2018: A Year for the (Comic) Books - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
2018: A Year for the (Comic) Books
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The year 2018 could never have achieved its record-setting level of political chaos and sheer inanity without the help of the many people and few governments that weren’t killing people, making war on their neighbors or just being annoying.

January

On New Year’s Day, California became the ninth state to legalize recreational marijuana. Shortly after that, several cities created affirmative action programs meant to help minority would-be pot sellers into the business. Criminals, who usually can’t get liquor licenses, are favored.

While the East Coast was being battered by a “bomb cyclone,” a winter storm so severe that frozen iguanas were falling from trees in Florida and sharks killed by the cold waters were washing up on New England beaches, Algore told us the ultra-cold weather was caused by “climate change,” the left’s label for what they used to call global warming.

It was so cold that Sen. Elizabeth Warren claimed to be an Eskimo.

Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury described President Trump as an idiot and mentally unstable. Trump answered the book’s criticism by Tweeting that he was a “very stable genius.” That brought to mind an incident from decades ago when the New York Times reported that Rep. Bill Scott of Virginia (later Sen. Scott) was the dumbest member of Congress. Scott then had a press conference to deny he was stupid, thereby proving the Times’s point.

Murphy’s Law was written to describe how governments work. A redundant proof of that fact occurred on January 13 when Hawaiians and visitors woke up to a cellphone alert from the Hawaii Emergency Management agency that a missile was incoming to Hawaii. It said, “THIS IS NO DRILL.” It took forty minutes for the alert to be canceled. Hawaii’s governor reportedly knew the alert was false but couldn’t send out a cancellation of it because he’d forgotten his Twitter password. Apparently not as intelligent as his smartphone, it never occurred to the gov to call any radio or tv stations.

As the month ended, twelve camels were eliminated from a camel beauty contest in Saudi Arabia after their owners were discovered to be using botox on their faces to improve their appearance. No aspect of that occurrence can be explained rationally.

February

Ms. Kim Jong Yo, sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Loon, was a big hit at the Olympic games according to the fawning western media. Ms. Kim, chief of her brother’s Propaganda and Agitation directorate, was proclaimed by the media a gold medalist in diplomacy.

Mr. Francisco Valdez, the winner one week of the “Friday Fugitive Bingo” video campaign by the Flagler County, Florida sheriff’s office, was arrested after he taunted the sheriff’s guys on Facebook, making it easy for them to find him. Sheriff Rick Staley said of the taunts, “This, obviously, was not the first bad idea he has had in his life.” The Friday Fugitive Bingo features announced vacancies at the “Green Roof Inn,” the county jail.

When CNN asked a federal court to unseal the records of grand jury proceedings in the Monica Lewinsky case, President Clinton’s criminal defense attorney David Kendall told the court that Bubba wanted to make his position on the matter known to the court before it decided the matter. It has never been clear if Clinton offered to pay the cleaning bill for Monica’s blue dress.

March

The month began on an upbeat note with the announcement that a public survey had found that California was the most unlivable state in the union. One of the principal reasons, the study concluded, is that so many Californians are insufferable. New Jersey finished next to last, which it does in polls on pretty much every subject.

Actress Emma Watson, of Harry Potter fame, sported a tattoo on Oscar night supporting the “Time’s Up” movement that insists on ending casting couch practices in moviedom. Unfortunately, her tattoo read, “Times Up,” the meaning of which is known only to supernatural grammarians.

Selen Atasoy, a research fellow at the Center for Brain and Cognition at the Pompeu Fabra University in Spain, reported that taking LSD can “reorganize your brain in a harmonizing way.” Techies are reportedly taking small doses to prove the point, which explains much about the social media they manage.

Apparently after being dosed by Selen Atasoy, the D.C. government unveiled an 8-foot statue of former mayor Marion Barry. Barry, best remembered for his penchant for snorting cocaine, was characterized by Mayor Muriel Bowser as a personification of the Nation’s Capital.

Chicago police, disparaging the efficiency of the practice, condemned the growing frequency of gun battles erupting at gang member funerals. In Hartford, Connecticut, Mr. Jonathan Rivera drove to court to answer charges of car theft. On leaving the court, he was arrested because he evidently stole the car he drove to the courthouse.

Former porn star Stormy Daniels told 60 Minutes that she spanked Donald Trump with a magazine during their alleged one-night stand. After the broadcast, Bill Clinton reportedly called Trump to ask for her phone number.

