What To Give That Someone Who Has Everything

Once again, we’re here to alleviate your gift-giving anxiety! Treat yourself to a great read and when you’re done, you have an awesome ready-made gift for that special friend, relative or colleague…you know, the smart, thoughtful one who likes to talk about interesting stuff! And support your local made-in-America writer or translator at the same time! Do it now, don’t even think about it!

From left to right: Gaetano Savatteri’s historical crime drama set in wartime Sicily, A Conspiracy of Talkers, translated by Steve Eaton; A Good Man for an Outlaw, the gothic western by Denton, Texas native son Jonathan Eaton, and its sequel, Outlaws and Worse. Also by J. Eaton, the steampunk sci-fi western The Prairie Martian, and its sequel, Metal Man of the Prairie. Finally, Emilio De Marchi’s 1887 masterpiece, the grandaddy of Italian crime fiction, The Priest’s Hat, based on an actual murder of a priest by a wastrel aristocrat in 1881, and translated by Steve Eaton and Cinzia Russi. All available in shockingy inexpensive paperback or Kindle editions! Enjoy!

Paths of Gloria

U.S. Senator and Yale law school graduate J.D. Vance

“If you are a, you know, middle-class or upper-middle-class white parent, and the only thing that you care about is whether your child goes into Harvard or Yale, like, obviously, that pathway has become a lot harder for a lot of upper-middle-class kids. But the one way that those people can participate in the D.E.I. bureaucracy in this country is to be trans.”—Senator J.D. Vance, on the Joe Rogan Show, 10/31/24

SCENE: Career counselor’s office, Upper Lower Middlebury Preparatory School

CAREER COUNSELOR: Let’s see now…Captain, lacrosse team…check!

Charles Stanton Herringbone III (senior, ’25): Got my letter jacket on!

CC: Eagle Scout…check! B-ish GPA…check! Safely Protestant religious affiliation…check! Gender: reassuringly masculine! Race: We don’t care about race here at Upper Lower Middlebury Prep! But still, white!

CSHIII: Is that a crime now?

CC: Father: Harvard ’89, current mega-donor!

CSHIII: Pop’s a generous, civic-minded guy!

CC: [darkly] With a sterling record like that, you should be a shoo-in for, say…Florida State or Texas…

CSHIII: What? I can’t go to a public school! Can you imagine me, years from now at a cocktail party or the Supreme Court cloakroom, starting a conversation with, “years ago, when I was an undergrad at Wisconsin-Muskingum….”?

CC: Well, back when America was great, before about 1967, or between 2016 and 2020, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But now, with this damned DEI business…

CSHIII: What’s DEI?

CC: It’s where they admit applicants based on their overall promise, even if they went to a crappy K-12 system in a poor school district and couldn’t afford SAT coaches…

CSHIII: But that’s horrible! That’s…

CC: Yes, that’s how they do things in communist China and California. But your case isn’t hopeless. There is…a way. If you were to apply not as Charles Stanton Herringbone III, but as Charlene…

CSHIII: You mean, I’d have to change my name to a girl’s name?

CC: Well, er, not just your name, son…

CSHIII: You mean they’d cut off my….

CC: Yes, son, I’m afraid so. That’s the price of greatness these days.

CSHIII: And I’d have to wear a dress?

CC: Well, not necessarily…I think you could still wear jeans. I need to look that up….

CSHIII: Hey, could I go into the girl’s restroom any time I wanted?

CC: Well, yes, I think so, except in Texas and South Carolina….

CSHIII: And could I still assault women and then deny it and escape punishment by slandering the reputation of my victim?

CC: Well, not “assault” in the traditional patriarchy-approved sense of the word, exactly…

CSHIII:  Hmmm…well, could I at least be the first trans Supreme Court justice?

CC: Uhh…not if we Make America Great Again!

Final Thoughts on the (Possibly) Impending Cataclysm

What’s wrong with you, America? Have you gone mad? Is this just a terrible dream? Are you trying to scare me?

