Film at Eleavenworth

Because Hollywood wasn't already sickening enough, Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea have just announced their intention to create a new production company which will "plan to focus on stories by and about women." Including, we presume, those many unfortunate women born with tallywhackers.

The duo are following in the footsteps of other political figures who have recently struck big development deals, including Barack and Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, and Susan Rice - all of whom will bring a rich diversity of socio-political voices to an industry which was starving for politically correct Progressive content.

The company being formed by Hillary and Chelsea (who are already involved in aggressive fundraising) is intended to capture the nation's hearts and minds from the very start...

Impressively, Bleachbitch Productions already has a full slate of films in the works (none of which will be shot in Georgia owing to an expected shortage of dead babies) which will appeal to fans of every film genre. To date, the projects announced include:

THE STOLEN THRONE (Historical Drama) - On the eve of the coronation of a new Queen, an evil court jester seizes power with help from scheming cossacks and deplorable peasants.

OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEBB (Comedy) - A young socialite is stunned to realize that she's the spitting image of her mother's ham-faced goofball former law partner.

GLOW (Action Thriller) - Cancer-stricken Russian orphans will die without radiation treatments. With time running out, one woman risks everything to get them a life-saving supply of U.S. uranium.

HONEY, I ERASED YOUR WEDDING (Comedy) - The wedding of the century is put at risk when the bride's mother accidentally erases a computer hard drive containing all the plans.

DEVIL WITH THE BLUE DRESS (Horror) - A family's personal and professional lives become a living Hell when they're haunted by a vengeful spirit in a stained dress.

IT'S A LIVING! (Romantic Comedy) - She's young, in love, and a con-artist who skims donations from third world dysentery victims. Now she'll take any job to keep her boyfriend from finding out!

ARKANCIDE (Suspense) - One by one, a powerful woman's enemies are dying in strange ways. To clear her name, she must find the real killer with the help of a dangerously violent former football player.

They all sound great and they're all coming soon to a theater, or federal prison, near you!

Shoes for Industry

Okay, by this time you all know the drill. We've looked at the tangled can of worms that is currently the "news" (Example: "Did Trump call Meghan Markle 'nasty' and, if so, why does that add to the urgent need to impeach him? We'll ask our panel of experts...") and decided we'd rather not play that particular game today.

Soooo, we've once again grabbed a perfectly innocent piece of clip art and added enough punchlines to hopefully assure you of at least one laugh today. Which is still more than you'd get from looking at current events.

In keeping with this thought, let us share this fun country-rock ballad co-written by The Five's own Greg Gutfeld and performed by co-writer John Rich (with The Five doing the call-and-response background vocals). We appreciate the song's sentiment, and will also point out that the song is available on all major services with 100% of the profit going to charity. Because that's how capitalism beats the crap out of socialism. But there we go, talking about politics again...

Reading Between the Lies

A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat.

After two years and millions of dollars spent on a fruitless investigation, Robert Mueller finally crawled from the primordial ooze to reveal himself as a swamp-dwelling Deep State weasel bent on overthrowing the President of the United States.

We refer, of course, to his "special announcement" on Wednesday which revealed not a scintilla of new or relevant information, but was packed with deceptive wording, insinuation, and innuendo. Which is, coincidentally, where we'd like to tell Mueller to shove his report and his opinions.

Mueller stated that he didn't have the power to indict a sitting President even if that President had committed a crime - strongly suggesting that if this weren't the case, he'd already have Trump in manacles. But no significant evidence of any crime involving Trump was included in his encyclopedic report. Which is why he's now trying to spin the results.

Similarly, Mueller stated that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to bring charges against a sitting President. As a statement, it's perfectly true. As an insinuation, it practically screams that Mueller believes Congress should impeach Trump, despite his having committed no crimes.

