1) Republican Representative Madison Cawthorn called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a thug, used white nationalist rhetoric in speeches, and relentlessly pushed Trump’s false claims of election fraud. However, none of this caused House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to lose trust in him because of unbecoming behaviour. What did cause McCarthy to lose trust in Cawthorn because of unbecoming behaviour?
a) Cawthorn got drunk and mangled the lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody” during karaoke night at the congressional commissary (McCarthy does not take Queen sacrilege lightly)
b) a video of Cawthorn in high school surfaced in which he said, “I think Nancy Pelosi is hot. Something about the way she wields that gavel makes me – oooooooooh!”
c) Cawthorn stated publicly that he had done cocaine at orgies with other Republican politicians
d) other
2) Baby Boomers are hoarding more than their share of inter-generational wealth, have pretty much ensured global warming will cause massive disruptions for future generations and still listen to Duran Duran. What can they do to rehabilitate their reputation before the generation dies out?
a) stop listening to Duran Duran
b) develop a fairer tax system so that the wealth of their country is more equitably distributed while spending as many tax dollars as it will take to ensure that countries meet their carbon-neutral goals by a deadline that will actually save the planet
c) ha ha – hee hee – answer b), you’re a riot! But – ha! – seriously, the Boomers have had ample opportunity to do those things, and have managed to do the opposite for so many years, to stop listening to Duran Duran is their only realistic hope
3) Despite the country’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Burger King continues to sell its products in Russia, paying taxes that fund the country’s war. What should its new motto be?
a) When you have it Putin’s way, it just tastes better!
b) In the land of civilian massacres, Whopper is king!
c) Sometimes you gotta break the rules!
4) Rank the following lawsuits started by Donald Trump from most frivolous to least frivolous:
a) a Pulitzer Prize-winning architect who panned his plans for a Manhattan skyscraper
b) the law firm of tenants of a building he was trying to clear who were suing him to halt their conviction
c) an author who wrote that Trump was worth far less than he constantly bragged about
d) the Democratic Party, which he argues concocted fictitious claims that his 2016 election campaign was colluding with Russia, resulting in an “unfounded” investigation by the FBI
e) it can’t be done – they’re all equally frivolous
5) Why did China vote against a motion to remove Russia from the United Nations’ Human Rights Council?
a) you know the joke about why the shark refused to eat the lawyer who fell into the ocean? It’s like that, but with much greater ambitions for world domination
b) if all that could get you kicked off the Human Rights Council were violations of human rights, who knows which country would be the next to be told to go?
c) it was distracted by Russia’s oil and natural gas supplies
6) China is advising Shanghai citizens to “control your souls’ desire for freedom.” How does the country suggest they do that?
a) taking their souls to Burger King for dinner
b) feeding their souls to a shark (yes, even Chinese lawyers – souls aren’t covered by professional courtesy)
c) by giving in to their souls’ desire for freedom – China can be very Zen that way
7) What does the image below represent?
a) Tucker Carlson jumping the shark
b) Tucker Carlson jumping the shark, and the shark loving every second of it
c) Tucker Carlson needing to get a room for him and the shark, because nobody wants to see either of them jumping the other
8) The shark aside, doesn’t this have something to do with “testicle tanning?” If so, what the hell is testicle tanning?
a) a way for the right to slyly promote birth control
b) a way for the right to slyly promote punishing men for the ills of patriarchy
c) a way for the right to openly promote the theory that tanning one’s testicles increases male testosterone (because the right doesn’t do sly)
9) Th…that’s testicle tanning? * SHUDDER * Why the hell is Carlson promoting it?
a) accusing all Democrats of being pedophiles gets old after a while, so Carlson thought he would mix things up with an equally false claim
b) promoting gold coins had already been done to death
c) Carlson has tanned his testicles so frequently, it has affected his thought processes (What the Heck Do You Know? makes no claim as to where the TV host’s brains might be located in his body)
10) Conservative Party leadership hopeful Jean Charest has vowed to scrap the Liberal government’s consumer price on carbon as part of an ambitious plan to deal with climate change. What is the most important component of his plan?
a) to stop feeding cows baked beans so that they’ll fart less
b) to pass a law forbidding trees from spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
c) to not piss off the energy corporations that are so generous to his party
11) How is this ambitious?
a) cows are the rodeo clowns of modern farming, and everybody knows how much rodeo clowns love their baked beans!
