Oct. 3, 2017: Disasters, massacres and bold leadership

The Jourmudgeon has been trying to keep a low profile. Unless The Jourmudgeon stops reading, watching and listening to the news, The Jourmudgeon is doomed to fail. On the other hand, if other Americans stop reading, watching and listening to the news, the country is doomed to fail. Stay informed, Americans. And don’t rely on The Jourmudgeon for your news.

1. A man in Las Vegas killed 59 people and injured more than 500 by hurling baseball bats and knives from a 32^nd story hotel window 500 yards away, proving gun-rights advocates’ claim that guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
2. The president of the United States told his secretary of state he was wasting his time trying to negotiate with North Korea. Veteran diplomats said the president obviously wanted to keep all contacts between North Korea and the United States at the highest level. The president demonstrated what he meant by high level by calling North Korea’s head of state “Little Rocket Man.” North Korea’s leader, in turn, referred to the president as a “mentally deranged dotard.” Arms experts said the exchange demonstrated that North Korea’s program to produce weapons-grade insults is far more advanced than ours.
3. Kim Jong-Un’s latest appearance on state-controlled television, meanwhile, showed his nation’s resolve to continue to defy the rest of the world despite the crippling toll international sanctions are obviously taking. “Look at the guy’s haircut,” said one longtime North Korea observer. “And he’s no doubt got the best one in the whole country. There is obviously nothing we can deprive these people of that will scare them into yielding.”
4. Desperate for a legislative victory, the president and congressional Republicans unveiled a bold plan that would lower the president’s taxes while driving up the national debt.
5. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, who as a member of Congress was fond of voting for legislation that would benefit him financially, was forced to resign after Politico exposed more than $400,000 worth of private charter flights he had billed taxpayers for. Price confessed to being puzzled that, unlike everyone else in the administration, from the president on down, he was supposed to have something called ethics.
6. The president chastised the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico for complaining about the slow federal response more than a week after Hurricane Maria left a humanitarian crisis in its wake. The president Tweeted his comments from his golf resort in New Jersey, where he was trapped for the weekend.
7. Proving that he had far more important things to focus on than a few million whiny so-called Americans left powerless, thirsty, hungry and under threat of epidemic disease, the president excoriated NFL players for taking a knee during the National Anthem. Aides said the president wanted to demonstrate to the football players and the mayor of San Juan that the Constitution clearly limits freedom of expression to billionaire white guys with Twitter accounts and lousy grammar. And don’t get the president started on wussies who worry about permanent traumatic brain injuries. Sad. Losers. Ruining the game.
8. In entertainment news, singer Taylor Swift sued every major mainstream news organization in the United States for negligence after not one mentioned her name for an entire week.
9. Finally, lexicographers revealed that “dotard” comes from an Old English word meaning “looks like a shih-tzu with mange.”