Archive for the ‘Politics Satire’ Category

Open Limerick To House Republicans

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

Open Limerick To House Republicans
By Madeleine Begun Kane

House Republicans, kindly get real:
Your big focus is health care repeal—
Over thirty such votes!
Where’s your bill that promotes
“Jobs, jobs, jobs” with equivalent zeal?

Open Limerick To Chief Justice John Roberts

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

Open Limerick To Chief Justice John Roberts
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Justice Roberts, your allies are mean,
And their attitude’s often obscene.
When they hate one decision,
Their answer’s derision:
Your meds fried your brain. No more sheen!

With people like that in your camp,
Perhaps it is time to revamp
Your views and opinions.
Dump low-lives as minions.
Convert! Be a working man’s champ.

GOP Falls Out Of Love With Roberts (Limerick)

Friday, June 29th, 2012

Republicans are in shock over the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Obamacare” decision. They’d been so sure they had Justice John Roberts in their pockets, that they’re behaving like betrayed lovers: How dare he side with the liberal wing of the court on the constitutionality question!

Many of them are enraged to the point of irrationality. In fact, even Justice Roberts seems to have noticed the GOP’s “what have you done for me lately” nastiness. He actually joked about going into hiding.

GOP Falls Out Of Love With Roberts (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The decision John Roberts just penned
Has sent ACA foes round the bend.
Up till now he’d promote
All their views with his vote.
Has their Roberts’ romance reached an end?

Wawa-Gate Reinterpreted (Limerick)

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012

Was Mitt Romney’s amazement over the Wawa touch screen hoagie-ordering device further proof of his out-of-touchness? Or was it merely a small part of his comments on “federal bureaucracy and innovation in the private sector?”

I have a third interpretation:

Wawa-Gate Reinterpreted (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Romney, that hoagie device
Seemed to stun you, amaze, and entice.
I’ll just bet you were thrilled
By the jobs that are killed
When touch screens put clerk jobs on ice.

Republicans To Women: No Vagina Dialogues! (Limerick)

Friday, June 15th, 2012

Michigan Republican pols apparently have very delicate ears:

Two state representatives in Michigan were barred from speaking on the floor of the legislature in Lansing Thursday after colleagues deemed their language “failed to maintain the decorum” of the legislative body.

State Reps. State Reps. Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum, both Democrats, were arguing against proposed legislation that would enact new restrictions on abortions in Michigan, including provisions for new insurance requirements for abortion providers.

Brown ended her floor speech by declaring: “”I’m flattered that you are all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”

Republicans To Women: No Vagina Dialogues!
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Republicans love to pass laws
That restrict female parts, without pause.
But just utter “vagina”—
They’ll ship you to China.
Censor gals in all ways — that’s their cause.

Limerick Ode To Mitt “How Dare You Accuse Me Of Saying What I Said” Romney

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Mitt Romney has a bad habit of pretending he didn’t say something that he actually said. And claiming not to hold positions that he really holds.

For instance, after getting flack for his stated opinion that we have too many cops, firemen, and teachers, and that cutting such jobs is a good thing, he’s pretending this never happened. According to Mitt, to claim he said what he said and holds views that he really holds is “a very strange accusation.”

Don’t believe Mitt for even a minute. For while the federal government doesn’t directly hire (or fire) cops, firemen, and teachers, Romney’s stated policies would starve the state and municipal budgets, causing cops, firefighters, and teachers to lose their jobs.

Limerick Ode To Mitt “How Dare You Accuse Me Of Saying What I Said” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Vote Mitt, if you think our supply
Of teachers and cops is too high,
And firemen too.
We’ll be losing a slew
Of them all — that’s what Romney-votes buy.

Open Limerick To British Prime Minister David Cameron

Monday, June 11th, 2012

I’ll bet you never did this to YOUR kid:

David Cameron left his eight-year-old daughter in the pub following a Sunday lunch, after a mix-up with his wife Samantha, Downing Street has admitted.

The couple’s daughter Nancy wandered off to the toilets while they were arranging lifts and they only realised she was not with them when they got home, the Sun said.

The prime minister rushed back to the Plough Inn in Cadsden, Buckinghamshire, where he found his daughter with staff.

The story could prove embarrassing for the prime minister, coming on the same day as the government relaunches its £450m troubled families programme.

