Satire is no match for a mad king and his minions

Posted on October 6, 2025 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit and I were debating the usefulness of satire in a country whose democratic traditions are being subverted by authoritarian forces. Will poking fun at those forces help? Can satirists wake sane Americans to the fact that the norms they took for granted – rule of law, free speech, free and fair elections, peaceful transfer of power, etc. – are being flushed away by a deranged president and his fanatically loyal underlings?

Swamp Rabbit rolled his bloodshot eyes. “What you mean by waking and poking fun? Fascists got no sense of humor. They don’t take kindly to being poked.”

“I’m talking about waking the public, not the fascists,” I said. “Satire only works if it’s caustic and ridiculous enough to spark a backlash against the powers that be. It has to be absurd but fundamentally true. It doesn’t just poke, it punctures. I’m working on a good satire right now.”

I told him I was writing a skit that opens with a secretary of defense – secretary of war, he calls himself – telling hundreds of generals and admirals at a military base that they’d better get with the program. No more “beardos” or queers. No “fat generals or admirals.” No more foreign wars, just wars against American cities. The secretary tries to talk tough like George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove — a great satire — but he seems to be nothing more than a pompous blowhard in a sharp suit. Then the draft-dodging president appears – his nickname is Bone Spurs – and promises to bring back battleships and use American cities as “training grounds” for the military. Afterwards the generals and admirals file out and one of them says, “I can’t believe I had to travel six thousand miles to hear that bullshit.”

At first Swamp Rabbit didn’t critique my skit idea. “I know it sounds farfetched,” I said, “but do you think it might get people fired up enough to start a backlash?”

He frowned and opened a cold beer. “The peeps will think it sounds like that skit about Pete Hegseth on Saturday Night Live last week. It didn’t fire them up. They laughed a little and then they went to sleep.”

I must have looked disappointed. He said, “Face it, Odd Man. Satire ain’t worth shit these days. Reality will upstage it every time.”

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An escalator is [not] just an escalator

Posted on September 25, 2025 by oddmanout215

Donald and Melania Trump were standing on the “up” escalator, which had stopped moving as soon as they stepped on to it. Pretty funny, but Trump wasn’t laughing.

“He’s one of them sociopaths,” said my neighbor Swamp Rabbit as we watched the video. “He don’t laugh at nothing except when somebody he don’t like breaks their neck or something.”

The escalator malfunction was at the United Nations, not long before Trump started to make a Hitlerian speech and found his teleprompter wasn’t working. Later, predictably, he insisted the escalator and teleprompter failed because of “sabotage” and ordered an “immediate investigation.”

“This was symbolism, not sabotage,” I said. “The gods are trying to tell Trump he’s just an evil clown who won power because Americans were too angry and confused to understand that electing him for a second time might be the kiss of death for the American experiment.”

Swamp Rabbit shook his head and reached for his beer. “Okay, but what you mean by symbolism? Sometimes an escalator is just an escalator.”

I sighed. “An escalator is a symbol. Remember when Trump rode the escalator at Trump Tower with Melania ten years ago? It was the gods signaling that the time was right for him to become a major threat to civilization. But this time the gods used an escalator to tell him he’s an irredeemable jackass, the world has had enough. The escalators are like bookends.”

Swamp Rabbit scowled. “You must have been one of them English majors. Symbols don’t mean nothing. What you’re saying is just wishful thinking.”

“You’re probably right,” I replied. “But it doesn’t hurt to make a wish.”

Footnote: The escalator and teleprompter malfunctions turned out the be the fault of Trump’s lackeys. Predictably.

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Kimmel is returning, but on how many stations?

Posted on September 23, 2025 by oddmanout215

So Disney boss Bob Iger gave in to public opinion. He caved. He apparently told ABC to put comedian Jimmy Kimmel back on TV a few days after he axed him for speaking his mind about the Charlie Kirk murder. Even though Brendan Carr, Donald Trump’s FCC lapdog, threatened to take action against Disney and the other corporate entities if they didn’t muzzle Kimmel.

“I guess you mean Sinclair and Nexstar and them other corporates that own most of the stations that air Kimmel’s show,” my neighbor Swamp Rabbit said. “I never even heard of them before this. Can Disney really make them put Kimmel back on the air?”

l shrugged. All I know is what I wrote last time — a very small group of weasels are in charge of the big decisions regarding what us commoners can view or read in mainstream media, and they care about money, not free speech.

