2016 - The Year in Rebuke (Part One)

If we had to sum up 2016 in a single word, it would be...unprintable. Seriously, we'd be working hard to come up with the vilest, most appalling, utterly disgusting and likely illegal word in our rich, albeit genuinely filthy vocabulary - and even then we'd fail to do justice to this rotten collection of months.

Fortunately, we don't have to sum things up in a single word. We have this entire page to work with, so let's dive straight into...

JANUARY

The year hits the ground running (like an abscessed boil) when the Post Office releases a "Forever" stamp commemorating the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha, which honors the willingness of Ibrahim to slit his son's throat after being "triple dog dared" by Allah. As part of the festival, modern Muslims are still expected to sacrifice their best farm animal...assuming they have the financial ability to first buy it an orange jumpsuit and get it to pose for a Youtube video.

And speaking of people associated with Youtube videos, Hillary Clinton stays busy denying that she  ever had classified documents on her private email server. An assertion which, like everything else Hillary has ever said, turns out to be wildly untrue.

Of course, not all newsworthy events were domestic. Or even comprehensible...

John "You Rang?" Kerry comes out with the least encouraging pronouncement imaginable about the throat-cutting, suicide-bombing, allegedly non-Islamic murderers of ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, or whatever the hell other name the administration thinks likely to be unrecognized by Democratic voters.

Specifically, Kerry further downgrades our nation's goal from "destroying, degrading, or disrupting" the maniacal killers to merely "denting" them. His goal apparently being to make Hillary look like only the second worst Secretary of State ever, just in time for...

FEBRUARY

Early in the Democratic debate process, Martin O'Malley shocks everyone by announcing that he'd dropped out of the race - which was the first time anyone knew he'd been in the race.

Following Hillary Clinton's discovery in Iowa that she is less popular among young females than a yeast infection, Hillary asks herself what vivacious, high-powered celebrity superstar could help her reel in youthful female votes in New Hampsire, and she comes up with...

Oddly, threats of eternal damnation don't save Hillary from a landslide loss to Bernie Sanders, causing Hillary to break out the really big gun...

But just as things get really bleak for Hillary, the entire political landscape is changed by an unexpected death...

Beloved conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suddenly dies in bed with a pillow on his head. A local judge pronounces the death due to natural causes without seeing the body or ordering an autopsy, because Obamacare doesn't cover those things.

In the following days, Obama decides to skip Scalia's funeral owing to an absolutely unavoidable scheduling conflict involving a critical tee time...

The country will not see such a blatantly petty snub again until, well, a few days later in...

MARCH

"If I didn't attend a funeral for a sitting Supreme Court Justice," the president may well have said, "I sure as hell won't be wasting my time going to one for some first lady. There's nothing less important than a first lady!"

In his place, the president appropriately sends...the first lady.

And speaking of skipping commitments, seemingly unstoppable primary candidate Donald Trump has a few clearly expressed ideas on the subject...

But of course, there's more than just an election going on. Barack Obama is still holding the reins and shaping critical foreign policy. Which is how we ended up with...

In his never-ending quest to build a legacy, the president tries to normalize relations with the oppressive communist dictatorship of Cuba in hopes of increasing the number of investment opportunities for his wealthy donors, and decreasing the number of Cuban immigrants whose children might grow up to become conservative GOP presidential candidates.

But only days later, the world is again shocked by a brutal act of terrorism - this time in a Brussels airport. Despite his busy travel schedule, Obama immediately swings into action...

Rather than doing diddly-squat about the carnage in Brussels, Obama attends a baseball game with new BFF Raul Castro, then jets off to Argentina where he performes a pelvis-grinding tango at a state dinner to prove his masculinity to ISIS.

Which brings us to...

APRIL

To help shore up support from women who just can't seem to understand the whole complicated "birds & bees" thing, Hillary declares that "unborn persons" have no rights - making it perfectly acceptable to take viable children in the final days (or hours) of gestation and turn them into chop suey. An observation that Bernie Sanders quickly echoes, while admitting that it's put him off Chinese take-out for awhile.