Open Limerick To British Prime Minister David Cameron
By Madeleine Begun Kane

To forget your young child in a pub
Is quite an astonishing flub.
The result could be sinister,
British Prime Minister.
So don’t do it again! Okay, bub?

Limerick Ode To Republican Schadenfreude

Monday, June 4th, 2012

Limerick Ode To Republican Schadenfreude
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Watch Republicans feign being sad
When employment news comes, and it’s bad.
How they try not to grin—
They’re more likely to win!
If you vote GOP, you’ve been had.

Romney and the Blowhard (Limerick)

Friday, June 1st, 2012

This Donald Trump quote sounds fictitious, but it’s real: “I have a very large Twitter.”

Romney and the Blowhard (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Trump is proud of his “very large Twitter.”
(That’s a quote — not a Mad B Kane titter.)
When The Donald ain’t ragging
The prez, then he’s bragging.
Donald Trump — he’s where Mitt turns for glitter.

An Open Limerick To Mitt Romney

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Birtherism is but one of Donald Trump’s bad qualities. And yet the Mitt Romney-Donald Trump alliance is going strong, making some people wonder how Romney looks at himself in the mirror without throwing up.

An Open Limerick To Mitt Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Mitt, some are feeling concerned,
Cuz what little respect you have earned,
Will go right down the drain
Should you really retain
Your Trump clown-act. He needs to be spurned.

Limerick Ode To An Amateur

Monday, May 28th, 2012

It’s a sad day when highly respected LBJ biographer Robert Caro loses his number one New York Times non-fiction slot to his polar opposite: hit job “author” Edward Klein.

Limerick Ode To An Amateur
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Amateur, hit job and whine
On Obama by error-prone Klein,
Has slimed up to first
On the Times list — we’re cursed:
Public taste for the facts on decline.

Limerick Memo To Republican Parents

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Memo To Republican Parents of College-Age Children: When federal student loan rates double this July, you’ll only have yourselves to blame:

Senate Republicans filibustered a bill to extend the current interest rate on federal student loans, blocking an extension from moving forward by a vote of 51-43 (with 60 votes needed to advance the bill). They blocked a similar effort earlier this month. Without an extension, interest rates will double in July from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

Limerick Memo To Republican Parents
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Sen. Republicans live in a bubble,
Untroubled that loan rates will double:
They repeatedly block
A Dem bill that would lock
In low rates, treating students like rubble.

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Job Creator” Romney

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

So let me get this straight: Mitt Romney has disavowed his singular accomplishment as Massachusetts governor (universal health care). And for the most part, he’s resting his claim to the presidency on his Bain-related expertise and accomplishments. He even asserts (without any proof) to have been a big “job creator” there. And yet Romney has the audacity to declare his Bain years off-limits to examination and critique by Obama and other Democrats.

As Ezra Klein points out:

Romney’s national platform … calls for doing less for the victims of the global economy. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would guarantee that workers would get health insurance even if they lost their jobs in, say, a private-equity led restructuring. He wants to pay for large tax cuts and more defense spending by cutting funds for Medicaid, for food stamps, for worker retraining, and for housing subsidies. He wants to cut Social Security benefits. He has no detailed plans to improve the continuing education system, or worker retraining programs, such that displaced machinists have a better chance to find a new job.

That’s why the ads in which laid-off steelworkers say Romney just doesn’t care about people like them are so effective. As head of Bain, it was Romney’s job not to care about them. But as a presidential candidate, it’s his job to show that he does care about them. So far, he hasn’t.

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Job Creator” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Romney brags of his Bain expertise—
Says it’s earned him the White Houses’s keys.
Yet he’s sore, slams the door,
Says how dare we explore
What exactly he did for those fees.

Dear Mitt, you can’t have it both ways.
Your record’s reviewed in this phase:
When you proudly proclaim
You know biz, it’s fair game
To appraise your Bain management ways.

State of Embarrassment (Limerick)

Monday, May 21st, 2012

Note to Sarah Palin and Ted (Tea Party Express, Texas) Cruz, a would-be Republican nominee for U.S. Senate: Just because Texas and Kansas both end in “as” doesn’t make them the same state:

Sarah Palin called with a tip that Cruz was the man for the GOP.

Thank goodness the Cruz campaign directed a robocall to my office of the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Getting meaningful political advice from Palin was a treat.

