William Walker - Filibusters Were Once Kind of Cool

Few people combined the expansionist ideal of American Manifest Destiny with the crazy notion that somebody can do anything that they put their mind to quite like William Walker.  Born into a wealthy plantation family in Tennessee, William attended school at several universities in the U.S., Scotland, and Germany, before getting his medical degree at the age 19.  He soon set up his own practice, but it did not last long.  William found practicing medicine boring so he moved to New Orleans where he received a law degree and founded his own newspaper.  He also met and fell in love with a deaf mute woman named Helen Martin.  However, before they could marry, the bride to be died of yellow fever.  Heart broken, William moved to San Francisco and took up the synergistic hobbies of heavy drinking and getting shot in duels.

By age 29, William had already tried being a doctor, lawyer, and newspaper editor, so he decided that his next logical career move should be president.  Not wanting to bother with the horse shit of campaigns and elections, William instead convinced 45 drunken assholes to invade Mexico.  William and his drunken personal army conquered the Baja Peninsula, which was quite easy given that nobody really wanted to live in such a god forsaken place anyway. William called his new country the Republic of Sonora, which was kind of a stupid name given that he wasn't in Sonora.  He also legalized slavery in his new, illegal republic, because if you're going to go crazy you might as well go all the way.  However, William was better at making drunken speeches than actually being a general.  It was soon discovered that he had made the strategic mistake of not bringing any food with him, and so when the Mexican army arrived, he was forced to retreat back to the U.S. after only six months of being president.   

As soon as William got back to San Francisco he was arrested for waging an illegal war and put on trial.  However, given that the general American sentiment at the time was "fuck Mexico" he was acquitted by the jury after only eight minutes of deliberation.  William hung out in San Francisco for about a year and a half before hearing of a civil war in Nicaragua.  Sensing opportunity, he gathered a new army of 60 random drunks, headed south to the small Central American nation, and promptly seized control of the government.  Not happy with just owning Nicaragua, he then tried to invade Costa Rica, a move which resulted in a war not just with Costa Rica, but also with Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and the British and U.S. Navies.  This did not go well for William, who after 19 months as de facto president of Nicaragua, burned the country's capital to the ground and surrendered to the U.S. Navy.  The U.S. Navy took him to New York where the people threw him a parade.

Later that year, William raised a third army and tried to invade Nicaragua again, but the U.S. Navy arrested him and promptly told him to cut it out with the shenanigans.  William spent the next three years writing a book about his exploits and getting drunk at fancy rich people parties.  At age 36 a group of settlers approached him about setting up an independent country on a small group of islands owned by Honduras.  William eagerly agreed and set out to become a president once again with a small group of drunks.  Upon arrival in Honduras he took over a small government building but was quickly arrested by the British navy who handed him over to the Honduran government.  The government of Honduras, tired of William's bullshit, put him in front of a firing squad. 

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WilliamWalker.jpg

Zebulon Pike - Lewis And Clark Were Pansies

If you really think about it, the Lewis and Clark expedition was basically a bunch of guys who just paddled some boats on a couple of rivers and almost starved to death a few times because they were idiots.  Now if you want to talk about a top notch expedition of exploration, then you need to consider Zebulon Pike.

Zeb was a military man who spent most of his early career on the frontier, exploring the headwaters of the Mississippi and whatnot.  In 1806, Zeb’s superior office, a chubby bastard named General James Wilkinson, ordered the then 27 year old Zeb to lead an expedition to explore the Red River in the present day states of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, which had recently been acquired via the Louisiana Purchase.  It was the usual “draw some maps and make contact with the locals” kind of expedition with a little “why not secretly enter what was then Spanish territory and just look around a bit” thrown in.

