by John Lithgow
One diversion remained as an apt last resort:
He could fire an official, if only for sport.
But while cheerfully weighing which victim to choose,
His contentment was shaken by late-breaking news:
The first lady, by custom so passive and meek,
Had shown a surprising tyrannical streak.
Proving herself a remorseless downsizer,
She had shit-canned a national security advisor.
Of all of the woes with which Dumpty was cursed,
Melania’s action was plainly the worst.
Forget about Whitaker, France, and the rest:
His wife had outdone him at what he did best!
With another day lost to despondence and gloom,
Dumpty called for a steak to be sent to his room.
Despite all the perks and the trappings of power,
He ached for the haven of humble Dump Tower.
His supper arrived, but with no appetite
He sat in the fading, crepuscular light.
In the grips of a deadening, deepening funk,
He had to admit being president stunk.
He was seized by a thought that he couldn’t dislodge:
“To hell with this crap! I’ll just get outta Dodge!”
He could quit, as the liberal press had beseeched him;
Or sit back and watch while the Congress impeached him;
Or cop to each crime, each affair, and each fiction
And submit to Bob Mueller’s impending conviction.
Incarceration? How bad could it be?
He would vastly prefer it to life in D.C.
But these musings had broken down Dumpty’s defenses.
He quickly regrouped and came back to his senses.
Though “more of the same” made him inwardly squirm,
He was bound and determined to serve out his term.
“I’m the greatest!” he blustered, his swagger intact.
“I’m equipped with what all other POTUSes lacked!
I got through last week, I’ll get through the duration!”
(Words rarely spoken elsewhere in the nation.)
With feverish thoughts of the next morning’s tweets,
Dumpty plumped up his pillow and pulled back his sheets.
His political squabbles and media fights
Had earned him a lifetime of long sleepless nights.
He gave himself over to tossing and turning,
Consumed by vindictiveness, envy, and yearning.
He would try to forget but would always remember
These last seven days of this dreadful November.
MATTHEW WHITAKER was appointed as acting attorney general after Trump forced JEFF SESSIONS out of office. This prompted several legal challenges from Senate Democrats who argued that the appointment was unconstitutional .
MIRA RICARDEL was named U.S. deputy national security advisor in April 2018 but was forced out in November of that year when Melania Trump called for her firing after the two argued over seating during Mrs. Trump’s trip to Africa .
TRUMPTY DUMPTY: PART 3
Trumpty Dumpty wanted more power.
Legal constraints made him cranky and sour.
Revered institutions and customs could fall
As long as he got his preposterous wall.
He peevishly called for a government shutdown
With wages and services drastically cut down.
His folly came off as an unfunny joke
When thousands of federal workers went broke.
The face-off in Congress was not even close, he
Was handily snookered by Nancy Pelosi.
He angrily mounted a counterinsurgency,
Launching a spurious National Emergency.
Trumpty Dumpty thus had begun
His maniacal trashing of Article One.
He’s a rampant gorilla, let loose from the zoo:
Your chief executive, working for you.
The longest U.S. government shutdown in history, and the second during the presidency of Donald Trump, occurred between December 22, 2018, and January 25, 2019 . NANCY PELOSI , elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives after Democrats won control in the 2018 midterms, successfully resisted Donald Trump’s attempts to leverage a government shutdown to secure funding for a border wall .
THE MOSCOW CIRCUS
1
The circus arrives and from all over town
People rush to the Big Top and sit themselves down.
Hungry for spectacle, action, and laughter,
They put off their worries until the day after.
For children, the happiest moment by far
Is when clowns tumble out of a miniature car.
It’s a giddy escape from their everyday humdrum:
“Where,” they cry out, “did those people all come from?”
Now suppose that the clowns in this comic confection
Are characters drawn from the Russia connection.
The casting is perfect, whomever you choose.
Where did they come from? The six o’clock news.
2
The Big Top lights up, the calliope surges,
And sly Sergey Kislyak brightly emerges.
Close on his heels is Oleg Deripaska
With riches sufficient to buy back Alaska.
Two moony fools are the next on the stage:
That fop Roger Stone and that geek Carter Page.
Then a pair of buffoons with matching fat torsi:
Portly Rob Goldstone and plump Jerome Corsi.
And then, to a chorus of deafening cheers,
Natalia Veselnitskaya appears
With Maria Butina, her equal in glamour,
Released for the day from the federal slammer.
Michael Cohen climbs out but nobody reacts
Since he’s featured in all of the previous acts.
And just when you think that things couldn’t get loonier,
Who should appear but that clown Donald Junior !
3
Ten co-conspirators packed in a car
Is a fitting summation of where we all are.
The antic hilarity, fun, and excitement
Are sadly diminished with each new indictment.
We laugh at their pratfalls and fatuous patter,
But felonious treason is no laughing matter.
The state of the nation is fixed in a frown,
At least ’til the circus packs up and leaves town.
