TV News LIES

Welcome to the weekend, fellow shell-shock victims:

Thank you for choosing Doctor Dogooder's Philanthropic Trauma Hospital and No-Host, Hospitality Fern Bar.

We'll be triaging everyone according to depth of political dismay and by visible, physical symptoms -- such as foaming at the mouth, inability to control reflexes, sudden bursts of cursing, throbbing temple veins, fur-coated tongue, repeated yelling-while-pointing, and so on.

For the past year, Donald Trump has been selling himself to Republican voters and party leaders as a master developer, casino mogul, airline executive and all-around brilliant businessman.

What they didn’t hear much about, though, was his single greatest talent: master self-promoter.

Now, with the general election just three months away, they are learning they may have been sold a bill of goods. That Trump was actually a so-so developer. That his casinos failed and pushed him to the edge of personal bankruptcy. That his airline was a money-losing vanity project that he eventually lost when he missed loan payments. That his business acumen, far from brilliant, is now fodder for millions of dollars’ worth of negative TV ads.

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The Nigerian government has said it is in contact with Boko Haram after the armed group released a new video purporting to show the schoolgirls it kidnapped more than two years ago, and offering to trade the captives in return for the release of its jailed fighters.

Boko Haram released the video on Sunday showing dozens of the 276 students they seized from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok on the night of April 14, 2014. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the immediate aftermath of the mass abduction.

We're not even into the tail-end, dog days of August and most of the country is already howling at the moon, scratching like mad at imaginary fleas, twitching and itchy all over, bothered and bewitched.

Oh, and, since exporting Industrial-Strength Gonzo-Crazy seems to be our new role in the global economy, let's add the rest of the world to the ranks of the queasy and squeamish.

I'm looking at some bookmarks and clippings heaped here and there, trying very hard to divine any signs of sanity.  Perhaps sanity no longer makes news, which is why it is not being reported.

It's another day on the road with the Totally Amazing -- I Mean, Like Wow! -- Candidate with the Snap-On Head... and the Drop-Down Pants.

But then, it's been a Totally Amazing -- I Mean, Like Wow! -- season for the Grandiose Orange People party, for the Genetically-modified Orangutans Party, for the GOP.

Having had a hearty breakfast of Lucky Charms, His Daily Bread ala Tempest-in-a-Teapot Toast, Juice of Personally-Crushed Oranges, and Oval-Office-tine, The Candidate's head was taken from its storage perch, wiped down, and fully reattached to Body #29.

Relief comes in many forms.  In one song, it was splish-splash, and taking a bath.  In one heartburn-aid classic commercial, the relief came right after the plop-plop, fizz-fizz.

When it comes to mosquitoes, we mostly still rely on swatting ourselves silly, and then checking around for any lucky-hit carcasses.  Those middle-of-the night, self-pummeling, slap-and-swat fests may be drawing to a merciful close.

The leader of the American Nazi Party has said the election of Donald Trump as president would present “a real opportunity for people like white nationalists” to start “acting intelligently”, with the aim of building a mainstream political presence similar to that of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“It’s kinda hard to go and call us bigots,” said party chairman Rocky Suhayda, “if we don’t go around and act like a bigot.”

Stop me if you've heard this one before:  Bigwigs pull some strings, and the rest of us hardly ever know what the heck is really going on.  This is how real life works.  It's like looking at a 419-car pileup on the freeway, most days:  Lots of wreckage, and no way to know what really happened, or how to easily untangle the mess.

However, this everyday, hamstrung-pulled reality also contains trainloads of Red Herring Brand fish meal scattered all over the road, for miles around, just in case it might help cover up some of the more telling skid marks, and to help keep anyone from tracing any awkward facts back to any embarrassing sources.