Daily satire

Rico's old work buddy Don sends this satirical piece:

Iowa GOP Primary in a Nut Shell by Don Monkerud

Like the Pony Express roaring out of a cloud of dust, the GOP candidates came last week, promising to return America to the 1880s. In this Great March Back to the Past, there are only a few things you need to know about the GOP candidates as they change positions, jockey for advantage, and pontificate endlessly to promote guns, cut taxes for the rich, foster hate for gays and immigrants, and to end government regulations and programs.  The top polling candidate, Donald Trump, aka Mister Combover, was not in attendance, having decided he didn't like being questioned by a woman. Eight out of ten of his supporters have a high school education and most have never voted before. Why people support a multi-billionaire is puzzling. Maybe they think Trump is just like them, as he moves between his hundred-million-dollar condo on Fifth Avenue or his other forty apartments in New York City, his quarter-billion-dollar Palm Beach, Florida palace, his sixty room Bedford, New York summer retreat, his twenty thousand square foot mansion in Virginia, or his ten thousand square foot mansion in Beverly Hills, California. Or are they just wannabes who worship wealth?

Maybe his uneducated, white male supporters like his sons because they shoot exotic African animals and kill birds for fun?  Or do they hate Mexicans and support Trump's plan to deport eleven million of them? Or maybe like his messages that climate change is a hoax, police need more power and, if there is less government, they will all become rich?
Next in line to nip at Trump's popularity is Ted Cruz, known as the most hated man in the Senate. He promises to turn America on its head, carpet bomb the Middle East, provide free guns to every white American, allow the rape of the environment, and abolish Social Security, Medicare, the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and other government functions, if he can remember them. Conservative white Christians love him because he will replace the Pledge of Allegiance with the Lord's Prayer.
Marco Rubio, another knight in shining armor, promises to ban gay marriage, do away with corporate regulations, increase the prison population, ban pot, cut educational funding, turn American transportation over to private companies, choose Jesus as his vice president, abolish property taxes, and cut taxes on the rich. He doesn't say whether he will stop stealing funds from his political campaign or taking secret personal loans from his billionaire handlers.
And the beat goes on: Ron Paul wants to balance the budget and give voting rights to fetuses, Ben Carson wants to do away with civil rights and send American troops to the Baltics. Kasich wants to bomb Iran and take care of the mentally ill, which will kill his chances of a GOP nomination. And Christie? He just looks like the fat bully on the playground when you were in the sixth grade. In the last debate, he bemoaned not being able to get his wife on the phone during 9/11 and, if she'd been killed, he didn't want to get stuck with the kids.
Considered a front runner a while ago, Jeb Bush fumbles along with a frog in his voice. Any minute you expect him to come clean and admit that he got his brother elected by manipulating the Florida courts, leading to the most disastrous presidency since Herbert Hoover.
Ben Carson thinks the Egyptians built the pyramids to store grain, and has a photo of himself and Jesus; an Oklahoma GOP candidate says gays should be stoned to death; Scott Walker says he's part of "God's plan,"; and Carly Fiorina believes women should remain silent in church and be submissive. It appears Americans will believe anything. Half of Americans don't know Judaism came before Christianity, half don't believe that evolution occurred, twenty percent believe the Sun revolves around the Earth, twenty percent knows someone abducted by aliens, and three-quarters of Republicans believe in One Nation Under Jesus. Half of our Congresspeople deny global warming, while a third believe in ghosts, and vast numbers believe in witchcraft, ESP, and other supernatural phenomena.
But a puzzle arises over the importance of the state of Iowa to choose presidential candidates. Iowa is not representative of America. Some eighty percent of its precincts are rural, while twenty percent of the US is rural. Almost ninety percent of the population is white, while white people represent just three-quarters of the US population.  Given Iowa's Fruit Cake Derby and Americans' fungible beliefs, anything can happen.

Rico says he concurs, but wonders if that should be half-vast numbers... (Pun intended.)