Post-humorously Elected

The 2018 midterm elections are behind us and once again, during this tumultuous and confusing process, the nation looked to the great state of Nevada for guidance and direction.

Nevada has always been our national beacon of light in times of darkness. Our North Star, keeping the country focused on what matters. What counts. What is truly important to us all.

Roulette, cocaine, and hookers.

Wait, that can’t be right…

In any event, yesterday, Nevada showed us the way forward yet again. They went ahead and elected a dead guy.

We have a long and rich tradition in our larger metropolitan (read: corrupt) areas of allowing dead people to vote, but very rarely do we vote for a dead guy. But that’s the fun of Nevada!

Dennis Hof defeated educator Lesia Romanov yesterday in the race for Nevada's 36th Assembly District by a vote of 63% to 37%.

As per Nevada assembly district election law, at least one person in each race has to be an actual pimp, and that was Dennis in this case. Apparently Lesia is just a teacher or a school principal or something lame like that.

Dennis Hof owned and operated a half-dozen brothels around the state and was running on the platform of “Make Nevada Nevada again,” (it had been previously changed to Nebraska, and people were getting confused), “I Will Protect Our Water,” (meaning, I will protect our rights to have your water delivered to you by a licensed sex worker), and “I Can’t be Bought,” (meaning, I already have all the hookers and cocaine).

Unfortunately for Mr. Hof, he died on October 16^th after an extended weekend of celebrating his 72^nd birthday at one of his brothels. (Remember to ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for birthday activities, and seek immediate medical attention if you experience a birthday celebration lasting longer than four days.)

But the fact that their pimp was inconveniently dead was not going to deter the proud Nevadan District 36’ers from voting him into office in an overwhelming fashion. Well done, 36’ers, well done!

This is certainly a strange situation, and one that raises many questions, the most obvious one being, how bad was Lesia Romanov’s campaign platform that she could actually lose big to a dead pimp?

If she did nothing other than change her late-October campaign speeches to, “Look, I can breathe and wiggle my fingers,” it seems like she should have been able to get closer to at least half the votes.

Who knows how these things work!

Anyway, Nevada, the rest of us just want to thank you for, yet again, showing us the path. You may have just pioneered a new voting strategy of having dead people vote for dead people, completely eliminating the need for a live electorate or candidates. That could dramatically reduce campaign ads being mailed to our houses! That is some next-level visionary stuff.

Whether that dream comes to fruition or not, above all else, I just personally want to thank you for electing a dead guy.

I truly wish all politicians could be as ineffective as he’ll be.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Gubernatorial Spice

They say variety is the spice of life. I’m not sure who “they” are, but since eating is mandatory for remaining above ground, wouldn’t spices be the spice of life?

In any case, here in the great state of California we voted in the primary election for our new governor yesterday, and boy, was the ballot spicy with variety!

We had twenty-seven candidates on our ballot. Actually, mine had twenty-eight, since, after reading the whole list, I voted for my dog, Remi, as a write-in candidate.

The ballot listed each candidate’s name and occupation, and the variety was immediate and in-your-face with its spiciness.

I was immediately drawn to CEO and business owner Hakan “Hawk” Mikado. I wasn’t knocked out by his qualifications, but how cool does he sound?

“Commissioner, we don’t know what to do! There’s trouble brewing at the capitol building!”

“Calm down. Send in the Hawk.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the person with the least cool name on the ballot, Akinyemi Agbede, listed his or her occupation as “Mathematician.” That simply won’t work. There is no way anyone trained as a mathematician would be able to stomach political math. Logic and tax spending are incompatible.

One man listed his occupation as “Father” and another was listed as “Virtual Reality Manager.” Those struck me as being basically the same job.

There was a guy named Nickolas Wildstar who was listed as a “Recording Artist.” I’ve never heard of him, but my guess is his career isn’t exactly on fire if he’s running for governor. Might I suggest, Mr. Wildstar, that you change your first name to Hawk.

Someone named Josh Jones from my hometown of Davis, California (Town motto: Davis, gateway to East Davis) is running for governor, and claims to be an author. From pictures on his campaign website, he and I look to be roughly the same age, so it’s entirely possible we went to high school together, but I don’t remember. I can’t seem to find him on any other Google searches. There’s a Josh Jones actor, drummer, and even a Green Bay Packer, but not an author, so I’m assuming he has some other form of income he’s not willing to divulge.

Christopher N. Carlson lists his occupation as “Puppeteer/Musician.” No offense, Chris, but I’m going to be a hard pass on having a Muppet operator as the leader of the fifth largest economy on the planet.

