2018 - The Year in Review (Part One)

2018 is nearly done, and few of us will be shedding bitter salt tears over its passing. It was a year which frequently lacked subtlety or rationality - seemingly the new norm in the hyperbolic, neon-colored, Thunderdome world of Donald Trump versus the Lunatic Left.

JANUARY



Donald Trump started the New Year's ball rolling by tweeting that he is "like, very smart and a stable genius," which is pretty much all it took for the Left to declare it prima facie evidence that the man is nuts. An opinion which they didn't change after what may or may not have been the President's questionable choice of words regarding certain third world countries...



In a closed meeting about special immigration protections for some populations, Trump allegedly asked "why do we want people from shithole countries?" Despite the fact that the quote couldn't be verified, Trump was vilified by the Dems as a racist (yawn), while others wondered "why do we want people from shithole countries?"

As it turns out, we'd want them to clean up the rubble in case the world was destroyed during a government shutdown...



Leave it to CNN to turn a boring government shutdown into a possible apocalypse. Which is exactly what they did with their preposterous claim that the "Government Shutdown Risks An Undetected Asteroid Strike."

Not that potential catastrophes were absolutely impossible...



Trump stated that he was willing to be put under oath to answer questions from Special Weasel Robert Mueller regarding Russian collusion, potential obstruction of justice, and the whereabouts of the kidnapped Lindberg baby. Happily, we'd make it to the end of the year without that happening. Meanwhile in...

FEBRUARY



We learned from Democratic operative Donna Brazile, who has miraculously not shot herself multiple times in the back of the head, that in the run-up to the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton literally bought the debt-ridden DNC in order to ensure that she would become the nominee, thus disenfranchising the young Democrat voters who overwhelmingly and enthusiastically supported Bernie "I'll Drop Out for a Lake House" Sanders.

Of course, Hillary wasn't the only politician finding questionable ways of spending money...



Trump caused renewed conniption fits by declaring that the United States would put on a giant, wildly-expensive military parade to show the world our awesome destructive capabilities and our talent for presenting entertaining, highly-choreographed events. Plans for the parade fell by the wayside when the President redirected his laser-like attention to playful squirrels on the White House lawn.

Which allowed the media to direct their attention to the squirrels who had previously occupied the White House...

Laughably awful official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama were unveiled, with art critics swooning over the works solely because they were created by persons of color. Which should have been taken as a considerable insult to the many persons of color who - unlike these hacks - have actual artistic skills. 

And speaking of hacking, in mid-February we finally got an accounting of Russia's actual financial investment in (ahem) corrupting the 2016 election...

Despite the media's claim that Russian election interference was "a worse attack than Pearl Harbor," it turns out that Putin's evil army spent $46,000 on Facebook ads, compared to over $81 million spent on Facebook by Clinton and Trump. In other words, over 99.9% of campaign ads on Facebook weren't originated by Russia, making it pretty darn unlikely that Russia had any influence on the election's outcome whatsoever (and certainly less impact than Facebook's own anti-conservative bias). 

This apparently struck President Trump as good enough news for him to make a happy and hardly unexpected announcement...

Trump announced that he'd be running for President again in 2020. This set a new official record of early declaration for the office, but failed to surpass the unofficial record which was set when baby Hillary spoke her first words. 

Words were also on the mind of another former first lady...

Okay, it wasn't actually going to be a sex manual (apparently some asshole had already used the name "Obama Sutra" on a book), just a standard memoir which sold for an un-standard price: Michelle and Barry split $60 million for their respective book deals. And while their books might not be page-turners, the calendar pages predictably turned to...

MARCH

The world was once again shocked, shocked, by an announcement from Donald Trump...

Trump agreed to meet with North Korea's leader, Kim Jung Un, to discuss the possible denuclearization of the nasty little dictatorship. Hilariously, serial liar and Obama insider (but we repeat ourselves) Susan Rice immediately came forward to suggest that, prior to the meeting, Trump avail himself of the "expertise" which informed the Obama administration's feckless (and fecked up) policy of watching North Korea build increasingly powerful nukes.