“Hello, Texas!” she blasted into my ear. “I’m Sarah Palin.”

State of Embarrassment (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Sarah, when trying to aid
Mr. Cruz, all your robocalls played
On phones through the state
Of Kansas ain’t great,
When it’s Texans you aim to persuade.

Poking a Hole In Romney’s Odds (Limerick)

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Here’s a bracing historical factoid: The last man to be elected U.S. president despite losing both his home and birth states was President James Knox Polk back in 1844. Why’s it bracing? Because Mitt Romney is very likely to lose his native state (Michigan) and home state (Massachusetts.)

Poking a Hole In Romney’s Odds (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Mitt Romney is likely to lose
His birth and his home states. Great news,
Because history says
That for Mitt to be prez
He needs one of those states … or Polk’s shoes.

Please Say It Ain’t So (Limerick)

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Every so often I read a news item that sounds so crazy, I’m sure it must be from the Onion. For instance:

Two months from now, [George W. Bush] plans to publish a book outlining strategies for economic growth.

Please Say It Ain’t So (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

An economy book by George Dub,
Whose presidency was a flub:
That’s the news of the day,
And I’m sorry to say
That this isn’t a joke — there’s the rub.

Limerick Ode To Michele “Swiss Miss No More” Bachmann

Friday, May 11th, 2012

I got very excited when I learned that Michele Bachmann had become a Swiss citizen, courtesy of her Swiss-born husband, Marcus Bachmann. Silly me — I thought maybe she’d become another nation’s problem. A nation with a lovely universal health care system, I might add.

But alas, the dual citizen thing rubbed Bachmann’s wingnutty constituents the wrong way. So Michele seems to have pulled a “never mind” in a letter to the Swiss Consulate withdrawing her Swiss dual citizenship.

Oh well … it was nice while it lasted.

Limerick Ode To Michele “Swiss Miss No More” Bachmann
By Madeleine Begun Kane

I enjoyed a brief moment of bliss
When Bachmann turned partially Swiss.
I’d assumed ’twas a flight
From our “socialist” blight
And an anti-Obama type diss.

But alas, it appears she is staying
All-American. Damn, how dismaying!
Guess it’s hard to accrue
Swiss-style benefits too,
While you keep anti-health care inveighing.

Jonah Goldberg’s Dust Cover Dustup (Limerick)

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

Remember Jonah Goldberg? The fellow whose pundit career got a huge boost from his mommy Lucianne Goldberg’s role in the Bill Clinton impeachment.

Well, he’s out with a new liberal-bashing book. I wouldn’t even mention it, but for the amusing dustup over its dust cover:

On the dust jacket of his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” best-selling conservative author and commentator Jonah Goldberg is described as having “twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.”

In fact, as Goldberg acknowledged on Tuesday, he has never been a Pulitzer nominee, but is merely one of thousands of entrants.

What’s surprising in Goldberg’s case is that he has been called out for the same résumé padding before, when his previous book was published.

Jonah Goldberg’s Dust Cover Dustup (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Jonah Goldberg has written a book
Claiming liberals cheat, as its hook.
Check its dust jacket. Why?
To laugh at this lie:
Nominee for two Pulitzers? Schnook!

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Afraid of the Fringe” Romney

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Mitt Romney’s cowardice surfaced yet again today: Romney failed correct a woman who said Obama “should be tried for treason.”

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Afraid of the Fringe” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Romney, a gal in your crowd
Called Obama a traitor out loud.
Though it’s clear that you heard,
You said nary a word
To dispute it: You’re shamefully cowed.

Is Ron Paul Out-Maneuvering Mitt? (Limerick)

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Rachel Maddow has long been covering Ron Paul’s stealth delegate strategy. Well finally, the rest of the mainstream media is starting to take notice. Here’s the Christian Science Monitor on Ron Paul’s big delegate wins in Maine and Nevada:

… Mr. Paul’s strategy of organizing the grass roots and working arcane delegate selection rules is paying off. And that could mean big trouble for Mitt Romney and his plans to smoothly pivot to a campaign aimed solely at incumbent President Obama.

Is Ron Paul Out-Maneuvering Mitt? (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Should Mitt be concerned about Paul
And his stealth, oddball delegate haul?
A Ron Paul power play
Could create disarray —
Tampa might not be dull, after all.