Also, Jeffry Edward Taylor, besides having a serial killer name, you have listed your occupation as “Marketplace Minister.” Either you are an evangelist at open-air fruit and vegetable seller events, or you’re some kind of Silicon Valley tech COO who came up with a jackass, trendy, self-important title for yourself. Either way, no thanks.

And, Peter Y Liu, you did not list an occupation of any kind and you don’t have a period after your middle initial, suggesting to me that you are possibly homeless and your entire middle name could simply be the letter Y. I don’t trust you.

But out of all twenty-seven “candidates,” one spicy little nugget of variety stood out above all the rest. My tenth choice from the top was none other than Zoltan Istvan, Entrepreneur/Transhumanist Lecturer.

You have intrigued me, Mr. Zoltan. Wikipedia says this about you: Zoltan Istvan Gyurko, professionally known as Zoltan Istvan, is an American transhumanist, journalist, entrepreneur, and Libertarian futurist.

Hmm… Zoltan Gyurko, “professionally” known as Zoltan Istvan. Interesting choice. Might I suggest, as a gubernatorial candidate for the Transhumanist Libertarian Futurist Party, you might want to sound a little less like a sworn enemy of Buzz Lightyear, and try being professionally known as Steve Istvan, or John Gyurko, or even Mike Zoltan. When you lead with Zoltan – even if your parents are responsible for that – you probably lose a lot of people right off the bat.

Further web investigation of just what in the hell a transhumanist is reveals to us, firstly, that you intentionally own a forty-foot-long, completely and totally poop-brown bus, with a wooden roof structure that you made yourself in an attempt to make the entire vehicle look like a coffin.

Unfortunately, the coffin look didn’t quite come across, and your bus looks more like an abandoned Waffle House on wheels. To make matters even more confusing, written on the side, in almost professional-looking script, are the words “Immortality Bus.”

Apparently, when not running for governor of the great state of California, you drive a rolling caca-brown Waffle House around the country, lecturing to people about how they won’t have to get old anymore if we can just convince the government to unleash the power of science and computerized artificial intelligence. And in your spare time you engage in entrepreneurial transhumanist journalism. 

Solid platform, Zoltan.

Unfortunately, when weighing my options between your spicy variety of gubernatorial hopefulness and that of your twenty-six worthy opponents, I went ahead and voted for my dog, instead.

And equally unfortunately, I think you and Remington Schmatjen have about the same overall chance of being our next governor.

But, who knows? Maybe more people are into Coffin Waffle House Immortality than I think.

If not, all hope is not lost. You might not end up being Governor Zoltan, leader of California, but you could definitely be Front Man Zoltan, lead singer for the new transhumanist rock band, Gubernatorial Spice.

Why not? You already have a tour bus.

Good luck, California!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

The Breakfast Club

It’s the day after election day in the craziest and most undesirable presidential election any of us have ever seen. Since Just a Smidge is not a political column, the only endorsement you’ll find here is for the Nacho Party. We love nachos here, and this is nacho political endorsement. I’m not here today to discuss the candidates or the new president, even if you wanted to, which you really don’t. You just want a drink. Go get one and come back. I’ll wait...

OK.

Even if I wanted to discuss how deeply ridiculous and troubling the quality of this presidential race was - which I don’t - that would be the wrong thing to worry about in this process. We should really be focusing on how ridiculous our election system is.

Don’t even get me started on the electoral college. Seriously, I can’t start. I don’t know what it is or why it is whatever it is. I was apparently absent during that day/week/month of middle school or junior high or high school or college when I was supposed to be taught how this whole thing works.

What I do know about it is that if you live in a state that doesn’t agree with your political views, it totally invalidates your vote.

Imagine this scenario. Ten people are trying to choose a movie to watch. You vote for Movie A, but you are sitting on a couch with four other people and three of them chose Movie B. The other couch had four people choose Movie A and only one chose movie B. Your Movie A won the popular vote six to four, but since your couch can only hold five people, and the other couch can hold eight, you all have to play Jenga instead of watching a movie. That’s how the electoral college works.

But never mind that. Just put that out of your head because there’s nothing we can do about the electoral college. Majority voting is unthinkable, and besides, counting every single vote, preventing people from voting twice, and preventing non-citizens or people who aren’t registered to vote from voting in this day and age is completely unrealistic.

