is now trying– for the third time– to become the Democratic candidate for President of the USA. The man must like power, I guess. At any rate, he has espoused all the political views at one time or another, and now, at 77, he must truly believe it is finally Joe time. What follows is a list of alternate jobs, other than President of the USA, that Mr. Biden might fill:

Greeter at a prestigious riverboat casino
NHL Ref
Dr. Joe, marriage counselor and TV personality
Gourmet hot dog street vendor
Permanent host of The Academy Awards
Mayor of Caramel-by-the-sea, California
Colour commentator on Monday Night Football
Private detective who lives in Hawaii
Head barber and owner of Joe’s Man Cave
Prince of Whales

showing Elizabeth Warren donning a Trump mask and then engaging in sexual acts with a man who was also wearing a Trump mask, after Amy Klobuchar’s last name was discovered to have roots within the Russian sphere of influence, and after it was revealed that Kamala Harris hates animals, particularly cuddly ones, the ranks of women running for the Democratic nominee for President have been substantially reduced. With electability being the key concern, all white, middle-aged men are currently being considered. I, who have American citizenship, am one of these men. At the urging of my inner circle and after much prayer, I have decided to run for the Democratic nomination for President.

As I am a very well-connected person, I was able to secure a statement from the White House Intern who was caught in the power struggle between President Donald Trump and CNN reporter Jim Acosta last week. As you may recall, Trump thought that Acosta was taking too long with his questions and asked the Intern to take the mic away. She tried, but could not complete the task.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2018/11/08/trump-jim-acosta-enemy-of-the-people-midterms-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/business-media/

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“It’s embarrassing to me that this distraction has taken the focus off of Antibiotic Awareness Week where it should rightly be placed. Antibiotics save lives, and are one of the great tools that America can use to ensure her security.

Nevertheless, “Micgate” has become a central story in our news cycle, and I realize I need to address it. This is the one statement I will make regarding the incident.

Many of you have been asking how this has been effecting me. Well, it has certainly brought me an awful lot of unwanted attention and a vast number of offers from various porn sites. Obviously, most of them involve microphones, as has been widely speculated, but the rumour that Pornhub offered me $300, 000 to star in a video called, “Enemy of the People,” is true. In spite of a more complex, layered plot, one in which I was to be driving alone on a rural road in Mexico when my car breaks down in the midst of a migrant caravan that’s just been refused entry in the US, I will in no way be connected to this venture, as it is not reflective of my values.

I think the most impactful thing that I have felt in being a part of this spectacle, is experiencing celebrity, of being reduced to a symbol. When most people watched the clip of me trying to get the microphone from Mr. Acosta, they saw a poor, helpless Intern caught between two powerful men. There was the President, commanding me to perform a humiliating and difficult task, while Mr. Acosta made sure that the world saw, vividly and clearly, that I could not not complete this difficult and humiliating task because, of course, he would’t let me!

If it wasn’t so mortifying, it might actually have been funny!

I feel I must also point out the irony of me, a young woman, reaching out for a microphone, as if maybe I had something valuable and worthwhile to say in this temple of performative masculinity. But of course, like so many other women, I was ignored and then mocked.

Many of you have also wanted to know if I was a member of the KKK, a nazi or a racist. I am not, nor have I ever been, even if my local Starbuck’s barista has now taken to writing RACIST SCUM on my coffee cup.

That will be all I have to say on the matter. Thank you for your time.”

Twitter was not at all what I thought it would be.

I envisioned a virtual water cooler where all sorts of people–many who didn’t work in an office– might get together during the day to exchange witty banter about what was going on in the world. I imagined a kind of democratic paradise, too, maybe like the ancient Greeks, a place where there was equal opportunity for everybody to be heard, and the quality of an idea was not contingent upon the status of the person bearing it.

Of course, it turns out that Twitter is a tire fire, and I simply could not have been more wrong.