Of course, Trump wasn't the only high profile politician working the international scene...

We didn't make up Hillary's wildly offensive statements above. This is what she was spewing in India while promoting her book "What Happened," describing the millions of Americans who voted for Trump as hateful, misogynistic racists who would actually have to improve to be deplorables. 

Not that those on the Left hated those who were actually deplorable...

Aging porn star Stormy "Sperm Bank" Daniels was interviewed on 60 minutes about her nightmarish experience of having consensual sex with a man who gave her a six-figure paycheck to keep her mouth shut, after which she realized, heartbreakingly, that she could likely get seven figures for blabbing. Oddly, the simple act of a whore raising her price made her a feminist hero.

And while on the topic of people who don't take human reproduction seriously enough...

While in Japan, Barack Obama said that he'd like to spend his post-presidency life mastering (or some word that sounds similar) the skills to "create a hundred or a thousand or a million young Barack Obamas," and that this terrifying new race "could take the baton in that relay race that is human progress." Yes, he actually played the relay race card.

But even the notion of a million fetal versions of Barack Obama couldn't quite make us supportive of the ghouls at Planned Parenthood...

Giddy from getting 500 million taxpayer dollars in the "Omnibus Funding Bill," a Pennsylvania branch of Planned Parenthood came up with this bold initiative to make their services more appealing to very young girls who weren't aborted.

And that wasn't the only entertainment related news...



After striking development deals with Barack and Michelle Obama, streaming giant Netflix made Susan "Bald-Faced Liar and Accessory to Murder" Rice a member of their board of directors owing to her "great expertise" with foreign policy. The company would subsequently go on to lose over one third of its stock market value, decimating the retirement portfolio of America's best-loved (and least known) political cartoonist.

Although there would at least be a bit of comic relief coming up in...

APRIL



Actually, we don't need to give any additional explanation to that cartoon, do we? Rather, we should save our wits for trying to decipher other mysteries...



Disgraced former FBI director and serial-leaker James Comey announced a publication date for his tell-all book, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership." The book was a compilation of insights by a man who couldn't find dirt on Hillary, a stunt that even Helen Keller couldn't pull off despite being blind, deaf, and dead.

That's a combination of conditions that the rest of us might envy, considering we still had to put up with nonsense like this in...

MAY



Actually, Michelle, there's a new and immeasurably better First Lady in town. Not that she has ever been shown the proper respect...



Melania Trump was gracious, elegant, and compelling when giving an anti-bullying speech, but Progressives attacked the world traveling, multi-lingual First Lady for having a "funny accent" and not "sounding like an American." This from the same people who have helped flood our nation with so many illegals that we now have to punch buttons on our phones just to continue a conversation in English.

And of course, there had been no such criticism of Hillary "I Always Carry Hot Sauce!" Clinton when she'd previously had a sudden attack of "Amos-and-Andyitis" when addressing a group of African Americans.

But that didn't mean that race was no longer a sensitive subject...

The glasses make all the difference.

Following Roseanne Barr's career-ending tweet, everyone resolved to use much more civil language in...

JUNE



Well, that didn't last long! After all the hoo-haw from the Left about it being totally unacceptable to even jokingly use derisory language to describe a woman, alleged comedian Samantha Bee took to the airwaves to declare that "Ivanka Trump is a feckless cunt." After which, withered miniature actress Sally Field tweeted her disagreement with Ms. Bee because "cunts are powerful, beautiful, nurturing and honest." Making us think that the onetime Flying Nun likely experienced a few too many crash landings without a helmet.

So, too, did our hopes crash when hearing the results of the DOJ Inspector General's report on James Comey...



The report called Comey's actions in Hillary Clinton's alleged investigation "extraordinary and insubordinate," and added that various FBI agents assigned to the case were actively working to "stop Trump," but suggested no charges for anyone involved because, as Comey said of Hillary, no harm was intended.

Which pretty much made it official that America has no instrumentality for acting against a slow motion coups attempt staged by our intelligence agencies.

