Blast from the Past

I posted this barely fictional short story a year ago yesterday. It may be even more relevant now than it was at the time.

Here's How You Get the Tax Returns

Scene from a plausible near-future:

[INT.:  Set of Sunday morning circle-jerk Meet the Press.]

CHUCK TODD:  Good morning, I'm Chuck Todd, and welcome to Meet the Press. Our first guest this morning is Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Welcome, Madam Speaker.

NANCY PELOSI:  Good morning, Chuck, thanks for having me on the show.

TODD:  The Democratic House has demanded that the Internal Revenue Service release the last six years of Donald Trump's tax returns. Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney recently indicated that that would quote "never" end-quote happen.

PELOSI:  Well, that's his job, isn't it, Chuck? [Pauses a beat] Such as it is.

TODD:  Trump has indicated that since he is still under audit, it would be impractical for him to release the returns.

PELOSI [smiles]:  Yes, he's indicated that.

TODD:  Richard Nixon released his tax returns while under audit. What would you ascribe Trump's reluctance to?

PELOSI:  First of all, Chuck, he's not under audit.

TODD:  How do you know that, Madam Speaker?

PELOSI: Well, I could give you the old "how do you know a lawyer is lying" joke, Chuck, but the obvious fact is that Trump has literally been clocked at lying an average of roughly twelve times every day he's been in office. This is clearly just another in an impossibly long list.

TODD: Do you have any actual evidence of that?

PELOSI: Look. The IRS rarely audits anyone in the first place, because they're chronically understaffed. And they almost never audit wealthy people, because people who are actually wealthy hire competent professionals and companies with liability insurance to do their taxes. I'm wealthy too, and I've never been audited. Why? Because I hire a CPA/EA to do my taxes for me. If he messes up and gets me audited, his company's reputation takes a serious hit. Donald Trump counts on people to seriously believe he sits there at his Louis the Nineteenth dining-room table on April 14th every year, sorting out his receipts, trying to stay one step ahead of The Man. I mean, Jesus Christ.

Finally, Chuck, Trump has been claiming to be under audit since at least 2014. I seriously doubt anyone has ever been audited for five years straight without either ending up in prison, or having to hock their house and possessions to pay back taxes, like Willie Nelson. So Trump has either done something seriously wrong and illegal, or he's, you know, lying. I'm actually giving him the benefit of the doubt here, and saying it's more likely that he's just lying.

Although there's probably some illegal stuff going on as well.

TODD: Why would he lie for so long about something like that?

PELOSI [smiles again]: Why does any man lie, Chuck? More to the point, what does every man lie about?

TODD [starting to blush]: I don't know what you mean, Madam Speaker.

PELOSI [smirking]: Of course you don't. Let me be more clear -- he's lying because, since he under-reports his taxable income and assets, because he's a chiseling scumbag, the returns will show that he's not worth anything near what he's always claimed. Not only would that be embarrassing for him, but he would then be placed in the position of not being able to amend that embarrassing low total, without then exposing himself to charges of defrauding the federal government. Which is still a crime, even for someone occupying the office of chief executive.

TODD: Oh. I was thinking you were referring to somethi....never mind.

PELOSI: Money, height, sexual prowess -- men always exaggerate, Chuck. Whether it's the size of their wallet or the size of their....equipment, they can't help themselves. But in this case, it's Trump's selling himself as a super-successful gazillionaire for decades that is his main vulnerability. For him to have to publicly admit that he's merely a cash-poor hectomillionaire, with nearly all his assets tied up in the real estate portfolio he inherited from dear ol' dad....well, that would be equivalent to dropping his pants on Fox and Friends and showing his tiny, tiny wiener.

TODD: Madam Speaker, I....

PELOSI: Look, Chuck, we come on these shows, in an endless rotation, and we pretend to say something to the people of America, but we're all just really talking to each other, right? That's how the game has always been played. I don't have an opinion on whether that's "right" or "wrong," it's just how it is. It's part of my job, and as my political career winds down and I have no aspirations to higher office, I want my current tenure as House Speaker to have a more meaningful legacy to it.