Twitter and it’s 140 character cage, ( now upped to 280 characters ) did not spark conversations, it destroyed them. Instead of attempting to actually investigate ideas that you didn’t already own, people went on search and destroy missions, each Tweet a drive-by shooting aimed at a rival gang. Twitter was a weapon, a device used to amplify and distribute propaganda, and whenever a person was handed this weapon they immediately, without even knowing it, became a soldier in somebody else’s army.

Twitter was not a place you went to freely express yourself, it was a battlefield.

Just under a quarter of Americans are on this battlefield, and from what I can tell the preponderance of people using the platform would be loosely defined as a kind intelligentsia, those with sufficient space and security in their life to spend X-amount of time each day looking to make corrections in the lives of others. These people are driving the culture wars that are currently dominating our cyclonic news cycle, and that, in turn, is driving the political discourse. This means that the vast majority of Americans, more than 75%, are being led down a road paved by this influential, minority group.

Yet oddly, we seem more concerned about conspiratorial fictions then this beast in which we live.

No matter, the people behind Twitter know how dangerous and influential the platform has become, and in an effort to make it less pernicious, they’re now considering taking away the Like function.

Twitter is an obviously hierarchal structure, a place where status is measured by Likes, followers and retweets. The more of these you have, the more influence you wield. It’s practically a board game. The goal is not to learn about other people and their ideas, it’s about acquiring and exercising power. ( Exhibit A: Donald Trump) But it’s not the real world, not even close. The vast majority of humans live outside the gates of Twitter, yet they are directed and depicted, by those within. A technology that was meant to be radically democratic has somehow ended up being kind of totalitarian.

For instance, China is creating a Social Credit System which is intended to measure citizens social and business reputation. It’s a Black Mirror episode, a world in which everything you do is judged and catalogued by others, and it is upon that which your ability to function in society is dependent. In fact, Twitter had something very much like that which they called Klout, a complex numerical measurement of your influence. This is the unfortunate principal on which much of our social media exists, and if Twitter liberates us from it, they will be striking a great blow in a war most of us don’t even know we’re fighting.

As many of you will have heard, I have started a weekly Podcast with Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund.

This is an excerpt from our most recent episode:

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Me: Before we start today’s Podcast I have an announcement to make. On our last broadcast Heidi made some remarks that were very hurtful to some beloved members of our community.

The appalling statements she made might even be considered an act of violence in and of themselves, and let me say unequivocally that we here at The Breakfast Club have always, and will always be, great allies to all of our friends in the SCBDB community. Your struggle is our struggle, and we will not tolerate any sort of hate speech, calls to violence or prejudice against you and those that you love. You are our family. We love you and stand beside you. I want to take this time now to formally apologize to all Squirrels, Cats, Birds and Dumb Birds who were wounded by Heidi’s words. We are profoundly sorry.

Although Heidi has been a mostly loyal dog to my family for nearly a dozen years, I simply cannot excuse her behaviour, and so she has been removed from the Podcast, effective immediately, and sent to live up in the country with my wife’s parents where she will undergo prolonged sensitivity training.

Taking her place will be Margaret Atwood, one of the supporting actresses from the hit TV show The Hand Made Tale.

Atwood: The title of the show is the Handmaids Tale, and I was the author of the novel upon which the successful TV show was based, not a supporting actress in it.

Me: Please don’t interrupt.

Atwood: You have more important things to say, do you?

Me: Nuts! Now I’ve lost my place!

Atwood: Yes, of course you have. A straight, middle-aged white man with no discernible talents suddenly adrift in a changing world. One day you wake up to discover that you’re not one of the good guys at all, but are actually an enemy of the people, an enemy to all those you never heard, saw or even thought about in all the decades you stomped so blindly through this world. Now that the shell of your status has been cracked open to reveal your mediocrity and fear, it must be so very difficult for you! And how have you responded to this sea change, Michael, to being revealed so nakedly to all whom you ignored? With hostility and defensiveness, of course, with a desperate attempt to portray yourself as a victim rather than a victimizer. So yes, I can see how you might feel that you “lost your place.”

