Kevin in Heaven

Vidalia Unjon

Washington – Republican Kevin McCarthy of California after fourteen failures finally won enough votes to become Speaker of the House on Friday night.

To secure the job he had to give up most of his powers, but a spokesperson said that was alright because after all they are allowing him to pound his gavel and say “order.” Besides, the spokesperson pointed out, “although the far-far-far-right wing of the party may threaten to kick him out of the job anytime they want to get something else out of him, they will still have to get the far-far right and the far-right members to go along, which will be difficult.”

Kevin with new toy

It was a dramatic victory. After much struggle and determination in which Republican members used vulgar terms to describe each other’s personal qualities and tried to beat each other up, McCarthy soared to victory by getting enough members to vote “present” (politician talk for “oh well, never mind”). This made the Never-Kevins a small enough fraction of the total to jump over.

Already McCarthy has dived into his new role with gleeful abandon, having his staff procure him a new gavel with his initials on it, which he has been seen using to tap forcefully on various surfaces as he passes down the hall from his new office. “It has big, gold letters on it that read ‘Speaker of the House,’ McCarthy said beaming, and he spontaneously twirled around once and pointed at an imaginary representative who wished to bring up something.

Representative Matt Gaetz came by to pledge his support and presented him with the gift of an office doormat to symbolize his new speakership.

Harry Potboiler

Bick Strait

Prince Harry, the guy who’s dad is the king of England and who’s mom was Princess Diana, who died in the 1990s when the car she was in had an accident because of being chased by a bunch of photographers who wanted to get scandalous pictures of her with her paramour, some Greek guy, because people like you can’t stop obsessing about every little thing these people do has written a memoir, called Spare,  because he feels like the spare king since his brother, William, is first in line for the throne, and then his nephew, and they would need to die first, like in a car accident, for him to get to be king. Excerpts have begun to leak so people like you will get all worked up to buy it.

One chapter of the book talks about a fight Harry had with William when Harry went down to a cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace. Harry said he could tell right away his brother was already “popping hot.” Not piping, like the water in a tea kettle but popping, like popcorn, which means he was really mad.

Anyway, according to Harry, William called his wife, Meghan, “difficult,” “rude,” and “abrasive.” Harry said William was just repeating words the press like to say about Meghan. So then William grabbed Harry by the collar and knocked him to the floor.

Harry and William describing their fight

Harry just looked up at his brother with that superior “I’m not debasing myself with common fisticuffs” look. Upon which William started kicking him near his frostbitten penis and calling Meghan a negress bitch who doesn’t know her place. Harry responded with “Thou bald-pated racist prig!” and gave William a bloody nose.

I made that last part up just for you.

Salami No Baloney

Vern Hu Chu

Beijing – China has warned the U.S. to stop constantly challenging the country’s “red line” on Taiwan.  The comments came from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs after U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, had a phone call.

According to China’s version of the phone call, Wang warned the U.S. that it must stop containing and suppressing China’s development and stop using “salami tactics” to constantly challenge China’s red line.

Wang Yi reacting to deli lunch selection

“Salami tactics” refers to the Chinese allegory of foreign intervention, apparently dating from the time of Marco Polo, as a way of saying that US policy on Taiwan resembles a mix of fermented gristle and hog guts stuffed in a tube of skin that hangs from a rack above a large wooden table where a man with a huge knife slices it into round disks and pretends it’s food that won’t kill you when everyone knows it is full of salt and fat, which crosses the red line of taking over Taiwan whenever they feel like it.

Experts say the Taiwan question is the “very core of China’s core interests,” as Xi put it to Biden, in other words, the guts of China’s existence which must not be fermented (suppressed) and encased (contained) in cooked skin and strung up above America’s wooden table with the big knife on it.

In any case the “red line” in bilateral ties must not be crossed.

A few days after Wang’s warning, China sent many planes and ships toward the self-ruled island that China regards at its own and threw tons of anchovies and prosciutto overboard in a symbolic gesture of military strength.