Left-wing media sources (redundant, we know) are throwing confetti in the air, high-fiving, and popping champagne corks as they happily report that Mueller has very strongly implied that Trump was colluding with the Russians (who, according to Mueller, had a massive effect on the 2016 election), was guilty of obstructing justice even though nothing actually was obstructed, and that Trump needs to be impeached because...uh...because the Left finds him, his hair, his wife, his supporters, and his continuing successes so damn annoying.

As bad as all this is, Trump himself gave the media another stimulating pop of amyl nitrate when he subsequently tweeted that "I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected." He later tried correcting the clumsily worded (surprise!) tweet, but it was too late. Alleged news outlets and social media were already ablaze with the news that Trump himself had finally admitted Russian collusion.

So between Mueller's deliberate obfuscation and Trump's par-for-the-course mangling of words, this hasn't been a great couple of days for those of us who, unlike Mueller, are still interested in justice, the fair application of laws, and our Constitution.

We can only hope that the Barr investigation of the power players behind this attempted coup will soon pay off, and real justice will be carried out promptly, fairly, and mercilessly.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

For those who may have been baffled by today's cartoon, it's a tip of the bowler to this classic Monty Python sketch...

Feel the Burn-out

Uh, Jerry...?

The WHO (World Health Organization, not to be confused with the greatest rock band of all time) has recently updated their handbook, "The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems," as a helpful resource for doctors, health insurers, and hypochondriacs who are sure that they have something, dammit.

The 2019 revision notably includes devastating illnesses like "job burn-out," which is "a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed." Which, in our experience, pretty much describes every job we've ever held. And while the WHO doesn't explicitly say it, we assume that they see the job-creating Donald Trump as the Typhoid Mary of stress-inducing employment.

(Worth noting is the fact that there is still no vaccination for burn-out, although researchers at the Clan MacGregor distillery say "shots can help," which we can personally confirm.)

The WHO also updated their definition of "compulsive sexual disorder," a very serious condition best known for afflicting a former president who shall remain nameless, but whose wife's name is Hillary.

Thanks, Obamacare!

Other interesting changes to The Big Book of Horrible Conditions (which we think would be a much catchier title if they really want this thing to sell) include the WHO's official recognition of video game addiction. Which must be a terrible thing to have - just imagine the amount of work it must take to grind an X-Box console into powder fine enough to snort.

Happily, not all of the handbook's revisions were adding new medical conditions - some old ones have been reconsidered by the great medical minds in Geneva, Switzerland and it turns out that they weren't illnesses at all! As a case in point, transgenderism is no longer described as a "mental disorder," but simply a "natural variation of human experience."

This comes as great news to transgender folks, because many governments previously insisted on a medical "gender disorder" diagnosis before changing people's names and gender markers on official documents. But with the banishment of "gender disorder," anyone is now free to demand legal paperwork substantiating whatever name and gender currently tickles their fancy. (medical note: "fancy" is the official term for transgender genitalia).

The WHO handbook has literally hundreds of other interesting medical updates but unfortunately we're not able to comment on them at present. It's time for us to take our shot (or two) to avoid job burn-out.

Memorial Day 2019

Image © Janet Burroff

Today is not about politics. It's about remembering that the freedoms we too easily take for granted came at the highest imaginable cost. We are all in the debt of the fallen - and while it is a debt which can never be repaid, it is essential that we try to prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifice every day.

On this Memorial Day, please take time in your thoughts to express gratitude to those who have died in the service of our country.

Speaker of the (Mad) House

Despite competition from young Democrat upstarts in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi has forcefully and successfully reclaimed the title of "Most Vile Woman in Washington."

We say this based on the little dog-and-pony show she staged with Chuck "Does Scowling Make Me Look Smart?" Schumer rather than getting the nation's business done. They were supposed to take a meeting with President Trump to discuss a spending plan to rebuild our nation's crumbling infrastructure (an idea with broad bipartisan support), but immediately beforehand, Nancy attended a well-publicized meeting with other foaming-at-the-mouth Democrats to discuss impeaching the President.