But that wasn't going to be the month's biggest blow to our nation's actual intelligence...



Dr. Charles Krauthammer died from a recurrence of cancer. An author and Fox News contributor, Krauthammer's wit, wisdom, encyclopedic knowledge, and stunning gifts of insight and analysis were (and are) desperately needed in these chaotic times.

Besides his remarkable academic gifts, Charles Krauthammer could make us laugh, loudly and frequently. And he radiated a strength and positivity about life, despite facing and overcoming enormous personal obstacles. His passing was a huge loss for our country, our culture, and to our lives at a time when actual reason and rationality were in demonstrably short supply...

After Sarah Huckabee Sanders was chased from a restaurant, Mad Maxine Waters joined the throngs of Democrats calling for organized violence against members of the Trump administration. It was Waters' contention that decent people shouldn't be expected to share their community, government, restaurants, or Democrats-only drinking fountains with those she considered sub-humans. A mindset which was once all the rage, literally, in parts of our country.

But fortunately, justice and righteousness got a shot at making a return when Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, giving Donald Trump the opportunity to name a well-qualified potential successor...

Having none of those items, Barry Soetoro didn't get the nod for the job. But little did we know how much grief was about to occur regarding the actual nominee...

Join us Wednesday for 2018: The Year in Review (Part Two)!

BONUS!

Hosting a New Year's party tonight, or need a hostess gift for a party you're attending? Print this picture (click on it for a larger size), put it in a Dollar Store frame, and hang it on the wall (preferably over the bar).

See how many people figure out the New Year's significance of the (wait for it!) old Lang sign...

Week Minded

"It is a truth universally acknowledged," as Jane Austen once said, "that no one gets a damn thing done between Christmas and New Year's." That happens to be our opinion too, and you're seeing the results of it right now. Oh, we TRIED to come up with a fun topical cartoon and witty commentary, but at the moment the interior of our holiday-wracked skull is rather like a conch shell- filled only with the distant sound of breaking waves and a whiff of rotting fish.

Among the stories that couldn't quite get our pulse racing, the mainstream media raked President Trump over the coals for not giving our troops a holiday visit, after which it was revealed that he and the First Lady were visiting troops in a war zone, after which the media congratulated themselves for "shaming" him into it. It was subsequently revealed that the trip had been in the planning stage long before, at which point the mainstream media offered sincere apologies. Just kidding! They simply changed their stories to claim that they'd been complaining about Trump not visiting the troops for months and months, so their claims of shaming him into decency are still applicable. Which is why we think CNN and MSNBC should join forces in a new network called STFU.

The stock market might have made for an interesting post if we, or anyone else, could figure out what the hell it's actually doing. On Christmas Eve, the market took another huge nosedive. The day after Christmas, the market came roaring back with its biggest one day gain ever. The day after that (which is when we're writing this) the market was way down again - assuring that this will officially be the worst December for Wall Street since the Great Depression. Albeit with fewer intestines on the sidewalks. (Note: subsequent to our writing this paragraph, the market crept upward again, more or less making Thursday a "break even" day.)

Meanwhile, the (ahem) "government shutdown" continues with virtually no one actually noticing or caring much. It turns out that the "non-essential" employees of the government are pretty much exactly that, and the non-essential things that they don't do very well at the best of times aren't much missed by the general public.

Democrats, preparing to take over the House of Representatives in January, have announced an ambitious slate of new spending bills (Medicare For All!) and other initiatives (Guns For None!), none of which amounts to actual news, and none of which requires commentary from us beyond opining that the Dems should spend some quality time with a rolling donut.

And so we find ourselves reluctantly surrendering to the ennui of this Twilight Zone-ish "week between." But be of good cheer: Monday will bring our epic annual "year in review" edition of Stilton's Place, followed by another 12 months of fresh idiocy!

Merry Christmas 2018

We're taking the day off to enjoy our family, and won't be posting on Wednesday. Best wishes for a merry and meaningful Christmas to all of you wonderful folks who visit Stilton's Place!