Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Cajun Fish Court-Boullion from Great Grandma
Dateline, April 14. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir, how’s your day?”
“Day? It isn’t day anymore, it’s night.”
“Oh, so after a year of vague answers in the campaign, you pick NOW to insist on precision, sir?”
“Come on, Man!”
“It’s a fair question, sir….”
“Day, night, whatever. Did you come down here to give me soup or to start a fight?”
“Oh, soup, sir, definitely soup. I don’t fight anymore, I’m just a pizza guy now.”
“So what’s the soup today? What do you have for me?”
“Oh, this is an interesting one, sir. Your cook made me repeat it about ten times. It’s called Cajun Fish Court-Boullion from Great Grandma, sir.”
“That’s too long. Can’t you call it something else?”
“Not now that I’ve learned this, sir!”
“What does it have to do with court, anyway?”
“I haven’t the faintest, sir. All I know is that it’s a fish soup with that long name, that’s all. Soup, crackers, spoon, napkins. Enjoy!”
“What kind of fish?”
“Beats me, sir.”
“What else is in it besides fish?”
“Beats me, sir.”
“Well, don’t you know anything?”
“I could ask you the same question, sir.”
“Come on, Man!”
“Look, if you asked me what was on the pizza your cook and housekeeper ordered, I could tell you. But I didn’t make this, I didn’t order it, all I did was show up, hoping you already had it, and get stuck with a tray to bring down to you. Every night for over a week now. Frankly, sir, it’s cutting into my tips.”
“Well, then I won’t keep you. What was this stuff called again?”
“Cajun Fish Court Boullion, sir.” Oh, and something about a great grandma, sir.”
“I know what most of that means, but what does a courtroom have to do with soup?”
“Maybe it’s for when bank robbers are on trial, sir?”
“What could a soup have to do with bank robbers, boy?”
“Well, a lot of bank vaults have bullion, you know…”
“Well.. mmm… it’s not bad, for a fish soup. Sure is strange though. Wish I knew what it had to do with going to court.”
“Well sir, maybe courtrooms were on the cook’s mind because of that news story from Congress, sir?”
“What news story?”
“Oh, you must’ve heard… as soon as you issued that proposal to have some blue ribbon committee think about the Supreme Court, bunch of nutcases in Congress introduced a bill.”
“What bill?”
“A couirt packing bill, sir.”
“Oh.”
“To take the current court and expand it from nine to thirteen, sir.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t seem surprised, sir.”
“Well, people always propose that sort of thing, and it never passes.”
“But you have both houses now, sir.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s possible.”
“Well, maybe.”
“If they passed the bill, sir, would you sign it?”
“Oh, that’s awfully premature…”
“It’s a Democrat bill. If it passes, you’d sign it, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, that’s way in the future. Let’s see how it goes.”
“You campaigned saying you wouldn’t do it, sir.”
“Well, now, not exactly..”
“What do you mean, not exactly? Sir? You said you wouldn’t?”
“Well, yes, I said that wasn’t something I planned to do… but if Congress passes it, well, then I’d just be signing a bill that congress passed, you know? I wouldn’t be doing anything by decree, after all.”
“Sounds like an evasion tactic to me, sir…”
“Look, there’s no magic around the number nine, after all. What’s the big deal? Nine, Eleven, Thirteen… the important thing is that there’s an odd number so it doesn’t get hung up on hard questions.”
“But it’s been nine since Reconstruction, sir. And you know why.”
“What, is there a reason?”
“Well, sure, there’s a reason. It’s because if it’s expanded, then a president will get to appoint two, or four justices at a time, virtually guaranteeing a longterm lock on the court’s makeup.”
“Well, as I say, it’s up to congress…”
“Do you remember when FDR that SOB tried to pack the court, sir?”
“No, of course not, you lying dog-faced pony soldier! I was a baby when he died! I don’t remember him!”
“I know, sir, I meant, do you remember the incident from history class, sir.”
“Oh.”
“And the Congress knew then, as everyone knows now, that it would essentially be a wholesale takeover of an entire branch of government., sir. So Congress had the good sense to say no.”
“Well, things change…”
“Sure, sir, lots of things change. But the fact that increasing the court from nine to thirteen is cheating certainly hasn’t changed!”
“Well, it’s up to the congress, you know…”
“Both the House and the Senate have razor thin majorities, sir, and neither one is legitimate. You know perfectly well that the Framers intended for big changes to be made by supermajorities, to prove there’s overwhelming public support for such things. The idea of that our Founding Fathers ever intended to allow two 50/50 legislatures to give the White House the power to pack the Court is just insane, sir.”
“These years of right wing courts need to end. Why should the Republicans dominate the high court anyway?”
“They don’t, sir. The Republicans haven’t dominated the court in my lifetime. Heck, the Republicans haven’t even dominated the court in YOUR lifetime, sir. And that’s a long, long time!”
“Come on, Man! In our meeting today, my staff said that it’s a Republican court and it has been for years and years!”
“On what grounds?”
“Huh?”
“On. What. Grounds. Look, sir, the current supreme court DOES have a slim majority of Republican appointees, but that doesn’t make it a Republican court, and you know it.”
“I do?”
“Well, okay, maybe you don’t… but everyone else does, anyway.”
“Oh.”
“Roberts was appointed by a Republican, but he hardly ever votes like one. He’s more of a swing, leaning liberal. Thomas and Alito are conservative… Gorsuch is usually conservative… Kagan, Sotomayor and Breyer are leftists… and Kavanaugh and Barrett are moderate at best.”
“Well, I don’t know about that…”
“Look at the election lawsuits, sir. The lawsuits that the Supreme Court refused to take. If this were really a six-to-three conservative court, do you honestly think you’d be here today?”
“Huh?”
“A real conservative court would’ve heard the cases that clearly proved you lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin, If this were a truly conservative court, you’d be happily retired now, sir.”
“Oh, if only.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I’m so tired…”
“Well, i can’t help you with that. All I can do is deliver your soup and get on my way, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“What’s it called again? This stuff?”
“Cajun Fish Court-Boullion Soup from my Great Grandma, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Looks pretty well packed with flavor, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Here’s hoping that’s the only court that gets packed this year.”
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume One,” from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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