Part of that legacy is getting to the truth, and getting some sunlight on the facts. In the 2016 election, both candidates promised to release their tax returns. Hillary Clinton released thirty-three years' worth of returns. Donald Trump dodged and hedged, and ultimately reneged on that promise. He keeps saying "promises made, promises kept," and that's simply not true. The only promise he's actually kept is giving billionaires another tax cut.

Rather than get bogged down into another pedantic panel argument about truth and promises and whether they're really important or not, I think we have a responsibility -- as a co-equal branch of the US government, mind you -- to get to the bottom of why that is. There's a reason he's reneged on that promise, and there's a reason that he lies about why he "can't" release the returns.

Put it this way, Chuck -- he currently seems more concerned about keeping his tax returns from ever seeing the light of day, than he is about hiding the Mueller Report that supposedly exonerates him. Though he won't release that either, after previously promising he would, because it totally clears him.

Why do you suppose that might be, Chuck?

TODD: Well, Madam Speaker, it would be irresponsible of me as a journalist to speculate on the possible....

PELOSI: Oh, please. Cut the Walter Cronkite pose for a second and be honest -- with me, with your audience, with yourself. I didn't ask you for objective empirical fact. I asked you for your opinion, based on the things you do know have transpired these past few years, the things you have observed and mentally collected, and perhaps formed a pattern of informational reference.

Chuck, you're an adult, gainfully employed, you have a wife and kids, right?

TODD [bemused, hesitant]: Riiight....

PELOSI: You have a house or maybe a couple, you have a vehicle or maybe a couple, you had to do some adulting over the years and purchase those things. You've held a job that requires you to talk on a daily basis with people in my line of work.

TODD [still slow on the uptake]: Okay.

PELOSI: Well, we all know that politicians, at best, are a breed of, let's say, truth-stretchers. We tend to BS and finesse things a bit, sometimes things that are important, sometimes not. But someone in your line of work needs to have something of a BS detector to spot us and call us out. Wouldn't you say that's true?

TODD [puffing self-importantly a bit]: Well, yes, we pride ourselves at cutting through the usual Washington-speak and getting to the heart of the matter. I take my job seriously, and I know my colleagues do as well.

PELOSI: Well, okay then. So what does your highly-refined-from-decades-of-experience BS detector tell you, when someone -- anyone, whether it's Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders or some hedge-fund twerp who makes a living robbing banks from the inside -- what does your "journalist's intuition" tell you when some rich guy tells you that he'd love to show you his tax returns, but gee, the IRS has been auditing him for nearly a decade, and gosh, his massive, throbbing portfolio of real estate is just too complex for mere mortals to comprehend? Does that ping your detector just a little bit?

TODD: I suppose, but I --

PELOSI: Chuck, if Donald Trump had been the salesman for your wife's Audi XUV or your Hamptons vacation house, would you have bought from him?

TODD [perplexed]: Uh, no, I guess I wouldn --

PELOSI: No one in their right mind would, Chuck. And that's all Jerry Nadler and Richard Neal and the rest of us are trying to do here, is get an inspection on the house. Unfortunately, we've already bought the house, but there's an opportunity next year to back out of a bad deal, and we feel that if enough people got a look at that inspection report, they might not like what they see. Maybe they see that the house is built on a sinkhole and infested with termites.

Chuck, would you have signed on the line which is dotted if the salesman who sold you that vacation house told you that he couldn't let you and your lovely wife see that home inspection report because....well because reasons? That the house was a hundred kinds of awesome and perfect, but you were just going to have to take his word for all that?

TODD: Ummm....

PELOSI: Look, you asked why Trump would lie about being under audit, and I'll repeat my answer -- because the returns show him to be not nearly as wealthy as he claims. There's also all that undeclared bratva money he's been laundering for years, but the thing we'll see right away is how....small it all really is. So small. Like a frightened baby mouse hiding in an unkempt tuft of grass.

