2016 in Review
By Laurie Baron
The Orthodox Union certified the medical marijuana products of Vireo Health as kosher. In its ruling it noted that a side effect is cravings to eat cholent, matzah ball soup, and lox and bagels.
In response to criticism for his slow reaction to the water contamination crisis in Flint, the governor of Michigan has apologized for subjecting the city’s residents to lead poisoning, but optimistically observed that at least they are now immune to Kryptonite.
ISIS has cut the salaries of its fighters in half. To protest this loss of income, a group of suicide bombers blew themselves without hurting anyone else. In a related story it was confirmed that ISIS destroyed a 1,400 year old Chaldean monastery in Iraq because the monks were not disturbing the peace.
A recent Pew Poll revealed that Americans would be 37 % less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who had an extramarital affair, 31 % less likely to vote for one who had Washington experience, 26 % less likely to vote for someone who was gay, and 10 % less likely to vote for a Jew. Acutely attuned to public opinion, Hillary Clinton plans to downplay her career as Senator and Secretary of State and come out as a Jewish lesbian who was relieved that Bill was involved with other women.
February
Boko Haram has killed more people in the past year than ISIS. So why aren’t the Republicans proposing to carpet bomb the jungles and turn them from green to flaming orange? Could they believe that black lives don’t matter?
Donald Trump won the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary. In this year’s Republican primaries, nothing succeeds like excess. Trump’s victory inspired Benjamin Netanyahu to reveal plans to build a fence around Israel and get the Arab League to pay for it.
In its air campaign against ISIS, Russia bombed two hospitals in Syria following up intelligence reports that the facilities contained sharp weapons, canisters of inflammatory gases like oxygen, and anesthetic drugs that could be released into local water supplies.
After his victory in the Nevada caucuses Donald Trump gloated over winning almost every demographic group including the poorly educated. Echoing James Carville’s strategy from the 1992 Clinton campaign, Trump’s campaign manager proclaimed, “It’s the stupid, stupid.”
March
Caitlyn Jenner told a Texas Republican newspaper that she supports Ted Cruz for president and has offered to advise him on transgender issues. Cruz welcomed her endorsement as an abomination of nature.
Hillary Clinton committed a gaffe during an interview about the late Nancy Reagan by praising the former First Lady for raising awareness of AIDS. Actually, Reagan along with her husband gave orders to the Secret Service to “just say no” to any AIDS activists lobbying for a White House initiative to combat the disease.
SeaWorld announced that it will end its Orca breeding program and theatrical shows for the Orcas that remain in its captivity. Under the world’s oceans, whales could be heard chanting, “Black whales lives matter!” Donald Trump seized the opportunity to condemn the new policy as kowtowing to political correctness and dramatically increasing the Orca unemployment level.
The FBI dropped its efforts to force Apple to reveal how to unlock the encryption code on the iPhone used by the couple who killed 14 people in the San Bernardino terrorist attack. It took months, but the FBI realized all it had to do was ask Siri.
April
Donald Trump backtracked on his call for punishing women who have abortions. He only advocates punishing doctors who perform the procedure, but feels that the women minimally should be forced to wear a Scarlet A on their clothing so pro-life advocates can shun them.
Encountering hostile crowds while stumping for votes in New York, Ted Cruz tried to clarify his earlier insinuation that Donald Trump’s “New York values” aren’t shared by mainstream Americans by insisting he was only talking about real estate prices.
In a surprise announcement, the Vatican press squelched rumors that Bernie Sanders was scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis. That is too bad since they have a lot in common. Both adhere to the teachings of a Jewish radical, hate the moneychangers, and want to succor the poor.
A new progressive Haggadah recounts the story of Moses becoming so outraged when he witnessed an Egyptian beating a slave that he founded the Hebrew lives matter movement.
May
British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been under heavy pressure to purge Labor Party MPs whose extreme criticisms of Israel have been deemed anti-Semitic. He has already dismissed 3 MPs and issued a manual about how to talk about Israel under the title “The Protocols of the Slanderers of Zion.”