Pope Francis declared that there is no hell, which is a relief to a great many of us. On the other hand, opening day of the baseball season happened before the beginning of April. The confluence of these events can be interpreted in several ways.

April

Bereft of statues of Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and other such infamous people, the town of Arcata, California, decided to tear down its only statue of a dead white guy, this one being the figure of President William McKinley. The town accused him of “settler colonialism,” as well as killing and raping native Americans. Having apparently flunked high school history Arcata Mayor Sofia Pereira asked, “Is there a difference between honoring McKinley and Robert E. Lee? They both represent historical pain.”

A gay activist lawyer protested global warming by burning himself to death, creating a smoke plume that was visible for miles. On a similar note, Los Angeles announced that it was going to paint all the city’s streets white to prevent black pavement from getting too hot and emitting planet-damaging heat.

Archeologists in Bergen, Norway, found a pair of dice evidently used by ancient Viking gamblers. One die had two “fives,” indicating that either Vikings couldn’t resist cheating or that they weren’t very good at reading numbers through an alcoholic haze after consuming too much mead. Astronomers said there was a cloud of smelly gas around Uranus, the less said about which the better.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proclaimed that, “I am a woman… seeking to control her health and her choices.” At various times, he also said he was a Muslim and Jewish. He may want to visit the University of Utah, which is creating “crying rooms” for snowflakes who need a good cry.

May

The Army announced that it would grant a soldier a religious exception to its ban on beards because of his “heathen Norse pagan” religion. It is reportedly considering a religious exception for makeup and red noses to those whose religion is the Insane Clown Posse.

A Swedish mother wanted to get a tattoo of her children’s names — Kevin and Nova — on her arm, but the tattoo artist misspelled the boy’s name as “Kelvin.” Thinking that removing the tattoo was too difficult, she had the boy’s name legally changed to “Kelvin.” The lad, who is only five, was not consulted.

Searching desperately for a cure for its sinking ratings and hemorrhaging of viewers, ESPN rehired liberal lunatic Keith Olbermann. In a similar promotional event, the UN Disarmament Conference chose Syria as its new chairman.

June

Dancing at a nightclub in Denver, a young FBI agent did a backflip. In the process, he dropped his off-duty pistol and then fired it accidentally as he picked it up, wounding another club patron. The agent blamed the accident on Russians hacking his holster.

It was revealed that Louis Vuitton, maker of much overpriced luggage and women’s handbags, had hired a shaman to chant about the weather to protect its events from rain. When he was axed from the promotional budget, rain deluged an event in Chantilly, France. The shaman was immediately re-hired.

MIT geniuses decided to take artificial intelligence into the dark side. They intentionally created “Norman,” an AI psychopath named for the proprietor of the Bates Motel in the movie Psycho. It was apparently misnamed. Asked what it wanted most, the computer answered that it wanted to eat the questioner’s liver “…with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

The Miss America beauty contest announced that it would no longer have the girls compete based on their appearance. There will be no more bikini parades or “lookism.” Thus was charted a path to yet another comeback for Hillary Clinton and Roseanne Barr.

At the G-7 summit, Canada’s metrosexual Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was so upset with President Trump that he held a news conference to bash Trump after the event. During the presser the false eyebrow Trudeau was wearing over his left eye partially fell off.

Stupidity isn’t illegal, but it can be evidence of a crime. Mr. Lamar Brown is serving an 18-year sentence for burglary in South Carolina. The state’s supreme court upheld his conviction despite his lawyers’ argument that his cell phone, found abandoned at the crime scene, was searched illegally. The cops had searched the phone after entering 1-2-3-4 as the passcode, which unlocked the phone and enabled the cops to trace the phone to Brown.

Bill Clinton, saddened that the days are gone when a president could get oral sex from an intern in the Oval Office, confessed, “I think the norms have really changed in terms of, what you can do to somebody against their will, how much you can crowd their space, make them miserable at work.”

As the month ended, the mischievous geniuses at the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency — DARPA — announced that they had, just for the hell of it, reinvented the wheel. Instead of the rock, wood, or air-filled rubber circles mankind has used since the days of Fred Flintstone, the new DARPA wheel changes shape at the push of a button. The round wheel becomes a triangle with a rotating tank track that can climb over almost anything. Every enlisted man who has ever had to push a HUMVEE out of the mud rejoiced.

