Since my last post, for the first time since World War II, Russia was invaded. Inexperienced and unwilling Russian conscripts threw down their weapons and readily surrendered as battle-hardened Ukrainian troops took ground in the western Kursk region, maneuvering behind the Russian artillery, missile and rocket resources that Putin had been using to attack “strategic and tactical targets” like hospitals, schools and shopping centers. The mass surrenders and tumultuous evacuation of Russian civilians in the face of the steady advance of triumphant Ukrainian troops added yet another humiliation to Russia, its military and its leaders, further exposing its protracted and demented attempt to subjugate its peaceful and prosperous neighbor for the asinine, blood-soaked fiasco it has always been.
As the Ukrainians established a buffer zone to stymie continuation of Putin’s murderous cross-border terrorist atrocities, his military high command was caught flat-footed, stumbling all over itself trying to retaliate, awkwardly attempting to maneuver more seasoned units into place. This while Russia scrapes the bottom of its barrels for human cannon fodder, ammunition, guns and war machinery, running hat-in-hand, shamefaced to China, ludicrously to North Korea, and absurdly to Iran, of all places, for help.
The spectacle of the former Soviet Union’s leading component getting in line behind Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, desperately begging a bearded, turbaned Ayatollah for assistance in the re-establishment of its former empire would beggar belief, were it to appear in a military action-adventure novel or Hollywood motion picture script. The publisher or producer would reject the work outright, telling the writer that no audience could possibly suspend its disbelief sufficiently to accept such a plot development. No, it takes a pathetic criminal lunatic fool like Vladimir Putin to materialize such a situation in the real world; ink-stained, wretched creators of fiction, fall on your sharpened fountain pens in despair – you simply cannot make such stuff up.
Strangely enough, in the same time period, another pathetic criminal lunatic fool was likewise out-maneuvered and humiliated here in the United States, as the campaign of Joe Biden’s replacement for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee took off like a rocket and left Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans scrambling to mount a counter-attack. So it was no particular surprise when Gretchen notified me that a certain “Daniel Travis” had requested a free initial consultation. The call came in late on a weekday afternoon with the number blocked, but my Caller ID could still determine that it originated from the 561 area code.
Unidentified Voice: Hello? Tom Collins?
Tom: This is he. Is this “Daniel Travis?”
Unidentified Voice: Uh-huh. Call me Dan.
Tom: Okay, Dan. I understand you are interested in a consultation?
Dan: Right. One of those free ones you give away for the first time – as part of your marketing plan.
Tom: Understood, Dan. May I ask how you found out about my marketing plan?
Dan: I’m on Donald Trump’s staff, and… I… um… heard it mentioned… around the water cooler.
Tom: The water cooler?
Dan: Yeah, that’s right… around… the water cooler.
Tom: And where did you get my office number?
Dan: From… uh… Lindsey Graham.
Tom: You got my office telephone number from Senator Lindsey Graham?
Dan: Yeah.
Tom: Now, let me get this straight – you’re on Donald Trump’s staff, and Senator Lindsey Graham shares his telephone numbers with you?
Dan: Well, uh… he did, when I told him that I… needed some really good political advice.
Tom: And where did Senator Lindsey Graham give you my office telephone number?
Dan: Uh… um… it was at The Capital Grille.
Tom: On Pennsylvania Avenue?
Dan: No, the one in Palm Beach Gardens. In Florida.
Tom: Right. Well, “Dan,” it seems to me that if Mr. Trump wants my advice, he should book a telephone consultation appointment with my private secretary. And pay for it, because he’s already had his free initial consultation, quite a few years ago.
Dan: No, no, I work for him, see? I’m calling for my own advice, not advice for him.
Tom: That’s an interesting distinction. Are you aware that Mr. Trump has called me four times before pretending to be someone who works for him, asking for free advice?
Dan: I had no idea! Are you sure it was him, pretending to be someone else?
Tom: I can’t prove it, of course, but first of all, Mr. Trump has a reputation for calling people on the telephone and pretending to be one of his employees. And secondly, he has a very distinctive voice. Speaking of which, has anyone ever said you sound very much like him?
Dan: I donno, maybe we do, kinda, but nobody’s ever told me I sound like Donald Trump.
Tom: I see. All right, “Dan,” since the Republican National Committee and several organizations affiliated with former president Trump do regular paying business with me, I’ll give you some advice with no fee… or invoice… associated with it. What’s on your mind, “Dan?”
Dan: My boss, President Trump, he’s really angry with his son Don Junior for talking him into choosing JD Vance to be vice president.
Tom: Republican Party vice-presidential nominee, you mean.
Dan: He’s going to be vice-president! We just need to get things under control with him! Right now, he’s a [expletive] millstone around my neck!