TODD [regaining his composure]: Thank you for your time, Madam Speaker.

PELOSI [smiling like the cat that got the cream]: Pleasure as always, Chuck.

TODD: Up next, we'll have Rudy Giuliani and Kellyanne Conway explain why we should totally believe everything that comes out of the White House. Stay tuned.

{END SCENE]

Rising Son

Another "fiction" piece, a bit longer than the last. As before, there may be some upcoming edits. Please leave feedback in the comments, good or bad.

The Marshal waited until his private jet had left the Malaysian air space to order his meal. It was not the Ilyushin he was accustomed to flying in, on the rare occasions he did fly, but a Boeing 747 -- albeit an older unit -- that the Chinese had lent him, one that they had used to ferry their own leaders in. It was one of those little things that made the Marshal smile to himself, and quite a few of those little things had occurred over the last twenty-four hours in Singapore.

He appreciated that this Boeing had a small kitchen near the front, and requested his personal chef to prepare him a prime rib, medium rare, with sides of potatoes and vegetables, and a bottle of blended Australian cab. There would be much to discuss with the generals once they arrived back in Pyongyang, but for now, he needed to think to himself, have a nice meal and a drink, perhaps watch a movie. There was a small library of Chinese, American, and European DVDs onboard, and a decent-sized screen. His advisers were seated further back, to give him time to reflect. Much had happened quickly, and things were in motion.

Just Us League

Short fiction piece, very rough, but I wanted to punch it out before the stupid theatre summit, the Bungle in the Jungle. There will probably be revisions over the next week or so.

---

The emperor boarded his plane with a scowl, in a fugue of anger and confusion. The convention with the other national leaders had not gone quite to plan. To the extent that there was a plan at all, it mainly consisted of variations on the classic theme of I talk, you listen and do what I say.

Usually the Euros and the Canadians just complied and went along, if for no other reason than force of habit. But somehow this time was different.

The Canuck was usually a polite little pussy. He even had a pussy name -- Justin. Justin. The emperor rolled it around in his brain for a bit, chewing on its sibilance and fricative, trying to think of something nasty that rhymed with it. That little prick.

The emperor sat in his plush seat on the jet, nodded to the servant to bring him his customary second lunch, and pulled out his phone to check the Twitter feeds. That gutless faggot Flake was at it again, talking big about the wrongness of it all. Whatever. Empty words. He'll get in line with McCain and Collins and the rest of those chumps. When push came to shove, all they ever did was talk.

Thank You for Your Service

Nearly two weeks ago, four Green Berets were ambushed and killed in action on a mission in the Saharan country of Niger. During that period of time, HRH Emperor Snowflake has visited his golf resort five times, and took Rand Paul out for a "make sure you let him win and tell the media what a great golfer he is" round (last week it was Huckleberry Closetcase's turn with Dear Leader). But he has neither called nor written the families of the fallen soldiers, nor publicly addressed their sacrifice. (Don't know or care if he tweeted about it; that doesn't count as formal communication from the office of the country's chief executive.)

So when he was called on it at today's hostage video with Mitch the Bitch, Snowflake started dancing like a kid with a late book report, first saying that he'd written letters over the weekend and that they'd be going out today, then falling back on the tried-and-untrue tactic of Making Shit Up About The Blah Guy. "Someone told him" that Obama didn't call or write, or maybe they didn't. It so hard to be sure when you're making it up as you go along, just pulling it out of your ass and not even bothering to brush the peanuts and corn off.

This is at least the third time this fucking guy has said something completely disrespectful to military personnel specifically. The first time was when he mocked John McCain, the second time when he trash-talked the family of fallen combat veteran Humayun Khan. There are no doubt other incidents, of varying degree of seriousness, that I'm forgetting for the moment. (Honorable mention:  "I know more than the generals about ISIS," when he clearly knows jack shit about anything, and it's disrespectful to their position, as well as the work they've put in to fighting that enemy.)