Me: I WAS PATROL OF THE WEEK IN GRADE SIX!! I WAS AT THE BARRICADES KEEPING THE WORLD SAFE FROM TYRANNY, GODDAMNIT!! NOBODY CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!!

Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who sparked a player protest movement by taking a knee for social justice during the national anthem, has just signed on as the centrepiece of an advertising campaign with Nike that will last until 2028.

I have mixed feelings about this.

It might be inevitable, but I always find it distressing when activism is transformed into product. A recent and particularly ham-handed attempt at this occurred when Pepsi used Kendall Jenner as an instrument to co-opt the symbolism of the Black Lives Matter movement in an effort to sell soft drinks.

The ad was a failure in just about every way, but it was particularly stupefying to watch one of the most privileged people on the planet try to show us that drinking Pepsi was actually an act of resistance, and that protest itself was more like going to a really sexy block party than say, having a fire hose turned on you.

No matter, Colin Kaepernick stands on different ground, and everything I have read about him suggests he’s a good and sincere man, one who has quite clearly been denied an opportunity to work because of the way he has been expressing his political beliefs. There are rational, if unappealing, arguments on both side of this issue, but his activism, and the price he’s paid to for it, and the money he has donated to it, seem real enough. So real, in fact, that although he hasn’t actually played football for over 2 years, his jersey is still amongst the top sellers.

Nike, who not long before they signed Kaepernick, extended their deal with the NFL to supply them with uniforms and equipment for the next eight years– at a price in excess of a billion dollars– saw an opportunity to have their cake and eat it, too. The NFL is a monolith, a powerful institution that is comprised of almost 70% black players, players who are almost certain to suffer lasting and severe brain injury as a result of their jobs.

It’s a gladiatorial spectacle that has always exploited it’s workers for the benefit of gamblers and billionaires, and as wonderful as the game might be, the league that governs it is really kind of evil, and in spite of Nike’s deep and longstanding partnership with the NFL, they want to be seen as a white hat corporation. When we see that swoosh, we’re  supposed to think of commitment and excellence and fighting against the odds. We’re supposed to think of character.

Nike doesn’t want us to think about how they enable and profit off a violent and dangerous sport that cares little for the combatants,  so they hire the iconoclastic Kaepernick to sell shoes to us, thus “seizing control of the narrative.” Nike now pays Kaeprnick for his activism. In the old days, people would say they bought him. And so, with Kaepernick as the face of Nike’s campaign, we are to believe that they are the Rebel Alliance and not the Death Star.

We are to believe that Nike is about civil rights, not sweat shops.

Anyway, I don’t begrudge Kaepernick a single thing. I like his protest and I like him, and I hope that the fortune he has now earned makes him happy, and gives him an opportunity to further his activism and do whatever the hell he wants. He has earned that. Just don’t believe that Nike “has seen the light.” No, they’re just presenting the face they think we want to see, while keeping their own concealed.

The heat sat upon everything.

Oppressive and exhausting, it slowly disabled the day’s options. You couldn’t go outside. You couldn’t get comfortable. You couldn’t even think straight, and every time you moved it was as if this thing, this heavy, unseen entity, was wrapping itself just a little more tightly around you.

It was a long weekend and most of the people in Toronto seemed to have vacated the city for cottages. As Rachelle, Jones and I drove through the city to the Ontario Science Centre, we passed empty streetcars on empty roads, and on very rare occasion a person—always appearing slightly dazed, as if they’d just forgotten where they were going. There was a distinctly post-apocalyptic vibe in the still, dirty air, and it all felt as much a dream as not.

The Science Centre was very crowded, though, and it was filled with people just like us, people looking for a place that was open to the public, air-conditioned and entertaining for young children. We were all lucky, all of us there, lucky to have such a place available to us, lucky to be able to use it, and lucky beyond the known margins, too, lucky in ways none of us could even imagine.

