Take on the South Carolina anti porn bill

Two lawmakers in South Carolina na have proposed a bill banning pornography on any device which will ensure one things...people will start getting VPN like they do in China when they want to watch a little Midnight rendezvous.
What is more disturbing is that they give you an opt-in, you can pay $20 to the state to disable the porn blocker which doesn't exactly make there entire "Sex Trafficking" initiative feel a little weak.
But most importantly, this will mean that I will never visit the state again

Take on the Trump security team

Reports surfaced on Monday night that the president elect was planning on keeping his own security staff around to protect him, a job which has always fallen upon the secret service. People have already bent themselves into pretzels trying to justify this but it really doesn't make sense and is probably quite dangerous. The logistics of a presidential visit is already a massive undertaking but if you add to that a team of a dozen private contractors l it becomes that much more impossible to manage. What happens when Trumps security detail and the secret service disagree on a threat to his safety, who gives? Does this become a standoff situation to see who blinks first. More importantly or telling, hiring a private security team sounds like the kind of thing that Gaddafi would have done

Although it would make for a good plot line for a ridiculous Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about a breach by a private contracted security team as an attempted overthrow of the government. The twist...although we all assume it originated with the contractors, the inside job actually came from the secret service.

Arnold could use the work

Take on the Puppet

Puppet? No Puppet!!

Every time I turn around, Trump has added another pro Russian to his inner circle and every time he does, we're changing the geopolitical climate. First it was Manford, then Flynn and now with Tillerson, it couldn't be a more pro Russian government unless we brought back Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev and Nikolai Volkoff. I also get that not having an adversarial relationship with the great sleeping bear is not a bad thing but in doing so it encourages and justifies their behavior in Aleppo and the Ukraine and the rest of that part of the world

Take on Santa

With a seven year old in tow, it's becoming harder and harder to walk down the street and not feel like she's going to come to a major revaluation at any given point. I know that this is about the right age for her to come to that conclusion but I'm just not ready for it and I certainly don't need her finding out by seeing some four whiskey, cigarette dangling out of his mouth fat man dressed in a red suit to ruin it for her when he rips ass in the Shop Rite parking lot as he's getting into his CRV. Take the costume off when you are going to be a jerk

Take on the Ivanka Trump coffee date

Apparently the dumber (but slightly less sleazy)of the two Trump bros has been pimping it his sister for a cup of coffee for the highest bidder. We're not sure how TeflonDon or Mr. Kushner thinks about it but we're assuming they signed off on it.
But this is just how obvious it has become that The Trump administration is open for business and if you want to do business with The USA you better stay at a Trump property, get an overlooked burger at the Trump Grill or bid $70,000 to have a cup of coffee with Ivanka. I'm sure you assume she'll flash you more than just a smile but I seriously doubt it.

Take on Big Chris' book deal

Nobody is loathed in the state on New Jersey more than Chris Christie. The fat man shut down a bridge for political gain, spent the better part of his second term running for president and then helping TeflonDon win and now in some kind of backroom deal is working with NJ Lawmakers to give them raises in exchange for lifting a ban and letting him write a book while in office. This is the kind of leadership that Big Chris would have brought to the White House had he come anywhere close to it which luckily he hasn't because apparently Trump shut the doors so quickly you would have thought it was a Waffle House offering all you can eat pancakes when Christie walked up.
I know we're piling on but if this country wants to Drain the Swamp they should start with the biggest turd in a state famous for its Swamp.

Big Chris is as crooked as he is fat and I for one can't wait for them to roll this tub of lard out of office in a year

Take on the bubble pack

Nothing irks me more as a person concerned about the environment than the amount of waste we get when getting things delivered. A Toys R Us package came yesterday and when it shows up I expected it to weigh thirty pounds because it was packed in a 15x15x15 box. I pick it up and find it weighs about as much as the empty version of the box may have. I fire there is probably a pillow inside but instead it's a little lego set wrapped around thirty miles of bubble wrap. I cannot imagine this is at all efficient and it certainly is not good for the environment because what the hell am I going to do with thirty miles of bubble wrap.
I thought about tossing it in the recycling bin except now my entire bin would be full. I could pop them all but probably wake up my kids in the process or I can take them to work to reuse it in our shipping department. I opt for the third option and o w here I sit on an hour and a half bus ride with a bag of bubble wrap on my lap which is about as uncomfortable as sleeping on a plastic bag.

Thanks a lot Toys R Us

Take on Rex Ryan Tillerson

TeflonDon tapped Rex Tillerson as America's number one diplomat this morning which seems about a good an idea as putting Rex Ryan in charge of your football team.  

You may not think Rex Ryan should lead the Rams next year and I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure putting the CEO of one of the worlds latest companies who has ties and business interests that do not align with American diplomacy is a hot idea, either

I'm fine with putting business minded people in cabinet jobs, just don't think the SoS is one of those and certainly not with an oil man.  

The only question now is if Rex Ryan is a bigger sham as a defensive guru (Le'veon Bell has wet dreams about his vaunted defense) or if TeflonDon is a bigger one as POTUS

Problem is that one of them only ha to please a bunch of meatheads who body slam each other into burning wooden tables covered in Natty Ice cans while the other is the leader of the free world, but who's counting?

