Piggy is as piggy does, Mr. President.
I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t. I meant to honor Thanksgiving weekend with a snark-free column on gratitude for all the good things Republican politicians did for us this year. Or at least, a gratitude list of all the things they haven’t gotten around to doing to us.
Short column either way.
But headlines happen.
Still: I am grateful that there is finally a White House pardon we can all get on board with, even if I suspect the Thanksgiving turkey Donald Trump sent home instead of to the dining table had a better lawyer and some walking around money, if you get my grift.
Grateful, too, that our porcine prez relinquished the backbones of 272 U.S. senators and representatives just long enough for them to vote to release the Epstein files, as instructed. The spines were then returned to their rightful place in alphabetically organized jars on Trump’s fireplace shelf, where he can see them from time to time, which is more than you can say for the rest of America.
Broward state Rep. Hillary Cassel also did us a solid. Critics might say that pulling the wool over voters’ eyes by running and winning as a Democrat only to switch to a Republican weeks later might be a bad thing. Not so! In switching parties, the author of such urgent legislation as keeping Sharia law out of city zoning meetings raised the collective I.Q. of both.
I am grateful that the New York Times’ headline writers almost certainly used up the last of their hallucinogens with this headline: “Have women ruined the workplace?”
I am grateful for cheap Publix eggs, because Omaha Steaks’ CEO predicts ground beef prices could rise to $10 a pound.
I am grateful that I am not the New York Times headline writer who — stone-cold sober — has to summarize the White House assertion that ground beef prices could rise to $10 a pound because illegal Mexican immigrants are sneaking across the border with illegal Mexican cows. Rampaging herds of carne asada on the hoof, coming soon to a dinner plate near you: Who wouldn’t be grateful for that? Unlawyered turkeys certainly are.
A shout out as well to state Rep. Alex Andrade, the Pensacola Republican whose investigation of financial shenanigans in the Casey DeSantis-aligned charity Hope Florida paved the way for a grand jury investigation aka “a political shot right up Ron DeSantis’ nose” — a piquant turn of phrase our own editor/headline writer produced, while probably inhaling nothing more than wholesome printer’s ink.
Unexpectedly grateful for Twitter/X making public the location data of users, including some of our president’s biggest fans. How else would we know that @America_First0 is cheerleading Trump from Bangladesh? A good Musk move. But his trucks still explode, even now and even in Nigeria, home to @IvankaNews.
Grateful that the Florida Legislature passed a law making more children eligible for subsidized childcare. Slightly less grateful that rather than pony up extra cash for the extra kids, they invoiced the tooth fairy to pay for it. Even less grateful that they simultaneously approved paying for a rooftop terrace for Orlando’s Dr. Phillips Center and upkeep on the Harry S. Truman Little White House. Harry would have been OK with waiting. He knew where the bucks were supposed to stop.
Finally, I am grateful that I have lived long enough to spot the first MAGA for Mamdani T-shirts. And ladies, don’t you also just want to live long enough to be gazed at as lovingly as our leader did when he locked eyes with America’s Most Socialist Mayor and just could not let go? Go ahead and call me fascist, purred Trump. Which Mamdani promptly did. Taking note of the Gush-o-Meter, a Fox newsie opined that JD Vance could be in danger of being replaced. He’s probably safe. But Melania? Well. I’m sure there’s gratitude to be found in there somewhere.
Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer. Contact her at beall.news@gmail.com.
