The Puffington Host Now Doing Bad Science Fiction

Look, we live in strange times.  It seems that every time I turn around I hear of another science fiction magazine being in trouble, and yet, wouldn’t you know it, the Puffington Host has decided to publish some and picked Barbra Streisand to write it.

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It’s not very good, of course.  No one really expects this “celebrity-written fiction” to be wonderful.  Normally the done thing is to pair the “name in another field” and an experienced writer, like what is happening with Clinton and Patterson.  But Barbra has decided to go it on her own and the result…. Well, it’s funny.  We just don’t think it’s entirely intentionally funny.  Also, we won’t lie: some of the funny had us crying a little, because, well… you know…

Props for her beginning, which establishes clearly that we are in a parallel world with the following:

May our country learn a lesson from this tragic mistake of 2016.

Yeah, right on, sister. If Clinton had won the presidency, I too would hope the country would learn to stop electing extreme leftists with no other claim to power than an appeal to a vaguely defined victimhood group.  I mean, if we had first blacks, then women, we’d eventually around 2040 be reduced to electing the only black, lesbian, one-legged, deaf dyslexic woman in the country.

We are approaching the year anniversary of Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory over Hillary Clinton.

By Electoral College victory, you mean of course “election victory.”  You see, here, in that non-parallel world, Ms. Streisand, the Electoral College is the only way to win the presidency of the United States.  For Hillary to claim that winning the “popular vote” is worth something is like her claiming she should be president because she once won the hog-calling contest at the Arkansas State Fair.  We’re all very happy for her, but that has absolutely nothing to do with winning the presidency.

The Electoral College was set up to prevent places like NYC and California from ruling the rest of the country.  Also, madam, if the election were decided by popular vote a lot of people who don’t bother to vote in CA or NYC would go out and vote, and thus inflate the national totals.

But it’s not a popular vote contest.  It’s an electoral vote contest.  We don’t care if Hillary can call the hogs better’n anyone, or even if you hold your breath and stomp your feet really hard.  She’s not president in this country, according to the rules of this country.

He lost the popular vote by close to three million votes, promptly claimed massive voter fraud and then set up a phony voter fraud commission to vainly prove his point.

Yes, that makes perfect sense.  He won the election and claimed voter fraud – he really shouldn’t be screaming about the Russians.  Oh, wait! – and so he wants to clean up our voter rolls.  Which everyone here in flyover country knows are a mess.  We also know which side is favored by the fraudsters, since the Democrats are the ones who squeal like stuck pigs (I’m seeing a theme) whenever someone wants to clean them up.  You might want to moderate the squealing, Ms. Streisand.  It doesn’t make your side look good.

Since the election we have learned more about widespread Russian interference on behalf of Trump and the GOP, as well as possible collusion with the effort by individuals in the Trump campaign. We will see what comes out of Robert Mueller’s investigation.  

And now we’re back in the parallel world for good.  I mean, seriously, we here, on this side of the reality divide, haven’t learned any such thing, Ms. Streisand.  We have actually only heard the left scream “Russia, Russia, Russia” — but it all seems to be a tissue of not very plausible fabulism to give the Obama administration an excuse to spy on a candidate of the opposing party.  On this side of reality, it’s reminding us a lot of issues much more severe than those that once brought down an administration.  I know your memory is shot through drink, botox and vain attempts at learning your lines, but really, the president’s name started with N — it will come to you.

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Also, some advice from a pro: you can’t start by asserting as proven the fact that there was Russian interference and collusion with the GOP and then end by saying that we’ll see what the investigation says.  Pick one or the other, or no one is going to buy your worldbuilding.

Many of us are stressed every day wondering what craziness Trump will inflict on the world. Perhaps we should consider what might have been, the what ifs of a Hillary win, what has been lost and what opportunities were squandered this year.

And now you seem to be in yet another world, where Trump won.  Ms. Streisand, there are ways to establish multi-universes, but this isn’t it.  Also, a word in your shell-like ear: I realize this might be hard to believe, but some of us lived in daily terror of what the anti-American Obama would inflict on the country next.  Are you kidding?  From craziness like trying to set races at each other’s necks by proclaiming a common thug his ersatz son, to striking deals with Iran which still considers itself at war with us, not a day went by without my being afraid his apology tour and bowing to countries that don’t understand only some Americans are oikophobic would lose us a city or two.