b) if trees store enough CO2 in their bark, they could explode, sending deadly splinters in the direction of innocent loggers nearby
c) you think wanting to rule the country doesn’t take ambition‽
12) Elon Musk once called a diver who had mocked his proposal to use a submarine to rescue boys trapped in a cave in Thailand a “pedo.” Musk said that he never intended for pedo to be interpreted to mean “pedophile.” What did he mean the term to be interpreted as?
a) Pedro – Musk was calling the diver an illegal immigrant…with poor typing skills
b) pedometer – Musk was complimenting the man on his ability to keep track of the number of steps he walked in his head
c) pedant – Musk was accusing the diver of getting too hung up on the meanings of words…with poor vowel apportionment skills
d) pedother
13) Elon Musk went public with the fact that he was buying up shares of Twitter once he owned nine per cent of the company. According to Securities and Exchange Commission rules, anybody who acquires five per cent of a company’s stock must make the purchase public. Why is Musk not currently in jail?
a) his winning personality
b) so many seats on the Security and Exchange Commission have been left vacant that there are now only three members – and two of them are paper clips! – so they only go after the cases they are guaranteed to win (and there are no guarantees in life)
c) he would just buy the jail and turn it into a luxury condo, so what would be the point?
14) In 2021, the National Labour Relations Board ordered Musk to delete a tweet that officials claimed illegally threatened to cut stock options for Tesla employees who joined the United Auto Workers Union. How was his use of Twitter analogous to the town square?
a) he was using the social media platform in the same way that the frontier town boss used to use goons to force all able-bodied men to work in the mines
b) he lived in a town when he wrote it and…he is…the internet’s most well-known square?
c) the voice that can afford the biggest microphone pounds the most ears
15) Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner’s brand spanking new private equity firm, was recently awarded a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Why?
a) his winning personality
b) it couldn’t be his experience running a private equity firm, that’s for sure
c) it couldn’t be his brilliant business plan, that’s for double sure with a nice ribbon on top
d) yep, his winning personality – what else could it be?
16) Objections to the investment included: “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, according to minutes of a meeting of the panel that screens investments for the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund last June 30. Nobody’s personality is that winning! Seriously, why?
a) they have so much money, $2 billion is just a rounding error, so why not let the boy have some fun?
b) weeeellllll, I suppose it could have a little bit to do with the fact that his father-in-law was once the most powerful person in the world, and is planning on strong-arming his way back into the position in 2024; but combine that with his winning personality and nobody could refuse him!
c) to get Ivanka’s unlisted telephone number
17) According to anti-vaccine, anti-mask activist Chris Sky, “This is not about our health and safety. This is about control.” He was speaking at Rolling Thunder, a convoy of bikers whose stated intent was to honour veterans. How did Sky’s speech honour veterans?
a) he didn’t dance on the monument to the war dead when he made it
b) he was criticizing the hierarchical structure of the military in the hopes of setting privates free from brass’ psychological need for control
c) what, veterans can’t fall for the COVID hoax like ordinary people?
18) Jake Dompierre, who had participated in the first Ottawa convoy protest, said Rolling Thunder was “a continuation of freedom of thought, of freedom of association, of freedom of being.” Where are the veterans in all of this?
a) experiencing the freedom of being…completely ignored
b) between the letter n and the comma – they’re a very shy bunch, veterans are
c) at the back, wondering if a sex scandal might rehabilitate their reputation
19) Some devotees of former President Donald Trump say they like him for his policies. Which policies would those be?
a) the ones in the Republican Party platform, obvious – oh…
b) there’s the one about how the 2020 election was stolen from him by the liberal elites…which, okay, it isn’t so much a policy as it is a lie turned into a national grievance, but policies have to start somewhere!
c) hating people who aren’t white, Christian, heterosexuals, which, okay, isn’t so much a policy as it is hateful rhetoric turned into a demagogic platform, but, hey, with a hateful rhetoric turned demagogic platform, who needs policies?
20) When will there be good news?
a) when the third moon of Endorra eclipses the sun and the guggleowrts come out to play
b) shark week
c) did you recently share a smile with a stranger, or celebrate a milestone with your family, or successfully sink a putt on the ninth hole at McGonnigals Mini-golf? Good news is all around you! Difficult as it – uuuuurrrrgh! – may be to – huh huh huh huh! – do, you just need to – uuuuuugh! – tune out the – grrrrrrrr! – circus!