Tom: Your neck?
Dan: I mean, our necks… my boss’s neck… hell, you know what I mean! There’s all this [expletive] Vance said that the Democrats and that Harris woman keep bringing up!
Tom: You mean, things like when he said companies that support abortion access don’t want people to have children because they are desperate for cheap labor?
Dan: Yeah, [expletive] like that!
Tom: And when he said that we need a national law banning abortion because if we don’t have one, then when it’s banned in Ohio, George Soros will send a 747 to Dayton International Airport every day, load it up with women who want abortions and fly them to California to get them?
Dan: Exactly! That kind of [expletive]!
Tom: And he keeps talking about being against same-sex marriage.
Dan: My boss says as long as the Log Cabin Republicans vote Republican, they can lay their lumber anywhere they want! And the rest of the faggots and lesbos too, as long as they believe what he says about the border and immigrants and the economy and vote for him, there will be plenty of time after he’s back in the White House to round them up and put them someplace they won’t be able to get at our kids. Why can’t Vance keep his [expletive] mouth shut until then, that’s what I wanna know!
Tom: And then there are those things he said about putting health care professionals who provide gender-affirming care to minors in prison.
Dan: Vance said that?
Tom: Yes, he did.
Dan: Oh, well… that doesn’t sound like its going to lose my boss a whole lot of votes, actually. And I don’t think he’d have any problem doing it, either. We could just lock them up with the queers.
Tom: But… generally speaking, you figure Vance’s previous utterances are losing your… boss… votes?
Dan: You’re damn right they are! And it’s happening in places where we’ve already got things straightened out so we can win!
Tom: Unless the women in those places hear what a male chauvinist pig JD Vance is and figure out that the rest of the Republicans are, too?
Dan: Look – my boss doesn’t care what they figure out, as long as they either vote for him or stay home on Election Day! And I’ll tell you a secret – he doesn’t give a damn about saving fetuses either! Cut ‘em up, flush ‘em down the toilet, he doesn’t give a [expletive], okay? He only did that overturn-Roe-versus-Wade [expletive] because that’s what the Evangelicals want, and he needs them because they’re really ignorant and stupid, even more than the regular bunch of morons that follow him around to his rallies, and the ignoranter and stupider they are, the better he likes it, because then they’ll vote for him no matter what the [expletive] he does! Hell, he’s already made over two million bucks selling them Bibles, you know.
Tom: I thought it was around three hundred thousand dollars.
Dan: That’s only what we reported, see. But don’t tell anyone, okay?
Tom: I hear you. I suppose your boss is equally as upset about how he apparently agreed with that podcaster who said that the purpose of the post-menopausal female is to help raise children?
Dan: Yeah, and that [expletive] about how the country is run by a bunch of childless cat ladies.
Tom: Childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they have made, and so they want to make the rest of us in the country miserable, too?
Dan: Yeah, those childless cat ladies. Look, my boss doesn’t give a [expletive] about people who own cats or dogs or [expletive] parakeets, for Christ’s sake! I mean, what the [expletive] is wrong with Don Junior, that he couldn’t even perform the due diligence to vet this guy and make sure he didn’t have a bunch of Looney Tunes quotes lying around for the Democrats to weaponize?
Tom: Maybe he just felt simpatico with Vance because they’re both fascist [expletive] with beards.
Dan: You calling my son an [expletive]?
Tom: No, I’m calling your boss’s son an [expletive], remember?
Dan: Oh, oh, yeah. So… um… I guess maybe it could have been that.
Tom: Your boss’s son is an [expletive], you know. It’s common knowledge.
Dan: Okay, okay, let’s not dwell on that. Look, I mean, Vance goes around saying that he wants extra votes for people with children!
Tom: That’s actually an old concept, dating to the nineteenth century. It’s based on the idea that children should have some kind of political representation. Its feasibility and practicality are debatable, of course.
Dan: Debatable? Are you [expletive] kidding me? Do you have any idea how poor and working class Democrats breed? My God, they’re worse than [expletive] rats! Here we are, making good progress suppressing the [expletive] and [expletive] votes in key states like Georgia, and here’s Vance talking about giving those people extra votes because they all have like, eleven [expletive] kids in a [expletive] three room apartment! And let me tell you, I’m not exaggerating, either! Why, in Queens, my father had those jungle bunnies and beaners coming out his [expletive] in those [expletive] tenements!
Tom: Mr. President?
Dan: What?
Tom: You’re supposed to be somebody named “Dan Travis,” remember?
Dan: Oh, right.