Now Trump’s craziness seems to be of the entertaining variety that makes you crazy liberals grunt and moan like hogs at mash, and frankly is enriching the nation as the rest of us buy popcorn futures.

Rather than millions of Americans waking up worrying about losing their health care, President Hillary Clinton would have worked with Congress (yes, even a Republican Congress) to place Obamacare on firm footing for the future. Hillary’s deep knowledge of the issues and lifelong concern for women, children and poor Americans would have made her a fantastic leader in healthcare reform this year.

And there you go again!  Millions of Americans have been waking up worrying about paying for healthcare that they are taxed for but can’t receive, as all the providers of Obamacare go bankrupt.  Then there are three impossibilities in a row that make your work more fantasy than science fiction: 1. Hillary Clinton would work with a Republican Congress?  Lady, she announced she’d be the third term of Obama, and you know he kept saying he won and didn’t need to work with anyone.  2. Place Obamacare on firm footing for the future.  Sigh.  Pro tip: science fiction requires math.  The Ponzi scheme that is Obamacare can’t be stabilized or placed on a firm footing.  It is rotten and it must go down.  3. Hillary’s deep knowledge of the issues and lifelong concern for women, children and poor Americans?  You mean the same people she called deplorables and treated as nobody?  Or do you mean only women or the poor who didn’t vote for Trump?  Also, how many reforms does healthcare need?  At this point, it has had more reforms than some Baptist sects, and at least most Baptist churches have decent choirs.

Hillary would have developed an employment program to repair our infrastructure while keeping climate change issues at the forefront of her policies. We are left to wonder if Trump will continue to ignore the scientific reasons behind the unprecedented stream of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes hitting our shores this year.

Again with the impossibility.  As Obama found out, repairing the infrastructure, aka shovel-ready jobs, is impossible while you keep the Goddess Gaia at the forefront of your policies.  Any bridge, any road, any internet cable will always disturb the endangered triple winged fruit fly of the north side of the road and this must not be permitted (even the fruit flies themselves don’t see the difference between them and the flies on the south side of the road).  You can’t serve infrastructure and the EPA.  It cannot be done.

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Also, Ms. Streisand, no one is buying your anthropogenic climate change anymore.  Oh, okay, maybe other people whose greatest accomplishment is repeating people’s lines, and those who get paid to try to scare people.  And there is no unprecedented string of hurricanes.  And if there were, climate change/global warming/Making Gaia pissy does not work that way.  Not even if you click your heels and hope it does.

President Hillary Clinton would not have withdrawn the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. We are now the only country not to join except for Syria. 

Oh, my heavens.  We were left out of the party?  How terrible.  Now all the other countries are going to laugh at us and think we’re such losers.  It’s like… the end of the world.

Only, you know, other countries aren’t expected to pay for the party.  We are.  That is why they’re so upset we won’t play.  No more around-the-world flights for their climate scientists.

Pro tip: as science fiction writers, we have to have our characters behave plausibly.  You must ask yourself, if anthropogenic global warming were true, would all these people trying to stop it consume more fuel than entire third-world countries?  This is the type of problem a good writers’ group would spot upfront.  I suggest you find one.

Any tax reform program would have benefitted the middle class, ensuring that the wealthy, Wall Street and corporations paid their fair share. Instead, what is proposed will be another huge increase to the deficit and further enrich those who are already wealthy.

And… implausible again.  In fact, Hillary received most of her contributions from Wall Street and big corporations and would be unlikely to turn her back on her biggest donors.  Besides, third term of Obama.  I don’t know how it looked from Hollywood, Barbra (may I call you Barbra?  After all, you remind me a lot of the most newby writers I mentor.  Only, honestly, they tend to be a little more clued in), but nothing Obama did benefited anyone but his pals in Goldman Sachs, Solyndra and various foreign interests.  So, I’d rate this part of your worldbuilding somewhere between improbable and insane.

Rather than eviscerating the State Department and ranting and raving at the United Nations, President Hillary Clinton would have promoted diplomacy. 

Just ask Ambassador Chris Stevens.  Hillary would have your back in case of probl–  oh, wait.