After which she paused on her way to the White House to tell reporters that Trump was engaged in a cover-up because his staff is no longer responding to the unending subpoenas from Jerry "Look, I Can Bite My Belt Buckle" Nadler for private documents, financial information, and testimony related to, well, nothing.

Understandably, once the meeting commenced it only took Trump three minutes to show Nancy and Chuck the door, after which he told the press that the Democrats can investigate him or work with him, but not both at the same time. Which sounds reasonable to us.

Pelosi had her own version of events, later saying/slurring: "Thomas Jefferson tasked his Secretary of the Treasure to put forth an infrastructure proposal, initiative for the country. It would follow the Lewis and Clark expedition (trivia note: Pelosi still has a dress in her closet with Clark's DNA on it), the Louisiana purchase, it would be about the Erie Canal, the Cumberland road, things like that to build in America.

For some reason, maybe it was lack of confidence on this part, that he really couldn't match the greatness of the challenge that we have, he just took a pass. And it just makes me wonder why he did that." Yeah, it's a puzzler alright.

It was at this point that the contents of Nancy's flask really kicked in, and she started opining that Trump is really angry because he wants to be impeached, but Nancy won't accommodate his bizarre wish because it would be "a very divisive place to go in our country." Presumably, even if we took the Cumberland road.

Instead, she suggests that the clearly disturbed Trump take a "leave of absence," or that "his family or his staff should have an intervention for the good of the country."

Keep this nonsense up, Democrats, and you will by God get an intervention for the good of the country.

ON AN ENTIRELY UNRELATED NOTE...

After reflecting on Speaker Pelosi's inflammatory rhetoric and the Democrats' unceasing harassment of the President (with plenty of help from mainstream media), the only way we could regain emotional equilibrium was by watching this video of things being crushed into pulp by a powerful industrial grinder.

But what made this so particularly pleasing is that we just learned that President Trump has ordered all intelligence agencies to fully cooperate with Barr's investigation into the fake Russian collusion accusations...AND given Barr the personal authority to declassify any and all documents related to the case.

In other words, some very big names may soon be going into Barr's grinder.

America's Creepiest Uncle

"Like my cologne? It's called chloroform."

We've got to be honest with you - today's news just looked like more slices of the same stale, mold-covered white bread that the media keeps feeding us while saying that penicillin is good for us.

But rather than leave this valuable space blank today, we thought we'd share the photo above which can't possibly have a legitimate explanation. We're not sure if Biden is whispering a threat or just getting wood while trying to suck out a helpless child's eyeball, but we find this image pretty darn disturbing.

Of course, some people (including a plurality of Democrats) may have other opinions...

FINALLY some shovel-ready jobs!

And as long as we're going down this road, last night we were perusing some amusing vintage ads from days gone by and found this one which immediately made us think of Biden and his young victim...

This message approved by Marlon Brando

Our Crap Runneth Over

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Unsociable Security

Hang on, everyone, this is going to be a chaotic ride today! See, we're actually too exhausted and frustrated to do a proper post about Alabama's abortion laws, possible impending war with Iran, the unbridled idiocy of adding an "adversity score" to SAT results, or the Democrats doing a marathon session to read the entire Mueller Report out loud (for reasons we can't even begin to fathom, although it is fun watching them try to sound out the polysyllabic words).

The cause of our distraction and dysfunction relates to a visit that the Jarlsberg family paid to the local Social Security office today. By way of backstory, Stilton isn't taking Social Security yet (though he's old enough and has paid tens of thousands of dollars into the freaking system) but theoretically, according to our new paid financial advisor, Mrs. J could claim a social security spousal benefit anyway (she doesn't qualify based on her own work record, because it was for a government agency with a separate retirement plan).

So we conveniently filed her claim online, and it was only a week or so later that we received a letter saying that Mrs. J had to call someone at the Social Security office. It took her three attempts before anyone bothered to call back, at which point she was told that she had to report to a crowded field office because she'd been flagged as a possible fraud. Swell.