One thing’s for sure: Disney is an octopus with tentacles everywhere. Money was on Iger’s mind when he reconsidered axing Kimmel. He must have realized that the backlash from celebrities and the general public was hurting Disney’s bottom line worse than defying Carr would.

But the Trump-loving weasels at Sinclair are saying they still intend to keep Kimmel off their stations, probably because they think most of their viewers are Trumpers and won’t object. And what about Nexstar? It needs an OK from the FCC before it can go ahead with a merger that would make it the king of TV station owners. Is Nexstar counting on Iger to smooth things over with Carr? Meanwhile, an even bigger problem with the FCC looms for the Disney octopus, this one involving ESPN, one of its main tentacles.

Another thing that’s for sure: We’re not likely to learn the inside story about any of these attempted power grabs from Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post or other corporate media entities.

Swamp Rabbit zipped open a beer and said he’s decided to stop being pissed off. “Ain’t none of us can do a damn thing about them weasels, we’re out of the loop. Might as well just watch TV all the time.”

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Corporate ‘quislings’ are glad Kimmel got axed

Posted on September 19, 2025 by oddmanout215

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit was in a fighting mood after hearing that Jimmy Kimmel had been booted off late-night TV. It seems Donald Trump and his MAGA goons are using the murder of rightwing influencer Charlie Kirk to silence their critics and advance Trump’s authoritarian agenda.

“I ain’t surprised,” Swamp Rabbit said, “but what’s pissing me off is them weasels that run the media. They’re firing peeps left and right. They’re falling all over each other to kiss Trump’s ass.”

No surprise there either, I told him. “The “quislings of corporate media” — Andy Borowitz’s phrase — have been showcasing their cowardice and greed since before Trump’s second term began. This time a media company called Nexstar, which owns more than 200 TV stations around the country, wants to gobble up a rival company in a $6.2 billion deal that would make Nexstar the largest provider of local TV in the country.

But there’s a catch: The merger won’t happen unless it’s approved by the FCC, which is supposed to be independent but actually answers to our criminal president.

Swamp Rabbit tugged his feeble goatee. “So what do you call this — bribery? Extortion?”

“Call it what you want. I call it fascism.”

I spelled it out for him: ABC-TV — owned by the Disney Company, more weasels — carries Kimmel’s show and Nexstar owns 32 ABC stations. Pressured by Nexstar and anticipating the wrath of FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, Disney/ABC axed Kimmel.

“Okay, I get it. The Kirk thing was just an excuse. Kimmel got pretty much the same treatment as Stephen Colbert got from CBS.”

Bottom line: Corporate media execs will be quick to censor programming in the wake of Trump’s assertion that the FCC should consider revoking the licenses of TV broadcasters that “give him too much bad publicity.”

This calls to mind historian Timothy Snyder’s prophetic warning — “Do not obey in advance” — issued last year after the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post killed its endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. His point being that compliant media make it much easier for demagogues like Trump to take power.

Swamp Rabbit reached for his whisky bottle. “You’re pulling me too far into the weeds, Odd Man. I still don’t know anything about them corporate weasels that own everything. Not even their names.”

“We’re not supposed to know,” I said. “How do you think they got to own everything?”

Footnote: Here are the words that got Jimmy Kimmel “suspended indefinitely“: “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”

Not exactly incendiary, are they? What used to be called free speech might cost you a lot these days.

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Obama belatedly sees the light

Posted on September 16, 2025 by oddmanout215

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit and I were discussing Barack Obama. We miss his charm, eloquence, intelligence and so on, but we can’t forget how badly he seemed to misjudge the changing mood of the country in 2004 when he declared that “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.”

A lofty pronouncement that proved to be dead wrong. There are two Americas now, just like there were in the 1850s. Which is why Obama recently endorsed a Democratic plan to redraw congressional districts in California, a move meant to counter Republican redistricting in Texas. He has decided to help Democrats fight back after belatedly realizing that Trump and his henchmen are trying to eliminate democracy in America.