American’s rivals abroad would have respected and worked with President Hillary Clinton. The Russians knew her well, and feared her enough to work hard to undermine our electoral processes.

By worked and respected, do you mean “made large contributions to the Clinton Foundation”?  And it’s true the Russians knew and feared her linguistic skills.  Heaven knows what she’d have done as an encore to the reset button.

They knew that a President Clinton would have opposed continued Russian aggression in Ukraine or the Baltic States and would have pushed back hard against interference in our elections and those of our European allies.

Third term of Obama.  Even more flexibility for Putin.  Yeah, Barbra, they knew.  Which is why they were very happy to assume she’d win.

North Korea would have known that they could launch missiles if they chose, but that they would face a determined—and unified—coalition of nations opposed to their provocation.

By “coalition of nations” you mean, who, exactly?  I mean, this type of thing needs to be very specific, I’m sorry.  Would it be China, which uses NK as their crazed attack dog buffer from the west?  Or Iran, which is selling NK missiles acquired with our money?  Or do you mean the old, bankrupt kleptocracy of the United Nations would make tsssk tsssk noises while Hillary ate bonbons and ignored the three a.m. phone call?  Also they could launch missiles, but would face opposition?  Lady, the North Korean leader Man Dat Fat would just have got Hillary to write him another check.  It’s what Obama did.

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They would not have been facing this blustery man in the White House who has alienated our allies and insulted other nations at the UN. Lacking basic diplomatic skills, he is a bull in a china shop. America would be stronger, more secure, and more respected today under Hillary Clinton’s leadership.

Unproven fantasy, I’m afraid.  Sure, Trump blusters.  So do leaders of other countries.  In fact, Barbra, in international affairs, it’s assumed those who bluster can back it up.  As for insulting other nations: honey, we’re paying their bills.  And what insults did he tender, exactly?  He told them socialism didn’t work?  Amen and alleluia.  By that principle, parents insult their ne’er do well son when they tell him to move out of the basement and get a job.  Diplomatic skills don’t consist of bowing to tyrants and despots.  And if America were made stronger by bowing, apologizing and retreating, it would mean we fought WWI and WWII in vain.  Even if you believe that (you probably do.  Your mind is virgin of history), I suggest it is a monstrous idea, Barbra, and unworthy even of a woman who, if she turns her head a certain way, makes a wonderful wind instrument.

It goes without saying that white supremacists would not have found any encouragement from President Hillary Clinton.

You know, Barbra, I keep getting lost between your parallel worlds.  I guess in this world Trump did not condemn both the Live Action Reich Players and the “named by opposites” Antifa tugs.  Because you know, being condemned is not encouragement.  Well, except I suppose in some specialized clubs which you might frequent.  But I assure you that’s not true for the rest of us.

Immigrant fathers and mothers and their children who had worked hard for years, and tried to contribute, would not be rounded up and put in jail. President Hillary Clinton would have treated immigrants with dignity and respect, acknowledging that we comprise a nation of immigrants. Her policies would have protected the vulnerable young “Dreamers” from threats of inevitable deportation.

ANOTHER parallel world?  I assure you as an immigrant mother who has worked for years and tried to contribute, I’m not in the slightest fear of being rounded up and put in jail.  I am after all a citizen of this nation and do my best to integrate.

I think by “immigrants” you mean “illegal border-trespassers.”  In that case, you might want to lose the “contribute.”  Their contributions are minuscule compared to the money necessary to furnish them with healthcare, education and all the other benefits they come here for, particularly when you consider that Obama advertised for and got welfare cases to come here in droves.  Also, contribute how?  By definition, they don’t pay taxes.

Yes, we are a nation of immigrants, Barbra.  But not of illegal immigrants.  Your confusion of both categories will not endear you to anyone who came here legally at the cost in money, blood, sweat, and tears.  Take your sob stories and your dreamers and consider that the rest of us, out here, are sick and tired of this kind of obfuscation.  Then put it where Hillary wins Arkansas pig-calling contests.

As for the Dreamers, much as we empathize with their plight, if you give them a gold-plated roadway to citizenship, you’ll only be encouraging more parents to drag their little kids here before the age of reason.  And sooner or later the American public will say no.  And then what do you say to the future victims?

A one-time amnesty?  Sure thing.  That’s what Ronald Reagan said.