Mission accomplished!

What is it about Trump you love so much? His eloquent, insightful speeches? His command of facts and figures? His empathetic affection for humankind? His warm sense of humor? His life of selfless public service? His personal charm and good looks?

 I suppose it would be paranoia on my part to think that so many of my fellow Americans openly adore this repulsive convicted huckster just because they know it drives me crazy. But I can’t come up with any other explanation.

If Donald Trump wins, I may have to move. Not abroad–I wouldn’t desert my country in her hour of need. Just to a state where recreational pot is legal. How else am I supposed to get through the next four years?

It’s strange that Trump claims that immigrants are destroying this country, considering that all four of his grandparents were either immigrants or foreigners, not to mention his own mother, two-thirds of his brides, and his running mate’s in-laws. For goodness’ sake, four of his five children are the children of immigrants.

But maybe he’s on to something. It only took one wicked immigrant to ruin Twitter.

But (you object) Trump is mainly referring to “illegal” immigrants. It’s not a distinction he always makes. But in any case, this country badly needs a lot more immigrants. We need them to build houses and harvest crops and care for our sick and elderly. We need their intellectual talent to enhance our teaching and research ranks, as Kamala Harris’ parents did. We need them to work and pay into our dwindling Social Security fund. We need them to start families and help our aging society to stay vital.

And all that requires a secure, efficient, humane immigration system. But a festering morass of politically astute resentment named Donald Trump put the kibosh on the bipartisan bill that would have done just that,

The New York Times’ poll watchers have recently floated the possibility of Donald Trump actually winning the popular vote. What would be more dispiriting: Trump playing the electoral map better than Harris and winning a second time in spite of losing the popular vote, or finding out that most Americans really do want him as their president?

In the debate between the vice-presidential candidates, journalist Margaret Brennan pointed out to Vance that not so long ago, he had described Trump as “America’s Hitler.” And Vance didn’t flinch. He didn’t deny the charge. He responded that he had been wrong, had been misled by “the media,” and had since changed his mind about Trump.

So Vance and I are in absolute agreement about one thing: since Vance likened Trump to Hitler, Trump hasn’t changed; Vance has.

Journalists love to ask Kamala Harris what she would do differently than Biden. Harris has been unable to answer the question adroitly. “Well, I’m obviously not Joe Biden” was funny the first time, but it’s not an answer.

Still, it’s a dumb question. Harris still has a day job, namely, vice president of the United States. That job consists first and foremost of enabling her boss to do his difficult and supremely important work. In what particular universe do you make your boss’ job more difficult by publicly nitpicking their performance? Unless your boss does something really awful, like trying to destroy our democracy….

We Surrender!

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”—Donald John Trump, Republican candidate for president of the United States of America, Fox News interview, October 13 2024.

Dear once and possibly future Commander-In-Chief Donald Trump,

Don’t shoot! I surrender!

I am terrified that I might be included in your target demographic of “sick radical left lunatics.” Do you have to be all four to qualify, or just one? If you could please clarify!

I don’t consider myself sick, though I have had the sniffles lately.

Nor radical. Probably the most radical thing I ever did was vote for the independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson in 1980. Remember him? No? Anyway, not exactly a Marxist revolutionary.

I like to think I don’t belong in the lunatic category, but let’s be honest, that’s pretty subjective. I mean, injecting COVID patients with bleach? Only a lunatic would suggest something like that, ha ha! No, wait, don’t shoot!

But I could be fairly described as “left.” It doesn’t take much these days! For example, in my house we compost.

I don’t feel like an “enemy,” but the U.S. military isn’t too concerned with making fine distinctions within the other side once they get rolling. And you have been making me feeling uncomfortably “other” lately.

So let me proactively repeat: I surrender!

