2020: The Year In Rebuke - Part One

Every new year is a fresh beginning filled with hope, promise, and the ominous theme from "JAWS" playing in the background. At least, such was the case with 2020, which arrived in the form of a seemingly innocent New Year's Baby who just happened to bring along fava beans and a nice chianti.

Not that the year was entirely bad, of course. We would be remiss if we didn't note that a lot of really, really great things happened too. Unfortunately, they only happened for the usual cheats, liars, and bastards who stop at nothing and get away with everything. 

And it all started in...

JANUARY

With the 2020 election already on everyone's minds, primary candidate Joe Biden made a "No Malarkey and Damn Little Poppycock" campaign speech in which he told miners that getting new employment under the Biden administration would be easy-peasy if they just learn to write computer code.

"Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well," Biden enthused. "Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God's sake!"

And any damn fool can run for president, right Joe? It's not like the job takes courage and initiative...

 

Or maybe it does! President Trump authorized a drone strike on Iran's Major General Qasem "Smithereens" Soleimani as a reminder to the terrorist regime that he's not really a "pallet of cash in the middle of the night" kind of guy. Unlike...

Really, John? We're all ears.

Appearing on a CNN interview, John "Swift Boat" Kerry again repeated the preposterous claim that during the Obama/Biden administration, there wasn't so much as "a whiff of scandal." Which is true in the sense that a massive cloud of stench can't really be called a "whiff."

But Kerry's "no whiff of scandal" claim wasn't the only thing stinking in the news...

Despite this egregious reminder that celebrities are, as a rule, stupid and annoying, primary presidential candidates still scrambled to get endorsements from the Hollywood elite...

As the old political idiom says, "As goes Danny Devito, so goes Rhea Perlman." At least, this was the hope of candidate Bernie Sanders who apparently considered the munchkin vote to be an important step toward the White House. 

And speaking of steps (and quite possibly goose-stepping), we saw a carefully choreographed display of them when House democrats staged a parade...

Their preposterous march to the Senate to deliver articles of impeachment against President Trump reminded us of the Wicked Witch of the West's guards, the Winkies, strutting about while intoning: "Yo-ee-oh, Yo-ee-oh, Yo-ee-oh, Ee-Ohhhh-ya!"  Not that the idiocy started with their pinheaded procession...

And so the stage was set for President Trump's totally non-partisan impeachment procedings...

Mitch McConnell officially set the rules for the Trump impeachment trial to be fast, efficient, and - particularly dismaying to those on the Left - with a verdict coming at the end of the proceedings rather than the beginning. Still, the Democrats promised to press forward, refusing to let anything distract them from their single-minded focus on persecuting Trump. Which is a pity, since some important things were brewing...

Pretty much everyone (other than certain insightful bloggers) poo-pooed the importance of a fast-mutating coronavirus from China which was thought to have originated in bats, after which it was passed to snakes, where it transformed into a new form which can affect humans and be passed by coughing, sneezing, or a simple House majority. No, wait - scratch that last one. We're getting our plagues mixed up. And speaking of mixed up...

Still, the Left kept their laser-like focus on impeachment, despite having produced no evidence of wrongdoing during their hearings. Not that evidence would have affected their votes...

And so the stage was set for a final showdown in...

FEBRUARY

The month got off to a flying start with a disastrous Democratic caucus snafu in Iowa which failed to give any intelligible results. Meanwhile, the impeachment circus was wrapping up with Adam "Popeye" Schiff claiming that if Trump were not found guilty and removed from office, he could give Alaska to Vladimir Putin in return for election interference in November. No, really.

And all of that was deemed way more important than the danger of the new Coronavirus coming to our shores, although a few prescient souls started stockpiling Purell and Clan MacGregor scotch, which can be used interchangeably.  Advice that might have been handy for Nancy Pelosi to know when Trump's impeachment vote was final...

Still, Nancy is nothing if not a good loser. So she certainly didn't sit behind President Trump during his State of the Union address and make faces, roll cud around in her mouth, and finish the evening by ripping a printed copy of the speech to pieces while on camera. Oh wait - we mean that's exactly what she did...

But despite this setback to the Democrats, a bevy of primary candidates still pressed forward with their campaigns. Some ran on the "Green New Deal," while Joe Biden's campaign remained gaffe-powered...

Yes, he really said that

Following disastrous showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, Joe Biden's political survival hung on getting a big win in his so-called "firewall" state, South Carolina, with the help of black voters. Unfortunately, Joe had a long record of casually racist remarks, like describing (with wonder) Obama in 2007 as being "articulate, bright, and clean." Or his telling an audience of black mayors that a key educational problem in their communities is that black parents "can't read or write themselves." A gaffe that Biden bounced back from, in his own mind, by proclaiming that "poor kids are as bright as white kids."

Despite this, the Democratic primary debates showed that Biden had one thing going for him...

Showing a unified front, the Democratic candidates unanimously ran on hating Donald Trump and having no freaking clue about confronting any other challenges. Or even acknowledging that such existed...

