{"id":295,"date":"2018-07-12T14:40:50","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T21:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigweasel.wordpress.com\/?p=295"},"modified":"2018-07-12T14:40:50","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T21:40:50","slug":"paulie-five-fingers-as-president-holy-crap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=295","title":{"rendered":"Paulie Five Fingers As President \u2014 Holy Crap"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
By Zepp<\/a> <\/span> on Thursday, April 12, 2018<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

April 12th<\/sup> 2018<\/p>\n

Back around the turn of the century, I did a series of humor essays revolving around a character named \u201cPaulie Five Fingers.\u201d Paulie, not to put it too indirectly, was a mob boss, a Tony Soprano. He was sleek, vicious, and engaging.<\/p>\n

I actually did know someone who referred to himself as \u201cPaulie Five Fingers\u201d, but the reality is a bit disappointing; the real-life Paulie is a model of probity, a paragon of virtue. I wrote the pieces in the first person, and I was a lot more noble and courageous than I am in real life: the real Zepp would be whimpering and wetting his pants wondering why Tony Soprano had decided, not only to befriend him, but to bestow lavish gifts upon him.<\/p>\n

I hit on the notion of Paulie suborning the legal system by becoming a part of it. In \u201cPaulie, DA\u201d I had the following occur:<\/p>\n

Paulie: \u201cThere is business requiring my attention here. I am about to become the new DA of your illustrious county.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Me: \u201cDA? District Attorney? You\u2019re about to become the District Attorney?\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYou should not take such a tone of voice. If you were not my friend, I would think that perhaps you were questioning my qualifications for the position.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I know you know court procedure like a Dershowitz. But aren\u2019t you usually, um, facing the district attorney in those cases?\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThat is often the case. But it came to pass that I observed trials of several petty larcenists and other minor players in the world of crime lately, and I observed a most interesting thing.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIn this low-level courtroom in New Jersey, I noticed that the state-appointed defense attorney was a drab, a pitiful, cringing little guy who clearly was some hippy liberal type who just barely beat the bar exam and clings to existence in a low-paying, dead-end job. Scuttling and brow-beaten, he all but apologized to the court for wasting their time on defending clients such as his.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Assistant District Attorney was sleek and well-fed, serene, confident, exchanging understanding amused glances with the judge as the defense attorney went about his menial tasks, barely bothering to learn the name of the accused, but merely reciting the crimes, secure in the knowledge that little of his time would have to be devoted to presenting actual evidence. It was like watching a polling station where a ten-term incumbent congressman is facing a challenge from some unknown third party weirdo.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

OK, the story was funny, and it was a lot of fun to write.<\/p>\n

But for fuck\u2019s sake. I was joking! It was meant to be satire! I didn\u2019t mean for it to become a guide for Donald Trump!<\/p>\n

James Comey\u2019s book, \u201cA Higher Loyalty,\u201d leaked today, and amongst all the stunning claims in the book according to the Guardian, \u201cThe former FBI director James Comey denounces Donald Trump as \u2018untethered to truth\u2019 and likens the president to a mafia boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHoly crap,\u201d Comey writes, \u201cthey are trying to make each of us an \u2018amica nostra\u2019 \u2013 a friend of ours. To draw us in. As crazy as it sounds, I suddenly had the feeling that, in the blink of an eye, the president-elect was trying to make us all part of the same family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House as \u201cOur Thing\u201d. The mind reels.<\/p>\n

Or at least, it would, if we already hadn\u2019t been exposed to 16 months of criminal bullshit and a mafia mentality from this White House.<\/p>\n

I can only hope, in the cold light of reality, that this son-of-a-bitch of a president ends up rotting in prison, and soon.<\/p>\n

Comey writes, \u201cI once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Trump\u2019s now famous demand over dinner at the White House in January 2017, \u201cI need loyalty\u201d, Comey writes: \u201cTo my mind, the demand was like Sammy the Bull\u2019s Cosa Nostra induction ceremony \u2013 with Trump in the role of the family boss, asking me if I have what it takes to be a \u2018made man\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah. \u201cHoly Crap.\u201d That about covers it.<\/p>\n

I concluded \u201cPaulie DA\u201d like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cPaulie, given your career\u2026\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cPlease do not be vocally explicit.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cGiven your career, don\u2019t you see this as a travesty?\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cTravesty? Zepp, you treat me so poorly sometimes, what am I going to do with you? You heard my description of the present dynamics of our judicial system. It is what the people want. It is what the people need. It is, one way or another, what the people will get.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cBelieve me, my friend, given the present state of American justice, there is nobody in the country better qualified to administer it than me.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be the best district attorney you ever saw, and exactly what the people deserve.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Fucking Hell. I was being a sarcastic asshole. I didn\u2019t mean it!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Zepp on Thursday, April 12, 2018 April 12th 2018 Back around the turn of the century, I did a series of humor essays revolving around a character named \u201cPaulie Five Fingers.\u201d Paulie, not to put it too indirectly, was a mob boss, a Tony Soprano. He was sleek, vicious, and engaging. I actually did … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Paulie Five Fingers As President \u2014 Holy Crap”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,2,60,1],"tags":[356,357,358,359,360,361,351],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-humor","category-politics","category-uncategorized","tag-our-thing","tag-comey","tag-cosa-nostra","tag-mafia","tag-mob","tag-paulie-five-fingers","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nPaulie Five Fingers As President \u2014 Holy Crap · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=295\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Paulie Five Fingers As President \u2014 Holy Crap · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Zepp on Thursday, April 12, 2018 April 12th 2018 Back around the turn of the century, I did a series of humor essays revolving around a character named \u201cPaulie Five Fingers.\u201d Paulie, not to put it too indirectly, was a mob boss, a Tony Soprano. 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