Month: November 2020

Thanksgiving is over and we’re in a Christmas mood. In the spirit of the season I’ll follow a suggestion from a good friend who said, why don’t you lay off Biden and Trump for a while and ride a fresh horse.

Another friend, a fine Democrat in Oklahoma, (yes, there are still a lot of wonderful Democrats in Oklahoma but here lately they’ve been outnumbered.) Well, this friend kinda scolded me for not insisting that Trump open up the White House to Biden’s folks so they could prepare for the transition. Amazingly, before I could send a telegram to Trump, he had already done it! Immediately, Mr. Biden jumped on Amtrak in Wilmington. He took his bicycle so he could ride from the Station to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s his subtle hint to John Kerry.

The transition team has serious work to do. Since the Blue states won out over Red states, anything in the White House with even a hint of red has to go. The red towels with tiny elephants in the President’s private bathroom will be replaced by blue ones with donkeys. The red Fiesta dinnerware from West Virginia will be replaced with fine China from… China.  Their red-to-blue fixation may show some hope of reconciliation–right there in Nature–when they get to the Rose Garden.

Democrats complain about Trump’s lawyers filing lawsuits over election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and other states. Most folks, including Republicans, admit there aren’t enough miscounted ballots to erase a Biden-Harris lead. The time to insist that election officials across the country clean up their voter registration lists and eliminate fraud is after you’ve WON the election, not lost it. See, when you’ve lost, if you complain and sue ‘em, they just think it’s sour grapes and they don’t take you seriously. After the 2016 election is when Trump should have jumped on all the states to root out cheaters, dead voters, and registration errors. Not 2020.

Here’s a question from a reader: What would happen if ANTIFA tried to tear down a Will Rogers statue? If she’s referring to one where I’m riding my favorite horse, Soapsuds, they had better not approach from the rear. Soapsuds might just haul off and kick the snot out of ‘em. From any other direction, my right arm holding a lasso may come to life and I’ll rope and hold ‘em till the Police show up. If they haven’t been Defunded.

On the other hand, a statue of me without a horse is less at risk from ANTIFA than from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. You may recall a few months ago she removed from the Capitol Rotunda any statue of a Confederate officer or slave owner. Well, I’m still there, in a wide hallway favored by TV newscasters, right outside the main entrance to the House. So please don’t tell her my full name is William Penn Adair Rogers. My Dad named me after a famous Colonel in the Confederate Army that he served under. If she finds out, I may be battered into tiny pieces scattered over the marble floor. So if you’re watching a TV news interview of a Congressman and you don’t see me, but the microphone picks up crunching sounds of bronze on marble as other folks walk by, you may rightly suspect I’m just another casualty of 2020.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“Herbert [Hoover] has invited Franklin [Roosevelt] down to see him. Now, on the face of it, that looks like the last word in hospitality. But let’s look that gift horse in the face. Is Herbert just crazy about Franklin? No, prominent men are never crazy about each other.” DT #1959, Nov. 14, 1932

“Here is one thing I want somebody to explain to me: Why is it, during a campaign, after a campaign, or at any other time, why can’t our Presidents speak of each other by name and say, ‘Well, I wish Mr. So-and-so well. He is a fine man and will make you a good President.’ Or, to have the victor say, ‘He had a hard time, and did the very best he could have under the circumstances.’ Even small-town Mayors have been known to speak of each other complimentary, but if Presidents ever did, I think we would drop dead.” DT #2038, Feb. 14, 1933 (FDR was inaugurated March 4, 1933)

Hurricanes and tropical storms have been so prolific this year we have used up our entire alphabet and most of the Greek letters. It got me wondering, if hurricanes start heading toward Greece and we’ve used up all their letters, how will they name them? My guess is Greece will resort to Roman numerals. Yes, Hurricane I, Hurricane II, Hurricane III…

Harvard students are so upset with the failures of the Trump Administration they demanded that no one who worked there since 2016 be allowed to speak or teach at Harvard. They also implied that offspring of the 70 million who voted for Trump should not be admitted as students. I suggest that to be authentic, Harvard donate the Five Billion dollars their endowments gained in value during the Trump years. That $5,000,000,000 could help pay off student loans for those who couldn’t afford an Ivy League school, starting with young teachers and nurses.

President-elect Biden is upset that Trump won’t give his team details on how Covid vaccines will be distributed to the 50 states. I’ve heard the current plan by the military includes FedEx and UPS planes and delivery trucks. Considering the unbelievable speed of the development, testing, and production of the vaccines, maybe the folks in direct charge should be kept on until the first 100 million doses of vaccine have been delivered.

If President Biden wants his own people in charge after January 20, that’s fine as long as he ignores Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and her green energy plan. She would insist that all vaccines be delivered by Electric Vehicles and they could only use charging stations powered by wind or solar. To keep the vaccines cold, as low as 90 degrees below zero, her Squad partner, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, would suggest using blocks of ice cut from Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“You know it’s been said that when you graduate from Harvard or Yale it takes the next 10 years to live it down, and the next 40 to try to forget it.”  WA #160, Jan. 3, 1926

(Headline) “‘Harvard bars (Evangelist) Aimee (McPherson) from the campus.’ Harvard must have some smart men to think up all the fool things that school does to get notoriety.” DT #1633, Oct. 16, 1931

Here’s another topic Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on: Voter fraud. Should votes count if they were submitted by dead people or people who moved away?

Democrat election officials, plus a handful of Republicans, claim there wasn’t any fraud, and if a few votes by the recently deceased got counted, so what? A young man said, “Grandpa told me several times that he always voted Republican for President. But I guess after he went to heaven he saw the light and became a Democrat.”

