Obama Announces 'Most Trusted Advisor'

Sorry, AP.

Obama has announced his new Chief of Staff, taking over for Jack Lew who the president has nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, as Denis McDonough.

The president has worked with McDonough since he was a senator, calling him, "one of my closest and most trusted advisers."

…

Quickly, someone tell him he'll never be as strong as Ted Kennedy.

Pussy Riot | Don't Make Me Call Ken Jennings

Melissa McCarthy, Rosario Dawson, and Felica Day.
Get on it, Hollywood.

Roommate: "Until a few years ago, I didn't know Daylight Savings Time was a thing … that we did in America and not elsewhere."

Roommate's Friend: "Yeah. We don't even have it in Russia. They got rid of it. My Nana was telling me."

Me: "Mmn. Which is weird because Russian spans like six time zones. So it's 2 in Siberia and 8 p.m. in Moscow, but it's still 2 p.m."

Room: … [beat of silence]

Roommate's other friend: "…Yeah, but how many people actually live in Siberia?"

Me: "Uh, a few, actually. There's a lot of people still in gulags over there."

Room: …

Me: "Like Pussy Riot."

Roommate: "That's a … band?"

Me: "Yeah. They tried to protest so they got sent to-"

Roommate's Friend #3: "Pussy Riot?"

Me: "Yeah. When Vladimir Putin's presidential term was up, he created the position of Prime Minister which was more important than President, then basically took that job and appointed the new president. Now a term later, he's switching them back, but now Prime Minister is less powerful again. Russians decided to protest, and this political girl band Pussy Riot staged some protests, so they got arrested and sentenced to three years in prison."

Roommate's 4^th Friend: "…You know a lot of things."

Me: "And none of them useful to my daily life."



I kind of wish for creativity's sake that I wrote that, instead of merely transcribing it.

IMPEACH THE O-EMPEROR | I do not think that word means what you think it means

As I was driving to the train station today through the area locally known as Mahopac Falls and Carmel, but more widely referred to as "East Bumblefuck," I passed a sign scrawled haphazardly in what appeared to be bootblack, across a large piece of plywood and nailed to a tree at the edge of the property on which was set back an adorably rustic redneck cabin, overlooking the road.

The sign read, "Impeach the O-Emperor."

Actually, it said "Impeach O- the emperor," but based on the font size, I'm going to assume that graphic design and layout night classes at the local community college were not available to this particular budding Banksy before he–women have far more legible handwriting–dropped out to fulfill a rewarding career as a comparatively cheaper substitute for a forklift.

Now, I get the impression that your intent was the removal of President Obama from office. As such, I find myself compelled to explain that to "impeach" means to level charges against.

Likely, you learned this term during the Clinton trials, when you discovered it was possible to oust a sitting president from office before the expiration of his term for the simple reason that you disagreed with his party affiliation, and found this knowledge more sexually arousing than your browser history's strange and mysterious fixation on Thai ladybois.

Now, to actually remove the president, Obama would have had to do something illegal. And not your Bill O'Reilly talking-box classroom understanding of illegal, mind you, actually illegal. After being charged, he would then have to be tried, and then convicted of those charges. Even then, I am not entirely sure that a prisoner could not also remain President of the United States, though there are certainly measures by which the legislature could remove him once convicted.

Than said, no U.S. president has ever been run out of office through impeachment. Johnson and Clinton, the only two presidents ever impeached despite demands to do so dating all the way back to Washington, were both acquitted in Senate hearings. Worst case scenario, a doomed Commander in Chief could simply resign prior to charges being formally filed, as Nixon did, after appointing Gerald Ford to replace his disgraced Vice President, thus bargaining a pardon upon Ford's own ascension.

Secondly, an "Emperor" isn't an elected office you could impeach, you moron.

Of Those Who Can't Failing to Teach

A family asked me yesterday for a book that would teach their son–for homework that night I learned–the similarities between the branches of government. "Branches" being a word I supplied; they went with "sections" and "parts."

Keep in mind, they also did not understand when I explained thrice that there was nothing in the store and it would have to be ordered, taking longer than 20 minutes to arrive.

The branches are, for those who don't remember 7th grade history class, the Legislative branch (Congress), the Executive branch (the President), and the Judicial branch (the courts). When these two wunderelterns attempted to list them, mom got "Parliamentary" and "Prime Ministreal," which isn't even a word. Dad fared no better with "Communist" in place of Congress and "President," which is actually more horrifying, because in between his wife's attempt and his own, I said them all. To them. They were there. And still, neither one of them even remotely got "Judiciary." I would have taken any variation on "courts." Nothin'.

God help that poor child. If his parents teach him that "Communist" is a branch of American government, we're going to have a little Young Republican on our hands fairly quickly.