Because basically, I’m a coward. I mean, I can probably throw a punch about as well as the next Medicare-eligible U.S. citizen, but I don’t do so good against, like, shrapnel or machine-gun rounds. In the defensive weaponry category, I don’t own so much as a BB gun. And even if I had a military-grade assault rifle like so many of your lunatic, I mean patriotic, fans carry around, it would probably hurt more than help against your Abrams tanks, your Stryker armored vehicles, your mortars light, medium and heavy, your A10 Warthog fighter jets, your what-have-you. And beyond all that, I’m really not interested in opening fire against my fellow citizens, in uniform or out.  

So I’ll go peacefully. You can pick me up anytime and cart me off to Guantanamo. If possible I’d like to take along a few books, a package of Nutter Butters, and a bottle or two of Jameson’s.

If, on the other hand, the nice, sane, thoughtful, principled candidate wins, as I desperately pray that she does, then you can take your mean-spirited fascist threats and stick them up your fat felonius spray-tanned gold-plated [expletive] [expletive] sand-trap.

Sincerely, Garden of Eaton

Fall 2024…Our Predictions

Get the latest news…before it happens!

After Irving Berlin’s descendants successfully sue to prevent Donald Trump from playing “God Bless America” at his rallies, the former president is legally restricted to two remaining tunes: Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be an American” and the medieval ditty “Hey Nonny Nonny.”

The missing dog which ultimately triggered unfounded rumors of immigrants devouring pets in Springfield, Ohio, is found cowering under the front porch while his owner’s middle-schooler practices the tuba.

Taylor Swift briefly causes a worldwide panic after she abruptly vanishes in front of 100,000 concertgoers in Frankfurt, before it’s determined that she has spontaneously ascended to heaven, where she and her band are playing a six-week residency at the right hand of Goddess.

After all votes are counted, recounted, and rechecked by trained octopi in order to avoid accusations of partisanship, Donald John Trump is found to have lost the electoral vote for President of the United States of America to Kamala Devi Harris, 535-3. “Look, we just felt sorry for the guy,” explains Alaska.

Obsolete Tesla Cybertrucks fuel a thriving aftermarket as stainless steel dumpsters. “It looks kind of ugly compared to my old dumpster,” explains one business owner, “but it holds more [stuff].”

This year’s Emmy awards are cancelled when organizers agree that the Netflix series Decameron is just going to win everything anyway.

Hamas returns its hostages, renounces terrorism, and acknowledges Israel’s right to exist, and Israel quits blowing up crowded urban neighborhoods and hospitals in Gaza, after the grownups on both sides wake up from their nap and take back control.

After being overwhelmed with tourists for the past 70 years, Mediterranean nations shut down for an indefinite period. “Nothing personal, I just need some ‘me’ time,” explains a haggard-looking Italy.

In which we Interview a Coastal Elite Cat-Eating Childless Cat-Lady Illegal Immigrant

We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at [sic] their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.— JD Vance, interview with Tucker Carlson, Fox News, July 2021

The Trump campaign promoted an outlandish false claim on Monday that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have abducted and eaten their neighbors’ pets, again demonizing migrants as the campaign seeks to attack Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration—New York Times, “Trump Campaign Amplifies False Claim About Haitian Migrants in Ohio,” 9/9/24

Editor’s Note: So which is it? Are the evil forces threatening to make America even ungreater a bunch of coastal elite childless cat people, or anchor-baby-dropping cat-consuming immigrants?

In the public interest, we tracked down the apotheosis of rightwing paranoia in an actual coastal elite cat-eating childless cat lady illegal immigrant, and arranged an interview with her, in her palatial immigrant-shelter villa in Springfield, Ohio.

CECE: Pleased to meet you, Garden of Eaton! I do hope you’ll be staying for tea! We’ll be having kitty en croûte or puppy au Poupon this evening. It all depends on whatever my cook Anatole discovers in the city pound this morning, or perhaps finds straying unwisely from a back yard…

GOE: I’m a bit confused, Coastal Elite Cat-Eating Childless Cat Lady Illegal Immigrant! How can you be a cat lady who also eats cats?

