UPDATE: VICE has retracted the Hall of Preidents story. However, the real Trump is still an asshole, and his robot doppelgänger will probably cause mayhem when finally unleashed on an unsuspecting public. — 6/28/2017.
Since I grew up in the shadow of The Mouse, I’m familiar with Disney’s hokey-ass Hall of Presidents exhibit. In case you aren’t, I’ll summarize: It’s like a jingoistic “It’s a Small World” ride, only with robots fashioned to look like U.S. presidents instead of multicultural animatronic dolls in traditional garb, and it features a mostly warts-free voice-over account of U.S. history in place of the painful ear-worm song. Lincoln and whoever is the current president have the only speaking roles.
Bush 2 was president last time I actually sat through it, but Obama’s people worked out a short speech with the Disney folks, which President Obama himself recorded in time to ensure a transition between robot presidents as seamless as the real transfer of power. Just as Bush 2 had done when Robot Bush 2 took over for Robot Bill Clinton.
You’ll be shocked to learn that Robot Donald Trump is just as big a pain in the ass as his bloated, orange, fleshy counterpart. Via VICE’s Motherboard:
“When Disney tried to get this process started earlier this year,” said the source in an email to Motherboard, “Trump’s people said, ‘We’ll be writing the speech that the President’s Audio-Animatronic figure will be saying.'”
“The Imagineers [the researchers and developers behind Disney’s theme park attractions] tried to point out that they’re typically involved with this process,” continued the source. “That they directly collaborated with Clinton, Bush, and Obama’s people when it came to figuring out what the President’s Audio-Animatronic figure would say. Trump’s people said, ‘No. We’re writing this speech. You guys have no input on this.'”
So that’s been the holdup. Disney has always collaborated with the president on the final speech. Disney, apparently, has finally reached an agreement with the Trump team, though we still don’t know yet how much involvement Disney will have in the crafting of the speech (if any).
“There are those at Imagineering who hope that if they hold off on doing anything with this attraction until the fall, Trump may have done something so egregious that the general public won’t have an issue with putting a non-talking version of [Trump] in The Hall of Presidents,” said the source.
And now, a simple speech recording—something that should have been small, perfunctory, and ceremonial—has snowballed into a political issue.
The Imagineers will be waiting a long time if they think Trump will ever do something egregious enough to put off his cult followers. Those morons will line up to kiss Trump’s ass as he’s disconnecting their disabled children’s ventilators due to Medicaid cuts.
But yeah, a non-talking Trump would be the least embarrassing option. Or just scrap the whole goddamned thing — send animatronic presidents 1-44 to their respective libraries, demolish the Hall of Presidents building and erect a circus tent in its place to honor the current clown. The US presidency has jumped the fucking shark.
Gravenstone
Um, is that supposed to be President Obama there in the middle? If so, fire those fucking Imagineers.
Manyakitty
I bet his will say, “No puppet! No puppet! You’re a puppet!”
schrodingers_cat
I didn’t even know that this existed!
waspuppet
Can’t the animatronic Trump just grab every you-know-what in the audience?
MJS
Fuck what he says. I’d be more concerned with what robot Trump does with his hands. Lots of 10 year old girls go through that exhibit
schrodingers_cat
Have you guys been to the National Portrait Gallery, so many Presidents of the same time period, end up looking similar to each other, first because of the wigs in the late 18th century, and then the facial hair in the 19th century. I could only tell the ones from the 20th century apart.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Looks like the NAILED the Trump robot(gut and golf club in hand).
Yes, I know that’s some fancy photoshop work there.
germy
Why does Obama look like Tommy Smothers in the above photo?
Betty Cracker
Side note: I had to drag my little brother screaming out of both the Hall of Presidents and Country Bear Jamboree. As soon as those animatronic thingies moved, he flipped right the fuck out.
I think Reagan was president back then. His robot was convincing because Reagan was sorta robotic. Romney would have been the easiest of all; bet every Imagineer voted for him!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: Here, in CA, at “The Happiest Place on Earth” we only have Pres. Lincoln.