July

Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, claimed that Israel was committing “weather theft” by manipulating clouds to prevent rain from falling on Iran. Before special counsel Robert Mueller could open an investigation into Jalali’s claim, the Israeli Mossad — or at least the brilliant smartasses who run the Mossad’s Twitter page (@MossadIL) — bragged about their ability to steal water from Iranian clouds.

Rumors circulated that Hillary Clinton had abandoned the idea of competing in the Miss America contest for another run at the presidency in 2020. Republican and conservative reaction was consistent: PLEASE! OHPLEASE! OHPLEEEEEASE!

Cutie Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat old time Dem Joe Crowley in a congressional primary in New York City. She immediately hit the campaign trail in several states, accompanied by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The only thing better than another Hillary presidential bid would be a Sanders-Cortez ticket in 2020.

August

The New York Times welcomed Mizz Sarah Jeong to its editorial board and reporting staff. She is apparently qualified for her new job because she has tweeted jewels of editorial wisdom such as, “Dumb*ss f***ing white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants,” and “White men are bulls***.” (There were no asterisks in the original. The asterisks are my totally futile effort to preserve some standards in journalism.)

A RAND Corporation survey determined that Marines were more likely to engage in unprotected sex and other dangerous behaviors than members of other services. Somebody ought to tell RAND’s “experts” that Marines have been engaging in dangerous behaviors around the world since 1775.

The city of Berezniki, Russia — somewhere in the Ural Mountains — held its annual “Mosquito Festival.” It featured prizes for the people with the skinniest, most mosquito-like legs and the “tastiest girl” contest, the winner of which received the most bites in the period of twenty minutes. Why would anyone think that life in Putin’s Russia is a dull misery?

The Noo Yawk Mets appeared on the way to a record-setting season, losing so many games that they didn’t seem to qualify for last place in the National League. After they lost a game to the Washington Nationals by the franchise-record margin of 25-4, a New York-based online mental health marketplace, UMA Health, offered free therapy to distraught Mets fans. It didn’t help.

The Chinese government banned the latest Disney “Winnie the Pooh” movie, Christopher Robin. They did so because Chinese President Xi Jinping was being mocked for his resemblance to A. A. Milnes’s portly bear. Pooh Xi?

A Mexico City restaurant was busted for serving tarantula tacos because the “Mexican red rump” tarantula is a protected species. The same joint reportedly still serves tacos with grasshoppers and scorpions.

Iran unveiled its new domestically-produced fighter jet, the “Kowsar,” which appears to be a copy of the Northrop F-5, one of the finest examples of 1960s technology.

As the month ended, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and challenger Cynthia Nixon had a heated debate before the Dem primary election. At one point when each was accusing the other of lying Cuomo said, “I’ll stop lying as soon as you do.”

September

Athletic shoe company Nike chose former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick to be its ad spokesman this year. Kaepernick is memorable only for kneeling during the playing of the national anthem in what he said was a protest of police brutality and oppression of black people. His 2016 protests caught on among the spoiled brats who play for the NFL and continued sporadically two years later.

Kaepernick’s motto is, “Believe in something. Even if you have to sacrifice everything.” What Kaepernick has sacrificed — he’s being paid millions of dollars by Nike — is not at all clear. What is clear is the fact that by the end of August one hundred law enforcement officers had died in the line of duty this year. In a Tweet praising Kaepernick, former Iranian prez Mahmoud “Death to America” Ahmadinejad said it was unfortunate that Kaepernick wasn’t on a team roster this year.

Tennis great Roger Federer lost his U.S.; Open match to the 55th– ranked player in hot weather. The New York Times blamed Federer’s loss on climate change.

Democrat Cynthia Nixon blew her chance to defeat Andrew Cuomo for the Dem nomination in the New York governor’s race at Zabar’s Deli. When she ordered lox, cream cheese and capers — so far so good — she then committed the deadly sin of completing her order by saying she wanted it on a cinnamon raisin bagel. This sin is even greater than that committed by John Kasich during his ridiculous 2016 presidential campaign when he ate pizza with a knife and fork.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein told his staff to examine the wisdom and legality of selling the naming rights to NASA’s rockets and spacecraft. The possibilities are endless. “One small step for a man, one giant leap for Pizza Hut.”

Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound of Southwest Harbor, Maine, announced that it was no longer going to allow lobsters to suffer by tossing them into boiling water. Before a lobster will be cooked at the restaurant, it will be immersed in water infused with marijuana smoke which, says proprietress Charlotte Gill, should sedate them.