It was announced that Donald Trump will testify at his trial on the charge that he defrauded students who enrolled in Trump University. If he manages to get elected president, someday he might have to testify at his trial for defrauding the American electorate.
Intelligence experts have revealed that ISIS not only recruits suicide bombers on its internet sites, but also runs a dating service for those seeking short-term relationships.
Now that Donald Trump has enough delegates to win the Republican nomination for president, I have translated some of his statements so voters clearly understand him. “Hillary Clinton does not have the stamina … does not have the strength to be president” Real Meaning: Hillary Clinton does not a penis, testicles, and testosterone. Viagra would only enable her to be president for four hours at a time.
June
The Government Accounting Office revealed that the United States still uses floppy discs for the computers which control America’s nuclear arsenal. To allay fears that its technology is antiquated, a Defense Department spokesperson assured the public that it still possesses the original Betamax video for instructing personnel on how to launch missiles.
Chicago recorded its 300th homicide since the beginning of the year, or, as law enforcement experts calculate it: approximately 6 Orlandos, 15 Sandy Hooks, 21 San Bernardinos, or 33 Charlestons.
Now that the regular television season is over, the networks are premiering new series to replace them for the summer. Here is one that looks relevant: Breaking Rad: A Jewish curmudgeon from Vermont concocts a heady brew of socialist idealism to get millions of people under 35 hooked on economic justice.
On his visit to Scotland, Donald Trump could not resist showing off his renovated golf course and claiming that if he can fix a golf course, he can fix the United States. Imagine if a microphone caught him unawares while he was elaborating on his boast after the press conference was over: “You’ve got to make your golf course exclusive, classy in a socio-economic sense. Build big walls around it and don’t let the riff-raff in. Without walls, you can’t have a golf course. Otherwise, it’s just a well-manicured meadow without my name on it. To be sure, I’ll need Mexicans to do the grounds maintenance, Chinese to launder the towels, napkins, and tablecloths, and supermodels to massage tired golfers at the end of their game.”
July
The bad news is that Bill Clinton coincidentally met Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix Airport and privately conversed with her even though she will have to decide whether to pursue FBI recommendations on whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton for posting classified information on her private email server. The good news is that Lynch has not filed sexual harassment charges against Bill Clinton.
Today a staffer from Donald Trump’s organization admitted that Melania had plagiarized her convention speech, but didn’t realize she was doing anything wrong because she had honed her writing skills at Trump University which even plagiarized its textbook. Her revelation prompted Mike Pence to take out the “I have a dream” and “ask not what your country can do for you” passages from his acceptance speech.
Unlike Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton will not appear at the Democratic Convention every night. Instead, she has placed a life-sized bobble head doll of herself in a pants suit near the podium to nod its head approvingly after every positive comment said about her.
Donald Trump tried to steal the Democratic National Convention’s thunder by urging the Russians to release any of Hillary Clinton’s emails they have hacked. This can backfire in two ways. Either Vladimir Putin will create a new espionage agency called the KGOP, or it will demonstrate that Hillary’s private server was secure.
August
As a token of his support, an army veteran gave Donald Trump his purple heart. Now all Trump needs is courage and a brain to leave the threatening world haunted by a wicked witch whom he has been campaigning against.
I’ll Fix America (Melody: God Bless America)
I’ll fix America.
So we can win.
I’m a dealer, I can heal her.
It’s her fate to be great once again.
Fix bad treaties that were seedy.
If I lose, then I’ll sue.
I’ll fix America, and beat that shrew.
I’ll fix America, and beat that shrew.
(Extreme Vocabulary by Donald J. Trump)
Extreme Bedding: Courtship.
Extreme Debting: Business strategy of borrowing more than you can pay back, declaring bankruptcy, and not paying your bills.
Extreme Fretting: Hillary will take your guns. Mexicans will take your jobs. Muslims will take your lives. China will take your trade. The media will take away my victory.
Donald Trump opened his third campaign office in Israel to court the votes of Israeli Americans. He and Bibi are jointly planning to found a branch of Trump University there where students will be able to major in the following: Building Walls for Profit and Protection; Bookkeeping for Sheldon Adelson’s Donations; Invoking Eminent Domain to Construct Casinos and Settlements; Playing the Race Card in Electoral Poker, and Inciting Violence against Political Foes.