CECE: I’m afraid you haven’t been following your Fox News lately! It’s not our cats in the cassoulet, my dear, it’s other people’s. I would never eat my Muffin!…although perhaps in pinch…I mean with this horrid Bidenflation! Have you seen the price of corn lately? It’s frightfully expensive to raise a good, tender cat these days…

GOE: Cats eat corn?

CECE: Of course not, silly! But rats love it! So we force-feed our imported Norwegian rats with corn, and when they’re nice and plump, we force-feed the cat with the force-fed rat… I mean, we’re not your common vulgar alley-cat eating Childless Cat Lady Illegal Immigrants. We’re the Coastal Elite Cat-Eating….

GOE: It sounds like so much trouble. Does cat really taste so much better than, say…chicken?

CECE: Cats taste quite awful actually, though Anatole does miracles with his truckloads of parsley and butter. But the larger point here is that just the idea of intentionally harming a household pet incites fear and hatred in…just about anyone, except maybe Alex Jones. So a shrewd politician can marry the specter of a kitty-killer to all the insecurities and ignorance grumpy working-class white guys have around immigrants, intellectuals, uppity women, and…voilà! Coastal Elite Cat-Eating Childless Cat Lady Illegal Immigrant! And then you identify that, the ultimate other, with your political opposition. With a strategy like that, any idiot can be elected president of the United States of America…and has been!

GOE: But how can you be a coastal elite and an illegal immigrant?

CECE: Have you ever heard of Port-au-Prince?

GOE: Of course, it’s a city on the coast of…oh, ok.

CECE: And we all speak French, which automatically makes us elite, and probably communist.

GOE: I don’t know, you seem so unreal…

CECE: Of course I’m unreal! The more fantastic the better!

GOE: But how can you be an effective right-wing fever dream if you’re not even believable?

CECE: Who’s unbelievable? Let’s try a little thought experiment. Think of a common, adorable tradition that American families practice together, regardless of political conviction, race, or religion.

GOE: OK, how about…pizza night out with the wife and kids?

CECE: Great! And what’s the most revolting thing a human being can do?

GOE: Sexually abuse a child, without a doubt.

CECE: Bingo! Put the two together, hang it on Hilary Clinton, and you’ve got this preposterous thing called Pizzagate! And millions of Americans thought that was legit! But now I’m unbelievable! Oh, look what Anatole has brought us! Hot puppy puffs! You simply must try one, I insist!

GOE: Um, I’d love to, actually, but I’m, er…hyper-allergic to shrimp and…canine meat products!

CECILIA: Oh for heaven’s sake, they’re pizza puffs from Costco. You people will believe anything!

Experts Pick the 10 Greatest Lists of All Time!

  1. 10 Things that could kill you…right now!
  2. 10 Things you’re doing that embarrass your friends!
  3. 10 Things you don’t really want or need but so what, they’re free!
  4. 10 Greatest things ever, according to the experts!
  5. 10 Great ways to make money…without using your brain!
  6. 10 Greatest battles of all time that used spears!
  7. 10 Greatest poems of all time…and why all the others suck!
  8. 10 Most awesome unspoiled vacation spots until we published this list!
  9. 10 Things you absolutely have to know right now even though you’ve lived your whole life so far just fine without knowing them!
  10. 10 Stupidest lists ever…and you’ll never guess which is #1!

ZOOM CALL OF THE CHILDLESS CAT LADY PEOPLE

an actual United States senator

Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has defended resurfaced comments…The Senator from Ohio said the country was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”—BBC.com, 7/26/24

PLACE: Anytown U.S.A.

TIME: Today

ELVIRA, QUEEN OF THE CCLP (Childless Cat Lady People): BWAHAHAHA! Welcome to the monthly Zoom call of the CCLP, where we discuss our evil plans to…wait, can everybody hear me? Well heavens, what’s wrong now?  You know, my computer is so old! Maybe I forgot to…OK, how about now?

