Trump Vows to Send Statue of Liberty Back to France

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, Donald Trump surprised attendees by announcing plans to tear down the Statue of Liberty and send it back to France. “Look, we need security. We need to be the best at it. To protect our borders. Our symbol can no longer be a tall ugly woman telling terrorists they can just walk right in. That’s not right. No one wants to see that. It’s weak. Later today I will be signing an executive order to remove the Statute of Liberty and send it back to France in pieces. They want the refugees, they can have them all.”

The Statue of Liberty has stood as a beacon to those entering the United States since it was gifted by France in 1886. Between 1886-1924, 14-million immigrants entered New York and one of their first sights was the lady who welcomed them with open arms. The Statue of Liberty’s base holds a bronze plaque with the following poem by Emma Lazarus,

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Trump was quick to quell the disconcerted reaction of attendees, “Just don’t worry about it….We have to be tough, it’s time we’re going to be a little bit tough, folks. I am going to build a new Statue of Liberty. It’s going to be bigger. So big. So big they can see it in Iran. And I’m gonna have a new model. A gorgeous girl. I’m going to hold a pageant and the winner will be the new Statue. The new model, gorgeous. She’ll be standing in that spot smiling, and maybe she’ll have a gun. She’ll be telling them to keep out. Wonderful. Strong.”

French officials have not responded to interview requests but a spokesman for Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that they have been in contact with the White House. A small group of protesters have already begun to gather around the National Monument and officials believe that the numbers will swell in the coming hours.



Orbson’s Call to Action: Have you ever noticed that whenever Trump speaks it sounds like somebody Frankensteined a Cheetos? For example, while talking about Black History Month he states, “You read all about Martin Luther King when somebody said I took a statue out of my office. And it turned out that that was fake news. The statue is cherished. It’s one of the favorite things—and we have some good ones. We have Lincoln, and we have Jefferson, and we have Dr. Martin Luther King.”
He appears to have the intellectual capacity of a 5-year old. A white supremacist, egomaniacal 5-year old, but still a 5-year old. I began to ponder why that might be and may have a theory. Perhaps at some point in his life he suffered a head injury, who knows, perhaps he was peed on a bit too hard. Regardless, he may now be suffering from the aftereffects. Now, I am not a doctor but if Saturday morning cartoons have taught me anything, another knock on the head could help him out quite a bit. So for this call to action I ask you to call you representatives, the media and anyone else in contact with President Pussygrabber and ask them, for Trump’s own well-being, to smack him as hard as they can. Go forth…

Photograph by Erik Daniel Drost

Famous Statue of Liberty Sonnet to be Replaced

On Tuesday, Congress will vote on a measure to replace the final five lines of the famous sonnet “New Colossus” on the Statue of Liberty with a poem written by Arizona Republican Governor, Jan Brewer. Since 1883, the words of poet Emma Lazarus has adorned the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. The five lines in question are:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Governor Brewer spoke about the proposed measure. “The Lazarus sonnet has no place in this country. It is essentially like putting a sign on your front door saying, ‘sure, come right in and take whatever you’d like.’ Well, I’m sick of people taking. I believe it is time we put up a new sign that says ‘we don’t want your kind here’.” Certainly, Brewer’s replacement lines do just that:

"When darkness breaches our golden shore,
Be wary, those who seek to come,
Whose purity reaches not the core,
The Godly shall cleanse the vile scum,
Our guns shall sound and you’ll hit the floor."

Opponents of the measure claim that the added lines are clearly racist and degrade the purpose of both the sonnet and the Statue of Liberty itself. According to the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, New Colossus has "come to symbolize the statue's universal message of hope and freedom for immigrants coming to America and people seeking freedom around the world." When confronted with that fact, Brewer stated, “Well, maybe we’ll need to do something about the statue next.”

Calls to the foundation revealed that the Statue is currently closed to the public for renovations. Whether this will include the replacement lines for the New Colossus, we will find out when Congress votes on Tuesday.




Photograph by Erik Daniel Drost