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Take on the cyber hackers

When a man proudly claims that he doesn't use a computer, you can't fault him for not knowing how the mechanics of one works. It certainly sounded like Trump thought that Hillary acidwashing her emails meant he stood in her bathroom pouring a bunch of bleach dumping it on her MacBook.
So you can't totally fault him for thinking that it's impossible to catch a hacker because you can only catch them in the act, as if there is I trail of clues. You can't fault him for not knowing it because nobody really knows how it's done but you can certainly fault him for spreading it out there
But the real question was why weren't we told about this earlier and I think it comes down to one thing...arrogance. Nobody in the big democratic empire ever imagined that Hillary would lose, so they wanted to look like they weren't getting down and dirty

Obama not wanting to look like he was meddling kept the information at bay. The CIA not wanting to look like they were comparing penis sizes with the FBI, kept their finding quiet.
I kind of doubt the Russians really had much of an impact but when the entire election hinges on a few hundred thousand votes in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, anything helps

Take on the blow up Santa

I'm convinced that when you show up to WhiteTrash heaven there will be a 1992 Nissan Pulsar parked on the lawn surrounded by a bunch of Coors Lite cans, a hot-tub plugged into an outlet using one of those big orange extension cords, a bunch of huge blow up Santas spliced off of the same extension cord and a Trump/Pence sign to boot
Nothing brings property value down more quickly than tackiness and nothing exemplifies tackiness like those blow up Christmas decorations. They are like fake trees expect worse. They take no effort which should tell you they suck because nothing spells "I wear sweatpants to the mall" like a giant Rudolph crumpled into a pile of plastic crap at 8am when your automatic timer turns off

Do us all a favor and put a little effort into the holidays and spread a little holiday cheer without the entire place looking like BounceU!

Take on the guy in his pajamas at 4am

I get that at some point, people just give up. How many times can they pretend that they see Rudolph in the distance, how many clever spots can they find to his the Elf of the Shelf and how many stocking stuffers can they come up with but that doesn't give them the right to look like a tool. Nothing is more doochy than showing up at a Christmas tree place than the guy who is dressed in his looks like green pajamas at 4pm. We get it dude, you're too cool for this thing and you want to show the world that you don't care but the rest of us want a little holiday spirit when we dropping $75 on a Douglas Fir that will last two weeks and spread pine needles like the girls at Rutgers spread the Clap.

So put your on a stupid Santa hat, drink some eggnog and go get a foot massage and a BJ from the foot massage place up the street

Ho Ho fucking Ho

Take on Rudy

On 9/12/01, there was no more popular man in the world than one Rudolph Giuliani. He showed courage, strength, resolve and leadership and the world watched in awe as he give us the confidence to rebuild. Yeah, his history with police brutality was a bit much, the fact he was on his way to his third wife while married to his second didn't sit real well and that lisp was annoying but he was our mayor, he was America's mayor and the world was his oyster
The problem was that he kept reading his own press clippings and thought that because people liked him as a mayor, they'd want him as more when really they didn't. Rudy is that weird uncle with the rotten breath who hugs his nieces a bit too long. When he's putting away bad guys or at minimum stopping them from trying to wash your windshield with a dirty newspaper, you love him. But when he wants to come for dinner and talk about himself you come up with an excuse why you are busy.

Well Donald came up with an excuse. Who knows what it was but it probably started here and ended there and went up down and around and at the end Rudy and Newt and Big Chris and Corey and Hope are all hanging out telling war stories of when Trump shoved Jeb! in his locker all fully aware that that locker could have easily had their name written on it...cause they all know it does

Take on the Prudential ad

There is a big prudential billboard on 42nd street which you see as your bus crawls into the abyss that is Port Authority. You have plenty of time to stare at it because the traffic moves so slowly that you can literally see people walk fatale than your bus is traveling, so you have a lot of time to look out the window as you dread the rest of your commute, the continuation of your day and the rest of your miserable life.

One sign catches your attention, a sign for Prudential apparently advertising their retirement packages but the sign reads "we spend more time matching socks than planning for retirement". I get that the "we" in this sentence is supposed to be "you" the reader but the cynic reads the "we" as in Prudential which is really not all that comforting a thought if you task them with your life savings.

Might want to bring that back to Don at creative for some rework.

Take on Linda McMahon

The state of Connecticut wants interested in electing her, so maybe she can serve the country as a whole instead.  Linda McMahon was tapped by Trump to lead the Small Business Administration which is a role which I've never even heard of which, I guess, makes her perfectly qualified.

I mean this woman has led a bunch of steroid driven frat boys to beat each other like they are at a Bills Game so why not put her in charge of a major organization??
But this isn't what bothers me about her.  What bothers me is that she has a terrible haircut which looks like she was sunbathing on the lawn and Vince came by with a lawnmower.   She looks like Suzy Orman's twin sister, if that sister had gotten hit across the head with a folding chair. http://apps.suzeorman.com/photolibrary/lendmoney_suze.jpg

Plus she has a weird looking eye

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Take on the Trump Dream Team