But still, it wasn’t easy. It was crowded and loud, even chaotic, and Jones was so excited that he ran in crazed and unpredictable zigzags, and after a few hours we felt like cats chasing the red dot of a laser pointer. And as it approached noon, the children, all exhausted and hungry now, began to throw tantrums. It was like artillery going off, like fireworks.

One child would explode into tears, another one would kick a juice box out of a parent’s hand, and another would just flop face first on the floor and begin kicking his feet, screaming. And so it went, a spreading contagion that was simultaneously hilarious and crushing.

We managed to slither and bounce through it all to find a passage that led to descending escalators. There must have been two or three of them, each one travelling deeper and deeper down and through the wooded ravine the Science Centre was built into.

It was like being submerged in a forest, and the air became cooler and lighter as we descended, and when we stepped off into the refreshing, muted light of a wide open museum space, we were transformed.

About fifty feet in front of us rotating light projections were being cast onto the floor from the ceiling. Ladybugs. Stars. Race Cars. Mysterious fish. Geometric patters. All the children dancing beneath and within this light, and everything was beautiful and quiet and astonishing, like we had just been led to an illuminated cave full of dolphins at play in the purest waters.

1. Executive Order suspending Groupon purchases for medical procedures, including colonoscopies and all eye surgeries.
2. Executive Order creating a Task Force on toy reduction in the living room.
3. Executive Order restoring the “Rule of Law” at sleepy time. No lollipops. No ice cream. No more than 6 stories. No exceptions.
4. Executive Order protecting the household from foreign entry of sand, sticks, rocks of all kind, Play-Doh, cutlery and Spiderman lego into the bed.
5. Executive Order improving accountability and whistleblower protection at the Department of Picking Up Used Kleenex That Almost Landed In The Garbage But Did Not.
6. Executive Order prohibiting the use of Hate Speech such as “Daddy is stink face poo brain,” and, “ Daddy is stink face poo face!”
7. Executive Order consolidating withdrawal from The Chore List Accord, as it was a rotten deal for Mike who was always stuck with picking up all the toys AND doing all the dishes AND taking out the garbage, in spite of how tired his allergies make him. Hugely unfair!!
8. Executive Order creating a Comprehensive Plan for Reorganization of the front closet.
9. Executive Order establishing that I will no longer wear my “A-game shirt” with the basketball players on it beyond the house perimeter, as the un-ironic attention I receive from other women threatens my wife.
10. Executive Order imposing economic sanctions on The Red Lobster after that crappy “Admiral’s Feast,” dinner I ordered on Father’s Day.

    

Make Mike Great Again!

FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS THE WHITE HOUSE GIFT SHOP IS OFFERING A FREEDOM DISCOUNT ON ALL PRESIDENT TRUMP MEMORABILIA!!

THAT’S RIGHT.

FREEDOM SAVINGS OF UP TO 15%!!

DON’T BE A LOSER, ACT FAST WHILE THE SAVINGS ARE STILL AT DEFCOM 5!!!

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NORTH KOREA PEACE SUMMIT COMMEMORATIVE COIN

This beautiful, exquisitely crafted, luxury coin commemorating President Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong-un has been slashed from $24.99 to $19.99!! Nothing says, “Screw you, elites!” like money, so get out there and buy some today!!

PRESIDENT TRUMP “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” BUCK KNIFE

This is a limited production of 25 knives only and features inlays of genuine Blue Lapis, and Red Jasper, with USA and the American Eagle engraved in polished brass bolsters, with a mirror polished blade and “TRUMP” Make America Great Again engraved in the handles. Comes to you in a beautiful Red White and Blue display box equipped for wall hanging.

Buck Knife $149.99

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP LIBERATING AMERICA FROM ROBOT TYRANNY BASEBALL HAT

Who can forget that fateful day when President Trump defeated Robot Supreme Commander ACLL-98 in a pay-per-view hand-to-hand spectacle that pulled in the greatest ratings of all time!?

Baseball hat with patch $49.99

Patch $ 9.99

“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” ONE PIECE WOMAN’S BATHING SUIT

Make a huge splash poolside or at the beach this summer in this classy and flattering, little number!