So today was the big day, and the Jarlsbergs showed up at the packed United Nations-style waiting room (side note: apparently America's melting pot has been supplanted by cold cash) where a nice police officer frequently had to tell everyone to shut the heck up so that the old, infirm, and foreigners could hear the service numbers which were occasionally called through what sounded like a big electric kazoo. It was like being in the hold of a slaving ship, only with passengers playing with their smartphones.

Fortunately we had an actual appointment, meaning we only had to wait with the great unwashed for two and a half hours before being called in. And from there, everything was easy! It only took the charming and personable clerk five minutes to explain that our claim was rejected and that Mrs. J can't get any social security payments until her workaholic husband also signs on as a ward of the state. She did not tell us to "piss up a rope," "screw ourselves," or "take a flying f*ck at a rolling donut," though we're pretty sure these notions were implied.

Since Social Security knew from the initial application that they were going to deny the claim, why didn't they just put THAT in the letter, rather than ordering us to come in and waste hours of our time? Oh yeah, because they had to complete their investigation of the whole "fraud" thing - the accusation of which, it turns out, is randomly assigned by a computer to provide maximum annoyance. To put Mrs. J right in the eyes of God and country, we were told to bring birth certificates, marriage licenses, name change documents, multiple forms of identification, fingerprints, DNA cheek swabs, and about 10 pounds of other documentation.

Our clerk started the interrogation by asking for Mrs. J's driver's license, which she tap-tap-tapped into a database. "Okay," she smiled, "you're all done." We asked about all the other things our Sherpa had struggled to carry in, and she said, "Oh no, we don't need any of that."

So we were free to go, claim denied, but with the renewed confidence of knowing that seamless proof of citizenship and identity can apparently be established by a minor functionary's quick glance at a driver's license.

While the entire experience was only a bit over 3 hours, the soul-sapping nature of the visit (and the unsatisfying outcome) has left us drained and discouraged.

We have seen the future, and it doesn't work worth a damn.

PS: The only thing we enjoyed about the visit to this gulag was seeing framed photos of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on the wall, and guessing how many people who were there to claim our tax dollars were annoyed by pictures of our President and Vice President.

Staying Abreast of the News

In a perfect world, this would be the cast of "The View."

Owing to the fact that Stilton's Place is a "woke" site (at least, after a couple of cups of black coffee in the morning), we like to occasionally showcase the opinions of those who self-identify as women without much clothing. Clothing, of course, being one of the worst exemplars of easily spotted income inequality.

Which is why we asked the ladies above what kind of investigation they'd like to see now that Attorney General William Barr has hired US attorney John Durham to look into possible (ha!) corruption and illegal actions associated with the specious multi-agency "Russian investigation" of President Donald Trump.

Durham is said to be tough, fair, and non-ideological...and a guy who believes in the rule of law. Which could translate into a lot of fun for those of us who've been waiting (seemingly forever) to see some of the smug, lying SOB's on the Left forced to testify under oath and, oh yeah, get long prison sentences.

We can already see friction being generated between some of the major players (including former FBI-director James Comey, former CIA director John Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper) who all seem increasingly likely to turn on one another. Which isn't surprising considering that charges are likely to range from gross malfeasance to treason.

In any event, like the strong, independent women pictured above, we look forward to seeing the investigation proceed with considerable vigor and full revelation. Or at least as much revelation as our panelists are displaying.

The M-Word

FROM THE VAULT: THE M-WORD

We're giving ourself Mother's Day off, but rather than leave you with an empty plate (which NO good mother would do!) we're dishing up a little fun from a few years ago. Check it out - then stay for today's special Happy Birthday salute!

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Rather than dwell on the unpleasantness of current news, Hope n' Change would like to take this opportunity to reflect on Mother's Day (the most sacred of all Hallmark holidays). And who better exemplifies all things maternal than Hillary Clinton?

Sure, she once denigrated women who do things like staying home and baking cookies for their families. And she humiliated her young daughter during the White House years by dragging her around as a prop to pose with her cheating, DNA-spewing dog of a husband. And she underpays her female staffers who may themselves be moms.