We simply don’t have the technology. It’s not like we all have unique numbers assigned to us at birth that could be tracked in some sort of electronic database or something. That’s just crazy talk. Hang on, let me use my phone to track the exact location of my UPS package real quick...

OK, I’m back. That only took four seconds. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. We don’t have the technology to get rid of the electoral college. Let’s focus instead on the fact that we have a multiple political party system where only two of the parties ever get to debate for your vote. Sure, Washington D.C. likes to placate you with some preliminary debates with a stage full of candidates, but come closer to election time the “presidential debates” only feature two out of the six candidates.

If they let all six candidates debate, you the voter might screw up the nice two-party system they love so much. It would be a whole lot harder to funnel all those tax dollars into their brother-in-law’s pockets if a bunch of Libertarian or Peace and Freedom party losers were hanging around D.C. watching what’s going on.

Since the two-party system is the only way to keep all the money and power in the hands of the little club that knows what’s best for you, the lowly voter, it’s best if they don’t let you get too out of control with a lot of choices.

Think of it in terms of breakfast cereal, since it’s harder to do this example with nachos.

You can only have one breakfast cereal for the next four years, but since this is a free country, you get to choose. There are at least six cereals to choose from. One out of six is pretty good odds. You should be able to find one you like.

OK, let’s get to taste-testing.

Great. Here are your two choices.

Wait, what about the six?

We decided you didn’t need to sample the other four.

But I wanted to try all six.

No. Two is enough for a taste test.

But you didn’t even let me choose which two I get to taste.

These two are our best sellers. Just taste these two.

But I want to taste all six.

We don’t have the time or the money for all that tasting.

That’s ridiculous. Just give them to me and I’ll taste them all.

No can do. Just taste these two here and choose one.

What if I don’t like either of them?

No problem. You can always choose any one of the six.

But I have no idea what they taste like!

Look at the boxes.

How do I know what’s inside?

We labeled them for you.

That’s ridiculous. I can’t choose without tasting them.

You have to pick.

This is ridiculous.

It’s time.

Well, crap. I guess I’ll take this one.

Sorry, you’re on the wrong couch.

That’s the U.S. election process, folks. Until we vote them ALL out, nothing changes. Enjoy your crap-tastic flax nuggets with extra yellow dye number five.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Let's Make America Awesomer

We have no good options left, America. This election is looking like a choice between Holy Crap! and Are You Kidding Me? That’s why during the recent Cinco de Mayo tequila tasting at my house, a new partnership was formed to give you, the concerned voters of America, a more palatable option. Derek Miller (my neighbor) and I will be running mates for president. I lost the Ro-Sham-Bo for the vice president slot, so I’m the presidential candidate.

Now, I know many of you might be saying to yourself, “But I don’t know Derek Miller.” That’s a fair concern, so let me tell you a little about him. He’s tall and handsome with no hideous facial scarring, he has an actual job and a lovely family, he has some really good tequila at his house, and he’s not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

I’m sure many of you are also saying, “Can Smidge really be president? Is he qualified? All I’ve ever seen him actually do is be sarcastic. What is his IQ?” Those are also fair concerns, so let me put your mind at ease. Technically and legally I can be president, and after the presidents I’ve seen in my lifetime I’m starting to think I might be overqualified. I think the office needs a lot more sarcasm, and as for my IQ... that’s none of your business. Sure, I have no idea where Kazakhstan is, but does anyone? And does it really matter? Of course not.

And I’m also not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

I think I’ve made the case for Schmatjen/Miller 2016.

At this point, I’m not sure we can actually get on the ballot, chiefly because neither of us have looked into it at all, so please just write us in.

And we only have $2.58 in our campaign fund, which was the amount of money we got from recycling the Cinco de Mayo beer bottles, so donations would be greatly appreciated.

Even after all the good reasons I’ve already given you for voting for us, if you’re still on the fence, here’s a list of our major platforms. (This is only a partial list since we’re still trying to remember everything we came up with that night. Seis de Mayo was a little foggy.)

First and foremost, free beer for every person in the U.S.A. That’s a no-brainer. We did the math, and with 323 million people in the country getting a fourteen dollar twelve-pack of beer each month, it only costs us $54.3 billion. Done! We can handle that just by eliminating the State Department.

And keep in mind, in case you think we’re being stingy, you get a twelve-pack for every person in your family. If you are married with three kids, and grandma lives with you, that’s six cases of beer headed your way each month, like a huge, frosty-cold paycheck. And if you’re like me and have Mormon or Muslim friends and neighbors - score! They usually have a ton of kids, and you can probably have their beer, too.