CAT LADY FLORA: We can hear you now, Elvira!

ELVIRA: OK, BWAHAHAHA! Welcome, evil Childless Cat Lady People of America! Cat Lady Flora, what have you been doing this month to sap the virility of honest hardworking heterosexual childbearing America?

FLORA: Oh, I’ve done something pretty wicked, Queen Elvira. I donated five dollars to my local progressive-leaning public radio station!

ELVIRA: Why Flora, you are so nasty, ha ha!

FLORA: Oh, it’s even nastier than that, Elvira. I put it on autopay…I’m sending them five dollars…every month! I’m enabling them…to spread wicked lies about how the economy is actually doing pretty good and violent crime is down since Biden took office and…

ELVIRA: But those aren’t lies, Flora, that’s all true!

FLORA: Oh I know that, Elvira, but “wicked lies” sounds so much more fun than “responsible journalism!”

ELVIRA: Your report, Cat Lady Lucy Mae!

CAT LADY LUCY MAE: You will be so pleased, Your Evil Ladyship! I have signed up for weekly cha-cha classes at the local senior center!

ELVIRA: Um, ok…and that furthers our evil conspiracy…how?

LUCY MAE: By squandering valuable taxpayer money, since the classes are…FREE! BWAHAHAHA! Uh oh, looks like I frightened poor Gingersnap! It’s okay baby, that’s just mama’s evil laugh!

ELVIRA: Great way to use up public resources that might otherwise go to building a wall or reducing taxes even further on the wealthiest Americans, Lucy Mae!

CAT LADY YVONNE: Oh, can I go next, Your Serene Ailurophilic Childlessness? I volunteered to work late hours at the early voting station in November…

ELVIRA: Oh no! That means you are enabling…

YVONNE: Yes, O feline-fondling fiend! I am enabling working class and minority voters to exercise their rights as citizens without having to take time off from work! BWAHAHAHA!

ELVIRA: BWAHAHAHA, my evil infecund sister!

CAT LADY MOIRA: Oh, Queen Elvira, I have a confession to make. I have been hiding a horrible secret…I actually have children! Oh, I’m so wicked! And today I found out…I’m going to be a grandmother!

ELVIRA: Oh, that’s all right honey, we’re not real strict about that around here! Congratulations! [AWKWARD PAUSE] But you do…have a cat, right?

MOIRA: Oh yes, Sister Most Sinister! I have three! No wait, four! Cause last week the shelter called and asked if I could take a kitten just until they found someone, but it was just the cutest little thing, and we bonded right away, and I’m thinking about calling her Shredder because she just loves to…

ELVIRA: I’m so sorry, I just got a little window saying we’re out of time…BWAHAHAHA til next week!

Are You a Coastal Elite? Take Our Test and Find Out!

Coastal elite: the group of educated, professional people living mainly in cities on the western or northeastern coasts of the U.S. who have liberal political views and are often considered to have advantages that most ordinary Americans do not have. – Cambridge online dictionary

Take our test to see if you’re…one of us or…one of them! Don’t worry…we won’t tell!

1. I live in…

  • California, Oregon, New York, or Massachusetts: +5
  • Texas: -5
  • Austin, Texas +10

2. As far as religion goes, I am

  • A normal Christian: -5
  • Evangelical Christian: -10
  • Catholic: 0
  • Catholic, but one of the nutty ones who thinks the pope is a Bolshevist: -15
  • Atheist: +5
  • I don’t belong to a church, but I believe there is a divine spirit in all living things and if you want to call it God, that’s cool: +20

3. My wife and I have

  • Five or more children: -10
  • No children: +10
  • I’m wondering why this question assumes I’m male: +20

4. I went to:                            

  • Yale Law school: +20
  • Yale Law school, because I wanna be just like Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Josh Hawley: -20

