The Gold-Plated Monkey Wrench

Contributed by B F Koch

ITITY Political Theater Critic

Those who tuned in to Fox News for the first Republican Presidential Debate were treated to the center stage spectacle of an insult comic campaigning for CEO of USA Inc. The obnoxious billionaire started off by threatening to run as a third party candidate, basically blackmailing his party into nominating him.

The arrogant game show host didn’t offer any policies or positions, but did take the time to tell viewers what he doesn’t have time for, pompously reminded everyone he was rich enough to purchase political favors, and continued his puerile attempt to promote himself by putting everyone else down.

Despite declaring himself the winner, the former beauty pageant sponsor still felt that Megyn Kelly had treated him unfairly by bringing up his history of demeaning women. On CNN the next day he called her a bimbo.

It’s no surprise that this thin-skinned celebrity is leading the polls. There are plenty of people who see in the Prima Donald their own dumbed-down version of the American dream: having a bank account big enough to buy whatever they want, yet still getting to behave like the same boorish slob they were when they were barely scraping by on a small weekly paycheck.

The One That Almost Got Away

Reported by F. Russell Grumman

ITITY Media Maven

Washington D.C.

A recent statement from C-Span said they considered the upcoming Benghazi hearings “inappropriate and inconsistent” with their public affairs programming. Of course cable news will cover it, CNN will offer their emotional anguish perspective, MSNBC will present their typical sarcastic commentary, and Fox News can always be counted on to make their usual conspiracy noises.

Without C-Span however, it was beginning to look like hardcore political viewers would be left holding their remotes. That is until Director of Programming Ray Bob “Bobber” Budnik announced earlier today that complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the proceedings of the House Select Committee would be aired by The Fishing Channel.

“You can bet I’ll be wearing my hip waders when we get into this,” Budnik remarked, “but I think our audience will be able to relate. Fishing isn't just about catching a fish. It’s about process, it’s about technique. It’s as much about patience and persistence as it is about success. That’s why, for two years in a row, we've awarded our Hook, Line, and Sinker Award to Darryl Issa.”

This will not be the first time Budnik has tested the political waters. In 2010 he proposed a constitutional amendment making it a right for every American to own a fly rod.

Surprise in San Diego

Dispatched by B F Koch

ITITY Current Events Columnist

It looks like Christie, Cruz, Paul, Perry, Rubio, Ryan, and Walker will all have to wait their turns. After winning the recent CPAC straw poll, and the enthusiastic endorsement of both Sarah Palin and Rudi Giuliani, the party’s two political thought leaders most unhindered by analytical reasoning, Vladimir Putin has emerged as the new 2016 Republican presidential front-runner.

In what may be a related development, Bob Costas has reportedly poked himself in both eyes with a sharp stick. 

Not for Nuttin’, Big Guy

Filed by B F Koch

ITITY East Coast Political Correspondent

The ongoing investigation into New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s involvement in restricting Fort Lee residents’ access to the George Washington Bridge may be affecting his popularity among some of his Garden State constituents.

One of his former supporters, Nicky “Nads” Nutella offered his take on the controversy “It woulda been beautiful. I mean freakin’ beautiful. A real Jersey wise guy in the White House, I mean, one of us, in the freakin’ White House. Can you imagine? It woulda been freakin’ beautiful.”

Nutella continued “Yea, but now I’m not so sure, ya know. It’s like this thing Sister Marie Theresa used to tell us when we was kids, just make sure it’s worth it before ya pull this kinda shit in the first place. She told us that all the time. In fact I still got a mark over here from that one time she told us.

So now everybody wants to know what he knew. Did he know? How would I know? What I do know is that the big guy always knows. My uncle Carmine taught me that. So if he didn’t know what he was supposed to know, maybe he’s not the big guy we thought we knew. Ya know?”

Never Mind

Talked off the Ledge by B F Koch

ITITY Political Analyst

Every time a bell rings in Texas one of Ted Cruz’s brain cells sprouts tiny little bat wings, escapes his otherwise empty skull, flies around the town hall for a few seconds, then goes on yet another rant about defunding Obamacare.

Secret border patrol agent and part-time cantaloupe inspector, Steve King continues to pile more stupidity on top of a pile of stupid every time his single misfiring neuron comes up with a comment on immigration reform.

A lump of moldy gray matter haunting the halls of justice in a rotten black robe, Antonin Scalia envisions an America where robber barons can once again buy elections and only wealthy old white men are allowed to vote.

Intoxicated with the idea of immortality, and bored with simply being a young Russian billionaire, soon to be cyborg Dmitry Itskov plans on indefinitely extending his lifespan by putting the contents of his cranium in a shiny robot body.

At a lonely, dimly lit bar, Literally and Begs-the-Question, two friends suffering from the modern misuse of language, buy each other drinks and reminisce about the good ole days when their meanings actually had lives.

Breakfast in America

Served by B F Koch

ITITY Arts and Education Editor

Wake up kids, it’s time for breakfast. And you know what they say, you can’t make an omelet without killing half the population of some third-world shithole you probably can’t pronounce or even find on a map, stealing all their resources, and leaving a toxic waste-dump no one can possibly live in where their country used to be. So drink your orange juice and don’t worry, they never complain.

The adults have decided to cut your lunch programs so their rich friends don’t have to pay so many taxes, so eat up. And remember, the ramblings of a Nobel Prize-winning economist divided by zero– which is all you’re going to be left with–is still just irrational gibberish. So don’t be so quick to spend that money the tooth fairy left you. If you want to go to college, you’re going to need it.

Hey, boys and girls, here’s a game you haven’t learned yet called conspiratorial craziness. “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi,” say it out loud three times and the ghost of Richard Nixon will appear. He’ll scare your hamster right out of his cage, and your dog won’t come home for a week, but you can bring him to show-and-tell if you’d like. Just get your mom to sign the subpoena.

Hurry up then, you don’t want to miss the bus. Off to school now, and remember what the teacher said about not smoking near that factory on the other side of the playground fence. And don’t forget your ballistic back packs; you never know when you might get in the way of someone else’s second amendment rights.

So study hard, take those tests, and learn smart stuff because, oh yeah we forgot to tell you, you’ll be in charge of this mess tomorrow. And take the long way home…

Disneyland it Ain’t

Contributed by B F Koch

ITITY Cultural Affairs Correspondent

Along the meandering midway of our abandoned amusement park nation, we see ourselves in mass media fun-house mirrors where talk radio hucksters spin cotton-candy conspiracies and cable news clowns reflect imbecilic confections of fear and suspicion.

On the ramshackle county-fair carousel a restless crowd of backward-baseball-cap rubes, meth-addled moms, and their several-generations-removed-from-the-ability-to-reason offspring, still reach for the brass-ring fantasy that gets further away with each creaking turn.

The sideshow pundits pitch their inbred opinions, the frat boy ex-president paints portraits of puppies, and the fortune teller sees a dark future of foreclosure where grifters in business suits patiently circle like buzzards in the grey sky above.

A chainsaw sculptor turns a piece of dead tree into a trailer-park totem, while down at the derelict arcade of bankrupt dreams the proud tattooed-and-pierced percent desperately try what’s left of their luck at a rigged game of chance they’ve already lost.

America, the exceptionally banal, heck-of-a-job country you’d like to have a beer with, a raucous carnival of corruption that refuses to fold its tent, where the lines are all long, the rides are all rusty, and if you try to cut in, you’ll likely get shot.