Tom: And I guess it’s also rather disconcerting to your boss’s campaign when Vance quotes Curtis Yarvin, who recommends seizing the institutions of government, replacing everyone in the government with MAGA Republican loyalists and instituting a Trump family monarchy.
Dan: You bet your [expletive] it’s [expletive]… disconcerting! It drives them [expletive] ape [expletive], that’s what it does! Just like those [expletive] at Heritage Foundation, shooting their [expletive] mouths off! Nobody was supposed to talk about any of that [expletive] until after we won the [expletive] election! And here’s Vance, talking about a “de-woke-ification program” for the federal government after we “seize the institutions of the left!”
Tom: And defying the courts afterward – there was that paraphrase of Andrew Jackson, as I recall, “they’ve made their decision, now let them enforce it.”
Dan: Right! Everybody was supposed to keep their traps shut about locking up judges who rule against us until after we take over the military and turn its firepower on the enemies within!
Tom: Of course. And then there are all those things Vance said about your boss before your son talked you into asking him to be your vice-presidential running mate.
Dan: He… he said stuff about me? I mean, about my boss, President Trump? Negative… stuff?
Tom: Oh, sure, lots of it. And you’re telling me, your boss, President Trump, he doesn’t know?
Dan: I… I guess not. What… what… what did he say?
Tom: He said he never liked President Trump; that Trump is unfit for office; that he encourages the worst instincts in people; that he offers little more than an excuse to project complex problems into simple villains; that Trump is America’s Hitler…
Dan: He said “Hitler?”
Tom: He did.
Dan: I can’t believe that!
Tom: Neither can I. Obviously, he should have said “America’s Mussolini.”
Dan: Huh?
Tom: So, moving right along, I take it your… boss’s efforts to minimize the impact of Vance’s… indiscreet remarks… have been ineffective in his estimation?
Dan: I’ve said… I mean, my boss has said, that vice-presidents don’t really matter anyway, but it doesn’t look like that worked, because President Trump is still falling in the polls. What my boss needs is an effective strategy to deal with all this Vance [expletive].
Tom: Sort of a… final solution… to the JD Vance problem?
Dan: Yeah, you could put it that way. What do you… recommend?
Tom: Make fun of him.
Dan: Fun?
Tom: That’s right – ridicule him in various humorous ways. Your boss likes to insult people anyway, so all he has to do is aim at JD Vance and make it funny. Once our boss gets a critical mass of the population laughing at him, nothing Vance says will matter to anyone anymore.
Dan: So how should my boss do that?
Tom: Well, he touched on it himself recently, when he responded to Tim Walz’ remark about the MAGA Republicans being “weird” when President Trump said, “It’s not me, they’re talking about JD.” That’s the germ of the idea, right there.
Dan: So you’re saying President Trump actually thought of it.
Tom: Correct. I’m just… elaborating on his brilliance.
Dan: Oh great! I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear that!
Tom: No doubt about it. So – let’s start with an example. JD Vance has said, quote, “I come from a family that doesn’t have a whole lot of money.” Your boss should just repeat that and then say, “He’s not kidding, folks! They were so poor, they couldn’t afford to pay attention!”
Dan: Hmmm… not bad!
Tom: “They were so poor, to save money on electricity, his daddy unplugged the clocks every night.” “No, seriously folks, the Vance’s were dirt poor – they were so poor they painted their feet to look like shoes.” “I mean, the Vance family didn’t have two nickles to rub together. They were so poor, panhandlers gave them spare change.” “No, really, folks, when the Vance family went to McDonald’s their momma had to buy the food on layaway. She’d take JD to KFC and let him lick other people’s fingers.” “Absolutely poor, that Vance family. When he was a boy, if it cost a dime to go around the world, JD couldn’t get out of sight. If money was gasoline, the whole family couldn’t get an ant’s motorcycle halfway around a BB. Actually, they were just plain ‘PR’ because they couldn’t afford to buy two vowels. They made Thanksgiving gravy from hot dog water. They were so poor, in the summer his mother made him wave a Popsicle around and they called it air conditioning. They had more furniture on their porch than they did in their house, and for dinner, his mother would read the family recipes. They were so poor, they went to the town dump and brought things home, if you can call it that – Vance’s father took out a second mortgage on a cardboard box. Vance’s family was so poor, instead of a TV, they had an Etch-A-Sketch. They ate their cereal with a fork to save milk and washed their paper plates.” Get the idea?
Dan: Um… I think so… maybe.
Tom: Look, Vance is ugly, right?
Dan: He sure as hell is.
