I Finally Figured Out That Donald Trump Is Like An Evil Rip Taylor

Rip Taylor portrayed an angry clown
is his comedy schtick. Is Donald Trump a
mean version of this?  

I'm going to start this post by apologizing profusely, in advance, to comedian Rip Taylor.

He's been around for decades. His schtick is the guy who is burned out from a career being the happy guy.

He angrily instead of gleefully throws confetti, (Taylor is known as the :King of Confetti") and his jokes are hilarious, bitter complaints about what's going on around him.

Rip Taylor is the angry showman, dressed flamboyantly, but mockingly pretends to be not enjoying life.  The whole thing is a little much, but it's funny, and he's built a long career on it. Good work, Rip Taylor!

I bring all this up because I've finally figured out what Donald Trump is all about. He's an evil Rip Taylor, but Trump's flamboyant anger is real and contagious, not a harmless act like Taylor's.

Instead of Taylor's confetti, he throws money around. Instead of acting like he's frustrated with an audience for not laughing at his jokes, Trump wants people to beat up dissenters who don't like his schtick.

As part of the act, Taylor dresses in ridiculous clothes, and wears a blonde wig. I don't know what's going on with Trump's hair, but you get the idea.

Rip Taylor is a showman, his act a frivolous, it's full of bad puns, fun distraction and completely harmless.

Maybe this guy should have been a bad comedian
instead of a bad politician  

Trump is a showman, spewing bad and dangerous policy ideas instead of puns. His act is a frivolous, not so fun distraction, but he's somehow gotten a lot of fans who vote for him. And take him seriously.

I get it that Trumpeters, as his fans and voters are called, are pissed off at the way politics works and want a change. Who wouldn't be? But Trump?

Rip Taylor's act is of someone who is frustrated and wants a change and is always complaining. He's negative. .He goes about it all wrong. But it's a comedy act, so it's OK.

Trump always complains about a litany of people and perceived problems. He's negative. Never offering real plans for solutions. Just unfocused anger about  walls on the Mexican border, all Muslims are bad, the economy sucks, etc. etc. Trump goes about it all wrong, and it's turned very serious. He raises the spector of fascism.

I can see why Rip Taylor has a lot of fans. His act is full of laughs.

We should also be laughing at and mocking Trump, the showman huckster that he is. Instead, he's turning into something that can really damage this country. I know Trumpeters vehemently disagree with me, but there you go.

Here's a clip of Rip Taylor: As you watch, you can, in your head, turn the schtick into a Trump speech.

Again, profuse apologies to Rip Taylor. But I just had to make the comparison.

Dog Appears Pleased To Be Leaving Animal Shelter After Being Adopted

Coso celebrates as she leaves an animal shelter with
the two people who just adopted her.  

I just had to post this because the photo is perfect.

Coso, age seven, is an Australian Shepherd mix who had been at the Lort Smith Animal Shelter in Melbourne, Australia because the family that had her could no longer care for her, says The Dodo.

Eventually, a family came to the animal shelter and decided to adopt Coso and bring her to a new forever home.

Judging from the photo, Coso looked rather pleased as she left the animal shelter with her new family. Her new human companions don't exactly look upset, either.

New York Post's War On Homeless Is Bizarre

The New York Post reported devoted up to 16 reporters
 to follow this mentally ill homeless person last summer.  

The New York Post has a weird obsession with homeless people.

They really, really want them to go away.

The obsession is particularly weird because they tend to zero in on one particular homeless person from time to time, splash them on the front pages of the tabloid, and humiliate them as thoroughly as possible.

It's unclear what they're trying to accomplish.

The latest case involved a homeless woman who dragged along a series of carts with her belongings in Hell's Kitchen.

The publicity prompted the NYPD to come in and throw many of the women's possessions out.

Homelessness, even one particular case, is rarely easy to solve. But I'm not sure what the benefit is of making one person's bad situation worse. Especially by highlighting them in a bad but widely read tabloid.

The woman in question might have been a hoarder, might have had other problems, and maybe someone should have helped her deal with all this. But apparently, the city just went in and threw her stuff out because of the bad publicity from the Post.

Now that they've done that, is anyone trying to help this woman? She's out of the headlines, so probably not. I'm sure there are people at the Post that now hope she just goes away and dies or something.

I think the goal of the New York Post is to make the homeless disappear. OK, but where do they go?

It seems every once in awhile, the Post singles out a homeless person because some editor finds that particular person annoying or something. Last summer, it was a homeless, mentally ill man who peed on a street that felt the front page wrath of the New York Post. 

The Post's editor,  Col Allan, apparently thought it was appropriate to devote 16 reporters to cover this homeless people, who annoyed this editor.

