. He would have been like Jon Huntsman at the end of the debate row wondering why nobody was asking him any questions.
I just added this picture to make Tea Partiers’ heads explode
Unfair and Unbalanced 