Top 10 Comedic News Stories of 2018

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Raging Moderate

Sit the kids down. Let the dogs out. Prop the grandparents up. The nation’s patience has been richly rewarded, because the eagerly awaited list of the Top Ten Comedic News Stories of 2018 has been officially released. This truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

But first a caution: please do not confuse this list with the top ten legitimate news stories of 2018. No. No. No. They are as different as charcoal sketches of historic steam engines and a bucket of compost. Like golden-stitched, sequined blue jean jackets are to chocolate brownies. Bow ties and dirt bikes.

There are no wildfires or hurricanes or kids kept in cages or bone saws or cave dwelling Thai soccer teams, nor mention of the movie “The Happytime Murders” in this report. No casualties from the #MeToo or TimesUp movements. These are the stories that most lent themselves to (s)mocking and scoffing and taunting. So here they are, the Top Ten Comedic News Stories of 2018.

10. PROPOSAL TO GIVE TEACHERS GUNS. Brilliant idea. And the cure for concussions is hammers. It admittedly would add an interesting element to the faculty lounge. Might help parent teacher conferences resolve a little earlier. Of course then all the school employees would want them. And the librarians would demand silencers on theirs.

9. KIM KARDASHIAN MEETS WITH TRUMP. In May, the two broke the old record for largest assemblage of White House ass, set in 1978 when Jimmy Carter welcomed the Upper Michigan Donkey Basketball Champions. Five months later her husband Kanye West set the bar even higher. Or lower.

8. KIM JONG UN & THE SINGAPORE SUMMIT. A win-win. Trump got a great photo op and Kim Jong Un got to leave North Korea and eat real food.

7. BOOKS ON TRUMP. Four major publications and every one calls him nuttier than the hospitality suite at a squirrel convention. Stormy Daniels said his male member looks like a mushroom prompting a protest from the American Mushroom Institute. Apparently, every twenty years America needs to know the shape of the leader of the leader of the free world.

6. VLADIMIR PUTIN & THE HELSINKI SUMMIT. The president made Neville Chamberlain look like a mixed martial arts champ. He sucked up so hard he probably left hickeys.

5. UN LAUGHS AT TRUMP. After he claimed to be the best president EVER, they laughed. And because of translation delays, it was a slow ripple of laughter punctuated by the occasional guffaw.

4. WHITE HOUSE CORRUPTION. His malfeasance is so large it can be seen from space. Rick Gates testified under oath he stole money from Paul Manafort who stole money from Donald Trump who stole money from everybody. These guys are the Russian nesting dolls of crime.

3. THE KAVANAUGH HEARINGS. Women outraged for being disenfranchised and white men outraged for… having their entitlements challenged.

2. THE BLUE WAVE. Against all odds, the Democrats actually exhibited a pulse. The midterms were less of an election and more of an intervention.

1. DONALD JOHN TRUMP. Refuses to release his DNA to prove he’s a carbon-based life-form. The president calls his administration a finely tuned machine, which certainly sounds better than out-of-control dumpster fire but might be a little less apt.

Copyright 2018, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate.

Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comic and former sod farmer in New Berlin, Wisconsin. For a calendar of personal appearances, including his new one-man show, “Durst Case Scenario,” please visit willdurst.com.

Comedy For People Who Read Or Know Someone Who Does

As the sacred cows set themselves up for slaughter each night at six, America cries out for a man with the aim, strength and style to swat the partisan political piƱatas upside their heads. Will Durst is that man. Sweeping both sides of the aisle with a quiver full of barbs sharpened by a keen wit and dipped into the same ink as the day's headlines, Durst transcends political ties, performing at events featuring Vice President Al Gore and former President George H.W. Bush, also speaking at the Governors Conference and the Mayors Convention cementing his claim as the nation's ultimate equal opportunity offender. Outraged and outrageous, Durst may mock and scoff and taunt, but he does it with taste.

A Midwestern baby boomer with a media-induced identity crisis, Durst has been called "a modern day Will Rogers" by The L.A. Times while the S. F. Chronicle hails him as "heir apparent to Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory." The Chicago Tribune argues he's a "hysterical hybrid of Hunter Thompson and Charles Osgood," although The Washington Post portrays him as "the dark Prince of doubt." All agree Durst is America's premier political comic.

As American as a bottomless cup of coffee, this former Milwaukeean is cherished by critics and audiences alike for the common sense he brings to his surgical skewering of the hype and hypocrisies engulfing us on a daily basis. Busier than a blind squirrel neck deep in an almond sorting warehouse, Durst writes a weekly column, was a contributing editor to both National Lampoon and George magazines and continues to pen frequent contributions to various periodicals such as The New York Times and his hometown San Francisco Chronicle.

This five-time Emmy nominee and host/co-producer of the ongoing award winning PBS series "Livelyhood" is also a regular commentator on NPR and CNN, and has appeared on every comedy show featuring a brick wall including Letterman, Comedy Central, HBO and Showtime, receiving 7 consecutive nominations for the American Comedy Awards Stand Up of the Year. Hobbies include the never-ending search for the perfect cheeseburger, while his heroes remain the same from when he was twelve: Thomas Jefferson and Bugs Bunny.

Look for Will's new book "The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing" at bookstores and Amazon.com.

Will Durst's performances and columns are made possible by the First Amendment.