The Patriot Post® · Oliver Twist Goes to Washington

By Burt Prelutsky ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/65190-oliver-twist-goes-to-washington-2019-09-07

Sometimes, I am absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of email I receive. But at least when it’s from subscribers, even if it’s the same video or meme or cartoon I’ve received a dozen times that week, we more or less know each other. It’s like a wife who has to pretend to laugh at the same joke her husband’s been telling for the past 10 years. It goes with the territory.

But now I am hearing from every Republican running for office anywhere in America, and they all want my money. I guess they must have gotten wind of the fact that so many of you renewed your subscription. I’m getting really sick of them coming up to me with their empty bowls just like the pitiful young orphan, Oliver Twist, begging for a little more gruel.

It’s my fault, of course. Nobody put a gun to my head and told me to give any of these people a dime. I feel particularly stupid since these are the very same shmoes who refuse to accept an email from me if I don’t reside in their state or congressional district.

Be that as it may, I have only contributed to the campaigns of those incumbents who have shown themselves committed to Trump’s agenda and to contenders I believe have a decent chance of prevailing in toss-up elections.

I am not kicking in a plugged nickel to those challenging Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler, A O-C, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ted Lieu, Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff or any of those others I’d love to see defeated. Or, better yet, locked up in stocks in the public square, to be mocked and hit with squishy tomatoes. They’re not the problem, though; the nincompoops who keep electing them are and there’s no way I can un-elect them.


The Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, the only honest man in Washington who’s not named Donald Trump, found that James Comey broke all the rules, but Attorney General William Barr refuses to prosecute him.

I could be hallucinating, but this sure seems, as Yogi Berra allegedly put it, like déjà vu all over again. Wasn’t it James Comey, who told the world that Hillary Clinton was guilty of everything but masterminding the Boston Brinks robbery, but that he found no basis for prosecution?

Comey, in case you tuned out or fainted when you heard that he was going to go unpunished, leaked FBI documents to the media that he had no right to have in his possession in order to embarrass the President. That, in turn, led to FISA warrants, the appointment of Comey’s friend and mentor Robert Mueller as Special Counsel and a two-year witch hunt.

On the other hand, Barr has vowed to prosecute those who enabled Jeffrey Epstein to carry out his sexual assaults of underage girl for the past several decades. I’m offering terrific odds that Barr never gets within a thousand miles of indicting Bill Clinton. Anyone willing to take my bet?

So, folks like Roger Stone and George Papadopoulos get arrested for telling a couple of inconsequential lies to the FBI, but the head of the FBI lies every time he opens his mouth and plotted a political coup to unseat a duly-elected president and he gets to go on a book tour.

That noise you hear in the background is Lady Justice weeping while the Deep Staters protect their own and give the finger to America.


It’s also been disclosed that another unnamed official at the Justice Department was found to have watched a good deal of pornography on his office computer. He is also not being prosecuted or suspended or fined or even identified so he can at least be teased by his colleagues.

One thing you have to say about the Department is that they share a loyalty that puts one in mind of the Mafia. Some wag suggested instead of Justice, it should be called the Department of Just Us.


Like a character in a Greek drama, Joe Biden continues to be buffeted by time and circumstance. As a person even older than Biden, I hate to see his mental collapse blamed on his age. Let’s face it, the man was always thirty or so cards short of a full deck. People used to smile at his gaffes and say: “That’s just Joe being Joe.”

Now they’re diagnosing Alzheimer’s.

Recently, he was delivering a speech. He prefaced it by stating in a voice even more dramatic than the one that George C. Scott used standing before the giant flag in “Patton,” insisting “This is the God’s truth—my word as a Biden!”

He went on to describe in edge-of-the-seat detail how he had risked death in Afghanistan to present a Silver Star to a soldier when he was the Vice President.

As reported in the Washington Post, of all places: “In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony.”

Something even the Post neglected to mention was that he was a senator at the time, not yet the vice-president.

“My word as a Biden.” I think I may start using that as a catch phrase whenever I don’t expect to be taken seriously.


A little remembered event took place on Nov. 1st, 1950. Two Puerto Rican zealots named Oscar Collazo and Grisello Torresola, seeking independence from the U.S., decided to prove their seriousness by assassinating President Harry Truman.

At the time, Harry and First Lady Bess were residing in Blair House while the White House was being renovated.

In the ensuing shoot-out, Torresola was shot and killed, as was White House police officer Leslie Coffelt. Collazo was wounded, stood trial and was sentenced to death. Truman commuted his sentence to life, always a mistake, and in 1979, Jimmy Carter commuted it once again to time served. Unfortunately, Officer Coffelt wasn’t as lucky. He was still dead.

All of that is a prelude to my suggesting that it’s time to give Puerto Rico its long overdue independence. I’m sure they long to stand on their own feet and breathe the air of free men. For my part, I’m getting sick and tired of having to waste our tax dollars so that corrupt politicians can pocket the money and then blame whoever happens to be in the White House that they didn’t do enough to protect them from the inevitable hurricanes that are going to hit islands that happen to be situated in Hurricane Alley.

It’s bad enough that Florida is constantly being victimized by lousy weather, but at least they’re an actual state and they say “thank you” when they receive help. Also, they elect a lot of Republicans. Heck, somebody had to say it.


President Trump is right to be turning the economic screws on China, although I admit it bugs me when he feels compelled to say nice things about Chairman Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and even Kim Jong-un, but I guess he took to heart Mary Poppins’ advice about a little bit of sugar helping the medicine go down.

But we can all do our part by not buying crapola made in China. It’s not just that the stuff is cheesy, but it provides the Communists with the American dollars it needs in order to purchase what it requires on the world market because nobody wants their Monopoly currency, which goes by different names. Sometimes it’s called the yuan, sometimes reaminbi, sometimes Charmin.

And, yes, you can take my word for that as a Biden.