Category Archives: Awful Political Things

March 4, 2013

Right, Like The “President” Doesn’t Know What A “Jedi Mind Trick” Is

By Jeff Vrabel
president spock

As someone who was literally called “Spock” every day of my life from 3rd through 10th grades, this picture is highly gratifying.

GateHouse — Welp, late last week the President went on TV and mixed up a “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” things, and then the Internet died, keeled over, that very second, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Obviously we’re still hashing out whether this was a negative or a positive.

First things first: Here is what Obama said, and I warn you that if you thought his swearing on a fake Muslim Bible in his first inauguration was bad, the following may actually give you appendicitis: In a press conference about something having to do with a 400-year-long slap-fight with a sobbing John Boehner and those angry hobgoblins who work for the government who also hate the government, Obama started talking about science fiction movies, exactly all of which are more likely than a reality in which a theoretically functional government elects to install a land mine in its own front yard, then wakes up one morning and waddles right out on top of it. (That’s right: ALL sci-fi movies. “Lawnmower Man?” MORE LIKELY. “Spaceballs?” CONSIDERABLY MORE LIKELY. “The Running Man?” I’M PRETTY SURE WE HAVE THAT ALREADY.)

Obama, out loud, said the following:

“I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow, you know, do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.”

For those of you who learned to unclasp a girl’s bra before the age of 27, this is a GRIEVOUS AND GHASTLY ERROR, on the order of that time he meant to write “Socialist” on his presidential paperwork and wrote “Democrat” instead, one that CONFUSES the “Star Wars” Jedi mind trick, most famously used by Obi-Wan Kenobi in order to get the galaxy’s most wanted teenager past the desert-planet equivalent of mall security, and the “Star Trek” mind meld, which is when Spock touches your brain and learns your bank passwords.

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12 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

November 4, 2012

How I committed adorable voter fraud in South Carolina, not that it mattered much

By Jeff Vrabel

GateHouse — I think I speak for everyone in this election cycle when I say: I NO LONGER CARE IF YOU WIN, MR. PRESIDENT, JUST STOP EMAILING ME.

OK, so yeah, full disclosure: I’m voting for Obama. I may have already voted for Obama, depending on when this runs in the printy newspaper. Anyone reading this who just went “Yay!” awesome, let’s have a cross-country fist-bump or whatever. Anyone who just went “Boo” at your paper or personal computer machine reading device, take comfort in knowing that I love in South Carolina, and there’s literally nothing I can do to make my vote count, south of launching a plot to dismantle the electoral college and WHY WOULD WE WANT TO DO THAT WHEN IT WORKS SO EFFECTIVELY.

Seriously, I could vote 50 times in South Carolina and still, nothing. Jack democracy squeedoodle. Last time I voted it was at a retirement community, one of those four million-acre deals with tract housing and street names like Singing Robin Lane and Glorious Waterfall Cul-De-Sac and the fanciest shuffleboard courts this side of Branson. Honestly I was pleasantly surprised my machine even had a button for Obama on it. (Turns out it was a very small button with one of those old green Mr. Yuk stickers on it, and when I pressed it said “Syntax Error.” Finally I had to request a write-in ballot, which also didn’t work because in South Carolina all write-in ballots are delivered by alligator.)

(True story: I brought my four-year-old to vote with me, because, I figured, nothing could divert the sweet, elderly and very Republican South Carolina populace from my nefarious Democratic Voting by distracting them like my adorable mop-topped son, who sang patriotic songs and mispronounced “refrigamator” adorably while I snuck into the voting booth and cast one of South Carolina’s 34 votes for Obama, and then we both sprinted out of there, hoping the locals remained lost in warm nostalgic memories of their own grandchildren before they could realize what we’d done.)

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Dad Stories, GateHouse, Humor Columns

September 24, 2012

“Most Interesting Man In The World” holds Obama fundraiser, so naturally there is shrieking

By Jeff Vrabel

GateHouse — You could, when illustrating your support for or opposition to a political candidate or party or ruling junta or cat running for mayor in Nova Scotia — seriously, why is Canada better than us at everything — simply like that person.

You could do so thoughtfully, intelligently, in words and deeds and money if you’ve got it and wish to receive 4,500 text messages a day for the rest of your life. You could even slap a free bumper sticker on your car and hope you’re right, because those things are murder to scrape off with an Exacto come December, and yes I’m looking at you, Dad’s Dukakis/Bentsen sticker, you infernally adhesive little bastard.

Failing that, you could lose your spongy mind on the Internet about beer. Whichever, I guess.