But life and death issues soon take a backseat to a far more important crisis in America...

Springsteen and other (ahem) "artists" boycott North Carolina following passage of a law which segregates bathroom privileges based exclusively on an individual's God-given plumbing rather than their current (and sometimes whimsically flexible) gender self-identification.  This kicks off a firestorm of controversy around the country as liberals try to force businesses to create new bathrooms for each of the 51 sexual genders (no, really) recognized by Facebook, or at least let anyone who enjoys peeing in front of kids do so to fight discrimination.

The country becomes so embroiled in the issue that it becomes necessary for Barack Obama to remind the nation who truly suffers from discrimination in our wretched country...

The tone deaf president assembles a group of allegedly popular rappers (including Nicki Minaj, Busta Rhymes, J. Cole, Wale, DJ Khaled, and others we couldn't possibly pick out of a police line-up) to help with his "Brother's Keeper" initiative which is designed to encourage young black men to avoid incarceration for undocumented acts of wealth redistribution.

Unfortunately, during the president's remarks, rapper Rick Ross's court-ordered ankle bracelet goes off. It turns out that the man selected by Mr. Obama to serve as an exemplary racial role model is required to wear the device until his trial date for aggravated assault and battery, pistol-whipping, and kidnapping.

Were the other dignitaries at the summit nonplussed? Based on their actual pictures below, we're guessing not...

Meanwhile, as the primaries wear on, people finally start realizing that Trump might actually become the GOP nominee...

By the way, in case you don't know, the cartoon above is a tribute to "Forbidden Planet," which is the best sci-fi movie ever made. If you've never seen it, get your hands on it and watch it NOW while the rest of us move on to...

MAY

By a significant margin, Hoosiers go to the polls to declare that they find Trump to be the candidate who is outstanding in the field. And trust us, Indiana folk (like us!) love jokes about fields. But feeling distinctly un-loved, Cruz says "enough" and drops out of the race, practically guaranteeing Trump's nomination.

Assuming, of course, that he doesn't fall prey to the latest death-dealing malady inflaming the media...

In response to the dread threat hypothetically presented by mosquito-borne Zika virus, Barack Obama requests $2 billion to prevent the blood-sucking parasites coming across our southern border from wreaking destruction. The $2 billion will be used to put the young mosquitoes in good schools, settle their families in middle class neighborhoods, and give the grown mosquitoes some walking around money until they can find permanent blood-sucking jobs in government.

That is, unless someone intends to drastically reduce the number of blood-sucking jobs in government...

Donald Trump "seals the deal" when his delegate count pushes over the magic number of 1,237 with multiple states left to go to further pad his margin of victory.  The people have spoken - and they're using very short (frequently 4-letter) words as they storm into...

JUNE

Because Donald Trump's blunt candor is generating so many news stories, Barack Obama jumps back into the erudition spotlight with a devastatingly brutal dissection of contemporaneous political rhetoric and offers wise analytical advice...

Of course, there's no "okey-doke" going on in the Democratic primaries. Everything is honest, legit, and above board...

Bernie Sanders grows peevish when the Associated Press declares Hillary to be the overall winner of Democratic primaries which haven't happened yet. It's almost like a conspiracy of some sort is working against him - but that's crazy, right?

Then without warning...

Terror returns to the United States in the form of an ISIS-inspired lunatic who kills and wounds over 100 people at a Gay nightclub in Orlando, before being sent straight to Hell by a policeman's bullet.

Authorities struggle to discern the killer's motives, having nothing to go on other than his actual 911 phone call in which he swears allegiance to ISIS, and shouts"Allahu Akbar" during his death-dealing spree.

Such a vile act is obviously unacceptable to the Obama administration, and they move quickly to let future terrorists know what they'll be up against...

Frankly, all of these events are getting so overwhelming that Hope n' Change needs a little time off - so we play hooky for a week, confident that it will be a slow period for news.

We are, of course, dead wrong...

(END OF PART ONE - JOIN US WEDNESDAY TO WRAP UP THE YEAR!)