5. In conversation I casually throw around words like                   

  • Transaxle: -10
  • Transformational: +5
  • Trans-anything else: +10

6. I believe that slavery in the United States

  • Existed mainly to provide room, board and vocational training for newly arrived African immigrants: -20
  • Must we keep talking about it?: -10
  • Was the economic engine that fueled the young republic, at the cost of horrific suffering by millions of enslaved human beings: +20

7. With respect to Israeli bombing of Palestinian cities in Gaza, I support

  • The Israelis, cause they’re like semi-Christian, and the Palestinians are zero percent Christian: -20
  • The Israelis, cause the other guys started it!: -10
  • Um, it’s complicated? Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorist groups like Hamas, but it shouldn’t use that as a pretext for destroying so many civilian lives: +20

8. I am voting for Donald Trump:

  • Cause that’s what God wants: -20
  • Cause he actually says what I think, but it sounds stupid when I say it: -10
  • Cause our democracy is obviously headed for the crapper and we might as well get it over with: +10

9. The economy is obviously in terrible shape since

  • I can barely afford to fill up my F150: -10
  • What’s an F150?: +10

10. I believe that the 2024 presidential election

  • Will be won by Donald Trump, if the coastal elites don’t manage to steal it again: -20
  • Will be free and fair, cause I know this lady who’s been working down at the middle school for every election and she don’t allow no nonsense: +20

11. My favorite movie is

  • Cool Hand Luke, about an individual who is crushed for standing up to the liberal bourgeois system: -10
  • Cool Hand Luke, about an individual who is crushed for standing up to the reactionary bourgeois system: +10

12. Global Warming is

  • A hoax perpetrated by coastal elites who hate ordinary hardworking oil and gas company stockholders: -20
  • Kind of annoying but driving my F150 is worth a coral reef or two: -10
  • The reason I bought a stupid overpriced Tesla from Elon [expletive] Musk: +10

Results: if your score is…

Less than zero: Take the Civil Service Exam and prepare for an exciting career in the new Great America, opening January, 2025!

More than zero: Where do you get your news from, the newspaper?

On Trump vs. Biden vs. ?

Like many of you, I watched the “debate” between Donald Trump and Joe Biden a couple of weeks ago, at least until a feeling akin to horror caused me to change the channel.

If you have followed this blog at all, you know that I am the furthest thing from an adorer of Trump. But I am also convinced that Biden does not belong in the White House any longer.

And I find it alarming that the argument over whether Biden should stay in the race or drop out revolves around whether or not he can beat Trump at the polls.  But that’s the wrong question.

Even if a Biden victory were a dead certainty (which of course it’s anything but), even if Biden were opposed by a heavenly angel instead of evil incarnate (and I classify Trump closer to the latter), the Democratic National Committee must find a way to select another candidate.

Joe Biden has been a thoughtful, effective and humane president, on everything from mitigating the economic impact of COVID on small businesses, frustrating Vladimir Putin’s land grab in the Ukraine, and coaxing heavy industry into a more climate-friendly future. But after seeing him utterly confused in the debate, I wouldn’t trust him to look after a toddler on the beach for an hour. Would you? So how can we entrust him with a fractious nuclear-armed (and nuclear-threatened) nation of 300+ million people for the next four and a half years?

To be clear, if the race remains Trump vs. Biden, I will of course vote for Biden. (Though, as a resident of Texas, my vote is rather pointless.) But if that is the case, I won’t forgive the Democratic Party.

We liberals, we progressives, we who like to think of ourselves as rational and enlightened, don’t hide the truth, and pretend that our guy is super duper when we know his mental health is in serious trouble. We don’t pretend his faults don’t exist, or that they’re just fabricated by the other side, or that they’re actually virtues. We wouldn’t actually nominate a man who we know is unfit for the job, and pretend everything is all right, because we think the American people are too dumb and would be too confused to make the right choice if we pick a competent person instead.

No, we leave that kind of thing for the other side, because we’re…the good guys. Right?