I speak of Dos Equis, which I know as “the beer my college roommate Sean graciously bestowed upon us several times a month” and “the beer we kept having to mop out of the couch on those occasions we felt like having a clean couch, which were rare.” You, however, probably know it as the beer from the commercials with The Most Interesting Man In The World, the bearded awesomesmith who flips omelettes with tigers in his customized kitchens as a way to peddle alcohol to college students with filthy couches.

Well, it turns out The Most Interesting Man In The World is not just a focus-grouped construct designed by a team of skilled marketers firing at a younger demographic, but an actual human person with feelings and beliefs, one of which is that he likes this “Barack Obama” character who is currently sailing towards re-election against the worst political opponent in the history of anything, real and fictional, and yes I’m counting President Skroob from “Spaceballs,” who at least had the smarts to keep a three-ring circus and some escape pods on his flagship.

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1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, GateHouse, Humor Columns

September 4, 2012

Paul Ryan’s marathon lie: Great, here’s another politician who’s apparently not Kenyan

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: Congressman Ryan

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GateHouse — Let’s get this out of the way: Paul Ryan’s for-realsies marathon time — the four-hour one that an official timer clocked officially in official 1990 using an official 1990 stopwatch, which played Bell Biv DeVoe music — totally beats mine. Hell, Sarah Palin’s marathon time beats mine, and trust me, this is not information that makes it easy to get out of bed every morning.

We could spend the better part of the afternoon inventorying the politicians who have run faster marathons than me — it’s actually most o of them, with the exception of Al Gore, who I shall now take to calling “An Inconvenient Turtle.”

But that’s the point: We can do that because I remember mine. Everybody remembers their own PRs, whether they’re two hours or seven. We love them unconditionally, we spend loads of time awkwardly shoving them into conversations that go on to cover the status of our knees, the contents of our running mixes, the number of packets of nutrient-rich goo we forced ourselves to absorb, the emotional attachment we have with our shoes (the majority of which do not love us back), and if you’re really lucky, some details about bathroom breaks. Point is, PEOPLE REMEMBER. God, you could start a second Instagram with the number of shoe-pictures alone. (Note: <– OH GOD, NO ONE DO THIS.)

Which is why when Ryan told a radio host that he couldn’t remember his marathon PR — “under three, high twos, I had a two hour and 50-something” — my eyebrows immediately went up. And not just my eyebrows — which was good, as I burned most of them off in a 1996 silver-nitrate-related chem-lab mishap — but the eyebrows of my actual running friend Jamey, who has run Boston three times and has been to known to talk an awful lot about his socks. Which WICK MOISTURE! Y’all aren’t even ready for the amount of moisture they can wick.

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13 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

November 21, 2011

Veggie Tales: Why Congress wishes to beplumpen your children, and 9% of you are totally OK with that

By Jeff Vrabel

GateHouse — Last week a Washington Post poll revealed that the United States Congress currently enjoys a nationwide approval rating of 9%. That is nine percent, as in one integer, as in Very Close To Zero, as in if you asked “Do you approve of the job Congress is doing?” to a group of zinfandel-sipping monkeys with typewriters in a warehouse in Des Moines, they would all say “Dear God no not at all are you NUTS?,” because monkeys are actually pretty smart.

Needless to say this 9% statistic is shocking, mostly because I would have guessed somewhere between 9 to 40 percentage points lower. NINE percent approval? Are you sure you didn’t mean nine people? Where do you thumbs-up smiley-faced keep-up-the-good-work types LIVE I wonder? Do you live in Congress? Are you all Boehners? Do you know what the Gallup people meant by “Congress?” Do you think they meant “Con-Air?” Do you think you were approving of Nicolas Cage? Because if so that’s still a dismayingly high number.

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Trailer approval rating: 16%

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6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

August 22, 2011

Rick Perry is correct: Science is pretty much a huge loser

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: Basically what all Scientists look like.

GateHouse — So, just to straighten this out, just to quell the controversy, there’s a new study that says watching TV is a drain on your lifeforce somehow? WELL THANKS FOR KEEPING ME CURRENT, SCIENCE. What’s next on the list? Is it teleporting? I hope it’s teleporting.

To jump back to before the previous paragraph (yes, I have solved COLUMN TIME TRAVEL), a recent study published in Australia revealed that watching too much TV increases your chance of dying early from health problems. It also apparently reveals that science is out of things to study. No no, guys, thanks, since we’ve got all of our other problems so skillfully figured out, I guess it’s OK for you to start going back to the mid 1950s to CHECK YOUR WORK. It’s a good thing our Future Republican President is planning to make sure all your textbooks are flamethrowered.

