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GELFAND’S WORLD - In a move that took the whole country by surprise, the Republican Party moved April Fool's Day up by a whole week. The move had much of a nation gasping in outraged astonishment for several days, and only as of the waning hours of April 1 did people begin to catch on.
In retrospect, Americans should have realized that what they were being told couldn't be real. In one example, a congressman asked for a nuclear attack on the border where Israel meets Egypt, in the corner of Gaza right at the juxtaposition of the other two countries. No sane person, particularly one who is about to be judged by his own voters in less than eight months, would say something like this seriously, but thousands apparently fell for the joke.
In another example of Republican leg pulling, former president Donald Trump showed a photo of a hogtied, apparently kidnapped, President Joe Biden. In one version, Biden appears to have suffered a fatal gunshot wound. The photo, showing Trump giving the thumbs up sign, was broadcast over the internet. Once again, outraged centrists and liberals engaged in a group ritual of wailing and gnashing of teeth, and only as April 2 neared, did they realize that no serious and sane individual (or at least one without early onset dementia) could have presented such a picture in any seriousness.
In one final pre-April-Fool joke, the former president published internet attacks on the daughter of a New York state judge who will be presiding over his criminal trial. It is well understood that a defendant should avoid pissing off the judge, not just because it won't help at the time of sentencing, but also because it wouldn't look good to voters who are looking for a reasonable person to vote for. Once again, the Republicans won the joke contest in the pre-April 1 week.
Even the majority party in the House of Representatives couldn't be kept from getting their bit of satire on the record. In a 180-degree switcheroo from the old red baiting anti-communist days of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, the current Republicans are supporting Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his war against our fellow democracy, Ukraine. House Speaker Johnson signaled the joke by his thin-lipped smile, almost imperceptible, but there. Once again, the Republicans won the pre-April 1 gag contest.
At the Local Level
In the aftermath of the conviction of former Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan for bribery and racketeering, current City Council members Paul Krekorian, Bob Blumenfield, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, and Curren Price held a joint press conference in which they apologized for not speaking up in 2016 when serious crimes involving land use were ratified by the Los Angeles City Council. "How could anyone not know what was going on? Obviously we did, and we are sorry for it," said the City Council members.
One last joke: The mayor of Los Angeles today appointed a new General Manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment who promised to "respect each board member's time along with each person's intellectual independence."
Well, we can wish.
Not a joke, but funny: The Trump debt counter can be found here.
One last not-a-joke: American sources note that the Republican Party's new best friends in the old Soviet Union have now been implicated in the attacks on American diplomats, a story you can read here.
And here's one for you to guess: ATT is planning to make a takeover offer for Boeing Aircraft. A spokesman for ATT explained that they are "both technology companies with a like level of moral clarity." True or April Fool?
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].)