Swamp Rabbit said Obama would have been come closer to the mark in 2004 if he’d quoted from the speech Arthur Jensen gave to Howard Beale in Network (1976):

There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

“Don’t be such a cynic,” I said. “Obama was already gearing up to run for president in 2008, so he had to say something grand. He had to preach unity.”

Swamp Rabbit groaned. “Yeah, but look what happened after he got elected, after the economy under George W. Bush blew up. He used taxpayer money to bail out the Wall Street crooks while ten million peeps were losing their houses. Without knowing, he helped the MAGA disease get started.”

I said that’s not fair, the 2008 financial crisis wasn’t Obama’s fault and he later did some good things, including the Affordable Care Act that Republicans are dismantling.

But Swamp Rabbit was adamant. “He got dazzled by Summers and Geithner and them other advisers who were friends of the crooks. He blew the Democrats’ last chance to win over the peeps who are too nasty and ignorant to care about protecting their own rights.”

He added, “Trump is a low-life Arthur Jensen. He don’t care about America. His whole life he spent being a greedy fraud. He don’t answer to nobody except billionaires, and even the billionaires know better than to cross him now that he owns the gov’mint.”

I told him to get over it, the Democrats have to focus on winning back the Senate and House in the midterms. Obama was naive or worse, but it’s good that he finally seems to understand how close the would-be dictator is to crossing the goal line.

My swampy friend laughed. “Where you been, Odd Man? He’s already standing in the end zone.”

Footnote: “The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.” — Edward R. Murrow.

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No winds of change in MAGA country

Posted on August 29, 2025 by oddmanout215

I shared with my neighbor Swamp Rabbit the news that Donald Trump’s lackeys had halted construction of a nearly completed $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. Inquiring minds want to know: Why is Trump so hot to prop up fossil fuel peddlers instead of helping the country transition to cleaner energy?

“He’s giving his people what they want,” Swamp Rabbit said. “The MAGATs, that is. They want to burn fossil fuels.”

Swamp Rabbit was still angry about Jersey Shore residents — right-wingers, mostly — who supported the Trump administration’s successful effort to discourage installation of offshore wind turbines that could power hundreds of thousands of homes. They complained that turbines would spoil their view of the horizon.

“And that wind turbines kill whales,” I said. “It’s hard to tell how many of them are stupid enough to really believe that lie, but they ran with it. They told their pro-wind governor to f#%* off.”

Swamp Rabbit ruminated for a minute. “Maybe we’re too angry,” he said. “Even them MAGAts must know by now that fossil fuels are fouling up the air and water and making the climate go crazy. Maybe they could talk sense to their boss man.”

I scowled at him and kicked one of his empty beer cans. “Talk sense? This guy is a convicted rapist who sucks up to dictators. He tried to pull off a coup d’etat, was impeached twice, betrayed our closest allies and took steps to convert the White House into another Mar-a-logo, except even more tacky.”

I told him the MAGAts have even less sense than their grifter-in-chief, otherwise they wouldn’t have elected him. They might not know that Trump’s hatred of wind turbines (he called them “stupid and ugly windmills”) dates to when authorities refused to take down turbines that obstructed the view at his golf course in Scotland. But they know he behaves like a 12-year-old bully in an old man’s body, and they love him for it.

It’s worth noting that MAGAts at the Jersey Shore were strongly encouraged to drink the Kool-Ade by fossil fuel influencers and Republican stooges like Congressman Jeff Van Drew, a former wind power advocate — he was co-chair of the offshore wind caucus in Congress — who became a rabid foe of offshore wind farms around the same time he started bowing to Trump.

Swamp Rabbit paused to ruminate again. “I bet them seashore MAGAts are gonna regret being so close-minded later on when their electricity rates go through the roof and they ain’t got renewable energy to fall back on.”

“MAGAts always follow Trump’s lead,” I replied. “When the shit hits the fan, they blame the libs.”

Footnote: The war between offshore wind advocates and dirty-fuel fans keeps heating up. This week a high-powered right-wing law firm pressured Brown University to “retract research that details links between the fossil fuel industry and anti-wind groups.” The firm represents Green Oceans, a group that’s trying to kill the Rhode Island project mentioned above. Researchers at Brown have called Green Oceans part of “a fossil-fuel-funded disinformation network.”

“I don’t know, maybe the Brownies got it all wrong,” Swamp Rabbit joked. “Maybe them MAGAts just want to save the whales.”