Maybe they can compromise on a definition of voter fraud. Democrats claim that if only a few dozen mail-in ballots in a county shouldn’t be counted, it’s not really fraud. Republicans claim that for every dozen uncovered, there are probably a few hundred that sneaked through.

The problem comes in cleaning up the voter registration list. Should the dead be removed? Should ones who moved out of the area be removed? How about ones who haven’t voted for years and can’t be located? Of course! But any time officials try to clean up the rolls, shouts of “VOTER SUPPRESSION” drown them out.

In his speech last Saturday, apparent President-elect Joe Biden spoke about unifying and healing the nation after a contentious election. I presume he wants full cooperation and support from the current administration just like he and President Obama offered four years ago. Yeah, right.

Democrats are talking about shutting down the whole country for a month or more to eradicate Covid. I think that anyone who would continue to get paid during a shutdown should not be allowed to promote it.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“When you start out to educate people you are just about sunk before you start. I try to tell ’em these men are doing the best they can according to the dictates of no conscience, but it’s hard to change the old established idea of what the politician is.” WA #278, Apr. 22, 1928

“I am always kidding about something the Democrats did to the Republicans, and then I got the Republicans on my back. Then I will sing a praise of some Republican uprising, and I will have all the Democrats down on me. My junk is always controversial. That’s all because I haven’t got the range of knowledge, the background of reading, the literary foundation. There is just so much you can say in praise, or in reprimand of our Government. And when I just keep saying it over and over again, it don’t stand up like these other (writers). And don’t I know it.” WA #645, May 5, 1935

Well, it was close, but not a tie. Barring thousands of illegal votes in 4 or 5 states, Joe Biden wins. As a result of this election, there are a lot of winners. And losers.

Winners include: Congressman Clyburn, SC, for rescuing Biden’s campaign; Willie Brown, for giving a young Kamala Harris a boost; and the Chinese Communist leaders.

Losers definitely include: Political pollsters; Country folks; and Georgia TV viewers. I’ll talk about a couple more in a moment.

Here’s a list of (likely) Winners and Losers; I’ll let you ponder which is which: The market for slightly-used plywood; Rioters; Antifa; Europe (NATO countries); Sen. Elizabeth Warren; Ballots arriving after Nov. 3; Illegal immigrants; Dreamers; Kamala Harris (President-in-Waiting?); Liberal Journalists (but I repeat myself); Smith &Wesson; Exxon; AOC and her Squad; Female Republicans in Congress; Police in big cities; Inner city residents; Deceased voters; Post Office; Wall Street; Stock holders; New York Times; CNN; Amazon; Zoom; School kids; Parents of school kids; Lawyers; Teachers’ unions; Hunter Biden; Trump Family business; Women’s Fashion magazines; Airlines; Cattle ranchers; Veterans; Pentagon; Obama’s Intelligence officials; James Comey; Florida coastline; and the Constitution.

Here are two losers who may not realize they lost. Pennsylvania voters, especially in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. They helped elect a President who wants to eliminate a major economic boost for the state: natural gas. They voted for less manufacturing, and higher costs for heating and electricity. Financially, Pennsylvania may become another Illinois.

A second loser is Las Vegas. Those folks voted for a President whose main measure to control Covid-19 (besides what Trump is already doing) is to shut down all “non-essential” businesses until mid-summer. Can you name ONE essential business in Las Vegas (well, other than that one)?

Another group, non-political, who lost today are Jeopardy viewers. Alex Trebek lost his battle with cancer, at a young age 80. He will be missed, and much more so than Political Pollsters.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“Two very important headlines in the papers: ‘Mr. Roosevelt [Biden] to visit Mr. Hoover [Trump]’ and the other, ‘Mr. Roosevelt takes out a $500,000 (life insurance) policy.’ I do hope these two items together have no significance.” DT #1963, Nov. 18, 1932

 “In most places it’s awful hard to get folks to go and register to vote, but out here in Los Angeles [also Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Las Vegas??] where we do everything big, why, each qualified voter is allowed to register himself and ten dead friends. If he hasn’t got ten dead friends, why, he is allowed to pick out ten live ones, just so they don’t live in the state. The Republicans are kicking on this arrangement, as they claim that system of registration gives the Democrats the best of it, as very few Republicans have ten friends.” DT #2558, Oct. 17, 1934

 

A friend posted on Facebook: 2020 is not a good year for political comedy. So, I’ll turn this last issue before the election over to Will. Most of these quotes are from the 1932 election, Hoover vs. Roosevelt.

Historic quotes on Elections and Campaigns by Will Rogers:

“You can’t beat an administration by attacking it. You have to show some plan on improving it.” WA #101, Nov. 16, 1924

“The less a voter knows about you, the longer he is liable to vote for you.” Life magazine, Oct. 26, 1928

“Wall Street is betting two and a half to one on Roosevelt [Biden]. That’s a bad omen for the Democrats, for Wall Street hasn’t been right in three years. You can hear anything you want around here about the outcome, depending on who you talk to, Democrat or Republican.” DT #1947, Oct. 31, 1932

“Don’t you all kinder wish that the President of our country wouldn’t have to run around all over the land getting up on a soap box to shout his merits like a backwoods Congressman running for reelection? That’s why a President’s term should be six years; no re-election, and be retired for life on half salary…. But, after all, there is very little dignity, very little sportsmanship, or very little anything in politics, only ‘get the job and hold it.’” DT #1949, Nov. 2, 1932

“This President business is a pretty thankless job. Washington or Lincoln either one didn’t get a statue till everybody was sure they was dead.” DT #1951, Nov. 4, 1932

“There is only one redeeming thing about this whole election. It will be over at sundown, and let everybody pray that it’s not a tie.” DT #1953, Nov. 7, 1932