The team at DFO is committed to brightening the world with insights, observations, and dick jokes. This mailbag feature is just one more way in which we extend our mission beyond football to the rest of life’s broad and multi-chromatic palette. We’re getting closer and closer to the inevitable Chiefs-Patriots AFC Championship matchup–AND spending inordinate amounts of time with your extended family–so the floodgates remain open for football and life questions alike.  If you have questions and/or need advice, email [email protected]. New inquiries will be supplemented by DFO and Celebrity Guest Columnist advice in response to inquiries to other advice columns. We’re going to aim to be funny but respectful to everyone no matter what. Unless they’re Packers or Patriots fans. BrettFavre’sColonoscopy is not a licensed therapist nor does he hold an advanced degree in psychology, social work, or any of the cognitive sciences. He is an enthusiastic young-ish man with an overpriced education and an unabiding love for dispensing good advice while being incapable of applying it to his own life.

First and foremost, did you miss Quotables yesterday? For shame! Go to this week’s submission’s page and make with the funny post hoc: https://www.doorfliesopen.com/2019/12/17/2019-quotables-week-15-submissions/

And now, for the not-quite-punctual Mailbag! Merry (almost) Christmas! Yes, that sentiment is from a non-believer, but who gives a shit? Chanukah is Sunday, Christmas is next week, Kwanzaa shortly thereafter, the neighbors have already had their Festivus Pole out for weeks (wish I were joking), so it’s time to celebrate. Let’s dive right in with a letter to Dear Prudence to get us into the Christmas spirit:

Passive-aggressive Christmas ornaments: I have had an exclusively beach-themed Christmas tree for about 15 years because it matches my home’s decor and, quite frankly, I’m a bit obsessed with all things seaside. All my ornaments are sentimental, from trips and the times I’ve lived by the ocean. I had children a few years ago (who are ocean-themed-named), and my mother-in-law wanted to start getting them ornaments. To my horror, last year she got each of them several forest critter ornaments and aggressively asked why they weren’t on the tree. When I capitulated and put them in not-visible areas, she got upset and moved them up front. She is generally domineering toward me, and this is just one more bizarre outlet for her.

My husband doesn’t want to get in the middle (he doesn’t care about Christmas anyway), and I have floated a small tabletop tree idea for the girls, but he’s not wild about that either. I am really thinking about the long-term—these ornaments could pile up and take over my theme, which would make me sad. I take a lot of joy from my mermen, octopuses, flamingos, etc. Am I being unreasonable, or should I make a stand?

White people, we’re the worst, right? If you have a themed Christmas tree and the theme isn’t “Christmas,” I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’re an asshole. So if you want to have a fight with your MIL about the ornaments she bought the grandkids that “clash” with your nautical theme, a) I’m busting out the popcorn and b) I’m checking to see if they sell “Fisherman’s Wife 2” ornaments.  I mean, sure, she sounds like a monster-in-law, but you also sound like a psycho hose beast, so I’m gonna give this whole situation three “Christmas trees” in the woodchipper and stay the fuck away.

Ok, over to another domestic squabble, this time in a letter to Carolyn Hax—

Recently I was hospitalized for two weeks. When I came home I found he had never once walked our dog — just let the poor thing out into our tiny yard, and he didn’t clean up. The house was an absolute wreck, he didn’t cook or clean anything, left pizza boxes stacked on the counter, and dirty laundry piled on the laundry room floor. I was still recovering and that was kind of a nightmare to come home to.

I asked him why he didn’t do anything, and he said he’s no good at that stuff and knew I’d want to do it “the right way” when I got back.

We moved in together right out of college so he’s never taken care of a place by himself. I asked him if he wanted to learn, but he said he doesn’t see a real problem with the shape the house was in. Would you consider this a big enough issue to delay our summer wedding?

— Still in Shock

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you’re a lazy person, and when you get the house to yourself for a change, you want to completely veg out/regress to an early 20s prehistoric/bachelor state. That is totally fine and can be kind of awesome. But the bare fucking minimum is that you CLEAN THE HOUSE BEFORE YOUR WIFE/FIANCÉE/GF/ROOMMATE/PARENT RETURN.