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Let’s update the Declaration (if there’s still time)

Posted on July 7, 2025 by oddmanout215

I was telling Swamp Rabbit that I like to focus on the humor in news stories whenever possible, and this is why I haven’t posted lately. The news these days is about deportation of American citizens, more tax cuts for billionaires at the expense of the poor, abandonment of support for renewable energy options, elimination of USAID, and a host of other cruelties, all imposed on us by the crime boss in the White House and his Republican lackeys. What’s happening to this country is no joke.

“You’re wrong,” Swamp Rabbit said. “We just celebrated the Declaration of Independence at the same time that monster was tearing down everything the Declaration stands for. That’s a cosmic joke, Odd Man.”

But my swampy friend remains optimistic. He told me to lighten up and buy some hot dog rolls. If I need a morale boost, I should check out Andy Borowitz’s 4th of July post:

A New Declaration of Independence from Tyranny

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to break from a leader who governs with cruelty, contempt, and corruption, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed with inherent dignity and unalienable rights—among these are life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of justice.

That to secure these rights, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When a leader becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right and duty of the people to refuse allegiance and to stand united in the defense of their freedoms.

The current holder of high office has shown himself to be unfit to lead a free and just society.

— He disrespects women, mocking survivors of violence and stripping away their rights.

— He fuels racism and white supremacy, scapegoating communities of color and denying their equality.

— He assaults free speech, attacking the press, punishing dissent, and spreading disinformation.

— He exploits public office for private gain, enriching himself and the billionaire class while abandoning the poor and working people.

— He undermines justice, ignores the rule of law, and places himself above accountability.

— He disregards science, endangering lives in times of crisis and sacrificing the planet for profit.

— He fans division and incites violence to maintain power, wielding fear as a weapon against the people.

Time and again, we have protested peacefully, spoken truthfully, and appealed to our shared humanity. We have been met with indifference, hostility, and violence. A leader who governs through hatred and greed is unfit to govern at all.

Therefore, we, the people of conscience and conviction, do solemnly declare our independence from this tyrant and all he represents.

We withdraw our consent.

We refuse to be complicit in cruelty.

We reject the abuse of power for personal gain.

We stand for dignity, truth, equality, and justice for all people.

With firm reliance on each other and unwavering hope in our collective strength, we pledge to resist oppression in all its forms, to uphold the rights of the vulnerable, and to build a future grounded in compassion, courage, and shared humanity.

Let this declaration be both a breaking and a beginning.

“That’s pretty good,” I said, “but who do we unite behind? If this were 1776, most of the Dems in Congress would bow to King George.”

“Don’t be a cynic,” he replied. “Them midterm elections might change things for the good.”

“Maybe, but I think things will get worse until we come up with a new Constitution to go with the new Declaration. The old Constitution let us down big time. All it took was the election of a convicted felon named Donald Trump to reveal all the loopholes in it.”

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Snarky Bill Maher can’t take a joke

Posted on April 28, 2025 by oddmanout215

Bill Maher can dish it out, but he can’t take it. The aging king of snark is still whining about “My Dinner with Adolph,” a satiric op-ed by Larry David that indirectly mocked Maher for dining with Donald Trump and then announcing what a swell guy he is — “gracious” and “much more self-aware than he lets on.” The piece, which appeared in The New York Times last week, has a first-person narrator whose comments about Hitler echo Maher’s kind words for Trump:

Suddenly he seemed so human. Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I’d seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning.

Maher has criticized Trump in the past. He fancies himself a hard-boiled cynic, but one free dinner from our criminal president turned him into a wide-eyed sycophant. He’s thin-skinned, too. Instead of giving David credit for writing a funny send-up, he said the piece was “not completely logically fair” and “kind of insulting to 6 million dead Jews.” And finally, “There’s got to be a better way than hurling insults and not talking to people.”

“That’s called special pleading,” I said to my neighbor Swamp Rabbit. “Maher has made a career of insulting people who disagree with his opinions about religion, world affairs and cultural issues. He calls himself a liberal, but he loves using the word ‘woke’ to put down anyone who strikes him as left of center.”

“He thinks he’s hip on account of he smokes pot and ain’t never been married,” Swamp Rabbit said. “What’s that about?”