Retired Lieutenant Michael Flynn will likely become Trump's National Security Advisor which is about as reassuring as putting Swiper the Fox in charge of rationing. Flynn might be decorated for his service, but what he sees "news" as plain wall decoration. Throw as much propaganda at the wall and hope some of it sticks. For all the valor and smarts that Mattis would bring, Flynn would bring the opposite. I do not intend on knocking every Trump nomination, just the ridiculous ones like the rumored Palin one or the out of place ones like Carson for HUD. I'd be fine with Huntsman or his alter ego Romney at State, I'd be less interested in John Bolton although maybe his brother Michael wouldn't be terrible. I like Mattis as head of the pentagon, Priebus as Chief of Staff seems harmless although Bannon is a wackadoodle. I'm not thrilled with the two Trump boys being involved as they are just dumb horny frat boys. Ivanka might be ok as she seems somewhat sensible but she'll bring nothing but conflict and Kushner is at least bright although probably is right of Netanyahu on Israel. Wilbur Ross might be ok as commerce secretary although I assume he looks like Wilfred Brimley who coincidently is another Latter Day Saint. Betsy DeVos is a lunatic, Nikki Halley kind of reminds me of Nikki Cox in a good way. I can't figure out how to pronounce the Mnuchin guy's name but it looks phonetically like a crappy town in Jersey. Jeff Sessions is an awful human and is such a hick he makes Jeff Foxworthy seem like a metrosexual. Mike Pompeo seems like the kind of guy you get stuck next to at a dinner party and you constantly hope your phone rings so you can pretend it's somebody calling to say that a bus drove over your cat.
I know nothing about Elaine Chow other than she probably shoves a gag-ball in Mitch McConnell mouth as she stands over him wearing crotchless panties and carrying a whip, an image which is now burned into your brain forever.
There is a guy in charge of health who I know nothing about, I'm sure he's fine..or not (update, he's crazy)


Maybe he can put Al Gore on cyber security

Take on the Carson pick

Donald Trump said he will nominate Ben Carson to head HUD which somehow makes him the least qualified nominee of the. Ew administration which is saying a lot since he is rumored to be considering Sarah Palin to head the VA. Ben Carson seems like a wise choice if you need somebody to operate on an infants brain or if you need a guy to speak very softly to you, he would be the man but if you needed a guy to lead a giant government agency, maybe a guy with no formal leadership experience isn't the best bet. Land even I you did, maybe tasking a guy with experience in housing development might be an option, but then again that doesn't seem like the kind of person TeflonDon could find in his circle.

Oh well, there is always General Flynn who is maybe more qualified but a lot more dangerous.

Take on the Trump-SNL feud

Everybody agrees that our president elect is a thin skinned man, one who sees every perceived slight as a personal insult needed to be addressed. Whether it is Rosie or The New York Times, he goes on a complete rampage whenever there is even a small criticism. But nothing is more bizarre than his anger towards Saturday Night Live, an NBC franchise which has lived through, and critiqued presidents from Ford to Bush and from Reagan to Obama. But our President-Elect just won't stand for it and has been going on total twitter rampages attacking Alec Baldwin's impression and of course the Lame Stream Media is up in arms.
But nobody seems to remember that Trump has a long relationship with NBC and Universal and it wouldn't shock me if this 'feud' is completely fabricated to help the failing Saturday Night Live get some traction in a post Jon Stewart world. Every complaint he makes, creates stories about the show and rushes hundreds of thousands of people to watch the clips on YouTube. Something tells me this war is anything but...

Take on the third party

I'm not 100% sure what Jill Stein stands for but I'm pretty sure it's mostly Jill Stein. Maybe they Green Party stands for going green with wind turbines and recycling programs. Or maybe it's all about Mary Jane, but either way it is not at all a relevant party. The Libertarians are only slightly better even if their leader couldn't tell Aleppo from Aladdin. Ross Perot was sort of interesting the first time before he got that bumbling old guy who could t hear the questions.
I get that third party candidates have virtually no voice in our national elections which sounds troubling at its face but might not be. The problem is in a representative democracy, if there were three viable candidates, it's entirely possible and very likely that we would have elections where none of the candidates get 270 electoral votes. In this case the House of Representatives gets to choose the next president with each of the fifty states having a single vote for the top three candidates in terms of electoral votes. As much as our 'democracy' feels like a sham now, imagine that. Each state has he exact same weight and a bunch of lunatic politicians not talented enough to become senators get to choose for us, Jesus kill me.

Maybe get rid of the electoral college but with three or more candidates you will never get any of them to get a majority of voters, so your president will be representing a vote of around 40% which means that 60% of the electorate wouldn't have wanted her. So that kind of sucks, too. You wind up getting these sloppy behind the scenes coalitions with backhanded deals and cronyism at best and no government at all at worse, which might not be that bad.


So until we are ready to rip up the constitution and come up with a completely different method of voting for president, I'm not sure they really need a platform, cause in theory it sounds enticing but in practice it sounds like they will bring more mess than they are worth

Take on the Trump Tie thing

We've been wondering about Trump's ties for a while, first of all, he wears them way too long (https://elytsbiz.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/trump-h.jpg)  usually having the thing hang between his legs probably overcome his shortness in other places.   It's also weird how he never buttons his jacket which makes him look a lot more sloppy than a guy who is always in a suit is supposed to look.    The last thing is that apparently Trump scotch tapes his tie together because he ties it so low that the skinny piece doesn't fit into the little loop thing.  My theory is that he thinks he is taller than he actually is, so he ties his tie way too long which is why it dangles like it does and why he needs to tape it together

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Take on the crazies

A buddy of mine shared a Facebook post about a bunch of love starved crazies who were the craziest of the ProLifers I've ever seen. These hard-up chicks were protesting that ejaculation is murder which is about as insane as a group of hard up chicks can get. This is the kind of thing which turns even the most ardent defenders against your cause and Jill's any chance of you ever having a date

Take on Palin

Donald Trump has told us time and time again that the veterans affairs department is a complete disaster and a disgrace to the veterans who who will tell you only he seems to care about.  Well except if they are captured during war time and spend any time as a POW, then he doesn't very much care for you.   But what better way to fix a troubled department than by putting the hocky Lame Stream Media fighting, rhyme spouting hockey mom in charge.  This is a woman who put an airplane on eBay, this is a woman who could see Putin from her bedroom window, this is a woman who couldn't identify a single newspaper she reads regularly.   This is a woman so incompetent that somehow she went from the highest profile republican to some chick who looks like she smells weird in a matter of months.  