September
It is not so surprising that Donald Trump heaps praise upon Vladimir Putin. He has a record of loving well-built Eastern Europeans who flatter him and aggressively pursue their desires.
Last week the Libertarian Party candidate for President Gary Johnson was asked what he thought the United States should do about Aleppo. After initially not recognizing what Aleppo was, he guessed the interviewer was referring to the fifth Marx brother.
Donald Trump finally conceded that President Obama was born in Hawaii, but continued to blame Hillary Clinton for starting that canard. Nevertheless, he still believes Clinton and Obama founded ISIS with the intent of invading Hawaii to destroy the hospital where the fraudulent Obama birth certificate is stored.
Unused Zinger from the first presidential debate: When Trump said, “”I think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament,” Hillary should have responded, “Just like my biggest asset is my hourglass figure!”
October
Donald Trump recently tweeted: “It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.” Funny, I had never noticed that he had restrained himself during his campaign for president.
Clinton: I ask forgiveness from labeling Bernie’s millennial supporters as idealists who can’t find work and live in their parents’ basements. I haven’t held a job for the last four years either and plan to live in the White House without paying rent for the next four.
The second presidential debate began with a frosty moment when neither candidate shook hands with the other. In a subsequent interview, Clinton admitted she refused to shake hands with Trump because she wasn’t sure where his hand was reaching.
When Hillary heard the news that the FBI was reopening the investigation into her emails because some of her State Department emails to Huma Abedin were sent to Anthony Weiner’s laptop, she angrily emailed Huma: “I can’t believe you didn’t use the private email I installed at your home.”
November
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Donald Trump won the electoral college. The electoral college is to democracy what Trump University is to education.
Democrats are demanding that Donald Trump withdraw his appointment of Steve Bannon as his administration’s political strategist. Republicans are demanding that Bannon not wear his white sheet and hood while serving in the White House.
Trump is sensitive to allegations that leaving the management of the Trump Organization to his children creates the appearance of a conflict of interest. Consequently, he has devised an alternative to a Blind Trust which he calls a Nearsighted Trust. His kids will still run the business, but investigative reporters will have to look very closely to discern his role.
Donald Trump demanded an apology from the cast of Hamilton for allowing a member of its cast to appeal to Mike Pence to respect the civil rights of all Americans. Trump noted that he heard Hamilton was “highly overrated” and added that he feels the same about Jefferson and Madison.
December
Ben Carson accepted Trump’s nomination of him to be the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Since only two weeks ago, he said he did not feel qualified to hold the position because he lacked government experience, reporters asked him why he changed his mind. Carson answered, “It finally dawned on me that I had as much experience as the President-Elect, and, besides, I can’t wait to play with the Legos.”
Donald Trump decided to appoint Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, to be his Secretary of State. Although even Republican Senators are concerned that his company’s extensive oil exploration deal with Russia could hurt his prospects for confirmation, Vladimir Putin welcomed the news by calling Tillerson “Russia’s pipeline to the White House.”
Donald Trump’s Amendment to the Bill of Rights: Amendment I: Congress shall respect that Christians established this nation. It shall not prohibit the free exercise of the freedom of speech or of the press except when dishonest reporters lie about me.
This year Hanukkah and Christmas conveniently coincide, but Donald Trump worries about the next four years when he knows wishing Ivanka Merry Christmas may offend her husband Jared. Consequently, he has tasked Jared, who is so Jewish and smart he will negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinians, to create a new holiday in December that will enable American Jewry to celebrate it on the same day as Christmas. He calls it Donakah. The observance of Donakah ends with giving children Donakah Gelt, chocolate replicas of Goldman-Sachs stock, presenting adults gifts of Trump-brand products, and the eating of handmade latkes, reminding everyone of the campaign slogan: Make America grate again!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com San Diego Jewish World points out to new readers that this column is satire, and nothing herein should be taken literally.