“It’s about his level of self-awareness being less than zero,” I replied. “That’s why he got along so well with Trump.”

Footnote: You can’t be too cautious these days. As Keith Olbermann recently noted, Maher is “a shameless opportunist with no real principles” who might be treading carefully “so he can keep his HBO show.”

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An eco-friendly pope who spoke plainly (no blabbering)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by oddmanout215

The record will show that Pope Francis, who died at age 88 on the day before Earth Day, was as committed to saving the natural world as he was to saving souls. This is what he tweeted on last year’s Earth Day:

Our generation has bequeathed many riches, but we have failed to protect the planet and we are not safeguarding peace. We are called to become artisans and caretakers of our common home, the Earth which is falling into ruin.

The first pope from the Americas had a low tolerance for heads of state who blabber a lot but fail to take measures that could prevent or at least slow down further pollution of the planet. He lived frugally, rejecting the opulent lifestyle that has long been associated with those at the top of the Catholic hierarchy. I wasn’t a fan at first, but he proved to be a Christian who was also a humanist.

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit was on the porch of his swamp house, listening to me read from Francis’s obit. “What are you, one of them papists?” he joked. “They’re always hatching a plot to bring down our gov’mint and take over the world.”

“You’re thinking of that criminal in the White House,” I said. “Francis was the opposite. He wants us to clean up the air and treat the animals fair, like Captain Beefheart advised. And he wants you to do your part, Swamp Rabbit.”

He sipped beer and frowned. “You’re a kook. Ain’t no way I can help fix the planet at this point.”

“Sure you can,” I said, pointing to his front lawn. “Start by picking up all those empty beer cans. Pope Francis will bless you from beyond.”

Footnote: It’s not bloody likely, but let’s hope the next pope will pick up the empties and address the concerns raised by the eloquently plain-spoken Francis in his influential 2015 encyclical:

There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected… Consequently, the most one can expect is superficial rhetoric, sporadic acts of philanthropy and perfunctory expressions of concern for the environment, whereas any genuine attempt by groups within society to introduce change is viewed as a nuisance based on romantic illusions or an obstacle to be circumvented.

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What’s that distant crashing sound?

Posted on April 18, 2025 by oddmanout215

From Washington Post:

President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff-driven reversal of decades of free trade is creating financial chaos for the very sector it’s meant to rebuild: American manufacturing.

Although the full extent of economic damage is still unclear, volatile tariff policies are making it tougher for American companies to make and sell goods, whether they’re producing medical devices in Florida, toys in Ohio or bicycles in California.

Inquiring minds wanted to know: Is Trump up to the challenge of wrecking the economy during the first hundred days of his second term as president?

Of course he is. The stable genius who went bankrupt six times as a businessman has reached a new level of incompetence by starting a trade war to “make America great again” and punish the rest of the world for “ripping us off.”

I read the latest tariff news and said, “Who could have predicted such a mess? What do you think, Swamp Rabbit?”

My swampy friend reminded me that almost every forecaster who isn’t a Trump lackey tried to warn Trump away from imposing new tariffs, which are crucial to his doomed effort to boost domestic manufacturing and re-establish the mid-20th century American economy. Our vindictive little Caesar ignored them; he was determined to hurt countries with which we have a trade deficit — not only China but also our long-time allies — even though they were sure to impose tariffs that would hurt us almost as badly.

The tariffs on our allies go up and down, according to Trump’s whims. Consumers are making panicky moves to stay ahead of market fluctuations that are triggering renewed inflation. Swamp Rabbit was at the liquor store yesterday stocking up on Jameson’s Irish whiskey. His probation officer, Victor Cortez, was at the local beer distributor loading his truck with cases of his favorite, Canadian-made Moosehead.

“Yes, but how much long-term damage can Trump do?” I said.

Swamp Rabbit poured himself a shot and said, “Them economists are saying chances of a recession in the next year are almost 50-50 and getting worse, thanks to the tariffs fiasco. And there’s always the chance that Trump will do something so dumb it will cause a total market meltdown. Think Black Friday, 1929.”

“Oh no!” I said. “Financial experts like you will be diving from the fourteenth floor.”

“I live in a one-story shack, remember? I’ll have to think of another way out.”

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