I wanna be a member of a secret order, please -- so I can be initiated till my pants I pees

From the NYTimes:
ALBANY — Last March, five women gathered in a home near here to enter a secret sisterhood they were told was created to empower women.
     The women, in their 30s and 40s, belonged to a self-help organization called Nxivm, which is based in Albany and has chapters across the country, Canada and Mexico.
     Sarah Edmondson, one of the participants, said she had been told she would get a small tattoo as part of the initiation. But she was not prepared for what came next.
     A female doctor proceeded to use a cauterizing device to sear a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, a procedure that took 20 to 30 minutes. For hours, muffled screams and the smell of burning tissue filled the room.

I wanna be a member of a secret order, so

I can be trussed up and cauterized real nice and slow.

For only through much suffering can men and women gain

Access to the knowledge that real life is such a pain.

And when I am a member I will know the secret signs,

The passwords and the symbols and the mascot porcupines.

It makes me feel so powerful, this gnostic camouflage,

That I’ll embrace their doctrine though it sounds a bit hodgepodge.

Of course if I go spill the beans I know the high command

Will have me tarred and feathered, then my fanny will be tanned.

But why would I betray a group that does me so much good?

(When I get all my dues paid off they’ll let me wear a hood!)

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Eleven. Jeff Sessions

CANTO ELEVEN.  JEFF SESSIONS.

On his way to Congress, Mr. Sessions took a cab.

The cabbie was an immigrant who didn’t like to gab.

So when he took a wrong turn and kept driving aimlessly,

He didn’t tell Jeff Sessions they were lost as lost could be.

Some deity decided to put Sessions fast asleep,

And made the taxi fly across the ocean vast and deep.

They came down in the country of the ukase, Tyrantland --

Where citizens are cattle and most freedoms had been banned.

When Sessions was awakened from his legendary doze

He found he was surrounded by a crowd in winter clothes.

They took him to the magistrate, who frowned at him and said:

“Give me all your money or you’ll wish that you were dead!”

Jeff Sessions didn’t like the tone the judge had in his voice,

But figured when in Rome you didn’t really have a choice.

He coughed up all his money and the magistrate decreed

That Sessions should be tossed out in the street with ample speed.

The snow was six feet deep and Jeff was dressed in lightweight stuff;

He shivered as he wished he had at least a warm earmuff.

Pedestrians ignored him -- he was jostled by a bus.

He was an outsider, and no longer ‘one of us.’

He looked in vain an embassy of Uncle Sam to find.

But talking to a stranger meant the citizens were fined --

So they walked around him, wrapping scarves around their ears.

And thus Jeff Sessions learned first hand the agony of sneers.

The law was no protection to him in his awful plight.

No lawyer wanted him around or for his claims to fight.

And do you think Jeff Sessions then repented of his own

Politics that made so many back home start to groan?

No! He was not sorry in the least for his designs

To use the law to cudgel dissidents with stern guidelines.

Instead, he stole a fur cap and a cape of velvet cloth

And ev’ry unjust mandate he accepted like warm broth.

While Congress waited patiently for Sessions to appear,

He worked the laws of Tyrantland with cruelty and fear.

So powerful did he become that finally the Boss

Of Tyrantland decided that Jeff Sessions was mere dross.

They stuck him in a rocket and shot him back unto D.C.

Where all the merry trumpsmen still insult democracy.

So when he went to Congress, he put all of ‘em in jail --

And nobody’s the wiser cuz he cut off their email.  

(to be continued)

Judges have more power than the President would like

President Trump’s attempts to block travelers from a handful of countries — most of them predominantly Muslim — from coming to the United States hit another legal snag on Tuesday, when a federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide order freezing most of Mr. Trump’s third travel ban the day before it was to take effect.  from the NYTimes.

Judges have more power than the President would like.

He want’s accommodation (like they had in the Third Reich.)

The law is well and good when it’s applied to minor case,

But otherwise it really needs to know its proper place.

Justice may be blind to all the riff raff and low born,

But it better listen when old Trump has blown his horn.

If the judges keep on ev’ry law of Trump to thwart --

He will build a wall around the friggin’ Supreme Court!

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Ten. Ben Carson.

CANTO TEN.  BEN CARSON.

Up on Mount Olympus, where the real estate’s restricted,

Ben Carson has the power to have even Zeus evicted.

“These deities have never learned to pull their own darn weight!”

He says as he sends dozens crashing down to their dim fate.

Their palaces and manors, and their alabaster halls,

are razed so they can make room for some brand new shopping malls.

The mighty Carson worships toil and old Hippocrates --

His modesty forbade his visage on the smallest frieze.

‘Making your own luck’ was all the mantra he required.

Then disgruntled Zeus gave him to dream and be rewired.

In this fancy, simple Ben became a roustabout

For a carny show where crooked games he had to tout.

At the skee-ball stand he promised fortune to the brave

Who spent their money lavishly and then refused to cave.

Immovable milk bottles were set up for all the chumps --

You couldn’t knock ‘em over even using oak tree stumps.

The carny show moved constantly, one step ahead of cops

Who wanted to shut down their bait and switch extortion shops.

Their flukey ball and whack a mole were games of little chance --

Not when those canny carnies put the suckers in a trance.

And Ben was chief among them, grifting right and left with glee.

Fixing it so innocents wound up in bankruptcy.

Hiding in a mitt joint, he could see that life was skewed;

Some got all the velvet but most others just got screwed.

And then the dream was over -- Ben awoke back home again;

But the insight he had garnered burned inside him like cayenne:

Hard work could give you comfort, but there was no guarantee

That life would not defraud you and withhold prosperity.    

Afterwards Ben Carson was less critical of those

Who never seemed quite able to stay up upon their toes.