SERGEY KISLYAK is a Russian diplomat whose meetings with Donald Trump’s campaign advisors were a subject of federal investigation . OLEG DERIPASKA is a Russian oligarch and a major client of PAUL MANAFORT , with whom he reportedly had a $10 million annual contract to advance Russian interests in the United States .
British publicist ROB GOLDSTONE facilitated a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer NATALIA VESELNITSKAYA to provide information beneficial to the Trump campaign . MARIA BUTINA is a Russian gun rights activist and alleged spy who pleaded guilty to charges that she acted as an illegal foreign agent .
ROGER STONE , a longtime Republican political strategist and Trump advisor, was arrested for witness tampering and lying to Congress about his foreknowledge of the release of the Clinton e-mails by WikiLeaks . JEROME CORSI was subpoenaed by the Mueller investigation due to his contacts with Roger Stone regarding WikiLeaks . CARTER PAGE was a foreign policy advisor for the Trump campaign but stepped down soon after news reports surfaced detailing his links with Russia .
INDIVIDUAL ONE
He divided the country for profit and fun.
He’s Individual One.
The lawyer and fixer for most of his crew
Was Individual Two.
The worst a campaign head could possibly be
Was Individual Three.
In less than a month, he was thrown out the door.
He’s Individual Four.
A son
who was taught to conceal and connive:
That’s Individual Five.
The self-proclaimed King of Corrupt Dirty Tricks
Is Individual Six.
A daughter made use of to soften and leaven:
She’s Individual Seven.
A scuzzy Breitbarter who’s way overweight,
That’s Individual Eight.
A son-in-law toeing the family line
Is Individual Nine.
A Russian seductress of NRA men,
She’s Individual Ten.
The POTUS goes free but the rest are undone.
No career could survive such a ramshackle run.
They were finished before they had even begun.
Thanks a lot, Individual One.
Individual One: Donald Trump ,
Individual Two: Michael Cohen ,
Individual Three: Paul Manafort ,
Individual Four: Michael Flynn ,
Individual Five: Donald Trump Jr .,
Individual Six: Roger Stone ,
Individual Seven: Ivanka Trump ,
Individual Eight: Steve Bannon ,
Individual Nine: Jared Kushner ,
Individual Ten: Maria Butina .
ACOSTA AGONISTES
Alexander Acosta was doing just fine
In his comfortable cabinet post.
Lucky for him, the Department of Labor
Got far less attention than most.
Dumpty’s first pick for Acosta’s position
Could hardly have been more obtuse:
Andy Puzder, renowned for his cheeseburger porno
And rumors of spousal abuse.
Puzder was dumped in a clumsy debacle
That pummeled the bumbling POTUS.
So Acosta, an amiable U.S. attorney,
Drew virtually no public notice.
Scaramucci, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, and Bannon
Were fired or forced to resign.
Fifty others all shared the same infamous fate,
Yet Acosta was doing just fine.
But a ten-year-old story leaked out from his past
And yanked him from placid obscurity.
His name was attached to a sickening scandal
That shook his serene job security.
The law had caught up with a Palm Beach roué,
A man of luxurious means,
Charged with trafficking, pimping, procuring, and rape
Of dozens of underage teens.
He’d concocted a sexual pyramid scheme
Of unspeakable breadth and perversity,
Promising vulnerable, penniless girls
A route out of brutal adversity.
The perp, Jeffrey Epstein, deserved to be crushed
By justice’s ruthless iron fist,
But the priciest lawyers that money could buy
Got him off with a slap on the wrist.
Life in prison? Oh no. A mere thirteen months
In his own private wing of a jail,
With work release privileges twelve hours a day
To relax and catch up on his mail.
In the history of flagrant miscarriage of justice,
No case is as lurid and stark.
And the terms of the deal were kept under seal
So the victims were kept in the dark.
Was a rigorous U.S. attorney in charge?
Or a groveling, feckless imposter?
In fact, he heads up your Department of Labor:
The amiable Alex Acosta.
A predator wed to a fawning enabler
Is a fellowship forged by the devil.
Who would have thought such a partner in crime
Would ascend to the cabinet level?
We are living, alas, in the Dumptyan Era
Where scandals erupt by the hour.
They stir a recurring and queasy sensation,
A virus infecting the health of the nation,
Brought on by a toxic and foul combination
Of money, perversion, and power.
ANDREW PUZDER was Donald Trump’s first pick to serve as the U.S. secretary of labor, but Puzder withdrew when it became clear that the Senate, amid a backlash regarding his company’s sexist ads and alleged labor law violations, wouldn’t confirm him. To replace him , ALEXANDER ACOSTA , a former federal prosecutor in Florida, was nominated and confirmed for the position despite having approved a secret, lenient plea agreement for an influential financier and serial sex offender named JEFFREY EPSTEIN .
HENTSY PENTSY
Hentsy Pentsy sat on a fence,
The most vapid and vacant of vice presidents.