Tom: And your… boss… he is very adept at insulting people, isn’t he? I mean, he’s a master of insults, actually, it’s a major part of the routine he does for his followers at his rallies, isn’t it? He insults the pants off his political rivals, for instance. So here’s JD Vance, who looks like somebody stuffed a giant Cabbage Patch doll with russet potatoes. Insulting him should be a walk in the park for an insult virtuoso like President Trump, and making it funny should just take a bit of imagination, that’s all. I mean, JD Vance is so ugly, when he threw a boomerang, it wouldn’t come back. His portraits hang themselves, that’s how ugly he is. JD Vance is so ugly, his birth certificate is a notarized letter of apology from his parents. If they had an Ugliest Republican Contest, he wouldn’t be allowed to enter it because he’s a professional. JD Vance is so ugly he could turn Medusa to stone – the man fell off the top of the Ugly Tree and hit every stick on the way down. He’s so ugly, his shadow ran away. When he was a baby, his mother had get blind drunk before she could breast feed him, and when he was a toddler she had to hang a piece of bacon around his neck so the dog would play with him. He’s so ugly, when JD Vance lies down on the beach, cats try to bury him in the sand. He’s so ugly, if you push his face in dough, you get Sasquatch cookies. When he goes to get mental therapy, the psychiatrist makes him lie face down on the couch. When he was five, his family tried to give him away to a carnival to work as a freak, but he’s so ugly people paid money not to look at him. People in bad neighborhoods hang his picture in their cars so the radio doesn’t get stolen. If JD Vance was a scarecrow, the corn would die, that’s how ugly he is. He was so ugly when he was born, they put him in an incubator with tinted windows. When he was three and his parents let him out of the house for the first time to play in the yard, the neighbors called animal control, that’s how ugly he is. Right now, the CIA is interrogating captured terrorists by showing them his photograph. JD Vance is so damn ugly, you get seven years bad luck looking at his reflection in a mirror. Get it now? Rag on the guy like that in front of the people at your boss’s rallies. Word will get around, I guarantee it.
Dan: Yeah, I think I understand. Can I insult his wife, too?
Tom: Of course! JD Vance agreed with that podcaster that the purpose of post-menopausal women is to raise children, right? So, you tell your audience that and then say, “So I guess now I can tell JD Vance to send Usha over to Don Junior’s house to babysit his kids.”
Dan: Yeah, I think my boss is gonna like that one. Got any more?
Tom: Sure. Tell the people at your rallies, “JD Vance says the birth rate is too low, but he’s only got three kids. Maybe he wants more, but I think I know why there haven’t been any. Just take one look at Usha! When JD does, I bet he heads straight for the couch and buries his head in it – I’m talking about the one with the beard. I think.”
Dan: Ouch! That’s really mean!
Tom: Given the subject area under discussion, I’ll take that as a high compliment. And of course, your boss can start introducing him as his “assassination insurance.” He can say he picked Vance after that shooting incident in Pennsylvania because nobody’s crazy enough to want to make somebody like that president.
Dan: Oh, that’s rich! I like it!
Tom: And all the while, JD Vance will be out there, campaigning for your boss, extolling his virtues, working like a field slave with an eleven-foot cotton sack to get him elected president while your boss – metaphorically speaking, of course – drags Vance through the gutter and lets dogs lift their legs on him. The contrast will generate such a cognitive dissonance in the public that nobody, anywhere, will respect or take JD Vance seriously, thus neutralizing the effect of anything he has said, is saying or ever will say during your boss’s campaign, and later, during your boss’s next term in the White House.
Dan: Yeah, I can see that. Vance is a completely spineless [expletive] kisser who will say and do anything to get into power. I can abuse the hell out of him and he will just keep singing my praises so he can become vice-president.
Tom: You mean, your boss can abuse the hell out of him and he will just keep singing his praises.
Dan: Oh, oh, right – yeah, my boss, President Donald Trump.
Tom: And when he gets the job, your boss can easily arrange it so all Vance does are the most trivial, useless, boring and inconvenient tasks. And your boss can continue to use him as a punching bag and the target of his jokes and derision. In fact, if he feels like it, President Trump can turn JD Vance into kind of a Sad Sack version of a court jester, with everyone in the country snickering and sneering at him.
Dan: Oh, yeah, that will be fun! Maybe I could completely break him and turn him into a sniveling, cringing, quivering husk for my amusement.
Tom: You mean, your boss, President Donald Trump could do that.
Dan: Oh, right, yeah, of course my… boss… President Donald Trump. You know, I love the way that sounds, “President… Donald… Trump.” I just kinda want to say it over, and over, and over, over again.
Tom: Very understandable.
Dan: Yes… I think I’ll take a few minutes to do just that.
Tom: Well, then – enjoy it. I hope you found my free advice useful.
Dan: Uh-huh. President… Donald… Trump… President… Donald… Trump…
Tom: Looks like we’re done here. Goodbye!