Roger Moore
@Manyakitty:
Perfect!
SiubhanDuinne
@Gravenstone:
I agree. It doesn’t look at all like him. You have to wonder how the Stepford Wives ever fooled anybody.*
*PLOT SPOILER for those very few who don’t know but may care: in Ira Levin’s classic horror novel, the men who crafted an entire townful of perfectly-groomed, non-opinionated, devoted handmaidens — the eponymous Stepford Wives — were all retired Disney creative and engineering types (“Imagineers”) with years of Hall of Presidents experience. Can’t remember whether this was made clear in the movie version.
trollhattan
@germy: “Mom always liked you best!”
germy
@trollhattan:
I guess the Smothers Brothers’ banishment from TV was permanent. They’re invisible men. I haven’t seen them anywhere on TV since the ’70s.
I remember watching variety shows back in the 60s, and old comedians and singers from the 1920s and ’30s were all over the place. But apparently there’s a blacklist nowadays. I don’t see Willie Nelson on primetime, nor Arlo Guthrie or the Smothers Brothers.
Citizen_X
@Gravenstone:
You mean the black guy being given dirty looks by all the 19th Century white guys? Yeah.
Rasputin's Evil Twin
Why not get Alec Baldwin to say some choice words?
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
That may also have something to do with how much you know about them and how often you’ve seen their pictures. I bet, for example, that you didn’t have too much trouble recognizing any of the older Presidents whose portraits are on money, because you’ve seen their pictures enough times that you know what they look like*. For the rest of the older Presidents, though, there’s a real dearth of images, both in popular culture and in absolute terms, so you just don’t have a knowledge base. It’s only once there was mass media taking their pictures all the time that there were enough images of them to make an impression on you.
*Also, too, for many of them we don’t have any photographs, so the pictures on the money are probably based on those same portraits.
bystander
There’s something about Trump as a robotic dummy that seems tragically redundant.
So Emmanuel Macron has asked on fb whether he should invite Trump to this year’s 14th of July celebration. So one after the other, merde, non, mauvaise idee. So I posted, sure, so long as you also invite Monsieur de Paris. He’s the official executioner from back in the day of the guillotine. So I thought it was funny, but somebody else didn’t. I’ve been deleted.
Mel
@Gravenstone: Same thought here. I couldn’t even figure out who it was supposed to be at first.
That robot looks nothing like President Obama, but definitely could be the animatronic lovechild of Ron Howard and Gilbert Gottfried.
Amir Khalid
That photo of Trump in his golf outfit proves that it’s not a bulletproof vest underneath his jacket that makes him look like an obese man in ill-tailored clothes; he really is obese, and also has no taste in clothes.
germy
@Roger Moore: Paintings were more flattering, too. Compare the official portraits of John C. Calhoun to a photograph of him. In the paintings he looks like a mythic hero, while the photos reveal an evil, demented old soul.
Peale
@germy: Yeah. I was there about 5 years ago. They really didn’t quite get Obama captured that well. Although a lot of the presidents look off.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: the Smothers bros did some commercials, I think one of them has gone to his reward.
They seem to try to relaunch the old variety show formula every few years. I think Maya Rudolph and Martin Short had one a while back. I admit I did not watch even though I like them both. I think the noisy talent shows fill that void, and you don’t have to pay the talent. Or even the “talent”
bystander
Best book of photographs capturing the First Family remains Patrick Dennis’s “First Lady”.
Thanks to Peggy Cass and Cris Alexander.
The Moar You Know
No. Just no. Put a fucking talking Trump in there and have him read off the speech where he says Hillary needs a 2nd Amendment solution. Don’t whitewash his hateful diarrhea. Let the public who loves him so goddamn much bathe and roll in his stench.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They still live. Just not allowed on network TV.
