Trump to staff: I want to be like Putin - find judges to disqualify opponents

Satire from Ted Block

AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist

Russian Court denies candidacy of Putin opponent

Trump looking at ways he can emulate Putin’s use of judiciary

(At Sea) The New York Times reported today that a Russian court derailed a presidential bid by Aleksei A. Navalny, who, according to the Times is “the only opposition candidate with a broad popular following,” by reviving a four-year old criminal conviction.

The decision by the court is being looked at as a move by President Vladimir V. Putin to eliminate his only viable rival in next year’s presidential election.

Watching the coverage of the decision on Russia’s RT television at 3 am, U.S. president Donald J. Trump immediately called Betsy DeVoss, the first advisor he could think of to get advice on whether he could get a U.S. court to do the same to his potential rivals in the U.S.

DeVoss, recently installed as Secretary of Education, told the president that not only didn’t she didn’t know where Russia was, she wasn’t sure who Vladimir Putin is, and suggested because he mentioned the word “court” perhaps the president should call legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight, sexist tennis player Bobby Riggs, or, if all else fails, a lawyer.

Because Knight had once told Trump if he received a call before 8 am he would break a chair over the head of the person closest to him and because Trump knew from watching Fox Sports that Riggs was dead, the president called a lawyer, newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask if he could find a judge who could, similar to the Russian judge, disqualify potential candidates posing a threat to his reelection or, even better, simply jail opponents who disagree with him.

According to sources inside the White House, Trump said to Sessions, “I think you should call that ‘so-called’ judge out in Seattle. He owes me big time. Big time, believe me.”

After hanging up with Sessions, Trump reportedly began compiling a list of opponents he’d like to have judicially disqualified including, Hillary Clinton (who, reversing a promise he made after the election, will now prosecute and lock her up), Virginia senator and former vp candidate Tim Kaine, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, New Jersey senator Cory Booker, Vermont senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren.

Regarding Warren, Trump also placed a call to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell demanding that he change the Senate rules to make Rule 19, the rule by which McConnell censored Warren for reading a letter written by Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor, a federal offense so that Warren could be prosecuted and sent to jail.

In the call to McConnell, Trump reportedly told the senator that he would like to have McConnell “lock Warren up, preferably in the same cell as Secretary Clinton.”