But Hillary has a soft, sentimental motherly side, too!

Although you'll just have to take her word for it since - by her own proud declaration - she decided to erase every email and computer document related to her daughter's wedding, the birth of her first grandchild, and her own mother's final months of life and memorial service.

Come to think of it, Hillary doesn't exemplify anything good about Mother's Day. But maybe our current first lady does...

Then again, maybe not.

Still, Hope n' Change thinks the world of most mothers and wishes them all the best this Sunday.  And while their love and lessons last forever, sadly, our mothers themselves are here for all too short a time. Be sure to hug 'em if you got 'em.

BONUS (May 13, 2019): HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JIM HLAVAC!

Jim Hlavac has been appearing in the comments section since back in the Hope n' Change days, always with interesting and provocative viewpoints. He is an artist, a musical composer, a writer of multiple books, and among his long list of accomplishments is remaking Louisiana (years ago) by single-handedly introducing various kinds of Cajun foods and spices to the rest of the barely civilized world.

That's only scratching the surface of his many and varied careers, so we hope you'll join us in wishing Mr. Hlavac a very Happy Birthday!

Chain Mail

Let's get this out of the way up front: today's post is about venting and being pissed off. There won't be anything particularly valuable to learn, and whatever occasional laughs may occur will be the kind that you wouldn't want to hear in the dark. Think Joaquin Phoenix's upcoming version of "The Joker."

We already weren't having a great day. There was a regularly scheduled doctor's check-up, and at a certain age such check-ups are really about determining whether you're dying quickly or slowly (still slowly in our own case). The conversations go like this:

Patient: I have this symptom.
Doctor: We can't do much about that but it probably won't kill you.
Patient: I also have this symptom.
Doctor: We can't do much about that but it probably won't kill you.
Patient: I also have this symptom.
Doctor: (Long, thoughtful pause) You should see a specialist.

We spoke to the doctor about our year-long affliction with Stilton's Palsy (spastic shaking and jerking at night, and occasionally during the day when encountering stress) and mutually determined that medical options are pretty much at an end, so it will just be an embarrassingly kinetic part of our existence from now on, and a good reason to stay out of expensive china stores. But that's not what pissed us off.

Listening to the news on the way home from the medical visit, we heard all the stories in which Democrats are now claiming that the country is in a "Constitutional Crisis" because Attorney General Barr has been declared to be in "contempt of congress" for not breaking federal law when they ordered him to. Seriously, Barr has already released every iota of the stupid Mueller report which the law (created by Congress) allows, but the Dems and their media fluffers are screaming "high crimes and misdemeanors!" Which, and we can't emphasize this strongly enough, is no reason to line them all up against a wall without benefit of a fair, if exceedingly brief, trial. But that's not what pissed us off today, either.

No, the final straw was delivered by the US Mail (a subsidiary of Amazon.com) - a letter from the IRS explaining that we were invited to be guest of honor at a massive ass-raping.

Had we underpaid our taxes? Nope - not by a penny! Had we ignored our taxes entirely like Al Sharpton and countless others who run up millions in tax debt with no one giving a good goddamn? Nope - we'd never missed a payment. But apparently we had run afoul of (warning: cover the children's ears, and STOP READING NOW if you have a heart condition!) the infamous 5500 form.

What's that? You never heard of the 5500 form? Well that's because the IRS does their best to keep anyone from hearing about it. Essentially, the 5500 form is for schmucks like us who have created our own retirement plans to avoid leeching off the taxpayers (as well as not trusting the government to be able to pay back all the money we've paid into Social Security).

Once a year, we have to fill out the 5500 form to show how much money was in our retirement account at the beginning of the year, and at the end of the year. That's it. A basic information form. Simple, right?