/DOOR FLIES OPEN

Yo, Bro! Didn’t you see my big press conference?! No need to party at home, just sign up for Gronk Beach Herpes Fest 2020! Leave your dog, pizza boxes, wife, whatever, and come to the beach with me and my bros! There’s no cleaning when you’re having fun. I don’t even have to play football anymore to be a big dumb sex idiot! I can get paid to drink and grind up on the ladies, and I don’t see why anyone else can’t do the same. So sign up and come spot me on this keg stand…

/DOOR AND LIVER FLY SHUT

I mean, if you can live like Gronk, wrap it up and proceed.  For the rest of us, if I’m the letter writer, I’m calling off the wedding. If I’m the letterwriter’s dude, I’m counting my lucky stars I didn’t already get dumped and learning to, you know, walk the fucking dog.

Let’s shift to a letter that came in about a domestic squabble in DC—

Dear Madam Speaker:

I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives.  This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.

The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence.  They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever.  You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!

By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy.  You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme—yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America’s founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build.  Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense.  It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!

Your first claim, “Abuse of Power,” is a completely disingenuous, meritless, and baseless invention of your imagination.  You know that I had a totally innocent conversation with the President of Ukraine.  I then had a second conversation that has been misquoted, mischaracterized, and fraudulently misrepresented.  Fortunately, there was a transcript of the conversation taken, and you know from the transcript (which was immediately made available) that the paragraph in question was perfect.  I said to President Zelensky:  “I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”  I said do us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign.  I then mentioned the Attorney General of the United States.  Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America’s interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky.

You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense—it is no more legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power.

You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars.  You know this because Biden bragged about it on video.  Biden openly stated:  “I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars’…I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours.  If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’  Well, son of a bitch.  He got fired.”  Even Joe Biden admitted just days ago in an interview with NPR that it “looked bad.”  Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely accusing me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually did.

President Zelensky has repeatedly declared that I did nothing wrong, and that there was No Pressure.  He further emphasized that it was a “good phone call,” that “I don’t feel pressure,” and explicitly stressed that “nobody pushed me.”  The Ukrainian Foreign Minister stated very clearly:  “I have never seen a direct link between investigations and security assistance.”  He also said there was “No Pressure.”   Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a supporter of Ukraine who met privately with President Zelensky, has said: “At no time during this meeting…was there any mention by Zelensky or any Ukrainian that they were feeling pressure to do anything in return for the military aid.”  Many meetings have been held between representatives of Ukraine and our country.  Never once did Ukraine complain about pressure being applied—not once!  Ambassador Sondland testified that I told him: “No quid pro quo.  I want nothing.  I want nothing.  I want President Zelensky to do the right thing, do what he ran on.”

The second claim, so-called “Obstruction of Congress,” is preposterous and dangerous.  House Democrats are trying to impeach the duly elected President of the United States for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties throughout our Nation’s history.  Under that standard, every American president would have been impeached many times over.  As liberal law professor Jonathan Turley warned when addressing Congressional Democrats: “I can’t emphasize this enough…if you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power.  It’s your abuse of power.  You’re doing precisely what you’re criticizing the President for doing.”

Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening.  Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat.  You have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it!  You are unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at the ballot box during the great Election of 2016.  So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn the will of the American people and nullify their votes.  You view democracy as your enemy!

Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party’s impeachment effort has been going on for “two and a half years,” long before you ever heard about a phone call with Ukraine.  Nineteen minutes after I took the oath of office, the Washington Post published a story headlined, “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.”  Less than three months after my inauguration, Representative Maxine Waters stated, “I’m going to fight every day until he’s impeached.”  House Democrats introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our country’s best decisions, the firing of James Comey (see Inspector General Reports)—who the world now knows is one of the dirtiest cops our Nation has ever seen.  A ranting and raving Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, declared just hours after she was sworn into office, “We’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf****r.”  Representative Al Green said in May, “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”  Again, you and your allies said, and did, all of these things long before you ever heard of President Zelensky or anything related to Ukraine.  As you know very well, this impeachment drive has nothing to do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate conversation I had with its new president.  It only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020!

Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said by me.  His shameless lies and deceptions, dating all the way back to the Russia Hoax, is one of the main reasons we are here today.

You and your party are desperate to distract from America’s extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens.  Your party simply cannot compete with our record: 7 million new jobs; the lowest-ever unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans; a rebuilt military; a completely reformed VA with Choice and Accountability for our great veterans; more than 170 new federal judges and two Supreme Court Justices; historic tax and regulation cuts; the elimination of the individual mandate; the first decline in prescription drug prices in half a century; the first new branch of the United States Military since 1947, the Space Force; strong protection of the Second Amendment; criminal justice reform; a defeated ISIS caliphate and the killing of the world’s number one terrorist leader, al-Baghdadi; the replacement of the disastrous NAFTA trade deal with the wonderful USMCA (Mexico and Canada); a breakthrough Phase One trade deal with China; massive new trade deals with Japan and South Korea; withdrawal from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal; cancellation of the unfair and costly Paris Climate Accord; becoming the world’s top energy producer; recognition of Israel’s capital, opening the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; a colossal reduction in illegal border crossings, the ending of Catch-and-Release, and the building of the Southern Border Wall—and that is just the beginning, there is so much more.  You cannot defend your extreme policies—open borders, mass migration, high crime, crippling taxes, socialized healthcare, destruction of American energy, late-term taxpayer-funded abortion, elimination of the Second Amendment, radical far-left theories of law and justice, and constant partisan obstruction of both common sense and common good.

There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to your party as the Do-Nothing Democrats.  Unfortunately, I don’t know that you will ever give me a chance to do so.

After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING!  Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test.  You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of my family.  You conducted a fake investigation upon the democratically elected President of the United States, and you are doing it yet again.

There are not many people who could have taken the punishment inflicted during this period of time, and yet done so much for the success of America and its citizens.  But instead of putting our country first, you have decided to disgrace our country still further.  You completely failed with the Mueller report because there was nothing to find, so you decided to take the next hoax that came along, the phone call with Ukraine—even though it was a perfect call.  And by the way, when I speak to foreign countries, there are many people, with permission, listening to the call on both sides of the conversation.

You are the ones interfering in America’s elections.  You are the ones subverting America’s Democracy.  You are the ones Obstructing Justice.  You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.

Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt.  Against all evidence, and regardless of the truth, you and your deputies claimed that my campaign colluded with the Russians—a grave, malicious, and slanderous lie, a falsehood like no other.  You forced our Nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to assault our democracy.  Yet, when the monstrous lie was debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into dust, you did not apologize.  You did not recant.  You did not ask to be forgiven.  You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection.  Instead, you pursued your next libelous and vicious crusade—you engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person.  All of this was motivated by personal political calculation.  Your Speakership and your party are held hostage by your most deranged and radical representatives of the far left.  Each one of your members lives in fear of a socialist primary challenger—this is what is driving impeachment.  Look at Congressman Nadler’s challenger.  Look at yourself and others.  Do not take our country down with your party.

If you truly cared about freedom and liberty for our Nation, then you would be devoting your vast investigative resources to exposing the full truth concerning the FBI’s horrifying abuses of power before, during, and after the 2016 election—including the use of spies against my campaign, the submission of false evidence to a FISA court, and the concealment of exculpatory evidence in order to frame the innocent.  The FBI has great and honorable people, but the leadership was inept and corrupt.  I would think that you would personally be appalled by these revelations, because in your press conference the day you announced impeachment, you tied the impeachment effort directly to the completely discredited Russia Hoax, declaring twice that “all roads lead to Putin,” when you know that is an abject lie.  I have been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even thought to be.

Any member of Congress who votes in support of impeachment—against every shred of truth, fact, evidence, and legal principle—is showing how deeply they revile the voters and how truly they detest America’s Constitutional order.  Our Founders feared the tribalization of partisan politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life.

