Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World: Vote!, Gigi and Too Much Promotion

Early and Often

Phillipe and Jorge would be remiss if we did not offer one more encouragement cum demand that everyone get out and vote on election day. It’s a right, it’s a privilege, and it is what any upstanding American should do. We have seen our friends from other countries break down and cry with joy and relief once they were given this opportunity after years of dictatorial rule, and you should be equally joyous this freedom of choice has been handed to you. Plus, you lose your bitching rights if you don’t do the right thing on November 8.

And please cast your vote for Hillary, because a vote for the Cheeto-colored, rug-wearing, self-serving, bloviating narcissist, misogynist, racist pathologically lying rip-off artist that is Donald Trump is a vote for reducing America’s greatness — which does not need to supposedly be recaptured — in the eyes of the world. And wouldn’t you be proud to tell your kids and grandkids you put this vile quasi-human being in office? Yeah, harsh, but extreme times call for extreme measures.

Foreign Correspondents

As the creation of Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World was heavily inspired nearly 40 years ago by England’s notorious news/satire magazine, Private Eye, we thought you might enjoy the front cover of their most recent issue, addressing their view of our sordid political world.

(INSERT PRIVATE EYE COVER GRAPHIC HERE)

We could not have put it better ourselves.

How Not to Do Things

As the Brits might say, the Raimondo administration couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery. The recent Department of Transportation fiasco with the Providence viaduct/Route 95 re-routing was merely the third layer of icing on the cake.

We first famously had the clueless, embarrassing and shameful roll-out of the “Cooler and Warmer” tourism campaign. Governor Gigi, bedazzled as always by the bright lights of anyone with a New York City cachet, got it so wrong she might have been operating on a different planet than the rest of the state’s citizens. Gigi, who ironically is neither cool nor warm, again figured she was the smartest person in the room, and launched a quickly aborted extravaganza that glaringly failed to capture the essence of The Biggest Little, while ignoring homegrown talent that could have done a better job for a few cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and pairs of skinny black jeans all around instead of the $$million+ spent. We won’t even bring up the Iceland video, dead (and beloved) chefs featured or the out-of-state restaurants being touted. This one indeed “blowed up good!”

Then came the gargantuan glitches in the Department of Human Services UHIP (no, Unot-so-hip, or cooler and warmer, for that matter) data system, which saw thousands of Vo Dilunders not receive their social service benefits on time, severely crimping the daily existence of families and children who depend on them for frivolous items like food and housing. The blame here again seems to fall on Rhodes Scholar Gigi, who had the DHS roll out the new system despite warnings from the federal government it wasn’t up to requisite warp speed. Obviously, once again the call came from above to rush a flawed project out the door in a panic to show they could get things done on time, which backfired and reinforced the idea that the entire system of state government doesn’t know what it’s doing.  “Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey,” Gigi.

And as mentioned above, we had the fatally flawed I-95 South lane shifts debacle, which led to rush hour traffic being backed up to Massachusetts and nearly a dozen car accidents caused by panicked drivers thinking they were missing their turns on the new highway to hell. How in the name of whatever god you choose does the DOT think sending out an email about a major disruption at one of the busiest commuter interchanges in the state less than 24 hours before the switcheroo is sufficient warning? Perhaps someone should clue the Internet and social media besotted young turks doing communications work for DOT that not everyone checks their cellphone or computer every hour for their contact with the real world outside their cellphone. Those dinosaurs like radio, TV and print media reach a damn sight more of the working public than Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

More heads should probably have rolled than just the Gaspee-challenged person in charge of the tourism roll-out, but if our beloved Governor Gigi had people in place who were prepared to occasionally question her majesty’s all-encompassing genius decisions (the buck stops where?) or have the sand to say, “No,” or “Bad idea” to her at times, we wouldn’t be facing this merry-go-round of farcical, but quite unfunny, situations. It’s called speaking truth to power, a concept with which today’s generation of hard chargers in the political world seems quite unfamiliar.

Quote of the Week

From Ron P. Broussard, a former “coordinator” and self-styled motivational speaker at the laughably and scandalously bogus Trump University. The comment emerged from the trial records indicting Trump U as a massive fraud, which hired not experts in the real estate field, but many with extremely questionable resumes. (“It was the most massive ever,” P&J can hear The Donald saying. “It was huuuge!”)

As an Army sergeant, Broussard was convicted of sodomy and indecent acts with a child, the 8-year-old daughter of a fellow soldier, at a court martial in 1994. He served five years at the military’s pleasure in prison at Leavenworth, and now is a registered sex offender in his home state of Georgia.

Broussard told the investigating Associated Press, “Those were trumped-up charges.” (Insert rim shot here.)

We quite agree. Good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor or relevance, Ronny.

He Doth Promote too Much

P&J are wearied of The Urinal’s executive editor displaying his Trumpian paranoia/defensiveness with front page screeds about how wonderful his newspaper has become and all the groundshaking improvements that have been made of late to the Old Lady of Fountain Street.

Dave, you can’t bullshit bullshitters, and Little Rhody’s residents are PhDs in the art of weaving webs of deceit; our manure detectors can smell a ripe pile from 50 miles away. Not only is your paper shrinking as it is gutted from within by your overlords at GateHouse Media, but trying to tell us that snappier headlines and new fonts are a reason to pony up $2 a day for what the legendary Buddy “Vincent A.” Cianci rightly deemed a “pamphlet” ain’t gonna convince folks you are the local version of the New York Times.

And on a final note, endorsing a champion of Vo Dilun political corruption like House Speaker ‘Thick Nick” Mattiello and treating the recent, hilarious and overblown Barrington yoga pants march like it was Martin Luther King leading his troops over the bridge in Selma shows an incredible lack of awareness and perspective. So, Mr. Butler, stick to firing members of your news staff who deserve a better fate so your absentee owner bosses can cash in bigger bonuses and buy that new Mercedes at year’s end. That you seem to have a much better handle on.