Out of bounds – My Grandpa had an unfaltering tradition on Thanksgiving Day. He’d wait until half-time of the Detroit Lions game before offering to help clean up.
By then, without fail, the China had been washed, dried, and stored in the cabinets. I know… a different time.
Grandpa was also a man who buried his whiskey bottles in the back garden because Grandma didn’t like him drinking. Grandpa would invariably forget where he’d hid them. And there my brothers and I would be at the half, rooting around in the mud. Coach Grandpa on the sidelines with a hollow glass of ice … praying for the Hail Mary.
MOMMY DEAREST – My mother is a throwback. She doesn’t have a computer. She doesn’t know how to text. But she knows exactly what time it is, and she knows it’s time to wash away the political bullshit.
Take the governor who represents my mother’s crumbling state for instance, and the state senator who represents my mother’s crumbling district.
They’re both playing the feminist trump card while raising money on my name. My mom doesn’t like it. You can’t simultaneously play the boss and the bullied card with a woman who raised five kids on her own.
The latest and most egregious example of this duplicity: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer raising $13 million from anonymous donors, including DTE, whose executives keep jacking up my mother’s utility bills while her power keeps failing in the cold dark months.
When Whitmer’s predecessor Gov. Rich Snyder engaged in the same dark arts, I creamed him. I camped out on his office couch until he agreed to shut the fund down. And my mother encouraged me.
Not so much with Big Gretch. She raised 10 times the amount that Slick Rick did and then turned around and sent $11 million of it back to the Democratic Governors Association to reimburse them for the $30 million they spent on Whitmer re-election commercials last year to defeat her Republican rival, Tudor Dixon.
You might remember those commercials. They featured my name, my likeness, and my content where Dixon told me that there should be no abortion exceptions, not even for a 14-year-old who was raped by her uncle. Not even my mother, a devout Catholic, agrees with that one.
Whitmer never asked my permission, and she never paid me a dime. But she didn’t mind using me.
“Dirtbags,” my mother said. “They can’t even tell you what a woman is unless it’s politically expedient.”
As for the state senator, my mother advises that she imbibes in cocktails AFTER she delivers her floor speeches.
“And while she’s at it, do something like fix the damn roads,” says mom.
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS – If you want a friend in politics, get a dog. Just ask former Michigan Congressman Pete Meijer who is asking Republican voters to forgive and forget. “Telling the Truth in politics is a mistake,” said Meijer (R-Grand Rapids).
Meijer got drummed out of Washington last year, after a brilliant play by Democratic operatives who quietly backed Meijer’s far right-wing opponent in the Republican primary. That opponent went on to win, only to be pummeled in the general election to a Democrat.
Now Meijer wants to be your senator, but the Republican establishment doesn’t want him.
The issue? Meijer’s voting record. Meijer voted to impeach Trump; make gay marriage federal law; send billions to Ukraine, and backed policies to stop global warming which Meijer believes is caused by human activity.
Democrats have encouraged Meijer to change sides. But that won’t work. He doesn’t believe in abortion.
PARKING WARS UPDATE – The magistrate last week at the Parking Violations Bureau declined to dismiss my $45 fine for parking “within 15 feet of an unmarked crosswalk.”
Viewing official photographic evidence, the magistrate claimed I was clearly in violation of the law– claiming by her eye, that I had parked at least 1 foot inside an imaginary line.
Untrue, I argued, having brought a tape measure and my own photographic exhibits.
And even if true, I wondered aloud, are the beaten and beleaguered citizens of Detroit expected to be professional surveyors? Is City Hall really so broke from doling out millions to billionaires that it must now engage in the shakedown of its own citizens? In my case, nothing more than the length of a snowshoe?
Unconvinced, and busy with a roomful of other put-upon motorists, the magistrate scheduled another hearing for me. This time it will be before a bona fide district court judge.
All the way to the Supreme Court, I promise.
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Be sure to tune in this week, for our Thanksgiving Special: Michigan v. Ohio, Detroit v. Green Bay, and Karen v. Charmayne in our game show special “Family Food.”