Of course, you don't file it with your regular taxes - because THAT would be too easy to remember. No, you file it "no later than the last day of the seventh month following the end of your selected fiscal year." And does the IRS send you the 5500 form to fill out? No, they do not - nor do they send a reminder. So do you print out the 5500 form online and send it? Don't be stupid! You can print it out, but it won't be accepted unless it's been printed on official IRS magic paper™which requires you to contact the IRS by phone and, after an interminable wait, request that they send you the form to fill out. And until recently, you also had to request a separate form that goes in the same envelope as the form 5500 and says, with God as our witness, that "the other piece of paper in this envelope is a form 5500."

Okay, got it? Well, there was some personal turmoil going on in our life around the last day of the seventh month following the end of our personally selected fiscal year and we apparently forgot to send the form in. As tax time (early 2018) approached, we couldn't find proof that we'd mailed in the 2017 5500 form the previous July, so got a blank form, filled it out in about 60 seconds, and sent it in.

The IRS, appreciative of this non-Sharpton-like behavior, then sent us a letter today saying that the fine for being late in sending this purely informational form will be $5,300.

Again, that's not for missing any tax payments, engaging in fraud, or hiding anything. It's basically $1000 a month for the boring nearly-secret form being a bit late.

That fine is actually more than our entire earned income from last year, which the IRS presumably effing knows. So we are unamused. And by unamused, we mean spraying streams of blood from our eyes like a horned toad on a meth binge.

We'll try to appeal, of course, encouraged by the sense of empathy, compassion, and fair play for which the IRS is famous (our caseworker is someone named Lois Lerner) and if we have to pay up, well, we'll just do our level best to milk the government for every cent we can pull out of them via benefit programs. 

Not that this will necessarily be easy. Next week, the Jarlsbergs are scheduled to meet with Social Security following Mrs. J's application for benefits. Apparently she's been flagged as a possible fraud, and further interrogation will be required. No doubt by Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Adam Schiff, and Jerry "Tweedledee" Nadler.

And the horses they rode in on.

With that IRS fine, we could have bought 331 jugs of this. 

Mystic Con

Since the news already makes us feel like we're living in The Twilight Zone, we're turning over today's commentary to The Mystic Seer, who made a notable appearance on Rod Serling's show in which the demonic machine predicted (or perhaps caused) future events in return for a penny - dispensing small cards with the often cryptic answers to increasingly disturbing yes-or-no questions.

That's credibility enough for us! So after getting change for a bright, shiny dime, here are the ten questions we asked The Mystic Seer...

Q: Is Biden's 32 point lead over Bernie Sanders accurate?
Mystic Seer: I fail to give a damn, but thanks for the penny.

Q: Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez really not know what a garbage disposal is?
Mystic Seer: The answer is unclear. Try telling her it's a fingernail clipper.

Q: Mayor Pete Buttigieg says America was never great. Is he right?
Mystic Seer: One sees little with his head up his ass. Or anyone else's.

Q: 57% of Democrats believe Trump is guilty of treason. Can their minds be changed?
Mystic Seer: You can't change what doesn't exist.

Q: Is Iran behind the recent rocket attacks on Israel?
Mystic Seer: Was a giant pallet of cash and free rein on nuclear weapons' development bad U.S. policy?

Q: Will we ever hear from Stormy Daniels again?
Mystic Seer: Perhaps in a dark alley.

Q: What will be the prison nickname for James Comey?
Mystic Seer: That's not a yes-or-no question, but his nickname will rhyme with "Gummi."

Q: If you know all the answers, could you beat James Holzhauer on "Jeopardy?"
Mystic Seer: Yes, like a red-headed stepchild.

Q: Will Donald Trump ever be successfully impeached?
Mystic Seer: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! No.

Q: Have you seen "Avengers: Endgame" yet?
Mystic Seer: I again fail to give a damn, but thanks for your last penny.

And as always, the Mystic Seer was right! Also, in case it wasn't already screamingly obvious, there was nothing in the news we wanted to talk about today but we just can't stand presenting you with a blank page and a shrug of the shoulders. So feel free to jumpstart some scintillating conversation in the comments. Favorite Twilight Zone episodes, anyone...?

This one still scares the living crap out of us. Really.