Bill Dalton: Caged chickens
Opinion writer Bill Dalton writes of a satirical scenario discussing chickens rather than people being rounded up in ICE raids across the country.
(Scene: News conference in Holland with President Donald J. Trump and Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem)
Trump: As I’m sure you know by now, my administration just filed a lawsuit to do away with cage-free eggs in Michigan.
(Chanting: Lock them up! Lock them up!)
Trump: Let me explain, for the benefit of the fake news media, why we want to put chickens behind bars again, where they belong.
(Interrupting)
ABC News reporter: Mr. President! Democrats complain that first you came for the illegal immigrants, and not many spoke up. Now you’re coming for the chickens, and a few are squawking. Democrats worry they’re next and no one will be left to speak for them.
Trump: They should be worried. You should all be worried. And someday we’re coming for the biggest chickens of all — the moderate Republicans in Congress. No one is safe, no one.
NBC News reporter: But why don’t you like cage-free eggs? Isn’t it a more humane way of raising farm animals?
Trump: Eggs-actly. It is more humane. That’s why we’re against it. They’re animals, no better than Jack Smith, that deranged prosecutor. They belong behind bars, not me.
PBS reporter: But isn’t it extreme to use ICE to go after chickens that refuse to be caged?
Trump: Kristi, would you take that one? Kristi? Put down that puppy … oh my. Did you have to do that in front of all these kids?
Noem: Puppies are like chickens, Mr. President. Sometimes you need to wring a few necks. Listen, after these cage-free birds come out of their shells, they’re hardened criminals.
eat(Chanting: Lock them up! Lock them up!)
CBS News reporter: What about chickens that refuse to go back into the cage?
Trump: Our great military will airlift and drop them from, oh, about 20,000 feet into Greenland — or is it Iceland? — I get confused. Maybe it’s Maryland. Anyway, those that survive will be allowed to “free range” eat snow.
FOX News reporter: What if some come back to roost radicalized?
Trump: ICE will handle that. They’ll go to a KFC internment camp. After that, I lick my fingers of them.
Michigan Farm Bureau: We hear you’re creating a Chicken Board, much like your Peace Board. What role will it play in egg prices?
Trump: Poultry producers can join the board for a modest $1 billion donation. I’m suggesting they set cage-free prices at $10 a dozen, caged at $1 a dozen. That’s before tariffs, of course. But let the markets decide. I believe in free markets.
(Masked chickens start throwing eggs, narrowly missing Noem.)
Noem: Cease and desist throwing eggs! Remember, there are laws against killing the unborn. Unless you want to be on the menu at the Border Patrol’s next chicken fry, I strongly suggest you desist now.
(Derisive clucking and obscene flapping of wings)
Trump: Listen cluckers — I love that word cluckers, reminds me of the good ol’ days in the South. No pardons for you unless you lay eggs for free for the GOP. Your choice, that’s all I’m saying.
(Chanting: Lock them up! Lock them up!)
Trump: (Grimacing) Gee, Kristi, I hope they’re talking about the chickens and not us.
— Bill Dalton is a former reporter and editor at The Kansas City Star and spends summers on the family farm near Fennville. His novel “The Bank Game” — a trashy crime thriller — is available from Amazon on Valentine's Day. eBook edition available now.
