An Article That Wasn't Supposed To Be About Politics
By P.J. O'Rourke


The week before the e******n, I went bird hunting... to take my mind off politics.

As if anything could take anybody's mind off politics the week before the e******n.

I meant to spend a few days without having any political thoughts. Yet political thoughts – like the ruffed grouse, woodcock, and pheasants I was hunting – kept popping up in the woods, the same way politicians keep popping up in the media.

I was tempted to start pretending the birds I was shooting at were certain politicians. I didn't do that. My aim might have been better if I had. But I don't believe in shooting politicians. For one thing, they're hard to clean. Also, shooting politicians would be wrong...

Although, it might be OK to trap them... using humane Havahart live-catch traps, of course. Then you could release the politicians in some distant political wilderness (let's call it a "Lowlife Refuge"). Set them loose, for example, in Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, which I understand is currently unoccupied. Then I began to feel bad about comparing noble upland game birds to such lowly things as seekers of elective office. After all, the birds so excel the politicians in grace and beauty (not to mention taste).

Also, I have a way of finding excellent game birds. But I do not have a way of finding excellent politicians. And, looking around at who gets elected in America, nobody else does either... We need a political version of my method of discovering what I'm hunting for, which is my bird dog Clio.

She is a Brittany spaniel with a superbly sensitive nose. She can detect from dozens of yards (with no yard signs needed) pheasants in the tall grass, grouse in the high trees, and woodcock in the alder bush thickets. She pins them down and points them, giving me an opportunity to – so to speak – "elect" them with my shotgun.

Hunting dogs are very smart. They can learn to pursue any quarry. What we need to do is train hunting dogs to sniff out virtue, integrity, firm character, worthy principles, and good leadership. Then put the dogs on the campaign trail.

What happens after that will be up to us and our fellow "h****rs" – the American e*****rate.

One thing that's important to remember when you're in the hunting field is that you're not the only h****r out there during hunting season... just like you're not the only v**er out there on E******n Day.

We h****rs have to trust each other. But we also have to take precautions to stay out of each other's way and make sure accidents don't occur. That's why we wear blaze orange hats and vests. I suppose that v**ers wearing red MAGA caps and pink pussyhats is somewhat equivalent.

Nonetheless, bad things can happen in the woods. An innocent hiker can get mistaken for a two-legged deer that left its antlers at home. A harmless mountain biker can be confused with a moose on wheels. And bad things, obviously, can happen at the b****t box. An i***t, according to the dictionary, is a person with a mental age under three. Some h****rs are i***ts. Some v**ers haven't yet reached that stage of intellectual development.

I mostly do trust my fellow h****rs. But I'd have more trust in my fellow v**ers if v****g required adherence to as many rules and regulations as hunting does. I have my state's booklet of official hunting and trapping regulations at hand – it's 40 pages long.

Unlike v**ers with v****g, h****rs are required to prove prior experience with hunting. To get a license, a h****r must produce either a license from a previous year or possess a "H****r Education Card." Otherwise, a h****r is required to complete the state's two-day H****r Education Course.

Below is what my booklet of official hunting regulations says about that course. I have changed the wording – using cross-outs and bracketed inserts – to show what a "V**er Education Course" might be like:

In a H****r [V**er] Education Course, you'll learn about firearms and archery [legislative and regulatory] safety and handling [prudence and accountability], outdoor [inside smoke-filled room] safety and survival sk**ls, hunting [Constitutionality of] laws, and your responsibilities as a h****r [v**er].

Meanwhile, as I proposed earlier, our hunting dogs – trained to seek virtue, integrity, character, principles, and leadership – have been roaming the political landscape trying to find decent candidates. What if they come up empty?

I'm familiar with this dilemma, as a h****r as well as a v**er. My state's population has been growing. More homes, stores, and commercial buildings have been built in what used to be bird covers. With fewer farms and orchards and more timbering and paving, the number of wild game birds is down. One answer to the problem is to breed game birds in captivity and put them out on hunting preserves. This is already being done both privately and by the state's Fish and Game Department.

Maybe we could do the same thing with politicians. Science has made enormous strides in genetic engineering and artificial insemination. Perhaps we could raise a flock of new politicians. And possibly, with judicious use of DNA replication, we could breed much better politicians than we have now.

My personal preference would be for an egg donation by Margaret Thatcher and a sperm donation from Winston Churchill. (Or make that Golda Meir and Nelson Mandela if you want more diversity.) To make sure that our political "chicks" are raised in a proper family environment, I'd clone Barbara Bush. And – since a two-parent household is optimal for child development – who better to father our flock than the father of our country, George Washington?

But as well-bred and as carefully reared as our newly hatched political poultry may be, we can't just send them from their pens into the political wild. They would be easy prey for Washington wolves, Capitol Hill coyotes, House hyenas, Senate snakes, and Oval Office omnivores.

I think what we'll have to do is gather everyone who ran for office in 2020, put them in a cage, place the cage just outside the chicken wire surrounding our new and improved fledgling politicians, and have Barbara and George tell them: "This is what a predator looks like!"

Americans who refused to say “No!” in the first place now find themselves in a quagmire of incremental authoritarianism that risks becoming a full-on police state in 2021. Now that Thanksgiving has been desecrated for millions, what will Technocrats do to destroy Christmas?

America’s C****-** Restrictions Go Full Authoritarian
Stacey Lennox ~ November 27, 2020
For folks in the Sunbelt and other places that still feel like America, the C****-** holiday restrictions seem more than a little over the top. In Los Angeles, restaurants are shuttering at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving Eve and may only provide take-out. This was announced after proprietors had ordered all of the necessary inventory for their Thanksgiving reservations and spent thousands to modify their facilities.