Unlike politicians and the (ahem) "news" media, Stilton's Place was saying things like, "It's a virtual certainty at this point that the virus cannot be contained, and it will be coming to your community." We were also warning about airborne transmission, asymptomatic spread, and the importance of wearing masks and social distancing. 

We were not, however, talking about drugs yet. Unlike Bernie Sanders... 

During a wildly out of control Democratic debate, then-frontrunner Bernie Sanders proclaimed that "we're going to provide help to the African-American, Latino, and Native American community to start businesses to sell legal marijuana." Because, in Bernie's view, what the hell else are "those people" qualified to do? It's not like they can aspire to be doctors, electricians, lawyers, plumbers, teachers, computer programmers, or senators - right?

With brilliant campaigning like that, it's not surprising that the primary race really started getting tight (so to speak) in...

MARCH

Low-ranking candidates started jumping ship following Joe Biden's massive (and first in his lifetime) primary win in South Carolina, where he captured the all-important black vote by repeatedly pointing out that, unlike Bernie Sanders, he was not a Jew.

Even bushel baskets of money couldn't keep competing candidates afloat...

Nor could Elizabeth Warren's "heap big medicine" do the job...

And remember that theme from "JAWS" we mentioned earlier? Those ominous bass notes kept getting louder and louder...

Believing (and announcing) that Covid-19 was growing exponentially, we divided our time between political analysis and dashing from store to store to make ready to hunker down. Disturbingly, in many stores the shelves had already been completely cleared of hunker. Not that it was anything to worry about according to Democrats on the campaign trail...

Then suddenly, just like magic, everyone finally realized that the Covid-19 pandemic was a real thing which should be taken seriously. Well, mostly seriously...

America shut down, the stock market crashed, toilet paper went the way of the Dodo, and Joe Biden decided to do the rest of his campaigning from a basement...

----------

Join us here soon (maybe even tomorrow, but no promises) for 2020: Part Two!

Season's Grievings

Giving America a sneak preview of the upbeat, optimistic approach he intends to bring to the White House, Joe Biden recently gave a holiday address in which he said "Our darkest days in the battle against Covid are ahead of us."

Considering that President Trump has already gotten multiple vaccines to market impossibly quickly, and has mobilized logistical teams which are currently delivering inoculations on an unprecedented scale, we can only assume that Joe's pessimism is related to self-awareness that he's about to screw everything up, ably assisted by the charlatans and commies in his administration.

But as grim as 2021 is shaping up to be, at least 2020 won't be here to torture us much longer. Although anything can still happen...

And there's a recorded message warning that the "Shitter's full"

BONUS: KWANZAA HARRIS

Joe Biden wasn't the only one with a holiday message this week. Kamala Harris also posted about how very, very, very important Kwanzaa has always been to her Jamaican/Indian family while she was growing up in Canada...

This would have happened about when she was "that little girl" Joe Biden was trying to keep out of white schools.

Of course, we do appreciate the many sacred traditions associated with Kwanzaa. Like, for instance, revisiting past blog posts about it...

Monday Dec 28, 2015

Your taax dollaars aat work.

As a surefire cure for the post-Christmas blues, if Kwanzaa didn't exist it would have to be invented. Which, come to think of it, it was - back in 1966 by a radical professor of African Studies in (surprise!) California. The 7-day holiday begins on December 26th which, by long tradition, is the day that a lot of candy and gifts are marked down to half-price.

Unlike other year-end holidays, there is no religious or historic significance to Kwanzaa. Rather it is a celebration of African heritage, ethnicity and, judging by the "seven principles," the flagrant overuse of vowels.

While some might feel that a week-long holiday devoted exclusively to race is insensitive and exclusionary, keep in mind that there is precedent in the white community, which celebrates a months-long holiday called "Nascar."

And whatever your complexion, Kwanzaa can be a time of warmth and nostalgia, filled with wonderful holiday traditions and memories. Hearing Bing Crosby sing Nguzo Saba, watching "How the Grinch Stole Odu Ifa," or just settling in with a cup of hot cocoa to watch Jimmy Stewart in the classic "It's a Wonderful Walimwengu."

All of this and more is surely happening right now in Hawaii ("The Least Christmas-y State") as America's first family celebrates the holiday by spending millions of dollars on golf, parties, trips to the beach, golf, dining in 5-star restaurants, golf, shopping, playing "pin the tail on the Secret Service agent," golf, and the solemn traditional lighting of the seven Kwanzaa candles (which, by executive order, can now be replaced with Swisher Sweet cigars in honor of Saint Michael Brown).

Enjoy your holiday, Mr. president! And, from the bottom of our hearts, don't hurry back.

The traditional "Hands up, Don't shoot" candle holder

Merry Christmas 2020

Remember, a picture of Busty Ross is a lot like a Red Ryder BB gun - if you're not careful, you'll put your eye out! 

Merry Christmas to the whole big community/family that is Stilton's Place!