But of course as far as Snowflake and his retard fan-base are concerned, the real disrespect for the troops and the country comes from professional athletes silently taking a knee in principled dissent during the national anthem. That should tell you everything you need to know about him and them -- that their flag-humping and troop-pimping is as cynical as you can imagine. The military is nothing more than a prop to him, and like good little cult monkeys, his base lives and breathes in rhythm with him. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

On the one hand, this lying criminal monster is exactly the chief executive that a fat, illiterate empire deserves when it's fallen and can't get up. On the other hand, we need more voices like Gregg Popovich to speak up and tell him to fuck off already. Few things are more shameful than cynically hiding behind and lying about military personnel, particularly when they've given their lives for this country, for a senile moron who's never done a goddamned thing in his life for anyone else.

Better Dead Than Read

I don't know if you've heard, but dead-eyed-daughter-of-famous-retard Joanie Clownstick has a "book" out. Proving that she has learned at the feet (or, well, the lap) of Dear Old Dud, Joanie has cobbled together a pastiche of poached, decontextualized sentiments from other people, poured a corn syrup of tone-deaf self-help bromides all over it, baked for a lifetime of privileged cluelessness, and served as her own dish.

I'm not sure what's worse, the soulless branding machine that churns out this sort of page poop, or the brainless asshole who actually shells out money for it, who see Joanie as something other than what she really is, like they somehow see her old man as something other than what he really is. It's not like this family of boutique grifters has ever been shy about humping 'murka's collective leg like a horny shar-pei violating a hapless couch pillow. Whatever. You can see from the Amazon page that while the "book" has a majority of poor reviews, it is still moving quite well. There will always be someone stupid enough to spend good money on the borrowed musings of a spoiled dunce, if only out of sheer spite.

Just for the fun of it, enjoy the hate reviews from Slate and Atlantic, and remember -- this overrated organism has more money and power than you will ever see in your lifetime, and accumulates more of it every second. She's one of those people who never has to acknowledge how fucking awful they really are, and has the goddamned nerve on top of it all to cloak it in this insufferable pose of "helping" other women. You have to credit these people -- the grift just never slows down.

The Fart of the Deal

The Clowncare fiasco the last couple days should make it clear to everyone that Hair Fuhrer's reputation as a master negotiator rests entirely under that thing on his reduced scalp. As with all things these days, it is clear only to the people who already saw it long ago.

None of the things he promised for two years would be done right away has really even been started. He spent months braying about how much smarter he was than the stoopid generals, and how his secret thirty-day plan to end ISIS was a slam-dunk. Sixty-five days in and you haven't heard a fucking word about ISIS.

Health care reform is even worse -- Thursday's initial failed vote was, like everything with these dipshits, meant to be symbolic, as it was the seventh anniversary of the passage of the ACA. So beyond the failure of Master Negotiator to bring his own party to heel, the plain fact is that these assholes had seven full years to come up with an alternative to the Worst Thing Evar, and all they have is a tax cut for the wealthy barely disguised as a health care plan. Even the inbred diehard cultists aren't quite dumb enough to fall for that, if only because they'll be the first ones affected by it.

Midnight Rambler

Sleep became more elusive as he got older, a jumble of half-remembered dreams and nightmares punctuated by regular trips to the pisser. Every ninety minutes or so, it seemed like, frequently more often than that. Thoughts were fleeting, and usually careened into the next one without warning.

Bladder must be the size of a fucking dime, he thought. They don't warn you about it. They tell you about the prostate, and making that pilgrimage to Dr. Jellyfinger. But they don't warn you about the plodding regularity of having to piss in Morse code all the fucking time.

Getting up several times a night changed the way he slept. He was a heavy sleeper as a kid, burrowed deep into the gamma-wave movies, waking with only vague but real impressions -- fear, lust, power, violence, success. As he matured and became more accustomed to the many privileges life had in store for him, he slept less and less. The parties never stopped, and even though he never indulged in the booze and drugs, he was always at the center of the action. Keeping score was his drug of choice, and he used money and women and bullshit to move the point counter.