See, people, this is why Brave Patriots like Rick Perry and the additional 400 GOP presidential candidates are so wisely poking holes in Science things like “evolution” and “global warming” and “Avogadro’s number” and “the atomic weight of cobalt” (the “Periodic Table” will tell you that it’s 58.933, but that’s just a theory that’s out there): Not because Science is filling our children’s precious spongebrains with facts and empirically proven evidence instead of merely our own desperately held belief structures, because it’s MOSTLY REHASHING THINGS WE KNEW ALREADY. Last week saw another round of stories about how eating processed meats made from the feet of animals you would hit with a subway train if you could might not be so good for the ol’ Heart. WELL THANKS A HEAP, SCIENCE. I suppose next you’re going to report some bungling nonsense about how easy access to “guns” increases “the rates of violence in America.” Science is such a loser.

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5 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

August 8, 2011

Are your children plump and sweaty enough for Michelle Malkin?

By Jeff Vrabel

Problem. Solved.

GateHouse — Yep. I like McRibs.

You can talk all day long about their ghoulish caloric content, you can walk me line-by-line through the roster of vitamins and minerals they don’t contain, you can provide me with photographic proof of the dog-meat which is smooshed into a grey paste in Cambodia and shipped via donkey, unsupervised ocean liner and nonrefrigerated truck to an outdoor McProcessingfacility/wastewater plant/shooting range in North Carolina, and I will not care because I like McRibs. Someone please rip this out of the newspaper, or three-finger-swipe-left on the iPad or whatever you do to save things, and bring it to my funeral, which will take place in about eight weeks, so everyone can enjoy a good long laugh before the luau. (Note: My funeral is going to be awesome.)

Otherwise, and occasional McGriddle aside (I AM BUT A MAN) I try not eat at McDonald’s. Not for any militant reason I’m gonna tweet about 12 times a day — I just don’t. And for the most part, neither does Little Man — though that’s not always easy to do, because at some point it’s 7:45 p.m. and we haven’t had dinner and the idea of crafting an organic, multi-course Meal out of locally raised and humanely caught fish loses by about a billion to the idea that I can sate my moody and undernourished child immediately, through nuggets.

We can’t boast a 100 percent success rate, but we try hard. In this regard (and few others) I’m like Michelle Obama, who despite Republican objections to her existence/face, has for years promoted healthy eating and living among Our Nation’s Youth.

McDonald’s, you may have seen, recently announced that it would begin offering more “fruit” and fewer chemicals/discarded animal legs in its Happy Meals, by way of atoning for forcing billions upon billions of preservative-filled meathorks on kids for 200 years, but I mean it’s not like there’s been any recent appreciable change in childhood obesity rates or anything.

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13 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

August 1, 2011

The debt ceiling answer: SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO VOLDEMORT (consider the gas savings alone)

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: Boehner and, I don't know, Cantor? Harry Reid?

GateHouse — Good morning, America! Or at least the small percentage of you who have successfully avoided the impulse to beat yourself silly every morning with a box of Lucky Charms (or whatever kind of cereal box is most damaging, it’s up to you, although I find the purple stars pretty hurtful).

I have found myself drawn to the Debt Ceiling Negotia — well, Negotiations is an incorrect word, because it indicates on some level the involvement of adult humans, so let’s go with Pathetic Caterwauling By People Who Sound Like Ralph Wiggum — for the same reason that I was once drawn to pro wrestling: Because I like listening to silly cartoonpeople in costumes read from goofy scripts in an attempt to emanate impressions of grave importance.

Also, I like my house, and with Sunday’s deal/compromise/fiesta of Democrat giveaways I’m glad to know that in theory I can keep it through September, or until my mortgage is sold to China or Cobra or the evil Thundercats or whoever. Wait, were there bad Thundercats? I can’t remember now. If there were bad Thundercats, someone please email about them, in the precious last few days before your Internet bill jumps to $450/mo and you pay it directly to a Koch Brother.
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1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

July 25, 2011

Too damned hot for funny. Let’s talk about the debt ceiling or something.

By Jeff Vrabel

Tatooine = Preferable to America this week, for two reasons: 1. Vaporators. 2. Droid sales.

GateHouse — As a licensed Reformed Humor Professional — having graduated from a monthslong Comedy Immersion Program led at a secluded Wisconsin camp by Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who helpfully compelled me to Pray The Grim Away (incidentally, it’s basically just 12-hour “Growing Pains” rerun marathons, save your money) — I can confirm that it’s currently too blank-wording hot to be funny. Go ahead and fill in your own expletive there; the newspaper has rules about such things, though I’m guessing that most editors are too sweaty to care. (If you are having trouble finding just the right bad word, go outside in a pair of sweatpants and jog to the end of the block. By the time you return you will have thought of dozens.)