The reason you conflate legal and illegal immigration is that your answer is more cruel than just deporting people.  It’s an answer that makes the problem exponentially worse over time, and unless we want our borders to mean nothing, and our national sovereignty abolished, we can’t afford that.

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Trump is eviscerating protection for gay and transgender people.

Do they need protection from the president?  Why?  My friends who are free and American and gay don’t.  I have yet to see them needing to be wrapped in cotton wool.  What terrible thing could happen to them, outside of liberal-written movies?  Might they be told things they don’t like?  Oh, honey, most of them can snark better than you can.  Don’t worry about them.  The gays are all right.

Our transgender soldiers are left to wonder what fate awaits them after Trump’s military transgender ban. Even the Pentagon was caught off guard and wants to slow down this ban. President Hillary Clinton would have expanded the Obama Administration’s LGBT policies.

Really?  Our asthmatic soldiers, our soldiers with one foot, and our other soldiers who don’t pass the military’s requirement are in a similar plight.

The question you should ask yourself is what would Hillary Clinton’s expansion of the “Obama Administration’s LGBT policies” do.  I mean, they have marriage.  No one is jailing them.  What do they need?  As far as I can tell, all that Obama did for the LGBT cause was make it illegal for bakers not to bake cakes for LGBT weddings (would you want a cake baked by a reluctant baker?) and fight back against the bathroom patrol that never existed (I’ve gone to the bathroom with some pretty butch friends. We were out in a group, and we’d all go in.  Believe it or not, Barbra, even in the hinterlands, no one demands you drop your pants and prove you’re the sex specified on the door.  Strange, I know.)  Maybe Trump won’t encourage everyone to experience existential doubt on the way to peeing.  A lot of people would like that.

Trump wants to eliminate funding for the arts. In his first federal budget plan, he proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Hillary would have committed to funding the arts. She would have never taken such draconian steps to remove a critical part of this country’s culture.

Oh, if only I could believe Trump will do all that.  Since you’re attempting, with no marked degree of success, to write science fiction, Barbra, you should read Robert A. Heinlein, who said that an artist who needs government support is an incompetent whore.

There is no critical or in any other way any part of the culture that’s government subsidized that we miss, and just now you’re making me cackle more happily at Hillary’s defeat than I did on election night.

Merrick Garland, a moderate and universally respected Appeals Court Judge, who spent most of 2016 waiting in vain to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, would be on the Supreme Court. Instead, Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s cynical plan of delay and obstruction worked last year, and now we have Justice Neil Gorsuch, who smiled and obfuscated his way through the Senate confirmation. We now have him and his reliably extreme conservative vote for the rest of his presumably long life.

Barbra, I think you’re missing the point of writing a utopia.  Now I want champagne to celebrate the fact Hillary isn’t president.  I’m confused.  Is this what you intended?

President Hillary would not have made it easier for mentally-ill people to buy guns. The rule was a response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in which a mentally disturbed man shot and killed 20 young children and six adults.

You know, Barbra, the thing is some of us remember the USSR and how everyone who didn’t enjoy living in a “socialist paradise” was considered mentally ill.  We could easily envision someone who opposed Hillary being considered mentally ill by you and your ilk, and you know, being disarmed and unable to defend himself or herself as the enforcers broke the door.  I know this sounds weird, but we didn’t trust Hillary not to do precisely that.  PARTICULARLY after her talk of “adult fun camps.”

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None of the rules against “mentally ill persons” would have stopped the Sandy Hook Massacre, so your bloviating is confusing.

Also, Barbra, what rule is being put in place to prevent incidents like the shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, of Republican lawmakers by a crazed Democrat?  Driven insane by drivel like yours, no doubt?  Is there a moratorium on talking heads inciting panic?  No?  Then count your lucky stars we still believe in the first amendment much more than you believe in the second.

Trump has even rolled back the nutritional requirements for school lunches in a replay of Reagan’s “ketchup is a vegetable.” Not only does it seem that his sole focus is to dismantle Obama’s legacy, he is also erasing one of Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s signature accomplishments. Goodbye healthy school lunches, hello childhood obesity.