Worse still, I have been deprived of basic Constitutional Due Process from the beginning of this impeachment scam right up until the present.  I have been denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution, including the right to present evidence, to have my own counsel present, to confront accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses, like the so-called whistleblower who started this entire hoax with a false report of the phone call that bears no relationship to the actual phone call that was made.  Once I presented the transcribed call, which surprised and shocked the fraudsters (they never thought that such evidence would be presented), the so-called whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, disappeared because they got caught, their report was a fraud, and they were no longer going to be made available to us.  In other words, once the phone call was made public, your whole plot blew up, but that didn’t stop you from continuing.

More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.

You and others on your committees have long said impeachment must be bipartisan—it is not.  You said it was very divisive—it certainly is, even far more than you ever thought possible—and it will only get worse!

This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth.  You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party.  But because of this colossal injustice, our party is more united than it has ever been before.  History will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment charade.  Your legacy will be that of turning the House of Representatives from a revered legislative body into a Star Chamber of partisan persecution.

Perhaps most insulting of all is your false display of solemnity.  You apparently have so little respect for the American People that you expect them to believe that you are approaching this impeachment somberly, reservedly, and reluctantly.  No intelligent person believes what you are saying.  Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever.  There is no reticence.  This is not a somber affair.  You are making a mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your hatred of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions of patriotic Americans.  The voters are wise, and they are seeing straight through this empty, hollow, and dangerous game you are playing.

I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election.  They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.

There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens.  It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People.  While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.

One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.

Sincerely yours,

DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of America

Holy shit. Can you imagine writing this, handing it to someone who is paid by the taxpayers to give you advice, and saying “that’s perfect, and everyone will know I’m a smart and sane person when they read it”? The Washington Post annotated the whole thing if you want to read their running commentary while you descend into madness, but two quick thoughts from me:

• The Federalist Papers are the owner’s manual to the Constitution. They’re worth reading, if not for the layperson then for, you know, the fucking Commander-in-Chief and others elected to serve the American people. It’s pretty clear the President is not familiar with them and is happy to make baseless claims about what is and isn’t consistent with the Constitution without knowledge and/or with willful ignorance. But you all can read what the Federalist Papers said about impeachment…and you should. And then call your Senators (202-224-3121) to remind them that you actually want to see them consider the facts that the President, his lawyer, his Chief of Staff, his Secretary of State, and countless others have subjugated the interests of the American people in favor of their own financial and political self-interests.
• The President believes in debunked conspiracy theories, and Republicans are totally fine putting party over country, so fuck all of them.

From a giving advice perspective, I say the President needs a sedative and the 25th amendment, and everyone else needs to take to the fucking streets and vote the (Republican) bums out.

Alright, let’s close out with a letter I’ve had bookmarked for like a month from Slate’s “How To Do It” column–

Dear How to Do It,

If a straight man receives oral from a trans or gay man does that make the straight man gay? Asking for … a friend.

—Not My Friend

Ah, the age old question, is a mouth just a mouth? Due in part to the name I chose for this mailbag series–and don’t you just hate when a working title becomes a title because you haven’t come up with anything better? Suggestions still welcomed–I may as well be an expert in the category of, as the kids say, mouth stuff.

So, there’s the general and the particular. In the particular, clearly this is a guy who got his dick sucked by another guy and wants to say he’s still straight.  Great. Go ahead. You do you.  In the general, is it possible to be 100% of anything? Is sexuality a continuum? I’m not a PhD in gender studies and/or anything, but I say who gives a shit?  If you want to identify as straight, gay, bi, pan, whatever, it is up to you. As long as the “mouth” is consenting, do whatever you want and who cares what anyone else thinks?

That’s it for me. If this has been too political/progressive/whatever for you, then kindly go fuck yourself. For the rest of yous, feel free to send in questions/comments/complaints to [email protected], and Merry Christmas!

Boss getting you down? In-laws moving in without your permission? Looking for the right way to quit a fantasy football league? Want to hear about all the injuries I’m already dealing with in a keeper league? No one ever does, so just let me know if you need advice! Email [email protected] with your questions, post questions below, and spread the word!