Yes, that is the one we need in charge of anything.  

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Take on the dinner date

Another day, another Trump story.   This time it revolved around Trump and Mitt Romney going out on a chaperoned date at Jean Georges restaurant on Central Park South.   Reporters were claiming t be interested in the geopolitical views of the last two GOP nominees and whether they could put aside their differences (read Mitt could grovel enough to have Trump accept his apology) but really there were only a few questions anybody had

- who paid for dinner?

- why does Mitt look like he just saw the devil in person?

- why does Donny smile like he is the devil in person?

- what did they order?   

- did Don get his steak well done or well well done?

- did Mitt wait for Don to order and then order something slightly cheaper on the menu?   This is assuming that he thought Don was treating

- did Reince leave the two lovebirds alone for a little one-on-one time?

- did they compare the sizes of their "portfolios"?

- did the two of them go for pizza after spending $150 for a prefix menu that was a collection of snails and quail eggs?

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Take on Kellyann Conway

Kellyann Conway is one of the reasons we will have Donald Trump as Presidente in a few short weeks as she was one of the few people who were able to corral him and keep him on message.  She was a fierce defender and loyalist (after she was originally a big Ted Cruz Anti Trumpette) but recently has gone rogue with her criticism of the possible choice of Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. 

I guess she needed to quell the notion that there was some kind of rift between her at the PEOTUS, so she tweeted out a picture of her and Trump staring at a MacBook like two teenage kids staring at porn. 

This photo is odd in a few ways

- Trump always claims to have never used a computer while this photo certainly implies he is using one, although it does kind of look like a 70 year old grandmother trying to figure out the new iOS

- he apparently has gotten rid of his MAGA hats and replaced them with big ugly USA hats.  Gotta say the guy is consistent in his choice of head wear

- Kellyann always has that look on her face like somebody farted near her but because she's had so much Botox, she can't quite make the "something stinks" face.  I'd hate to not be able to make that face

- the tableau is interesting in that it is almost completely devoid of the color blue.  Between Conway's red suit, Trump's red tie, that ugly red hat and those two mahogany boxes upon the burnt orange table it looks like the inside of Donna Brazile's own personal hell.  

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Take on the rigged election

It was only a matter of time but somebody was able to get under TeflonDon's skin with the entire recount thing.  Granted, this is just the democrats being sore losers as there is nobody who believes there is any large scale voter fraud that would have turned this election.  But it's also hypocritical for them to call for a recount now after chiding Trump about his "rigged" calls before the election.  I get that there were some possible abnormalities in some counties in Wisconsin but that doesn't explain Pennsylvania or Michigan or Florida or Ohio or any other place where she lost.  

Of course now Trump has gotten his panties in a bunch and went on a twitter rant about how the Stein/Hillary call for a recount is crap and just sour grapes especially because there were millions of illegal immigrants who voted for Hillary giving her a rigged popular vote lead.  

At this point I'm just hoping to open my eyes and it's 2020 and I still have my house, my family and all my rights. 

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Take on Dump Tower

Google Maps made a funny (https://www.google.com/maps/place/700+5th+Ave,+New+York,+NY+10019/@40.7629446,-73.9737682,16z/data=!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x89c258fa88f07795:0x79ef561d8ac4097c!2sMidtown+East,+New+York,+NY+10022!3m1!1s0x89c258fa4b9f7e39:0x95a1f7b4449c7fe6) and we for one appreciate a little comedy in this year of tragedy for the liberals

First Hillary loses, then Fidel dies and there are rumors that Bernie Sanders is really old, so this has not been a good month.   Even Trump has not had an easy month, first he got a job he never wanted, then a bunch of buildings on the West Side Dumped Trump and now The Dump has come to his own house.   See when somebody hacks the Big Bad Google and dumps a Dump Tower on us, I, for one, can appreciate it.   This is the thing, Trump will be president in two months and now that Google made a joke at his expense, he will unleash a mount of fury at them not seen like Rosie's toilet after a bout of bad Mexican. 

Sometimes laughter is the only thing keeping you from crying 

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Take on Jill Stein's Money

Jill Stein got about as many votes as Harambe yet somehow the left now trusts her to hold the fate of our country in her menopausal hands.   I get that this was going to come up and I understand that there are vast groups of people who feel a need to check the scoreboard a thousand times but somehow nobody could have wanted Jill Stein to run this thing.  First of all, she's about as equipped at running anything as I am, and that should give nobody any confidence. Secondly, today they came up with a statement that said they weren't able to guarantee that the four million dollars that they raised actually will go towards a recount and not just a pizza party and a couple Make America Green Again hats.  

Please just go back to the set of Golden Girls and let us be done with this craziness 

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Take on the Michigan Results

It's been 2+ weeks and right on cue, the Michigan results are in.   It's odd that it takes so long for certain states to count there results which only makes me wonder what would have happened had the results of the election depended on that one state, but I bet it would have been utter chaos with two teams announcing Secretary of State nominations and HUD directors.  The uncertainty of the election would have hung over us like ten dread of having to eat turkey and cranberry sauce.   It's 2016, there is no good reason why we can't get results sent immediately, if it works for American Idol, you can make this work Peter Thiel

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Take on the recount

We spent the last three months rallying against Donald Trump as we believes him to be ill equipped to handle the role he will now take on.  He is temperamental, vindictive, arrogant, misogynistic, erratic yet utterly predictable, crass and unstable not to mention probably not that smart.   But even this editorial board does not want to see a recount, our bed has been made and it's time to lie down in it.   I get that some computer nerds are saying that there are inconsistencies in the electronic ballots which might very well be true but there is no way that this country will stand for another contested outcome. We get that there are people who will scream from their brownstones or Hollywood Hills that they've been robbed but sadly it doesn't matter.   We cannot go through another Gore v Bush thing, we'll have civil war.   My guess is that at the end of the day, she won't find enough mistakes on the ballots to overturn what was widely accepted as an electoral college landslide and even if it does, it will bring the right out with guns blazing (figuratively).  

It's time to move on, it's time to put up and deliver and it's time to stop talking about Hillary, those days are behind us.   It's TeflonDon's job now, no more complaints about Hillary or Obama or Bush, it's time to govern

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Take on the chipotle burrito

There are four things you can expect when you go to Chipotle 

- you are guaranteed to spend $15 even if it says $7 on the menu.  You can't get a burrito and not get guacamole or lettuce or tomatoes and every time you add something the little cash register goes cha-ching

- about fifty minutes after you spend $8 more than you expected you will also run to the bathroom a lot more quickly than expected.   

- you'll get some crazy David Blaine type magic happened because somehow you can eat a 1/2 pound burrito and shit out a two pound taco bowl which is beyond me.   And somehow that 1.5 pound net loss is a 1.5 pound net gain when you get on the scale 

- you can expect that not only will your colon be both cleaned and ripped to shreds, you will also have been lied to in terms of calorie intake since they claim that 1/2 pound burrito is only 300 calories, even if it actually clocks in somewhere north of 1000 calories. 

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Take on the $1 million cost to protect Trump

According to a CNN article today, it will cost NYC in excess of $1 million dollars per day to protect TeflonDon while he's in the city.  The cos isn't surprising as NYC is an incredibly densely populated city and they are keeping blocks around Trump Tower fenced off.   I walked past the building today and saw the impact it must have on the city as a whole and Trump's neighbors and Trump Tower residence in particular.  If you are running a store in the building, you can't be thrilled that nobody can walk anywhere best the entrance of the building.  Then you have the traffic which has slowed to an absolute crawl anywhere near the building and you can see the direct cost and indirect impact colliding. 

But the good news is that he'll be in DC in two short months, a city obviously equipped to handle the security of a president and his family around the clock

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Take on Big Chris

Politico had a feature this weekend about the rise and fall of Chris Christie within the Trump transition team which felt like a man who show up to a buffet line and being told they are all sold out.   Big Chris's transition team was apparently stuffed with more insiders and lobbyists than a thanksgiving turkey which didn't sit well with Trump as those were the very groups that he campaigned against.   The other thing about Big Chris was that he's got that 300 pound BO NJ Turnpike level stench of Bridgegate that nobody wants a part of.  The combination of the two made Chris so toxic that Trump had to clear the room which is appropriate since Chris has been known to clear a few rooms with his own toxins. 

But compared to a few others that are being tossed around, he is sort of competent, even if he is a sleazy tub of lard.  Unlike a couple of them (Sessions and Bannon) he isn't an overt racist.  And unlike his butt buddy Rudy, he doesn't have foreign money ties unless you count Chinese Take out.  He doesn't have any completely wacky religious things,  He hasn't been all bad for the state, so there's that.  

So I guess I'd be fine with Big Chris in some role, just not as secretary of transportation 

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Take on the most painful noise in the world

There is nothing more painful than the sound of a kid whining.  I can spend an entire day in great spirits, have had totally pleasant day and the second one of my three princesses starts to whine, my blood pressure goes through the roof.   It's like hearing finger nails on a chalk board, in that I feel the pain in my bones  

And it is not whining per se, it's my own kids doing it that makes me want to jump out of a window.  I've come to the point where when another kid does it, it makes no impression on me at all, it's actually sort of a nice sound, only because it means that I don't have to deal with it. 

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Take on Trump Place

There are a few things you can always expect driving up the West Coast Highway on a Friday

- a weird homeless guy screaming on the corner of 59th street about the nearing apocalypse 

- a miserable amount of traffic which starts bybrhat homeless guy and ends somewhere in the 201 area code

- the sight of the president elect's great accomplishment, an entire NYC neighborhood adorning his name

Well, I guess two out of three ain't bad.   Today, as I was driving past Trump village, I looked over and noticed that in front of the big gold T-R-U-M-P letters was plywood, a sight that El Presidente cannot be happy about.  Apparently the residents of three of the buildings caused enough of a stink that they had management change the names of the buildings from Trump Place to 140, 160 and 180 Riverside Avenues.  

It's a bit much honestly, you decided to move in to those buildings fully aware that they were marketed as Trump but now you are too good for them.  It's completely within your right to complain and use your collective power to change it but to get on this holier than thou mentality is what bothers me.  Trump has been the same egotistical, tacky menacing creep for as long as NYC has known him.  He embraced the birther thing nearly a decade ago, he has looked like a blown up Macy's balloon, he's the epitome of tacky.  

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Take on Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck is the ultimate chameleon, having gone from a guy who lives in a bunker surrounded by bars of gold in fear of the liberal apocalypse to a guy who dresses like the apocalypse came in the form of a stylist from the west village.   Some how a guy who spent the last eight years railing against Obama and the vast liberal overtaking of country and home has gone on to killing Trump and the alt-right movement while wearing sandals, a Michael Kors scarf and a fedora.  I get that maybe Beck is more showman than actual lunatic but this might be going a little far..everybody knows that wearing denim matched with grey-blue over true blue is a terrible look. 

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Take on the fat guy from North Korea

When you have a country of starving people it is just rude to look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and tat us exactly what their dear leader looks like and Kim Jong Un isn't happy about us calling him out for being a fatty. 

Apparently North Korea has contacted China to cry about their media calling the fatty a fatty. Maybe this is the way to get some nuclear disembarkment... nothing else is working 

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Take on Trump's best call

There is almost nothing I agree with our president elect on but one thing that he does have right is that LaGuardia airport is a disaster.  We drove up this morning at 5AM and it took us nearly 30 minutes to get from the ramp to the terminal, which was longer than it took to get from house to that spot.   There was construction and hazmats and hardhats and god knows what else but one thing it definitely was, was a mess.   I had planned my trip in well, so was t that nervous but there were a few minutes when I honestly thought I may have to get out and walk.  So El Presidente, do you want to find common ground with people who didn't support you....make your first order of business to fix this hellhole. 

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Take on Steve Bannon

Liberals were flabbergasted when Trump chose Steve Bannon as chief strategist in the White House putting him on par with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus pointing to him as the bullhorn of the alt-right movement.  Bannon has been called an anti-Semite which couldn't sit well with Jared Kushner, has been praised by white supremacists and has run a website with racist and misogynist undertones.  

But what bothers us more is that the guy doesn't just act like but he also looks like he hangs with the Unabomber.  Forget Jews or Muslims or Gays or Mexicans, there is nothing that seems to annoy Steve Bannon more than a comb and a toothbrush.  If you caught this dude on the subway platform wearing an oversized Jets jacket with newspapers shoved into the pockets as he is ranting about the Jewish media and complaining about "perceived " racial inequality,you'd think he needed to be institutionalized....and maybe he does. 

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Take on the Swamp

The most appealing thought about Donald Trump was certainly the Drain the Swamp thing, as thee is nobody outside of Mitch McConnell's mother who wants to see any of these guys stick around Washington. 

I was half expecting a cabinet of Jared Kushner, Howard Stern and Omarosa.  But instead we're probably going to be stuck with Newt Gingrich as Secretary of State, Jeff Sessions as head of homeland security and Rience Priebus as Chief of Staff.    How exactly are you draining a swamp when the Chris Christie's fat ass is stuffing he drain?!?   There literally is no more of an insider than the head of the RNC or the DNC would be, Gingrich was speaker of the house and Jeff Sessions makes Jeff Daniels seem like a Hollywood outsider. 

Luckily Rience won't last too long because there is no way that Trump is going to be able to listen to a word that this pencil necked geek will utter.  Trump will likely shove him in the locker next to the one he shoved Jeb! into and then will likely hire Baron to take over the roll. 

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Take on Trump's tie

All the talk on Thursday was about the White House meeting between Obama and Trump and how most people were shocked at the tenor of it.  These are two people who despite never having actually met, despised each other.   But Trump coming off of an election result that nobody expected, was in a jovial mood and the two seemed to find a few things they could connect on

But while everybody was looking at the two leaders and trying to interpret every phrase and every piece of body language but we at TOR were more interested in the fact that Trump who never buttons his jacket, had it buttoned to meet Obama and then sat down without unbuttoning it which made it look like he was letting Little Donny breath free

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Take on the First Lady elect

Being the first family can't be easy, just ask Chelsea or those Bush twins or the Obama girls, nothing about living in the spotlight like that sounds like any fun and for a kid it just can't be easy.  

But still I don't feel bad for any of the adult Trumps, they knew what they go into and they are all sleazy enough to benefit from it.  I don't  feel bad for the hot daughter, I don't feel bad for the not hot daughter, I don't feel bad for the sleazy son and I don't feel bad for the even sleavier one.  I don't feel bad for the son in law or the hot daughter in law and I don't feel bad for the no so hot daughter in law.   I do feel for Baron because that kid is going to get picked on like Trump picked on Jeb! and that sucks and he's never going to have a normal life and that isn't fair.   The only other one II feel bad for  is Melania

You may wonder why I feel bad for Melania, She's and adult who has benefited greatly from Trump's fame and money.  But what I feel bad for is that she was probably promised a different lifestyle when Trump picked her out of some Slovakian or Slovenian village.  She wants to be pampered and massaged and wined and dined and now she is stuck sitting at dinner Mitch McConnell who looks like he smells like cheese and not the good French kind.  

She has to pretend to care about kids both here and abroad, she has to keep some stupid organic garden snd pretend to care about child labor and not look disgusted when some kid drools on her Jimmy Choo's during the White House Easter Egg hunt.  She is going to be asked to travel to a bunch of not glamorous places and be around a bunch of boring foreigners. She'll be tasked with some lame thing like Just Say No or childhood obesity and she'll hate every second of it because she'll be forced to come into contact with some little cesspool of snot and poop and whatever virus is keeping little Johnny's nose running. 

Eventually she'll have to host her replacement and look cordial when all she will want to think is "Mrs Kaine, you look like my frumpy babooska" and still smile and act normal.   

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Take on the election autopsy

After we had a chance as a nation to mourn or celebrate, it was time to get to serious business and that has to be..why was  everybody so wrong.   I hear a lot of people blaming Nate Silver, saying the wonder child was exposed but I don't think so.  538 had Trump at a 28% shot, nobody turns the TV off when a .280 hitter is up at the plate especially one with power.   That is like turning off the TV when Darryl Strawberry is up at the plate in the bottom of the ninth.  