There is hot, and then there is slap-your-belly-and-run-to-your-mama hot. I don’t want to turn this into a game of Heat Dome Story Trumping, but I live in South Carolina, where we routinely enjoy the kind of heat that makes grown conservatives go running to the government for Oscillating Fan handouts, the kind of heat where you go to get the mail and then stop on your way back to hallucinate.

Within 12 seconds of going outside in South Carolina your clothes grow damp and heavy enough to make you feel like you’re wearing a used beach towel. I recently saw a Facebook experiment in which some a friend’s kids tried to literally fry an egg on the sidewalk, a plan that unfortunately foiled when the sidewalk liquefied. On the plus side, when it’s this hot, you feel less weird having your morning margarita at work.

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12 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

June 20, 2011

Exciting 2012 Election Update: Everybody is losing to nobody

By Jeff Vrabel

Serpentor / Pawlenty 2012!

GateHouse — BARACK OBAMA HAS FAILED, according to basically everyone whose cocktail money depends on squealing like a monkeyperson on television about how everyone currently in office has failed, preferably on a show that’s on loud enough to prevent you from having to talk during dinner.

This is to be expected, as it’s been like 12 years since Obama murderated Osama bin Laden, and the question America wants answered is WHAT HAVE YOU EXECUTED FOR US LATELY? Oh, I guess we’re just all supposed to sit around and WAIT for Decepticon attacks? Why hasn’t he taken care of errrmm whatever the villain in the “Green Lantern” movie is supposed to be? Seriously, someone tell me, because that looks like a very silly video game for children.

Anyway, the news is so bad for Obama right now that he’s currently losing to a giant gaping yawning abyss of hopelessness. As most Republican voters wouldn’t be caught dead stepping one half-inch off the Party Line lest they be laser-fried alive by Michelle Bachmann’s avada-kedavra-powered deathray eyebeams, and full well knowing that their field currently resembles the undercard at a regional professional wrestling exhibition held on a Tuesday night at the high school gymnasium, a Gallup poll last week showed the troubled president down by 5 points to the generic opponent “A Republican,” which is funny for those of us in the writin’ business and officially tragic for those of you who HAVE OFFICIALLY SPENT A FAT CHUNK OF MONEY CAMPAIGNING ALREADY.

The poll showed 44 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for a blank space and 39 percent for Obama, with an unconscionable 18 percent saying they had “no opinion.” Maybe they’re waiting for a yearlong miserable economy, some clarification on social issues or the extermination of the world’s most hated bearded guy before getting around to brainstorming.

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I love this idea, like Obama loses in 2012 and they just randomly draw some white dude in a televised lottery between the monologue and first sketch on “SNL” and introduce him on Inauguration Day: “Ladies and gentlemen, please congratulate President Glen Jenkins, unemployed former used-car-lot assistant manager from Dublin, Ga! Where’s Glen? Is he here? Wave, Glen!”

(Incidentally, replace “A Republican” with An Actual Republican, and suddenly, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Obama beats Romney 49-43. The state of politics in 2011: EVERYBODY IS LOSING TO NOBODY.)

So instead, I have a much better idea: With the GOP field making up for in volume what it lacks in pleasantness and electability, the way to go is clear: Create one, monstrous, all-powerful, Devastator-like SUPERPUBLICAN from the few appealing parts of each of the 250 embarrassing candidates, attach them to a faceless simulacrum floating in a tank full of saltwater in a secret evil underwater lab and give birth to a perfect cloneperson, Kid R if you will, who will not wake up sucking a lemon, as that is sort of gay.

Republican Serpentor will be perfect: He will have the fierce tenacity of Newt Gingrich, without the jewelry bill and wife-abandonment but with a campaign staff, which will help. He will have the single-minded focus of Michelle Bachmann, without the need to drink cord blood to survive. He will have the smooth, approachable, presidential-looking appeal of Mitt Romney, but without the weird religion that those nice “South Park” boys did the play about or the 800-lb. weight of a healthcare plan hanging off his hair. He will have well pretty much nothing from Tim Pawlenty. He will have the business acumen of Herman Cain, but without having to be identified as a “pizza magnate,” and not even one from a company anyone knows. And he will have Sarah Palin’s kingmaker powers and ability to make news with his every proclamation, bus tour or tweet, but with the ability to recall American history and go 10 minutes without being on a reality show. Also he’ll have Storm Shadow’s ninja powers.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

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