This is despite the fact the L.A. Department of Health has no data on the t***smission of C****-** in outdoor dining facilities. The Board of Supervisors admitted as much during a call on Tuesday. Supervisor Janice Hahn noted the severe community pushback that the board has been getting. She voiced concerns that the public was losing confidence and trust in the Board’s decisions. Gee, you think?

However, if you live in New York City, what is going on in Los Angeles seems low-key. America’s worst mayor, Bill de Blasio, has decided he will be placing checkpoints at the entrances to the city. These will be operated by law enforcement to strictly enforce the travel quarantine:

The city’s regulations mandate that travelers either quarantine for 14 days or take a C****-** test to prove they don’t have the v***s. Violations of self-quarantine will be enforced, and may carry fines of $1,000 to $2,000, according to the mayor’s office.

And there are forms! Like the forms you fill out when you go through customs when returning from a foreign country, you will be required to produce your papers when you enter New York City:

New York City Sheriff Joseph Fucito said the sheriff’s office will be conducting spot checks when out-of-state buses drop riders off. In addition, deputies will check cars with out-of-state – and even New York – licenses plates. Test-and-trace teams will also be on the ground to help direct people to testing sites while providing “education” about quarantine, MSN.com reported.

“The city will enforce the completion of traveler forms at airports, Penn Station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There will be self-test site teams on site,” the news site said.

It won’t be long before there are checkpoints that prevent residents from leaving New York City. Mayor de Blasio might want to note that his tax base is fleeing, and they are not coming back:

According to statistics obtained by the New York Post, there have been about 300,000 requests from the USPS for a change of address since March. It appears that most of the requests are from people planning to move out of the city — many, out of the state.

Earlier this summer, Governor Andrew Cuomo was pleading with wealthy residents to return. He even offered to cook them dinner. But even that is verboten now as there are guidelines about gathering indoors with people from other households. Even the governor had to go a bit sheepish when his plans to spend Thanksgiving with his elderly mother and other family members were discovered.

Perhaps the most disturbing plan has been hatched in Vermont. I guess the state that has elected socialist Bernie Sanders to the Senate for decades has decided to go full Stalin. Children will be questioned about their Thanksgiving holiday activities, and families may be required to quarantine if they dare to dine with people from another household.

As of November 14, “Republican” Governor Phil Scott has banned gatherings between households:

This includes both inside and outside social gatherings, in public and private spaces. This means that visitors to Vermont can only socialize with the people they are traveling with. They cannot gather with Vermonters or with people from another traveling group.

Right now, this will operate on the honors system, according to state officials. This extreme measure was taken as a result of 81 new cases statewide yesterday, 20 people in the hospital, and five in the ICU. The case positivity rate is 1.4% of tests.

And asking children about family activities starts to sound just a bit eerie. In Soviet Russia, a 13-year-old boy named Pavlik Morozov became a martyr for informing on his father:

“His name must not die,” declared the writer Maxim Gorky, and Pavlik became a C*******t folk hero, one of the first models of Soviet behavior held up to schoolchildren for emulation.

He is portrayed as the martyr who put the state above old fashioned loyalties, a Pioneer hero whose statue and school in the village of Gerasimovka, in the northern Urals’ Tavda district, draw legions of youthful pilgrims, and whose story is recounted in books and newspapers. A Moscow street is named for him, and his name is borne by countless chapters of the Young Pioneers, the C*******t children’s organization.

Perhaps a young resident of Vermont will be lauded for saving all of the grandmas. In reality, every adult in the state is competent to make decisions about protecting vulnerable family members without such onerous regulation.

By way of example, Georgia runs somewhere between 7% and 8.5% positivity rates on testing. Some people are gathering with others. Those who prefer to be more cautious are making other plans. There will be traditional Thanksgiving Eve debauchery when our college students, who are going to school in person in the state, come home. Reading what other states are doing simply has Georgians shaking their heads.

I can’t wait to see what these tin-pot authoritarians come up with to ruin Christmas. And when the people they are attempting to rule will finally have enough.

Does anyone really know?

The president-elect of the United States is the candidate who has won the United States p**********l e******n and is awaiting inauguration to become the president. There is no explicit indication in the Constitution when that person actually becomes president-elect.[1] An unofficial term, president-elect has been used by the media for decades. Politicians have applied the term to the declared winner, even soon after e******n night.[2]


Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States following the 2020 e******n.
While E******n Day is held in early November, formal v****g by the members of the E*******l College takes place in mid-December, and the p**********l inauguration (at which the oath of office is taken) is then usually held on January 20. The only constitutional provision pertaining directly to the person who has won the p**********l e******n is their availability to take the oath of office.[1] Since 1963, U.S. federal law has empowered the General Services Administration to determine who the apparent e******n winner is and to help facilitate the basic functioning of the president-elect's t***sition team.[3] By convention, during the period between the e******n and the inauguration, the president-elect actively prepares to carry out the duties of the office of president and works with the outgoing (or lame duck) president to ensure a smooth handover of p**********l responsibilities.

Incumbent presidents who have won re-e******n for a second term are generally not referred to as presidents-elect as they are already in office and are not waiting to become president. Likewise, if a vice president succeeds to the presidency by way of the president's death, resignation, or removal, that person is not referred to as president-elect. On the other hand, an incumbent vice president who is elected president is referred to as president-elect.

Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States, having defeated incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 p**********l e******n.[4][5][6][7]