But permit me to climb down from my admittedly high horse and consider the situation more concretely. If Biden does somehow manage to win the race, we will have a dangerously feeble occupant in the White House, 8:00 p.m. bedtime notwithstanding. And if Donald Trump wins against Biden, we will have at least 4 horrific years of having to ask ourselves, “what if?”

The Ten Most Totally Awesome Commandments Ever

Louisiana is the first state to require the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law Wednesday.—foxnews.com, 6/19/24

Thou shalt not kill—from The Ten Commandments

I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.—Donald John Trump, 1/23/2016

Editor’s Note: The state of Louisiana has taken the admirable step of forcibly inculcating every schoolchild with ancient Jewish wisdom. We note, however, that a literal reading of the Ten Commandments may appear to be in conflict with the realities of the Make America Great Again movement, causing doubt, suspicion, and even critical thinking among our youngest, most vulnerable citizens. Therefore we suggest these long-needed improvements. As always…you’re welcome!

The Ten Most Totally Awesome Commandments Ever

I             Thou shalt have no other gods before Donald Trump. Mike Pence tried it and look what happened to him!

II            Graven images are totally banned, but T shirts, coffee mugs, yard signs, billboards and golden sneakers are highly encouraged.

III           Thou shalt not take the name of The Lord thy God in vain, but thou mayest refer to women thou dost not like in the ugliest terms available in the English language.

IV           Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. But call it “Sunday.” That sounds more American.

V            Honor thy father and thy mother, but feel free to make gratuitous attacks on other people’s kids, especially in an election year.

VI           Thou shalt not kill, unless thou art standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue and art pretty sure it won’t hurt thine poll numbers.

VII         Thou shalt not commit adultery without first obtaining a confidentiality agreement.

VIII        Thou shalt not steal. Instead, thou shalt declare bankruptcy when the bill arriveth.

IX           Thou shalt not bear false witness except by opening thy mouth or Tweeting or posting on Truth Social.

X            Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, or his animals, but thou mayest take away the disabled veteran’s hotdog cart if it offends thine eyes.

Our Picks: Find the right corrupt public official to fit your needs and budget

We tested thousands of elected and appointed public officials, looking for defects like integrity, transparency, or an unfortunate tendency to put the welfare of their constituents above their own material well-being. We found these reliably venal picks for any budget, from obscenely loaded up to filthy rich:

Best All Around Corrupt U.S. Senator: Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey)

Whether you need a guaranteed monopoly for your Halal meat business or a big fat tranche of U.S. taxpayer-funded foreign aid for your military junta, Robert Menendez is a versatile yet powerful U.S. senator who is up to the job.

Price: varies Sen. Menendez is flexible and convenient, accepting almost anything of value, including Mercedes automobiles, gold bars, or the traditional vulgar wad of cash.

Best Budget U.S. Congressman for Everyday Use: Henry Cuellar (D-Texas 28th DIstrict)

Need a speech on the House floor to smooth the way for your foreign oil and gas company?  Need regulators to back off from your bank’s money-laundering scheme? Need the State Department to look the other way when you invade and annex another country’s enclave within your borders?  You can’t do better than “El Jefe!”

Price: $120,000-600,000

Best Luxury U.S. Supreme Court Justice: Samuel Alito, Jr.

Sam Alito is more public official than most users need. But if you have billions of dollars riding on the outcome of a civil court case, nothing beats having your own U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Plus, with a lifetime appointment, he’ll last for years to come, and he fits in any pocket.  

Price: about $100,000, or free travel on a private jet to a remote hunting lodge

Also consider: Justice Clarence Thomas Bothered by inconvenient federal regulations foisted on you by pesky progressive federal legislators? Whether you’re plagued by women trying to take over their own uteri, or stupid bureaucrats stopping you from upgrading your AR-15 to fully automatic, nothing beats having your own justice with a log-sized chip on his shoulder against liberals, intellectuals, and his own Ivy-League law school!

Price: private jet trips, a house for his mother, private school tuition for his grandnephew, and/or a ginormous RV