A poem? Alas, at the end of the day
Quite frankly, dear reader, there’s not much to say.
ANOTHER OWL, ANOTHER PUSSYCAT
(AFTER EDWARD LEAR)
1
The Owl and the Pussycat waged a war,
Attacking each other on Twitter.
The Owl would tweet from his toilet seat,
The Cat from his kitty litter.
“Little Rocket Man!” the Owl typed out,
Hurling infantile darts from afar.
The Pussy would shout, in a petulant pout,
“What a pitiful dotard you are,
You are,
You are!
What a pitiful dotard you are!”
2
But after a year of derision and smear
Their rancor gave way to expedience.
The two had their eyes on a joint Nobel Prize,
So they forged an accord of convenience.
Pussy wrote to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
Let us meet where the Bong-Tree grows!”
He beguiled his old foe and with song sweet and low
Led him round by a ring in his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
Led him round by a ring in his nose.
3
In an unwelcome twist, their very next tryst
Brought an end to their infatuation.
It foundered on sanctions, on Otto Warmbier,
And, of course, on denuclearization.
In the course of their journey, the devious Puss
Had taken the Owl to school.
The delusional King of the Art of the Deal
Had come off as a bungling fool,
A fool,
A fool,
Had come off as a bungling fool.
KIM JONG-UN has served as the supreme leader of North Korea since 2011. After trading insults with Donald Trump for months, he met with the president in June 2018 to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program and again in February 2019. The two leaders did not reach an agreement .
OTTO WARMBIER was a college student from Ohio who was arrested by North Korean authorities for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. While in custody, he suffered a brain injury and was returned to his family in a coma. Tragically, Warmbier passed away soon after .
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF FOXPOLITICS
Behold! The Four Horsemen of Foxpolitics!
Propaganda and might in an unholy mix.
Their right-wing agendas all nicely align:
Dumpty, Hannity, Murdoch, and Shine.
A POTUS, a pundit, a mogul, a shill,
Each Horseman excels at inciting ill will.
From Fox News, that encampment where chaos is king,
They’ve stabled their steeds in the White House West Wing.
At Fox, Bill Shine put his thumb on the scales
Protecting those horndogs O’Reilly and Ailes.
From there he suspended the world’s disbelief
By protecting the rep of the horndog-in-chief.
Sean Hannity’s rants grow increasingly eerie,
Embracing each crackpot conspiracy theory.
And once he dismounts from his nightly Fox rostrum,
He pitches the POTUS with each nutty nostrum.
Astride him rides Rupert, the newspaper czar,
&
nbsp; The most barbarous media baron by far.
He’s been granted a wish that he’s never outgrown:
An American president all his own.
That would be Dumpty, the last of the Four
Whose obtuseness the others all try to ignore.
He strives to keep pace but he’s sadly unable,
So he shovels the horseshit befouling their stable.
The nettlesome fact of the matter, alas, is
The fearsome Four Horsemen are four horse’s asses
And masters of nothing but crass dirty tricks.
Behold! The Four Horsemen of Foxpolitics!
Chairman and CEO of Fox News ROGER AILES resigned in July 2016 following sexual misconduct allegations. He was replaced by RUPERT MURDOCH , the co-chairman of Fox Corporation and executive chairman of News Corporation .
BILL SHINE , a former executive at Fox News, served as White House director of communications for Donald Trump for eight months before resigning to serve as an advisor on Trump’s 2020 campaign .
BILL O’REILLY hosted The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News until he was fired in April 2017 after several sexual harassment settlements came to light .
TRUMPTY DUMPTY: PART 4
Trumpty Dumpty wanted a barrier,
Broad as a wall but preferably scarier.
He wanted a fortress, forbidding and stout,
To keep all those meddling journalists out.
Dumpty detested each sentence they wrote.
Presidential harassment was getting his goat.
How could he counter their carping and slanders?
That impregnable bulwark, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
In July 2017 , SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS replaced SEAN SPICER as White House press secretary and frequently launched attacks on the “fake news” media in defense of President Donald Trump .
TO A RAT
(AFTER ROBERT BURNS)
Wee, cowerin’, tim’rous, sweaty vermin,
Why the panic? Why the squirmin’?
I nae intend to preach a sermon
About thy spillin’.
Tho’ thou sang like Ethel Merman,
We deem’d it thrillin’!
As Dumpty’s fixer, life wa’ sweet.
Thou’dst make ’em quake on ev’ry street.
Wi’ towers o’ gold and taxi fleet,
How high thou’dst climb!
But wi’ thy neck ’neath Dumpty’s feet,
Thou’dst crack in time.
For Dumpty sought to swell his pow’r,
Wi’ thou beside him ev’ry hour,
Thy kinsmanship wast in full flow’r,
Thou wast content.
But Dumpty’s pride would’st thee devour:
He pined for president!
When the scribes foresaw him losin’,
Dumpty rashly sowed confusion