Rushing Roulette

After repeatedly having his ass handed to him by Vladimir Putin for the past 8 years, Barack Obama decided yesterday that it was "now or never" to finally take strong action against Russia... whether Russia had done anything wrong or not.

Which is why, in reaction to the so-called "election hacking," Obama ordered 35 Russian diplomats (described by the White House as "intelligence agents") out of the country, closed a couple of domestic Russian facilities (described by the White House as "intelligence agencies"), and promised to unleash a cyber counterattack (described by the computer literate as "fat chance").

Unfortunately, despite requests from the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Barry has failed to produce any compelling evidence that Russia was behind the Wikileaks document releases which revealed to American voters that the Democratic party, from Hillary on down, is populated by sleazy, bribe-mongering crooks, lunatics, and sex addicts. In fact, it's highly questionable whether any final intelligence analysis will even hit Obama's desk before he leaves office - making the timing of his saber-rattling highly suspect if not downright dangerous.

Mind you, Hope n' Change isn't suggesting that Russia didn't hack into the email servers of Hillary, Leon Panetta, and the DNC. Of course they did; the cyber-porch lights were left on, the cyber-front door was wide open, and there was a big cyber-sign on the porch saying "please don't steal anything while we're not home."

The secret keepers were, in the laughable words of James Comey, "extremely careless." Meaning neither Russia nor anyone else had to be extremely clever to steal documents.

But all of that being said, no evidence has been presented that it was Russia who gave damning but 100% truthful documents to Wikileaks. It could have been a mischievous high school kid or, our personal belief, a Democratic insider who wanted to save our nation from Hillary.

Which is why it's disconcerting that Obama, while still vacationing in Hawaii, has prematurely chosen retaliatory action against the only suspect who has a huge nuclear arsenal and pretty much no sense of humor.

Perhaps, before the big ball drops in Times Square on New Year's Eve, he just wants everyone (especially Historians) to think that after 8 simpering years in office his own balls have finally dropped.

AND ONE MORE THING...



Drink up, drive safely, and join us Monday for "2016 - the year in review!"

Putting the POS in POTUS

Yes, it's an old cartoon - but it's never been truer.

Although Barack Obama has only days left in office, he's doing his best to make every one of them count...in the worst possible ways. As a case in point, witness his almost unbelievable betrayal of Israel by failing to prevent the passage of a U.N. resolution which will do grave damage to our (ahem) former ally for years to come.

Even worse, Israel claims to have evidence that the Obama administration actually helped draft this sneak attack on Israel - clearly missing any moral insight from the recent visit of Japan's prime minister to Pearl Harbor.

Also in his busy, busy schedule, the president has been releasing prisoners from jail faster than Henry Ford churned out model-T's, recently setting a new record by granting 231 pardons in a single day - which is perhaps only a warm-up for setting more felons free in the coming weeks. But at least he's not dumping dangerous prisoners from Guantanamo on the world, right? Wrong! He's taking steps to transfer up to 18 more detainees before Trump takes office (only 4.5 of whom will return to battlefield mayhem and active terrorism, according to the government's own statistics).

But wait - there's more! To help assure that US relations with Russia are as bad as possible on his way out, Obama is about to announce plans to "punish" Russia for their alleged (yet entirely unsubstantiated) role in telling voters the truth about Hillary Clinton, thereby upsetting our precious national system of basing elections on catchphrases, lies, and genitalia. The president's retaliatory arsenal is said to include various harsh sanctions and "cyber-operations," including forcing Russians to use the Healthcare.gov website to get medical treatment.

Besides all of this active sabotage of the incoming Trump administration, Barry is also spending the waning days of his presidency ingesting large quantities of hallucinogens (perhaps with buddies from his Hawaiian "choom gang"). How else to explain his recent declaration that, had be been allowed to run again, he would have won a third term by beating Donald Trump.

Not because of any actual accomplishments, of course, but because "in conversations that I've had with people around the country - even some people who disagreed with me - they would say, 'The vision, the direction that you point towards is the right one.'"

That direction, by the way, remains unchanged after 8 years...although we're still unsure if it points to Mecca or Hell.