Mnemosyne
I am definitely glad I got in to see the Hall of Presidents back in 2015. The face on the Obama robot isn’t great, but its movements are good, and obviously its his own voice.
I have no special insight, except that I’m pretty sure that the Imagineers are dutifully plugging away at this project while making a ton of rude jokes and wistfully looking at the selfies they took when Obama visited their workshop.
ruemara
I will never get used to the idea that this gelatinous mental fart is the POTUS.
Also, have the sculptors at Disney ever seen Obama? Because that is a shite rendering.
Shell
Lordy, like Madame Tussauds wax-works, they seem to have the same trouble making these robots actually look like the real people.
LurkerNoLonger
Disney should install Hedonismbot in Trump’a place. It would basically be the same thing.
clay
Oh come now, BC. The Hall of Presidents is pretty charming in its own way. It’s not a ride, though.
Leave it to Trump to pick a fight with Disney over the easiest thing imaginable.
low-tech cyclist
@Manyakitty:
You totally win this thread.
My wife and son and I were at Disney over Christmas (terrible time to go there, btw; will never make that mistake again), and we made a point of going to the Hall of Presidents then, because the hell if we were going there once Trump was President. Not particularly memorable, but now we can say we’ve done it, and don’t have to do it with the Shitgibbon as part of it.
Shell
Hmm, was he the same guy who dispatched Anne Boleyn?
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Hmm. Who’s the first POTUS to have his photograph taken? I don’t recall seeing photos of any before Lincoln.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Somewhere very recently I saw a collection of photos of Trump playing tennis. In shorts. I’m not even going to try looking for it again, as the images were horrific and I am trying to forget I saw them.
ThresherK
@Roger Moore: Wasn’t the famous GIlbert Stuart portrait of Geo. Washington painted during the subject’s battle with his false teeth?
(ETA: Or some other appearance-altering malady?)
germy
@Amir Khalid: John Quincy Adams, but the photo was taken after he’d left office.
Droppy
The beginning of a new sit com:
Animatronic Trump: You’re the puppet!
“Real” Trump: You’re the puppet!
AT: Four scores and seven grabs ago …
RT: Stop talking; you don’t sound like me; you’re a robot.
AT: I’m a robot designed by top people. The guy who designed me, his brother-in-law went to MIT. Very Brilliant.
RT: I was top in my class at Wharton. I’m like a smart person.
AT: No, I’m like a smart person; what if we trade places? I’ll do all the boring presidenting and you go back to … whatever it was Trump did before anyone gave a shit what Trump did.
RT: (ding!) Great idea ….
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I saw that photo. I will never unsee those tightly whiteys.
Mnemosyne
@Shell:
It’s mostly because the face has to move. You can do a decent sculpture in marble, but trying to re-create a human face using rubber and motors is as hard as it sounds. Especially since it has to hold up for dozens of shows a day for years on end.
Peale
@germy: Tang nabbit. I’ve known that fact since the third grade and now the one time its a useful bit of knowledge to have, I can’t type fast enough.
germy
@Gin & Tonic: He seems like the sort of tennis player who gets REALLY PISSED OFF if he doesn’t win.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Amir Khalid:
Who’s the first POTUS to have his photograph taken?
Google says John Quincy Adams
Mel
John Quincy Adams was the first prez to be photographed (a daguerreotype taken in 1843, well after leaving office).
The first to be photographed while in office was apparently James Polk.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
While in office or just a picture of them?
John Quincy Adams has a photograph when his much older post-Presidency, for example.
Mnemosyne
@low-tech cyclist:
The Hall of Presidents is where you take the kids on a hot day when the park is really crowded and everyone just needs to sit down in the dark for 20 minutes before murder is done.
If you think of it that way, it’s the greatest attraction ever created. ?
trollhattan
@germy:
Unlike golf where you can samdbag a match by launching your ball into the woods every time, it’s impossible to sandbag tennis if your opponent can’t make his second serve.
dr. bloor
@germy: They were on television, mostly late night shows, in the 80’s and 90’s. Tom is 80 now, which probably has more to do with it.
