pushbutton

Defensive, Trump reverts to what he knows:
unfounded slurs on Haitian immigrants.
A party in its last convulsive throes
prayed vainly that he'd step aside for Vance.
Police report: Ohio's pets are fine--
as long as Bobby Jr stays away.
Trump blindly parrots someone else's line;
what writers in the Kremlin wrote, he'll say.
Rhetorically, she dangled juice bait;
he scowls, and snarls, and rolls his eyes, and frowns.
And we the People must adjudicate
between the People's lawyer, and the clown.
The prosecutor smiles for all to see:
Muenchausen's poster-child, hooked on tv.

the slime oozing out of your TV set

FoxNews contends it's just to entertain,
and keep their loyal viewers coming back.
The crucial function's missing in Trump's brain
to tell their Punch & Judy show from fact.
"I heard it on TV!" we heard him bleat.
as if the medium imparts more weight.
Two courts have weighed the matter, and agreed:
these categories, no one should conflate.
"No reasonable viewer" could confuse
Fox infomercials for veracity.
The Murdoch  propaganda is not "news";
its expertise is in mendacity.
We join Ivanka's children's plaintive pleas:
it's time to take away their grandpa's keys.

foreign agent

The Lotus-eaters lapping up FauxNews
feel justified inciting civil strife.
Their failings, they attribute to"the Jews"
themselves, they feel no agency in life.
Their Murdoch masters sneer at them like bugs
unfit to even pour their masters' wine.
Addicted to their bread-and-circus drugs
they mindlessly repeat the party line.
The demagogue our Founding Fathers feared
came packaged by Australians in disguise.
Crass immigrants, to sell that bullshit here
where innocents can't tell the news from lies.
You'd be a cock-eyed optimist (or fool)
to trust Fox viewer to select who'll rule.

Chauvin

Kentucky blames the victim every time
and jurors must pretend this makes some sense.
Your shattered skull is witness to your crime
when officers resort to violence.
'Til Rodney King, such video was rare;
we're told cops' testimony'd earned our trust.

White voters just assumed police must care,
and had good motives when then made a bust.
When ev'ry murder's broadcast to our 'phones

it takes an effort staunchly to not see
the crimes are ours, not officers' alone.
Our fundamental right must be to be.
Keith Ellison assures us laws can hold
if our Executive is staunch, and bold.

untold

Sean Hannity prefers we never know
What Michael Cohen did to earn his fee;
to make an inconvenient woman go
away seems standard for his "Client Three".
A year's elapsed, the story's long grown cold
Sean's bought off anyone who's dared to dig
up stories he prefers remain untold
Confirming our suspicions; he's a pig.
No Secretary in Trump's Cabinet
can wield the influence Trump grants to Sean.
Whose peccadillos we're told to forget
the journalists get axed who will not fawn.
The cover-ups of cover-ups of crimes
keep Trumpty playing frantically for time.

spin

The media hand Buttigieg a "win"
for coming second at New Hampshire's polls
forsaking journalism; to ply spin
Orwellian corruption of their role.
'Though Sanders--who came first--deserves the bump
that's unacknowledged in the bogus news.
They're rather throw the whole campaign to Trump
than give full citizenship rights to Jews.
And Klobuchar, who flubbed her own mid-west
is hailed like in some other world, she'd won.
As if one fourth, one third, made her the best
ignoring what her stronger rivals'd done.
Democracy's the wrong word for our mess
when we can't trust the ethics of "our" Press

Great Game

Initiative's Trumpty's for the nonce
To move towards Peace, or choose to push toward war.
Rouhani calibrated his response,
Debris smokes where our 'copters crouched before.
Distracting press from Trump's ongoing crimes
Seemed urgent, 'though Iran posed no new threat.
The existential menace of our times
is Donald; no one's likely to forget.
Pompeo's singing Flynn's bellicose tune
and Hannity invests in making Arms
But Tucker Carlson's not that kind of loon
and still hopes he can mitigate this harm.
This child who doesn't grasp "diplomacy"
may drag the planet into World War Three

unconsidered opinion

The Kremlin plants fake stories on the Right

to poison dialogue among us Yanks.
They bait the Left as well, but get no bite;
the credulous are thin, among those ranks.
Mistrusting facts, Trump's base clings to his cult
like he's some Cyrus, doing God's behest.
The skepticism fitting an adult--
If not eradicated's--been suppressed.
A battle different than we've waged before
is not amenable to compromise;
if we're to win this asymmetric war

we'll need an antidote to arrant lies.

Democracy's a less-than stable boat
if citizens won't read, and think, and vote.

one more billionaire

The donors who had pumped Joe Biden's bid
are showing doubts the old boy can compete.
Increasingly, they're flirting with the kid;
new waves of money lap at mayor Pete.
Mike Bloomberg saw Joe falter, took the jump
to seize the corporate Democrats' lane.
While no one thinks he's half as bad as Trump,
he still speaks more for Wall-Street than for Main-.
He's run a city, paid his civic dues
and--'though he'll grumble--always pays his tax.
But better still, he'd just buy out FoxNews
unplugging waves of scurrilous attacks.
Until votes out-weigh dollars in this race
the People's int'rest still wears Bernie's face.

co-equal

The fabric of society could burst
as Trump transgresses every rule and norm.
He started bad, but day by day gets worse
and  makes no slightest effort to conform.
Dick Nixon hoped no statutes could apply
to anything the president had done.
Now Trumpty goads his minions to defy
the courts that must restrain their Chosen One.
John Roberts will be tarred by Limbaugh's base
presiding in the Senate as he must
if our republic's to survive this case,
we've got to hope this Justice will prove just.
When Trump feels free to lie, defraud, extort...
our Senate sits as court of last resort.


