America's Apprentice™ Episode 3: The Year in Video

The crew at Don's Basement had a hell of a time coming up with the top videos of the year. There have been so many news stories some of which did not include Donald Trump. Four of the five selected specifically involve the 2016 presidential election. The other one is about Baltimore. About race. And class. And alienation. And what I used to call "the spectacle"when I aspired to be a Situationist.

Ted Cruz and Machine Gun Bacon-

 I don't mean to be a bigot. I realize that some of my humor comes not from the "yes, and ..." world of improv but what I imagine to be the "no, but..." school of insult comics. That is to say one takes a characteristic of a person and then exaggerate to the point of ridicule. Like a Don Rickles, a Jack E. Leonard. Jackie Mason. I am usually just joking because I love all the different people.

Except maybe Ted Cruz who is a schmuck. He is a disgrace to all the Gentile-Americans because he cooks bacon after shooting a machine-gun. Jews know that not all Gentiles shoot machine-guns. Some have rifles and pistols. AR–15s, AK–47s, Hang grenades.

The best line abut Ted Cruz is from a former Bush 43 staffer who said, "why do people take an instant dislike to Ted Cruz. it saves time."

 

What are you doing in 2016?

 In April of 2015, we found out what the following Americans were planning for the year:

-White Woman growing tomatoes
 -Brownish woman moving to a new school district
-Two Spanish speaking guys are opening a restaurant
-Stay at home mom is going to work outside the home
 -Black couple is expecting a boy
-A young Asian woman is looking for a job
 -Male Gay couple getting married
- Sick kid will be in a school play
 -White woman is retiring
- White couple is remodeling their house and teaching their dog not to eat the garbage
- White guy has some company where he is pouring gravel or something inside
 -White woman announces (at 1.29 of her 2.15 video) that she is running for president.

Thus Hillary ends the suspense. She wants to be our champion.

Still tone deaf after all these years.

 
   

The Donald Descends!

To the strains of Neil Young's "Rockin in the Free World,"  on June 16, Donald Trump descends an escalator with third wife,  Melania to announce his candidacy for president. (Neil Young not happy about the music).

Trump says of his presentation, "there is no crowd like this." And it is true.  The campaign fluffed up the crowd by hiring actors for $50.00 for 3 hours work.
On the plus side this is above the $15.00 minimum wage that is being sought by progressives around the country.

Trump has been the biggest political story of 2015 with pundits on the left, right and center (including this one) repeatedly predicting his political demise. 

Time will tell.


   


It takes one to know one.

 Among all the candidates for president, only Rick Santorum understands ISIS. He understands that the ISIS is motivated by theology and that their theology requires them to hold onto territory in order to become the legitimate caliphate. Other candidates say the ISIS is a perversion of Islam, the thuggish remnants of the Iraqi army, the result of either the failed policies of Bush 43 and the neo-cons or the failed policies of Obama/Clinton.

Only Santorum seems to take them at face value. An army fighting a religious war against those who oppose the true faith. He's creepy but he is not necessarily wrong.


   

What if a game is played and there is no one to see it?

On April 29, The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 8 to 2. As it turned out, it was just one of 86 losses for the Sox in 2015 as they finished a dismal 19 games behind the eventual World Series winning Kansas City Royals.

The game on April 29 is notable because no fans were allowed to attend. In the previous days, citizens of Baltimore expressed their displeasure at the death of Freddie Gray, a 25 year old American. He had been arrested for illegal possession of a switch blade and died as a result of injuries incurred in the police van that gave him " a rough ride" to the station.

This eerie video captures the sense of unease that is part of the story of 2015. From Baltimore, Ferguson, Chicago, Paris, Syria, Israel, San Bernadino,  Somalia and everywhere betwixt and between, everyday life can sometimes ring hollow. Lives played out in empty stadiums. High fives exchanged after a home run. An organ plays "Take me out to the ball game" and it sounds like a dirge.



 


"In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation." Guy-Ernest Debord, "The Society of the Spectacle."

America's Apprentice™ Episode 2: What Happens in Vegas....

I miss him. I miss him so,

Although Marco had a legitimate claim to being a Nevadan, it was Donnie who enjoyed a home town advantage. To my knowledge (or unfounded speculation), Donnie has "done" Vegas alot more than Vegas means to most Republican politicians. Many of these candidates go to see Sheldon Adelson.  In my opinion and mine alone...Despite the wild success of "The Five Books of Krinsky." I do not speak for world Jewry.