Zeb’s first task was to return a bunch of native hostage back to their tribe.  This was the only part of the expedition that went well.  Soon after, he came upon a group of Spanish explorers, and much like what you did with your high school prom date, decided that it would be best if he just kind of started stalking them for weeks on end.  This mostly involved acting casual yet surprised whenever they ran into each other at the mall or while entering native villages as soon as the Spanish left in order to demand that they take down the Spanish flag and hang the U.S. flag up in its place.  Again, much like your high school prom date, Zeb eventually got bored with these shenanigans, so instead decided to climb a 14,000 foot mountain for no particular reason.  Zeb failed, but they later named the mountain Pike’s Peak in his honor.  Today you can drive to the top of this very same mountain in your car.  Following the failed and pointless mountain climbing attempts, Zeb and his expedition became hopelessly lost for months, wandering around in a giant circle which ended exactly where it had started.  Unperturbed, Zeb then pushed his exhausted and starving men south into Spanish territory, leaving behind anyone who was unable to keep up.  

Soon after entering Spanish territory, Zeb and his men were arrested by the Spanish authorities.  The Spanish had known the whole time that Zeb was coming because his superior, General Wilkerson, in a convoluted plot to create his own country west of the Mississippi, was secretly a spy for Spain.  Zeb and his men, now prisoners, were taken deeper into Mexico where a party was thrown in their honor in every town they passed through, because who doesn’t enjoy a good party?  During these celebrations the Spanish authorities made the discovery that Zeb was bumbling idiot, and feeling bad for him, let him go and escorted him back to the United States with full military honors.  Most of the rest of the expedition remained imprisoned in Mexico, some not returning to the United States for years.   

Following his ill fated expedition, Zeb continued on with his military career, generally fumbling his way from one position to the next.  During the War of 1812 he was a part of the U.S. invasion of Canada where he died when a large rock, propelled by an even larger explosion, smashed his head in. 

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lieutenant_Zebulon_M._Pike_-_History_of_Iowa.jpg

#46 Joseph R. Biden (2021-????) Just Sit There And Keep Quiet

Sleepy Joe was the son of a devout Catholic used car salesman and had a terrible stutter throughout his childhood, something he tried to cure by reciting poetry with pebbles in his mouth.  Not the brightest bulb in the box, he was a C- average student clear through college, always just squeaking by.  While still in college, he met a teacher named Neilia Hunter, who he somehow convinced to marry him despite the fact that she often had to slip him $20 bills under the table to pay for dinner during their dates.  Neilia’s parents weren’t really down with the wedding, not because Sleepy Joe was broke, but rather because he was Catholic, it was a different time.  After law school, Sleepy Joe worked as a public defender for a few years, but deciding working sucked, soon after ran for public office.  Though continually putting his foot in his mouth, he somehow got elected to the U.S. Senate at the age of 29, making him one of the youngest Senators in U.S. History.  Something his wife and daughter celebrated by getting killed by a truck hauling corncobs while buying a Christmas tree.

Apparently having an education fetish, Sleepy Joe married a second teacher named Jill Jacobs, and hunkered down in the Senate for the next four decades.  Spending his time giving rambling poorly worded speeches, jumping motorcycles, trying to be everybody’s friend, and inappropriately touching women, though less in a sexual way and more in a creepy stepdad wanting to make a connection kind of way.  This probably had nothing to do with the fact he shared a bunk bed with his uncle while a child.  In 1988, Sleepy Joe ran for president, but soon after had to drop out because he plagiarized his speeches and falsely claimed he had marched for civil rights.  Not taking the loss well, Sleepy Joe did not run for president again until 2008, again losing because he was about as exciting as creamed corn.  However, he did get to be President Barry’s VP, because he was a moderate white guy.  The two men did not really get along, with neither speaking to each other for months at a time.  In 2016, he was convinced not to run for president because he was seen as being too old, too boring, and too prone to vomiting out random words. 

After four years of President Donnie, voters decided that a goofy old man is just what America needed.  Winning election in 2020, he became the oldest ever president at the age of 78.  So starts the presidency of yet another jerk.  What will the future hold?  We’ll just have to wait and see.      

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joe_Biden_tying_a_black_tie.jpg