As aggressively as they eat, they aren’t good eating.
Filet one. I dare you.
Their innards have the consistency of a wrestling mat. And the aroma.
Actually, that’s only speculation. To eat any such catch you’d need an oil tanker of lemon juice.
The thing is, though they shine and gleam in the stream, they are just super-scavengers.
What creature? The goliath goldfish.
It’s real — a new and smelly race of overfed hyper-feeders. You can look them up. National Geographic reported on them a few years ago.
Giant goldfish.
They are insatiable. They are fat — a few attaining the weight of a second-grader. Aquatic experts have coined “Megalodon goldies” for them, borrowing the term for sharks as big as school buses.
The species brings to mind the wealth-born river monster in America’s headlines, his color that of copper tubing, now consuming everything in Washington he can wrap his jaws around.
Megalo Don.
Remember when he once pledged to “drain the swamp”?
Turns out the eco-function he had in mind, rather than removing grime and corruption, was to be the greatest bottom-feeder in political history.
The other day, mocking the He-Man sway credited to Mr. Marmalade in recent Republican primaries, former Washington Post star columnist Jennifer Rubin, now on Substack, issued a resounding, “Pshaw.”
The assumption, she writes, that the president “remains a powerhouse in American politics” is defied by just about any number you choose.
“Instead of a colossus, he has become a big fish in a shrinking, fetid pond of MAGA loyalists,” writes Rubin.
So true. Though Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie lost his bid for re-election at the king’s command, orders to behead Massie for challenging the king on releasing the Epstein Files fell on a bunch of deaf ears. Republican ears.
For Massie to get 45 percent in a deep-red district says everything about the tint and taint with which the heartland has come to perceive the Great Goldfish.
The latest Gallup Poll shows 76 of Americans say the economy has gone from bad to worse.
To observe President Goldie’s cavalcade of distractions, you’d think we are in a new Eisenhower era: at peace, a nation swimming in prosperity and low prices.
He really does want his legacy to be that bullet-proof ballroom.
He really does think blue-glossing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was a 2024 mandate.
He really does think a $100 million “triumphal arch” is just what the nation needs.
Imagine any president who, facing the challenges this one ought, would spend even a second on any of this, much less a combined $1.4 billion taxpayer tab – Forbes Magazine’s estimate for his “vanity projects.”
And then, the greatest monument ever to presidential corruption: the unchecked $1.8 billion slush fund for Jan. 6 cop-beaters and varied Big Lie foot soldiers.
Back to giant goldfish — and if you’ve Googled an image, you know “giant” is an understatement.
Where did they come from? They came from wealth — from aquaria owners who set them free. Voracious eaters, with stunning lifespans compared to the toilet bowl-bound kind, they’ve become a problem in places like the Great Lakes.
You might compare them to today’s new 1 percenters who think they can rule any body of water they inhabit.
Jeff Bezos says he doesn’t need to pay more taxes, and if he did, it wouldn’t make any difference. Will his $53 million Italian wedding be a business write-off?
Elon Musk got the keys to our government and left it a flaming Cybertruck, eviscerating any means we have now to combat Ebola on its home court.
Big data dealer Peter Thiel thinks he’s humanity’s savior, while calling climate hero Greta Thunberg the anti-Christ.
Thiel, by way, thinks JD Vance, the eyeliner-heavy empty container he promoted as VP, is best-suited for the White House after the current resident and his Ultimate Fighter throng leave the premises.
Inflated goldies. Bloated. Contaminated by ill-gotten gains.
Whatever their waistband width, we who today must tighten our belts will flex on Election Day the strength in our numbers.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