New York is one of the biggest, most exciting, newsiest cities in the world. You'd think something more important than some homeless guy peeing in a street happens on any given day in the Big Apple.

Maybe I can prompt the New York Post with some idea. Did any bigger crimes happen? Check with your friends at the NYPD.  What's Wall Street up to? The UN? Did Mayor DeBlasio say something you don't like? He often does.

Did any of the zillions of famous people living in the city do interesting in the city today?  Did the NYFD rescue a toddler from a dramatic fire in The Bronx?

Inquiring minds want to know, but not many of those inquring  want to know more about the Post editor's obsession with homeless people.

Do us all a favor, Col, and just work with whatever neighborhood association you deal with and shut the hell up. Go find some real news to cover.

Cop Who Adopted Baby Kangaroo Is My New Favorite Person

Scott Mason's t-shirt serves as a makeshift pouch
for Cuejo, the baby kangaroo 

When a baby kangaroo was orphaned recently in western Australia, Constable Scott Mason stepped right up to the plate.

The baby kangaroo, now named Cuejo after the town of Cue, was found in its dead mother's pouch after accidentally being killed by a truck,

Cuejo now hangs out with Mason, following him around and crawling into his t-shirt, which serves as a makeshift pouch.  

The video of this has gone viral, and I thought I'd share it with you.

By the way, Mason is particularly busy with child rearing these days. In addition to his responsibilities with Cuejo, his wife recently gave birth to the couple's first child, says The Telegraph. UK

I wish the Masons and Cuejo all the best.

Here's the awesome video:

Trump Violence A Hallmark Of World's Most Ignorant, Entitled Candidate

Anti and pro Trump partisans confront each other
in Chicago Friday night.  

Trumps famous incendiary words are only part of the reason why there's so much hate and trouble surrouding his increasingly odious rallies.

A lot of the trouble comes with Trump's attitude that he's going to do what he wants, when he wants, without ever consulting with anybody else.

He lies to get his way.  He's a classic bully who gets what he wants at the snap of a finger, and he's not going to stop now.

That's to everybody's detriment. Except Trump, of course.

It appears a lot of the trouble in Chicago Friday night came when Trump abruptly canceled the rally for safety reasons "after meeting with law enforcement."

Note the artful dodge here. Somebody in Trump's camp probably did talk with someone in law enforcement, so you technically have a "meeting" here with law enforcement.

However, both Chicago and University of Illinois police said they played no part in the decision to cancel the rally and as Acting Police Superintendent John J. Escalante said, "were kind of taken by surprise" by the announcement to call off the rally.

Surprising the police like this is never a good situation, especially when you have two large groups of people angry at each other - the Trump partisans and those demonstrating against the candidate.

Police usually have crowd control methods that work a lot better when they know something is coming, i.e. a rally with 10,000 people being cancelled.

I bet the police, through no real fault of their own, were caught flat footed by the announcement the rally would be canceled, and inevitably chaos erupted.

This plays right into Trump's (small) hands and perhaps that was his plan all along. Trump had been under escalating criticism for the violence at his rallies.

Now, he had a bunch of anti-Trump protesters here, and an abrupt rally cancellation would inflame the situation. The anti-Trump crowd would  get into fights, and then Trump could blame the liberal "goons" for all the trouble at his rallies, deflecting the blame away from Trump and his supporters.

I might have gotten too conspiratorial here with my theory but I wouldn't put it past Trump.

A Trump rally earlier Friday in St. Louis, which until Chicago was one of the worst yet, lends credence to my theory.

There's no question Trump is a goon. In St. Louis he said of the protests: "Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long (to kick protesters out) is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore....There used to be consequences. There are none anymore."

Essentially he was saying it was OK to beat up a protester, then. I'm all for arresting and charging someone if, IF they're doing something illegal. There's you consequence right there. It shouldn't be assault, as Trump advocates, at least implicitly.

I get it that Trump isn't the one that made many of his supporters so angry. A complex, messy stew of economic turmoil, social change and other frustrations did that, not Trump. But Trump is using that anger to his advantage, and creating a show by whipping up that anger until we literally get sucker punches being thrown at his rallies.

Trump is a showman, and he realizes the rage he fans just makes the show all that much better. At least to his fans. And his ego. It's all about his ego, after all.

Trump said the protesters were "so bad for our country." Really? Protest, peaceful protest, anyway, is enshrined in the First Amendment.

But I know how much Trump hates the First Amendment except in the moments it benefits him.

Not all anti-Trump demonstrators are blameless. True,  rhe vast majority were peaceful, as were the vast majority of the Trump supporters, Neither side should resort to violence. It was a fail to see fists flying.

I'm also gratified there were large anti-Trump protests, but if their aim was to shut down the Trump rally rather than just demonstrate against it, that makes me uncomfortable. Free speech, even odious free speech, should be encouraged, not shut down.