Adelson is not good for the Jews. For one thing, let's be honest, There is the money thing. Jews have all the money. And candidates pay homage to him (and to Israel) and in exchange he gives them millions of dollars.
He is also very bellicose for an old guy with a ton of money.

The candidates did not have them music which is a mistake.  It would work. Christie/Springsteen, Rubio/Adelle, Trump/CD of Trump drunken Karoke.
And yet, Donnie has never had a drop of alcohol. How can you be such an asshole without being drunk?

Lindsey impressed me with the arm waving and sighing about missing President Bush.

“The surge worked! It worked! George W. Bush made mistakes, but he did adjust. I blame Obama for ISIL, not Bush,” Graham yelled. “I’m tired of beating on Bush! I miss George W. Bush! I wish he were president right now! We wouldn’t be in this mess!”

As many of you long time readers know, I regard counter-factuals and alternative history as fiction. If the Senator from South Carolina wants to believe that, he is entitled to his beliefs. At least Lindsey knows that the United States is not and cannot be at war with the Muslims of the World. I know some of you (and you know who you are) will say that let's first sort out the bad ones from the good ones and we don't really mean we are war with all the Muslims. 

Lindsey had a desk job in the Air Force and is still very impressed by the uniform. He understands the dynamics of war is a way that the other candidates don't grasp. He understands that there will be American casualties alongside those of Arab Muslims, Kurdish Muslims, and perhaps even Iranian Muslims.

The others act like fools. Cruz said we needed a "war time" president. He thinks..who would be a better consigliere than Donald Trump. Ted is so unlikable that he's becoming likable. He's a film nerd. Very bright. Very calculating. Would Ted Cruz exist as a political candidate without talk radio?
Any of them. I suppose Jeb!, Kasich, Randy would have been candidates before  Clinton-Lewinsky


To me, it was Carly Fiorina who won my vote as the evening's winner, "I am going to solve our problems" or words to that effect. The affect on me was to swoon. It's not that I have a ton of problems and I do feel very fortunate, but all my problems. And my family's problems. That is an awesome promise.

The America's Apprentice™tip sheet. Don't count Trump in just yet. He is not immune to a slew of people who feel that Donnie is not have the man he says he is because they have seen the evidence. What celebrities forget is that the tagline "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," is advertising and not fact. Perhaps there are several indiscretions that are currently being covered up for fear of litigation.

I see Ted in Iowa by dint of organization and Donnie in New Hampshire because he is a real, genuine person just like on TV.

After that, I have no idea.

I will stay tuned.

America's Apprentice™ Episode 1

Donnie with other GOP Candidates

Donnie is feeling the heat this week or maybe it's the love. The polls indicate that Ted is showing momentum in Iowa where round 1 of America's Apprentice™ has its first vote. Donnie can tell that people are frightened. Especially people whose lives consist of watching television between 5 and 7 hours a day.

When they are not watching television, they are listening to Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Marc Levin. On these shows, Donnie's fans can find out about how East and West Coast liberals are flushing America down the toilet of disease ridden and/or terrorist immigrants who don't speak English and want to establish either Sharia law or force bakeries to supply Wedding Cakes for homosexual weddings.

Donnie took advantage of an opening. And as we know, Donnie knows a thing or two about openings. If you get my drift.

It is Donnie sexual adventurism that had been putting off some of the fundamentalist Christians so he chose to choose fear of foreigners over the loathing that people feel about his personal non-God fearing ways.

Not faring so well in Dr. Ben. Dr. Ben is considered too nice to deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism. If Dr. Ben went back to getting his fingers wet, he would do more good than fighting terrorism. The odds against being killed in a terrorist attack are very large.



The risk of being killed by terrorism] compares annual risk of dying in a car accident of 1 in 19,000; drowning in a bathtub at 1 in 800,000; dying in a building fire at 1 in 99,000; or being struck by lightning at 1 in 5,500,000. In other words, in the last five years you were four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist.

No matter, Donnie is playing the terrorism card in a way that his supporters readily understand.

“Total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.” 

What is going in is that the race to be America's Apprentice™is going to be every bit as nasty as Survivor or the Bachelor.

Stay tuned as Don's basement will breathlessly try to match the click bait and catch the ratings wave of Donnie's (Ted's, Marco's, and even Jeb's) audition to become America's Apprentice™