Michelle Obama’s signature accomplishment was serving children food no one would eat, and which, btw, was not served at her daughters’ schools.  Childhood obesity has many causes, and none of them include “less food thrown in garbage cans and more hungry and underperforming school kids.”  In fact, as a kid who for various reasons was obsessed with her weight and made conscious of the danger of obesity, let me tell you, Barbra, that kind of obsession from an overweight adult projected onto children is more likely to make them develop unhealthy eating habits and later-in-life weight issues.  Just ask any psychologist worth his name.

Michelle Obama did no one any favors when she projected her (deservedly) poor body image onto America’s school children and arrogated to her unelected self the right to meddle in students’ day to day lives, to the point of making packed lunches from home conform to her delusional dictates.  That might be a fine legacy for Da Man So Fat’s wife in North Korea, but it is no part of anything an American first lady should aspire to.  She wasn’t elected empress.

Trump is shredding the rules about equal pay for women, and of course, access to family planning. The funding for Planned Parenthood, which caters to the general health needs of many women, would not be in dire jeopardy.

Women are paid equally or better than men for the same job.  Again, Barbra, hon, you’re supposed to know math before you write science fiction.  As for access to family planning, I don’t recall ever having it denied in the thirty-some years in this country.  Oh, wait, by access you mean “someone else pays for my fun.”  Oh, honey, that’s just such a giant plot hole.  America is not supposed to be like that.

Also ixnay on the Planned Parenthood-hey.  Most people who don’t live in the Hollywood bubble will recoil from your support for baby-part sellers.  We have ultrasounds, Barbra, we know that “the product of conception” is not just “a tube of cells.” Emulsifying babies for Cadillacs?  Not even once.

This list could go on with more disastrous right-wing policies on the environment, education, and consumer protection. 

Like?  Actually allowing people to build things, even if it upsets a left-legged titmouse or two?  Unfortunately, I don’t hear of abolishing common core or even better the Department of Education, so I assume you’re complaining about some microaggression.  As for consumer protection, rest easy, Barbra, honey, we can figure out what deals we want to make.  Sure, sometimes we’re rooked.  Some of us voted for Obama, and some – poor things – for Hillary, but we learn from our mistakes.

Finally, we would have had our first woman president.

Because “she has a vagina” is a great reason to give someone that kind of power.

All of our daughters and granddaughters would have seen the example of a courageous and confident woman leading our great nation.

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A woman who would have made her way to the top the old-fashioned way: by marrying a powerful and ambitious man, and sticking by him through insults and infidelities, finally reaping the reward of throwing all the women he harassed and raped under the bus by being given power over a great nation.  Yeah, Barbra, I don’t think most American mothers would see that as a win.  Sorry.  I know Hollywood is different.

President Hillary Clinton could have forged a strong alliance with the current world’s most powerful woman, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

And together they would have taken Western civilization straight to hell.  Uh….  Barbra, honey, you do seem to have problems with this Utopia concept.

Women leaders would not have had to bear the daily indignities of working with a President who disrespects women and brags about sexual assault.

You’re in the parallel world again, aren’t you?  You really need to be more clear on where you are.  Yeah, we’re all pretty glad that women leaders don’t have to endure Bill Clinton as the “first lad” or his reptilian wife who protected him through all his malfeasance.  I’ll drink to that.  Where is the champagne, again?

The Women’s March on Washington would not have been in anger and sadness, but in joy and happiness.

Honey, the harpies who actually had the time and money to march always look angry.  Fortunately, they’re a minuscule portion of the nation.  Thank heavens.  Most of us wouldn’t dream of putting a symbol for a vagina on our heads because that’s not the part of our body we think with.

May our country learn a lesson from this tragic mistake of 2016.  

And the tragic lesson, Barbra, if I may speak frankly, is allowing celebrities like you to give voice to what they think would be a Utopia for the rest of us.

Frankly, while you lament most of these, you just make us laugh.  In fact, I challenge anyone not possessed of a heart of stone not to laugh like a hyena while reading your little would-be science fiction tale.

I recommend that the Puffington Host and you and in fact all of the left work really hard on studying what sells outside your little bubbles before embarking on the like venture.

Your Utopia won’t sell.  Either on the shelves or in elections.  The more you proclaim all the “good things” you’d have given us, the more the rest of us hear “good and hard.”

Keep it up and you’ll get far worse than Trump.

 

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