Another way to look at is is that nobody is willing to risk their house even if they have a 75% chance of winning.   A 25% chance is a real chance and not one we should have taken lightly

But where people were wrong were on six points.  They misread the electorate and they misread it badly on

Hispanics

Everybody assumed that they would as a bloc vote en masse against Trump but they didn't.   Because they are not a homogenous voting bloc, not even close.   1 in 3 Latino men voted for Trump, 1 in 4 Latino women did.  First of all, Latinos are not that easily categorized, a Cuban and a Guatemalan have virtually nothing in common.  A Dominican doesn't care if Trump builds a wall and might actually embrace the idea.  A NYC Puerto Rican is not any more or less likely to vote Trump than anybody else in NYC.   

For the ones who it should have affected, the ones living near the border...maybe there were people protecting their own jobs, they saw illegal immigration as their own NAFTA.  

Women

Everybody thought that women would come out overwhelmingly for Hillary but they didn't and many voted for Trump because as much as we thought they would, women don't particularly like Hillary.  She is too robotic, too scripted and too unlikeable.  She is what they hate society demands them to be.. calculated and emotionless.  

Voting Booth truth serum   

People who were probably pro-Trump didn't admit it in proper company afraid they'd be labeled as racist or sexists and instead decided to stay quiet.  When they were asked who they supported they gave the canned "they are both awful" statement but when in the privacy of the voting booth they went Trump

The wealthy would support Hillary

They did not, because people who have money want to keep it and as much as Hillary was pro banking and the economy has done well under Obama, these people hate paying 30-40% in taxes and Trump promised to cut them.  People vote with the wallets and nothing gets a rich guys weiner harder than the thought of paying less taxes. 

Obamacare

The assumption was that by now, Obamacare would be generally liked and basically engrained in our social fiber but it hasn't.  Small business are getting crushed by the mandate and they want our from underneath it.  Whether it's real or basically just FoxNews talking points, people believe it and want it gone because they believe it hurts....

Jobs

We see the reports of job increases and Obama has done admirably coming out of the Great Recession but those jobs aren't allowing the middle class to thrive.  Vacations are a pipe dream, new cars and home are illusions.   The jobs that are available for the blue collar guys are limited and stagnant and not importantly...not full time.   

But Hillary's team knew she was flawed and for all that vaunted ground game we were expecting they fell flat.  How you knew they were aware the polls looked scary for her...less than one week before the election, they sent Obama to Michigan to campaign...Michigan.   The writing was one the wall 

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Take on The Conversation

How am I going to explain this to my daughters???

My two year old is too young to understand; my four year old also but my seven year old certainly does.   She doesn't understand the larger repercussions, she doesn't know the gravity but she will.   She will feel it, she will know that we haven't made the progress that my wife, my mom, my grandmother thought they made.  She will know, in her heart, that her country still thinks it's ok to denigrate her.  

It's not that a woman didn't win, it is that a misogynists did.  I could have explained Jeb!, or W or even Ted Cruz but I cannot explain how we, as the most diverse country in the world, can be so accepting of something so rotten.  

I don't know what I will tell her other than that I'm sorry that she will wake up tomorrow and know that this is the will of the people, that this is now OK.  That preying on women, that calling them pigs and dogs is apparently acceptable, that threatening to rape them is just locker room talk that can be laughed off. 

How can I explain that any college educated woman voted for this man?  How can I explain that a college educated man did?   I expected that the uneducated would, but how does somebody with an advanced degree, a supposed view of the world and of history, somebody with a sense of decency, stand in a booth a pull the tab down for a man like this?

What is wrong with our country that this is acceptable

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Take on the projections

It's 9:35pm and still most battleground states are too close to call and I feel like I am going to puke.   I know nothing has happened yet but I cannot imagine that there are this many people in this country who would vote for this psychopath

The only positives to this are the fact that wolf Blitzer is about to have a coronary right on live TV, I can't even imagine how Chris Matthews is coping. 

But forget all of it, because as pleasurable it is to see these clowns basically committing live suicide, it's that sad for the rest of us. 

Hey Nate Silver, you might need to find a new career because this isn't feeling great right now  

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Take on wall to wall election coverage

I've already been warned that NYC is going to be a madhouse tomorrow with both candidates holding their parties on the Island of Manhattan.  Add to that every major and minor news team camped out somewhere and getting to work tomorrow is going to be hell on earth.   Times Square already is set up like they are going to drop a ball, Rockefeller Center probably too.  But the one piece of solace is that in 24 hours or so, it will all be over.  One way or another

God help us all 

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Take on the email scandal

Hillary is a flawed candidate, we all know it but sometimes you take flawed over comically inept and frighteningly dangerous.   What I can't seem to figure out is why Comey came out with his proclamation to only basically recant it one week (and 3 points nationally) later.  Maybe there was nothing there, but then why lead is on like there was, maybe there was and he was hushed, which is also odd.  

Hillary will hopefully win this not because she deserves it as much as we don't deserve the alternative but if she does not, last weeks empty proclamation will certainly be part of the cause 

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Take on Scott Walker's lunch

The only thing more boring than Scott Walker might be his choice for lunch.   The Wisconsin governor claims to have eaten two brown bagged ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch for 26 straight years.  I cannot think of anything more repulsive than the thought of Scott Walker lathering up his ham sandwich with mayonnaise and gobbling it down like he is Joey Chestnut.  