He was a bit more tolerant -- but that was a mistake;

For soon his fellow trumpsmen thought him nothing but a fake.

They kicked him out of office, saying he could never be

A valid Trumpsman if he showed such hateful charity.

So he went back to doctoring, to cheating only death --

Refusing ever after to mouth any shibboleth.

(to be continued)

What comes afta Nafta?

The ability of foreign companies to sue governments is one of the most contentious issues in the clash among the United States, Mexico and Canada over how to rework Nafta. The Trump administration views that section of Nafta as impinging on national sovereignty, saying it undermines government decision-making. The United States is pushing for dramatic changes in that provision that would roll back the ability of companies to bring cases under Nafta. Those changes are fiercely opposed by businesses, Mexico and — despite its loss to Bilcon — Canada.    From the NYTimes.

What comes afta Nafta is a question being asked

By ordinary people and those with resources vast.

Nobody wants to change it, ‘cept a White House bedlamite;

And ev’ryone is hoping his bark’s much worse than his bite.

Canada and industry, and even Mexico,

Wanna keep things going at the same old status quo.

But Nafta-phobes in Rust Belt lands, and even in D.C.

Are after blood and want the program to be history.

It may fall out that when we have our Wall up way down South,

That someone in the White House will keep shooting off his mouth

About this Nafta problem, so that Canada will route

All their efforts to a Wall that keeps us Yankees OUT.

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Nine. Betsy DeVos

CANTO NINE.  BETSY DEVOS.

The West Coast of America is wild and woolly yet;

Full of enchiladas and the arrogant baguette.

When Betsy D came visiting, she didn’t plan to stay --

But here’s the tale of how she was marooned there one fine day.

Mighty Vulcan, neath the ground, was pounding on his forge,

Which caused the San Andreas Fault much landscape to disgorge.

In fact the whole West Coast slid off into the briny water,

Creating a new island that was buoyant as an otter.

DeVos refused to panic, with an Amway smile she led

The islanders to polling booths, new leaders to embed.

They called their atoll Neurocore, since Betsy greased the palms

Of ev’ry politician while she sang angelic psalms.

She became the Czar of Education in that land,

And brooked no intervention -- all complaints were strictly banned.

She printed vouchers by the ton; she painted schools bright red.

She fed the students caviar, with lots of cheap cornbread.

Back inside the Beltway, when they heard the funky news,

The trumpsmen didn’t do much except smile a bit and muse:

“The West Coast is so liberal that we are better off

Letting it just slide away into the ocean’s trough.”

But as DeVos grew stronger with her hold on scholarship

The islanders began resenting her patrician grip.

Like the nymph Kalypso she enchanted men and boys

To follow her instructions and stay with her as mere toys.

At last an insurrection of the common people led

To calls for Betsy’s resignation (and perhaps her head.)

By stealthy night she slipped away upon a modest yacht

To sail away from troubles like a modern Argonaut.

She landed on the shores of Arizona one dark night,

In Maricopa County -- and was locked up good and tight.

No boat people were wanted by the Arizona folk --

They towed her back to sea so she could try a cold backstroke

To some far distant country that would harbor her in peace.

And there she’s still a-floatin’ like a fancy spot of grease.

And mariners say in the fog, when peril looms before,

You can hear old Betsy shout: “Beware, beware, Al Gore!”


(to be continued)

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Eight. Steven Mnuchin.

CANTO EIGHT. STEVEN MNUCHIN.

Steve Mnuchin in his gilded palace of finance

Gnawed upon some crackers smeared with pungent liederkranz.

His duties as the trumpsman held responsible for cash

Were starting to taste bitter with the tang of dusty ash.

The rich were paying less and less, the poor were being dredged,

And brave Mnuchin didn’t know how money could be pledged.

In his savage anguish Steve Mnuchin sighed out loud:

“I wish that back in Hollywood I might soon be allowed!”

No sooner said than done, when Father Chronos heard his plea;

The god sent Steven reeling back to 1923 --

To Hollywood, the Golden Age of silent movie play,

Where custard pies and title cards were part of every day.

A limousine of verdant pink stopped next to him, and honked.

The door flung open and the banker inside then was plonked.

A man in black beret and with a monocle bade him find

A way for Theda Bara to make Rudolph lose his mind.

“You’re the big producer” said this Tinsel Town bootlick,

“So come up with some action and some sentimental schtick!”

Mnuchin grasped the problem right away -- the script was flat,

And needed some hysteria (with maybe molls and gat.)

“Have we got the funding to get Al Capone onboard?”

He asked his venal sidekick as the limo engine roared.

They got the mobster on a plane that very day so fleetly

That Capone did not have time to dump his prey concretely.

Mnuchin reveled in his time warp fantasy, until

Ben Turpin was assigned to him -- and then twas all uphill.

The actor with strabismus was a comic low and keen,

Who wanted nothing better than to be conked on the bean.

He shook hands with Mnuchin, then performed a one-oh-eight

that took Mnuchin with him so he cracked open his pate.

Before he could recover Turpin grabbed a custard pie

And at producer Steven he did let it wildly fly.

The goo upon his head began to dribble down his neck,

And Steven hollered right out loud to “Give that man a check!”  

“Then find me someone more refined to fill the comic role --

A Chaplin or a Keaton; anyone who’s not a troll!”

But all the comics he could find were still too crass and rude,

And so big Steve Mnuchin started thinking hard and shrewd.

Being a producer when the movies still were young

Was making him go crazy -- he would surely come unstrung!

And so Mnuchin called upon Dad Chronos one more time

To bring him to the present where the trumpsmen ruled sublime.

Back in his bright palace, Steve Mnuchin had this to say:

“Better all the clowns you know, than those of yesterday!”

(to be continued)