First comes the moral bankruptcy, then the actual bankruptcy.

‘Puter’s adopted home state has officially jumped the shark. To call New York a banana republic would be an insult to smarmy, self-important petty dictators everywhere.

New York has been spending itself into a hole for years. People are leaving the state in droves. The top 10 counties for property taxes as a percentage of home value are in New York. Our past governor Eliot Spitzer whored himself out of office. Our immediately past Senate majority leader Joe Bruno whored himself out while in office. Our current Assembly majority leader Shelly Silver is whoring out his office; he just hasn’t been caught yet. Our current governor David Paterson couldn’t govern his way out of a paper bag. And yesterday, it got crazier.

The New York Senate in the last election flipped to Democrat control for the first time in 40 years or more. It took the Democrats several weeks to elect a leader because they first had to buy off four NYC Democrat senators to get them to caucus with the Democrats. Newly minted Senate majority leader Smith has accomplished exactly nothing, except paying back the Republicans in spades for the mistreatment Democrats suffered while in the minority. So, the Republicans went out and bought two of the Democrat senators the Democrats bought off originally, declared a coup, and flipped the Senate back to Republican control. Whereupon, the Democrats called shenanigans, locked the Senate chambers and went home.

First, a pox on both houses. There are many, many bills waiting to be passed prior to the June 22 end of session. Among them, gay marriage (‘Puter does not support), sales tax reauthorization (‘Puter supports, because otherwise his property taxes are going to get higher), etc.

Second, a plague on the Republicans. Rather than go out and win based on their positions at the ballot box, Republicans chose bribery. And the two Democrats Republicans flipped? they’re scumbags. Pedro Espada, Jr. (D-Bronx) has repeatedly violated ethics rules by diverting state money to his own business interests. And Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens) allegedly slashed his girlfriend’s face with a broken glass in a drunken fight.

‘Puter’s got to laugh or he’d cry.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.