This guy has the personality of a wet blanket, the look of an accountant and the palate of a guy who lost his tastebuds in a car accident, no wonder the GOP primary voters flocked to him 

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Take on Alexa

I love Alexa, in a few short months she has become every much a part of our family as Aunt Midge and the chipmunk who lives in our garage.  She provides calming music over dinner, weather information at the snap of a finger and is a great timer when you are cooking and have your hands full

What is less lovable is the fact that she doesn't understand me half the time, her volume is always way too high and she doesn't know everything although she claims she does.  

But one odd thing happened this week, I asked her something seemingly innocuous and she answered with "sure I'll order that for you".  I immediately yelled "Alexa cancel" not knowing if I just ordered a pizza or a grand piano but got nowhere

I sort of forget about it until today when a box of AllClad pots shows up at my door...I check my Amazon account and it cost me $400 after a special Alexa special discount

Thanks a lot 

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Take on the drought

The Cavaliers ended the longest active NBA championship drought a few months ago, the Cubs ended their 108 year drought which is really good news for the Arizona Cardinals who last won a championship 68 years (and two cities) ago.    The Toronto Maple Leafs are the longest drought in hockey which is actually worse since they played in a league with only six teams but it's hockey so gives a crap. 

Somehow nobody feels bad for the Cardinals, maybe it was because for years they were just a total doormat and it always felt weird that they were playing in the NFC East while located in Phoenix.   I think it took until the Kurt Warner years for that team to actually start to compete, so I don't feel for them.   Plus a team that moves around really should restart their clock with every address change. 

Then you have the Lions, they truly suck but somehow they are just not that lovable.   I can see their fans are pained but they got to see Barry Sanders every week and then got Calvin Johnson and don't forget about Kevin Jones and Marvin Jones and...actually they suck. 

You have the Eagles but they booed Santa, so screw them

The Titans are up next but I don't count teams who move across the country, so they don't count.  Plus they have Delanie Walker and DeMarco Murray and some Hawaiian at QB, so I'm sure they are 20+ years away.  

You have the next two teams who are more just more lovable..the Browns who suck but do so in a really demoralizing way.   At the end of each game there are a bunch of adult men with dog masks on crying in their schlitz.  Plus they have the indignity of having seen the Ravens win twice.  

Lastly, the Bills, a team which seemed destined to win multiple championships when I was a kid.   Between Jim Kelly, Thurmond Thomas, Andre Reed and Bruce Smith you would have thought Bufallo could have been title town even if they had Jill Kelly at QB. But they broke the hearts of a bunch of guys upstate who already had their hearts ripped out by a bad economy, disappearing jobs and the indignity of being confused with Canadians. 

But at least they have fun body slamming each other into foldable tables and setting their genitals on fire.  So they do have that

Oh yeah they also have the Ryan brothers, a tandem who make the Smothers Brothers look serious. 

Good night dear Zed 

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Take on the tightening election

Every day that we get closer to Election Day is a day my anxiety rises and my need to blame somebody increases.   First I blamed Trump for being..Trump but that just isn't it.  He's the symptom of a bigger problem.   I then went to blame the GOP for allowing this buffoon to take their mantle, I then blamed the media for not vetting him early enough, then I blamed the primary voters for allowing to get this far.  Last week I blamed Gary Johnson and his supporters and now I've come all the way around and am blaming Hillary.   

I cannot think of a single good reason why she set up that server, it shows at best very poor judgement and at worst is Nixonian.   Hillary is no idiot, so a good argument cannot be made that she thought this was a good idea or didn't think it was a good idea especially because everybody knew she was eyeing another White House run.   So she must have known that this could have come out, so that just makes it worse, she did it fully aware the political ridge it would involve and still decided to go through with it. 

Nothing in the leaked emails have been that bad which proves again that the coverup is worse than the crime and if she blows this thing, I will never forgive her because she would have lost on the dumbest of things.  Like a balk or an unsportsmanlike penalty.  

This single issue just exemplifies why this county hates about the Clintons, that they feel they are above the law. 

But I still have faith that the American people are going to vote their conscious and refute everything that this egomaniacal, narcissistic, ignorant orange faced buffoon stands for. Just get me to Wednesday 

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Take on the higher gas prices in NJ

I grew up in New Jersey which always meant that you sort of bow your head and look away when you tell somebody where you are from.  Yeah we have great musicians, the best diners, the Sopranos, a shore line which is pretty cool and at least most of the state doesn't looks and smell like a sewage plant.  Oh yeah we also have really cheap gas, oh wait..

One of the biggest advantages to living in New Jersey just disappeared like a Crispy Cream donut in front of our governor and now we're just like every other state, overtaxed and under funded.   

We went from gas that cost $1.99 to gas that costs $2.22 overnight.   The legislature and our fat corrupt governor tell us that this will be used for much needed road construction which  I'm all for, but knowing what happens in Jersey, you understand immediately that we'd be lucky if we get $0.05 out of the $0.23 to actually end up digging tunnels and replacing highways.   

The first thing that will happen is that Christie will throw a pizza party, ordering in 500 pies (we have great pizza in this state) and he'll likely eat them all up himself.   Then Pauly and Silvio will show up and skim a little off the top, and dump the evidence next to asbestos in the swamp.  

Then we'll blow a bunch of it on some failed campaign to bring tourism to the state and finally we'll probably forget to actually do any of the work. 

At least we don't have to pump our own gas 

 

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