The antidote to bad free speech is more free speech, so of course peaceful demonstrations are fine here.

I'm definitely no fan of Trump's GOP rivals in the presidential campaign, but I have to say they were spot on and  made some very good points in reacting to Trump's Friday Night Fiasco..

"There aren't fights breaking out at my rallies, Ted Cruz rallies, John Kasich rallies, Bernie Sanders rallies," noted GOP candidate Marco Rubio, the Senator from Florida.

Cruz correctly chimed in: "There's no doubt that a candidate bears responsibility for the culture that is set from the top."

Which proves Cruz and Rubio at least occasionally understand something Trump does not.  That with rights come responsibilities. We are free to say what we want in this nation, but there are consequences to what we say.

Trump, as noted above, wants consequences all right. As long as he never has to deal with any of thoae consequences.

Consequences, apparently, are for the little people.

A Ridiculous But Oddly Happy Video For Your Friday.

The elderly lady in pink dances and parties it up
like a boss with the odd but fun guy in gold.  

Over in England, I guess they know how to have a good time.

In case you haven't seen it yet, this viral video shows an odd scene in Brighton, England, in which a guy in what looks almost like skin tight gold lame dances with a bent over elderly woman.

The woman is having such a good time you can't help but enjoy the music along with her.  She Twists and Shouts with the best of them.

The guy in gold is identified as Pablo Woodward, who calls himself an "actor and party-starter" who busks in Brighton, England.

Passersby look a little mystified in the video, but oh well, they don't know how to have a good time.

The video has racked up more than half a million views on YouTube alone, and has been seen in a lot of other places, including more than 3.6 million views on Facebook.. Maybe the video has been spread too far and wide, but I can't resist it anyway. If only for the elderly woman's sense of fun and spirit.

Watch, and happy Friday!

Some Questions About The Sucker Punch At The Trump Rally

John McGraw, accused of sucker punching
an anti-Trump activist at a Trump rally.  

All everybody's been talking about all day is the sucker punch John McGraw, 78, landed on Rakeem Jones, as Jones was being led out of a North Carolina Trump rally last night.

Jones was there to protest against Trump, and as always, Trump supporters would have none of it.

OK, the Trump partisans don't like the protestors, fine.  

But I have some questions I haven't heard good answers for yet. I'm sure a lot of other people have the same questions

Jones was taken down and into custody right away by police, while they left McGraw alone. Why ws crime victim Jones being treated that way, while the criminal was treated with the utmost politeness by police?

Maybe the police there are Trump supporters and are fine with people getting beat up.

McGraw was finally arrested this morning. Is my theory that the higher ups in North Carolina law enforcement and politics didn't really want to arrest McGraw, but recognized this would turn into a PR nightmare for them if they don't? You know, bad optics.

Was it because people got it all on video, so they couldn't easily concoct some false story that Jones was being violent?

Other people have been hit and pushed and Trump rallies. Why is it, until now, nobody has been charged with so much as simple assault or the even more minor charge of disturbing the peace for doing this?

If I randomly pushed somebody out on the street, wouldn't I get arrested?

Are all the people who attend Trump rallies paranoid nut cases like McGraw? I doubt it, but McGraw's comments give me pause.

Inside Edition asked McGraw why he punched Jones. McGraw replied:

"Well, number one, we don't know if he's ISIS....We don't know who he is, but we know he's not acting like and American and cussing me.."

OK, so anybody who doesn't like Trump is possibly a member of the heinous terrorist group ISIS? And anybody who doesn't like Trump is not acting like and American?

So to get this straight, punching people you don't like is American, but criticizing a political figure is un-American, do I have that right? If that is right, when they repeal the First Amendment and legalize assault? I didn't get the memo on that one.

Or wait! An update! McGraw also said of Jones. "The next time we see him, we might have to kill him."  So now we can murder people whose opinions we don't like.

What if God forbids somebody tries to kill Trump because they don't like him.? Or can we only kill certain people. Liberals yes, but particularly ignorant versions of conservatives get a pass?

Wouldn't it be easier if we just kept current laws in place that forbid us from killing anybody we don't like?

I heard a pundit today say Jones deserved to be punched because he was "rude" for protesting at a Trump rally.

OK, I buy the argument he might have been rude. So we get to punch rude people now? Like the gal in the seat in front of me at the movie theater who's texting and talking through the whole show?

A rather unrelated question: Is McGraw one of those poorly educated people Trump claims to like so much?

Here's a more ominious, large perspective question: If Trump wins, will he or his minions persecute those who fought against his presidential bid?. If Trump loses, will he or his minions persecute those who fought against his presidential bid?

Nervous, mortified, inquiring minds want to know.