Voting Now Open for the 2017 Ass Clown of the Year!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, today is the official start of the selection campaign for

The 2017 Ass Clown of the Year

By December 29th (the On-Crack Ass Clown for December, and the last biweekly award for the year) I will have named 26 individual awardees in 2017, all of whom are eligible for the annual award. Of course, if there's someone I missed or someone you like better, you are free to vote for the write-in candidate of your choice. Here are the basic ground rules for the Ass Clown of the Year voting, unchanged from previous years except as noted:

- Chicago Rules apply: you may vote as many times as you want, for as many candidates as you want. You may cast votes on behalf of yourself, your family members, your friends, your pets, your friends' pets, or anyone else, living or dead. In the interest of fairness, I ask that you not cast more than ten votes at any one time for any one candidate ... just vote more often.

- You may vote for any of the 26 biweekly award winners (the first 24 are listed below, and the last two will be announced on December 15th and 29th), or for anyone else you wish. SPECIAL NOTE: Donald Trump, having been presented a lifetime achievement award in October after receiving the award nine previous times, is no longer eligible for selection as a Right- or Left-Cheek Ass Clown; however, he may receive Ass Clown of the Year votes in this, his final year of eligibility.

- You need not be legally authorized to vote in an official American election.

- Photo ID is not required. If you are concerned that the Russians will manipulate the results to undermine the integrity of the award without such identification, consider that conspiracy theorists already convinced that elections are rigged will assume that any IDs presented will be falsified, anyhow. And in any case, integrity is a quaintly outdated concept in today's political world in which "facts" require no proof other than conformity to one's preconceived notions. I worry more about my fellow citizens than I do about the Russians.

- Votes will be accepted from now until 11:59 PM on December 31st. You may vote by leaving a comment on any blog post between now and then; by sending me an e-mail; by sending me a PM on Facebook if we are connected there; or in person if we should happen to meet.

I will provide periodic updates on the balloting as a PS to upcoming blog posts, and will announce the 2017 Ass Clown of the Year in this space on Monday, January 1st, 2018.

Here are the first 24 Ass Clown awardees for 2017, and the dates of their awards, in case you want to go back and review the citations:

January 13 (Right-Cheek) - Buzz Feed
January 27 (Left-Cheek) - White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer
February 10 (Right-Cheek) - Education Secretary Besty De Vos
February 24 (Left-Cheek) - Pricers and Packagers of Printer Ink
March 10 (Right-Cheek) - James Craig Baker and Brandon Brent Vreeland
March 24 (Left-Cheek) - White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (2nd award)
April 7 (Right-Cheek) - Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin
April 21 (Left-Cheek) - United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz
May 5 (Right-Cheek) - Hillary Rodham Clinton
May 19 (Left-Cheek) - Representative Al Green (D, TX)
June 2 (Right-Cheek) - Vice President Mike Pence and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt
June 16 (Left-Cheek) - The News Media
June 30 (On-Crack) - The GOP Health Care Plan and Its Supporters
July 14 (Right-Cheek) - The Trump Family
July 28 (Left-Cheek) - Donald J. Trump (8th award)
August 11 (Right-Cheek) - Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump
August 25 (Left-Cheek) - Louise Linton
September 8 (Right-Cheek) - Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX)
September 22 (Left-Cheek) - Senators Lindsey Graham (R, SC) and Bill Cassidy (R, LA)
October 6 (Right-Cheek) - Donald Trump (9th Award and Lifetime Achievement Award)
October 20 (Left-Cheek) - EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (2nd award)
November 3 (Right-Cheek) - White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders
November 17 (Left-Cheek) - Roy Brown
December 1 (Right-Cheek) - James O'Keefe

Let your voice be heard! Vote early! Vote often! Help me heap dishonor on the Ass Clowns who work so hard to Make America Groan Again.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo