Tag: Susan Eckenrode

Forty-five just can’t govern the quips

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An example of the stream of gibberish emanating from the mouth of our So-Called President, fact-checked by NBC News:

““Let’s see whether or not I proved it. You looked at some proof. I mean, let’s see whether or not I prove it. I just don’t choose to do it right now. I choose to do it before the committee, and maybe I’ll do it before the committee. Maybe I’ll do it before I see the result of the committee. But I think we have some very good stuff. And we’re in the process of putting it together, and I think it’s going to be very demonstrative.”

Forty-five just can’t govern the quips
That spring from his brain to his lips.
All those rabid insults
Could bring dire results,
Not to mention his Freudian slips.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Write On!

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“‘Campaign in poetry; govern in prose,’ the old adage goes. This moment, though, has in many ways flipped that idea: The 2016 presidential campaign was decidedly lacking in poetry. Yet in its aftermath, as Americans consider the contours of their new government, they are, often, turning to poems: to Cope and her gallows humor.”

Why Poetry is Viral in the Aftermath of Trump’s Election
The Atlantic

With limericks hitting their marks,
our pens will keep lighting the sparks
of the rhyming resistance,
inspiring persistence
to pummel corrupt oligarchs.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

Trump’s Toys

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“The US military shot down President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration team’s bid to have tanks and missile launchers rolling down his parade route …”

Military refused Trump’s bid to parade missile launchers at inauguration
Yaron Steinbuch, New York Post

 

 

He wanted some tanks with big guns
To prove he commands tons and tons
Of state of the art
Weapons to start
Controlling whomever he shuns.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

 

On Problem Solving

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Limerick by Susan Elizabeth

“During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump remarked often on the stupidity of our leaders. He was under the impression that the rest of the planet was indulging in some sort of global guffaw at our expense. ‘How stupid are we? The world is laughing.’ If so, what must the mirthful world think of our current state of affairs?”

So far, Trump has been mercifully incompetent
-Dana Milbank, Opinion, The Washington Post

 

If a single solution gets done
for the myriad problems that run
through his office each day,
well, if there is a way
to do the wrong thing, that’s the one.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Green Cheese and Other Fantasies (3-link limerick chain)

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“However, despite what Levin says, no source alleges Obama personally ordered phone wiretaps or any other form of surveillance. The closest some get is alluding to possible FBI requests for a warrant to monitor Trump associates amid their investigation into improper Russia-related activity.”

Did Donald Trump invent claim that Barack Obama tapped his phone?
Politifact

 

From the mouth of our nation’s buffoon,
who “reads about things” and real soon
he can show us for sure
(as he sifts through manure)
that Obama surveilled from the moon.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

Yeah, Obama surveilled from the moon
while he munched on a cheese macaroon,
’twas that same shade of green
that is frequently seen
from trump’s perch on the penthouse in June.

© 2017 Lily Beth Baker

From his perch on the penthouse in June,
where those twitstorms are carelessly strewn,
may he cower in dread
as The Truth rears her head
and erupts in a raging typhoon.

© 2017 Mary Boren

 

There’s much to learn a google click away

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“We rightfully abhor people who’d intentionally spread an actual physical virus, right? So why don’t we apply the same stigma to the people coughing up urban legends into our Facebook newsfeeds and contaminating our Twitter streams?”

Here’s How to Prevent Fake News from Spreading on Social Media
Luke O’Neil, Vice

 

 

There’s much to learn a google click away,
despite which willful ignorance abounds.
A sound byte or a meme cannot convey
enough on any topic making rounds.
Beware of propaganda in the guise
of facts, like memes designed to raise your ire.
Manipulated imagery and lies
succeed when feckless fear and greed conspire.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

 

“Repeal and replace” was his boast. (3-link limerick chain)

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“The Republican health care bill would not affect Americans equally. Older, poorer people would see big reductions in coverage and cost increases, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.”

5 Charts That Explain The CBO Report On The Republican Health Plan
NPR

 

 

“Repeal and replace” was his boast.
Diabetes or cancer? You’re toast.
It’s an unjust dessert,
For TrumpCare will hurt
The people who trusted him most.

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

To the people who trusted him most
( ’cause at rallies he’s such a fun host)
it is all bait and switch,
a self-serving pitch.
Will democracy give up the ghost?

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

Will democracy give up the ghost?
Will his followers, blindly engrossed
in his treacherous lies
pull the beam from their eyes
when he’s plundered from mountains to coast?

© 2017 Mary Boren

 

A Ticket to Hell? The Devil Doesn’t Want Him!

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“And, as is Trump’s wont and calling card, he oversold his voters a bill of goods that he would never be able to deliver. The Pied Piper of pipe dreams did in politics what he had done in business: He got people to buy into a success mythology in which he was a wizard. In this mythology, ethics, honor and truth are casualties.”

A Ticket to Hell
-Charles M. Blow, Opinion Page, New York Times

 

Nothing Special Here

“Incompetence surrounds me; send him down!”
the devil snarls and smacks a demon’s head,
“I sent you for a jewel to grace my crown
but you returned with such as this instead.

He chose to chart his course with us, you fool,
abused his privileged past and served me well.
His path to power flaunted every rule
and manufactured facts were his to sell.

A sad dictator-wannabe my prize?
His soul’s already mine! He came to me!
Go look among the ones who shield their eyes
from Truth that lights the dark eternity.

Those treasures wait untarnished, still naive
and unaware of what lies up my sleeve.”

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

Author’s Note: I have always held that if there is a devil recruiting souls, would he not be looking among those who are not yet corrupted, so that he can enjoy the challenge of enticing them to choose corruptions. What challenge, what prize, in the ones already there?

 

Unintended Consequence

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“Trump’s media strategy also wiped the campaign almost completely clear of substance—which was a ground on which he didn’t want to fight. Had the Republicans nominated anybody but Trump, issues like climate change, the Afghanistan War, the South China Sea squabble, the drug war, and the future of Medicare and Social Security would have been germane to the discussion. But such is the Trump effect that these issues were barely mentioned in the three presidential debates. The snowdrift of controversy that follows Trump wherever he goes, and which the press must report on, has helped freeze out these topics in favor of discussions of his ‘character.'”

How Trump Took Over the Media By Fighting It
Politico

 

 

Once the media sold out for ratings
And succumbed to the obvious baiting
Of a huckster whose swill
Set him up on the Hill,
They became his prime target for hating.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

With the White House a rolling disaster (3 link limerick chain)

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“When Republicans imagined having a president of their own and control of Congress, they thought it would be a nonstop string of legislative achievements and improvements to government, bringing an inspiring new era of efficiency and effectiveness that showed Americans what the GOP was really capable of.

That is not quite how things are working out.”

Why is the Trump presidency such a rolling disaster?
-Paul Waldman, Opinion, The Washington Post

 

With the White House a rolling disaster,
each policy more horse’s-assed-er,
Republicans worry
and frantically scurry
to cling to a crumbling pilaster.

© 2017 Mary Boren

As they cling to a crumbling pilaster,
our Ms. Liberty wishes they’d asked her
to reiterate
how this country was great
up until oligarchists sneaked past her.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

Long before oligarchists sneaked past her,
claiming power and wealth as their master
she stood for us all
to answer her call
and no other republic surpassed her.

© 2017 Lily Beth Baker