                 

backroom

The threat to Biden forced the Speaker's hand;
she now concedes impeachment could make sense.
The DNC's protective of their man
and calculate he'd win against Mike Pence.
The signals Warren's gonna head the slate
have yet to penetrate through DC's noise. 
Pelosi blithely thinks she'll nominate
two more of WallStreet donors' chosen boys.
Corruption's not a plank that Biden owns
Liz Warren's all geared up to ride that horse.
The nemesis of predatory loans
can't bank on financiers' support, of course.
With thirteen months to go, all Nielsen bets
show CSPAN dominating TV sets.

Donald the unadvised

John Bolton's man O'Brien's NSA
sustantively, no change from what's before.
The soporific patter of his trade
conceals a predermined course for war.
Some libertarians in Trumpty's base
may blanch at the unjustified expense.
But no one's gonna say it to his face;
the only tax they'll vote for's for Offense.
As arbiter of what's accepted fact
gatekeeper of the president's news-feed,
the post requires more than Bolton's tact:
advisor to a fool who does not read.
Trump only hires advisors dumb as rocks;
"intelligence"--for him--must come from Fox.

rudderless

Trump's slavering for war when Hannity
is ranting on the White House TV set.
But Tucker Carlson's preaching sanity.
And so we haven't bombed the Persians--yet.
McDonnell-Douglas stock price tends to grow
on rumors that we're sending in our boys.
But no one's certain in this to-and-fro
who's setting policy, and what's just noise.
The world's economy's poised on the brink
for fear the tot-in-chief does something brash.
If Trumpty-Dumpty acts, instead of thinks,
The price of oil could soar, while markets crash.
Intent to show himself the peer of kings,
Trump can't discern how FauxNews pulls his strings.

phony war

The GoodCop/BadCop shtick against Iran
with Bolton as the mad dog on a chain,
was sold to Donald as a clever con
'cause foreign policy's hard to explain.
A scalpel's girlish; Trump prefers an ax
to solve what he's convinced must be a mess.
And Conway's feeding "alternative facts"
that Breitbart ballyhoos like they're real Press.
The deal Obama signed four years before's
anathema because it bore his name.
Trump brandishes the prospect of real war
to get a deal that's "new"--but just the same.
One mis-read telegram would unleash Hell.
So bid the ones you love a fond farewell.

Autocrats united

Prince Bone-Saw's Putin's foremost fan and friend;
assassinating journalists' their lark.
Executives who serve their private ends
conspire to keep the public in the dark.
The age of Erdogan, and Trump, and Xi
is hostile to the public's need to know.
This darkest chapter of our history
evokes John Adams centuries ago.
Now, Trump's proposed a Pravda for TheStates
with editorials tuned to his eyes.
Pontificating "Trade Wars Make Us Great!"
rewriting news to promulgate his lies.
There's no way forward from our present mess
if Trump can meddle freely with our Press.

alternative facts

Trump knows Sean Hannity will have his back
no matter how egregious the mistake.
Each criticism prompts a new attack
about how Californians need to rake.
Finns know his English comprehension's weak
and he'll confabulate to fill all gaps.
But it's the only language he can speak,
so they use little words, in solid CAPS.
Far from the values of their distant youth,
sealed echo-chamber parroting Trump's views
staunch partisans, convinced they own the Truth
subscribe to Hannity instead of news.
Republics need their citizens to care
about the truth, no less than birds need air.

radio silence

Sean Hannity was "client number three"
in Cohen's practice, known around the world
for heading off a scandal--for a fee--
by paying off an inconvenient girl.
The "taint team" found that privilege applied
to this minority of Cohen's work.
These can't be cited proving who had lied
Khuzami's writ's for big fish, not this jerk.
Six months elapse, but there the story's stuck
no details are forthcoming at this time.
As if the Murdochs couldn't give a fuck;
they'll give no airtime to their own guy's crime.
Sean's scandal won't stay quashed; it's just deferred.
His ethics are no better than Trump's word.

Pagliacchi

Trump's coke-fueled rants disturb the few who care;
his rhetoric and diction ain't the best.
Invective can't mask there's no substance there;
beneath that orange hair, he's Kanye West.
Twin Barnums, selling hokum to the mob
as if they'd conjure substance at their word.
Too busy talking to perform their job,
they think themselves above the madding herd.
To craft a paragraph is out of reach
when working memory can't hold one thought.
The measured cadence of Obama's speech
is still not anything that can be bought.
So hard to satirize this goofy town!
Straight news gets laughs just covering this clown.

Fourth Estate

binSalman murders with impunity
since Jared knelt, and kissed his gaudy ring.
This most selective goy fraternity,
grants special access to the Saudi king.
Khashoggi got dismembered; parts were shipped
to sun-bleached deserts, where the birds of prey
make sport of what should lie in some dark crypt.
Piecemeal, the prince's critics melt away.
This White House can't pretend to give a fig
if journalists abruptly disappear
Trump's sympathies lie wholly with the pig;
FreePress is nothing autocrats hold dear.
Niemoeller warned, they'll take us, one by one
if we don't drag their crime out to the sun.

Sean's boy

Trump's White House leaks like none has leaked before
as staffers vie to catch the boss' ear
recruiting Donald for some private score;
what FauxNews hasn't broadcast, he can't hear.
Communication's all through Hannity;
the Chief of Staff's been rendered impotent.
The Normal channel's pure futility;
no saner voices reach this president.
The chaos Trump exults in, Kelly hates;
he knows efficiency, and this ain't it.
Strategic thinking never resonates,
but Trump's as happy as a pig in shit.
His minister without portfolio
sets policy right on his TV show