Swimsuit $55.00

PRESIDENT TRUMP FIRING MEATLOAF FROM CELEBRITY APPRENTICE THROW CUSHION

Remember where you were when Donald Trump fired Meatloaf from Team Backbone! Commemorate this great moment when all of America swept aside their partisan differences and came together as one to watch as the man who would become the greatest President America has ever seen– under tremendous, huge ratings pressure– do the right thing for free enterprise and fire Meatloaf, with a luxury throw cushion or fridge magnet!

Throw cushion ( Bat Out of Hell background) $24.99

Throw cushion (Red, white and blue) $20.99 SOLD OUT!!!!

Fridge magnets $5.99

“FAKE NEWS” BRASS KNUCKLES

These beautiful and effective puncture-spiked brass knuckles are platinum plated and come with the words “Fake” and “News” etched into the receiving end of each one. Fight back against the tyranny of the media, while supplies last!!

Platinum plated “Fake News” Brass Knuckles $1999.00

NSFW “GRAB HER BY THE PUSSY” COMMEMORATIVE COIN

This sexy and stylish NSFW coin is a must have for all Playboys and students of history out there! President Trump, projecting the fun and flirty spirit of the Kennedy years, doesn’t just Make America Great Again, he makes her Swoon again!

Commemorative NSFW coin $49.99

After more than 460,000 miles, the 2022 edition of The Amazing Race came to an end last night with husband and wife duo Justin Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire being crowned the winners! CBS spoke with Justin and Sophie to ask about their experience!

CBS: “Congratulations on your victory! Can you tell us how it felt when you won The Amazing Race?”

Sophie: “Oh, it was unbelievable. We were so physically and mentally exhausted at that point that it was just music to our ears!”

Justin: “This was really, really big. I think the only thing I can compare it to was surviving the Black Trump Virus back in 2019 when it wiped out almost a third of the world population.”

CBS: “What do you think was the secret to your success on The Amazing Race? ”

Sophie: “I believe the biggest thing was that we really thought through the Roadblocks and the Detours. At first we were really impulsive, just jumping in very aggressively, you know? But after our encounter with the underground tribes of Cannibal Island, we realized we were going to have to take a more strategic, measured approach.”

Justin: “Look, I’m very competitive person and I always expect to win. Before Peoplekind’s first contact with The Radium, I was the leader of a great nation, so I had the ability to build consensus with the tribes of Cannibal Island, and working together as one, we were able to destroy some of the other competing couples, namely Adam and Bethany.”

CBS: “That looks like a Canadian flag you have stitched onto your bindles. You were President of Canada in the Before Time, weren’t you?”

Justin: “Prime Minister, actually, but yes, it is true. We were known for our tolerance, diversity and inclusivity.”

Sophie: “Canada, toujours dans nos cœurs!”

CBS: “Indeed, we were all very sorry to see Canada burn during the dimensional shifts. So many fine comics used to come from there.”

Justin: “ Yes, Shaun Majumber, Rick Mercer and Russell Peters to name just a few.

CBS: “So what was your favourite moment from the Race?”

Sophie: “Oh gosh, definitely, the Bollywood Challenge we won in Global Sector 6. So much fun!”

Justin: “Absolutely, it was a real game changer.”

CBS: “So as a successful team, what advice would you give to future contestants going on the show?”

Sophie: “You must make all of the scheduled blood sacrifices to The Radium. It doesn’t matter if you’re exhausted or wounded, you still have to perform the entire sacrifice. Correctly. And if you don’t, The Radium will know! Look what happened to the mother son team of Dot and Danny.”

Justin: “I would just add that even though it’s important for you to respect the survivors of all the Global Sectors you visit, you really are better off shooting first and asking questions later. ”

CBS: “Do you have any special plans for the Oxygen Credits you just won on The Amazing Race?

Justin: “For now we’re not going to change. We’re going to just continue hunting and gathering, but eventually we would like to be able to acquire a flesh slave.”