October

New Jersey finally ranked first in a survey. Unfortunately, its first-place rank was for the most-stressed population of any state.

Procter & Gamble applied to the U.S. Patent Office for trademarks on the acronyms “LOL,” “NBD,” “WTF,” and “FML” often used by millennials in text messages. Advertisements to market “WTF” hand soap and “FML” tooth brushes may prove difficult to write.

Sen. Fauxcahontas Warren finally took a DNA test to prove her Cherokee heritage. The results showed that she was about 1/1,000 native American, which is about the same as any American of European descent. The Cherokee Nation was not amused.

Hillary Clinton joked that black men such as Cory Booker and Eric Holder “all look alike.” None of the media, even the New York Times and MSNBC, demanded that she be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, so let us be the first.

November

The Delaware History Museum began selling the “Joe Biden-scented” candle for $22. The candle is supposed to lead you to restored senses of hope and optimism. It reportedly smells like orange Gatorade. No one is yet selling a Hillary Clinton-scented candle, thank Heaven.

The morning after Election Day, Newsweek beat the rest of the media to the first story about the 2020 presidential campaign with a pro-Dem story. It speculated that political newbie Beto O’Rourke — fresh from being beaten by Ted Cruz — would be our next president.

Scientists at the University of Grenada determined that, despite the Pinocchio fable, a person’s nose actually shrinks when he tells a lie. Empirical evidence — e.g., Bill’s and Hillary’s honkers — suggests the U of G’s theory is either highly limited or entirely incorrect.

When incoming House Dems threatened to vote against Nancy Pelosi in her effort to become House Speaker, Trump offered to get a lot of votes for her. Meanwhile, Pelosi praised Al Sharpton for “saving America.”

Newly elected congresswoman to be Alexandria Cutie-Cortez stopped complaining that she couldn’t afford an apartment in D.C. long enough to say, “If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress — uh, rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate, and the House.”

The town of Hamilton, Virginia, decided that a local gun store — named “Bullets and Beans” — couldn’t sell coffee on its premises. Owner Kevin Jones had applied for a special use permit to do so but the town council (which didn’t want a gun store in town) denied the permit after stalling for six months. Jones subsequently decided to sell women’s lingerie in the gun shop, and the town can’t do a damned thing about it. “Bullets and Bras”?

Scientists at Harvard and Yale jointly proposed a cure for global warming. They want to give the earth a “stratospheric aerosol injection” to block the sun’s rays and thus keep it cool here on the ground. Unfortunately, Coppertone says it will take it at least 124 years to manufacture the necessary 37 billion tons of SPF 30 sunblock by which time — according to Algore — the planet will have already been incinerated.

The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma is offering a bounty of up to $10,000 to people who relocate there and stay for a year. So far, over twelve hundred people have applied. All of them are currently residents of New Jersey.

Dr. Gavin Clarkson and his fiancée were denied a marriage license by the District of Columbia Superior Court Clerk because the clerk and her supervisor both insisted that their New Mexico drivers’ licenses weren’t enough without a Mexican passport. The marriage license was finally provided after a Google search proved to the clerks’ satisfaction that New Mexico was actually a U.S. state.

December

Rev. Al Sharpton sold his life story for $531,000 to the National Action Network, a supposedly charitable organization of which he is founder and president. There were no other bidders.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hi) said the reason Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters is that the Dems are too smart. She added that Democrats need to stop speaking in a way that comes off as manipulative or strokes fear and resentment, but wouldn’t that silence them altogether?

The Medical Journal of Australia published a study by New Zealand’s University of Otago which determined that James Bond met six of eleven criteria for being an alcohol abuser and determined that 007’s binge drinking was affecting his work because he sleeps with the enemy. The study concludes that MI6 needs to redefine Bond’s job description to reduce stress.

Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Cutie-Cortez, exhausted from all her political activity, decided to take a week off for “self-care” and, saying she didn’t know how, invited suggestions on how to do it. We suggested she spend it reading The Federalist Papers to acquaint herself with the system of government in which she is about to serve.

The year ended in the midst of a shutdown of about one quarter of the government, those agencies that are deemed non-essential. As the clock ticked to midnight on New Year’s Eve, we were left to wonder why those non-essential agencies shouldn’t be closed permanently.

The best thing we can say about 2018 is that it’s over and probably only weeks before the first Dem will announce her 2020 presidential candidacy.

Happy New Year all our readers. And fasten your seat belts because 2019 is going to be a wild ride.

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