Speaking of eliminating the State Department, we’re going to be doing a lot of that as well. The short list of redundant federal departments doing things that are already being handled by the states will get $336 billion back in our pockets. Goodbye Departments of Energy, Education, Labor, and Transportation. It was nice knowing you.

You nice folks can have that money back in the form of a $1000 check for every single person in your family. Spend it however you want, America.

In the interest of inclusion, all this applies to the nice folks in our outlying territories as well. It’s about time they got full citizenship, voting rights, and free beer. And it’s about time we got five new states. Welcome to statehood, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Glad to have you aboard.

Subsequently, we’ll be launching an exploratory committee to figure out how best to fit five more stars on the flag, and also to determine where exactly those five new states are. The committee will also look into whether Costa Rica is the same thing as Puerto Rico. There has been some question.

Back in D.C., we’ll be firing everyone we have the power to fire. Then we’ll hire lawyers to figure out a way to fire the people who say we don’t have the power to fire the other people. Then we’ll fire all the lawyers.

We’re going to pay ourselves $10 million a year for the eight years we’ll obviously be in office, but don’t worry. That’s only a couple of drips from the faucet in Washington, and it will reassure you that we’re not for sale to special interest groups. We’ll still take tons of money from special interest groups, but we’ll turn around and give it all to you! As a thank-you, you guys can vote to repeal term limits for us. That’s a win-win.

And lastly, we’ll immediately instate Cinco de Mayo as an official national holiday, on par with the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. To reduce any potential hurt feelings or appearance of North American favoritism, we’ll also adopt a lesser Canadian holiday to be named later.

Also, recognizing the brilliance of the New Year’s Day holiday immediately following the New Year’s Eve celebration, all national holidays will now have a minimum of two days off work and school. Welcome, Fifth of July and Seis de Mayo. You’ve always been there, but now you’re official.

Thanks for your support, and tell your friends.

“In 2016, write in Schmatjen/Miller. Free beer and money is totally killer.”

I’ll get back to you if we come up with a better slogan, or if we can remember any more of our great ideas on how to make America awesomer.

Vote early and often!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

545 People

If the United States government is not going to do their job, then neither am I. First, we were going to go off a fiscal cliff. That drop-dead date came and went, and I’m not sure if we went off or not. Everyone stopped talking about it as soon as “sequestration” was mentioned. Whether or not we’re falling off a cliff, we’re also sequestered now, whatever that means. What I do know is that they were supposed to get a budget passed by a certain deadline, and they chose not to. I was supposed to have a column posted at a certain time, but instead, following the government’s lead, I chose not to. Instead I decided to just use someone else’s column. If they don’t have to do their job, then neither do I.

In keeping with my new governmental work ethic, I thought it would be appropriate if my low-effort column had a government theme, so I am posting a column that every person in America should be required to read before stepping into a voting booth for the first time. (Don’t worry, it’s short and really good.)

The below piece of simple genius is commonly (and mistakenly) called “Charley Reese’s Last Column.” Charley Reese did in fact write it, but it was not his last column. He refers to it as “The Frankenstein Piece,” because of how many times it has been copied, brought back to life and added onto. It has probably been re-printed and re-posted thousands of times. It’s that good.

As near as I can tell after my exhaustive two-minute internet search on Snopes.com, this is by and large the exact column written by Charley Reese way back in 1985, however the specific names of politicians and places have been removed by someone else along the way  to make it timeless, without changing the point at all.

I think the main reason that this piece is so timeless, is that it’s written from a plain old citizen’s point of view, with party politics left out. I also think that the fact that it is timeless, still holding true to this very day, some 28 years after it was written, means we are totally screwed. Enjoy.

545 People

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million who are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stands up and criticizes the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in a foreign country it's because they want them in a foreign country.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - Provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

Charlie Reese is amazed that some people find this column so eye-opening, because he says that it’s just Civics 101. Unfortunately, he’s right about that. It was all true before he wrote it, and it’s all true today, almost three decades later. Nothing has changed.

I guess we’re fresh out of gumption around here. See what I mean about being screwed? We get the government we deserve, plain and simple. Save this column and make sure your kids read it over and over when they are old enough, and make them send it to twenty of their friends, like a chain letter. If we all do that, maybe their generation will be the first in a long time to finally understand who has the power and who works for whom.

As good as Charley’s column is, please don’t fret about the direction this column is taking. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled humor format and content next week. Unlike the 545 people in Washington, D.C., I have a low tolerance for shirking my duties.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!