ThresherK
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Ah, but while a sitting president?
FDR was the first sitting president on TV, but Herbert Hoover was on a demonstration of TV in 1927, for example.
jl
Two observations.
One, why can’t we switch the Disney robot president with the meat president? Donnie would be a lot happier doing an endless PR gig. As long as he didn’t use naughty words, Disney could let him ad lib. The robot Trump would be more thoughtful president. Should be do-able, if it is the official Disney robot president, then it’s kind of the same president, right? Right, it is.
Two: we have had big fat presidents before, but they were ‘dignified’ fat. I offer Arthur and Taft as examples (Clinton was fat but not ‘big fat’). Trump is a new low there as well.
OK, sorry. Third point, I take it Disney has a robot president ride in Florida! Sacrilege! I thought it was only in Anaheim. Outrage! I remember the robot Lincoln from when I was a small tyke. But, then I was eager to go the haunted house and pirates, so didn’t pay much attention.
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: The Atlantic says William Henry Harrison.
The Moar You Know
@Gin & Tonic: Saw it. Pukeworthy. Seriously.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: All the dudes on the bills look pretty similar to me except for Lincoln. Hamilton doesn’t look anything like Lin MM.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Anaheim only has Lincoln. Orlando has every president ever in robot form (well, animatronic form).
germy
@The Moar You Know: I only saw the Bob Schooley photoshopped version, with MAGA on the seat of his shorts.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I went to grade school with a kid whose father was on the design team for Abe. Is the original Abe still in use?
Amir Khalid
It says something, doesn’t it, that a President disgracing himself so badly that a dummy of him must keep its mouth shut is now considered a plausible scenario.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: My Ass is the Greatest Ass?
ETA: And its YUGE.
hueyplong
Left to his own devices, he might record “There is no pee tape!”. Let mom and dad explain that one.
trollhattan
@germy: MAYA: “Make America Yuge Again!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I’m sure he’s had upgrades(I’ve not been to Disneyland in nearly 20 years), Mnemosyne would know better(she’s been more recently and works for ‘the GEC’).
ETA: The kid was surprised that I’d never been to California Adventure, I explained that the last time I visited Disneyland was the day they’d closed the old parking lot to build California Adventure.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
I went to grade school with a kid whose father was on the design team for Abe. Is the original Abe still in use?
I would assume so, unless there was a robot John Wilkes Booth at some point…
jl
The obvious solution is an audioanimatronic Trump sitting down eating a cheeseburger.
gvg
i googled hall of presidents Obama and he looks better in side shots. Also the lighting is too red, it really messes up the look.
do they have Nixon? Google says they do but he only visited disneyland and also it says he made the I am not a crook speech at Disneyland? Ron Ziegler was a jungle boat captain in college……
Yes, we have used it as a dark air conditioned break in the summer.
jl
Is that supposed to be Obama in the center of the pic at the top of the post? Seems to signal ‘Obama’ because the ears stick out the way his does.
But it also looks Dubbish, in that the eyes are a little two closely set and the brow is sharp right above the eyes, like Dub.
So, I dunno about now much work they put into the faces of their robot presidents. Do they have a template and just splash on a few details when they go from one to the next, or what?
NoraLenderbee
@ThresherK: I think the Stuart portrait left out the smallpox scars.
Mnemosyne
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Parts of him probably are, but they’ve upgraded components over the years. They still use the original voice of an actor that Walt liked who (I think) was doing a famous one-man show as Lincoln in the 1950s.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I had the same thought. I think there’s some kind of photoshop or filter or get off my lawn that puts one person’s face in the middle of another’s head? that’s what it looks like
?BillinGlendaleCA
@gvg: My next door neighbor in my dorm first year of college had been a Jungle Cruise captain, best job in the park he said.
? Martin
Eventually Disney will tell him to fuck off. Put the robot up for a week running his Access Hollywood tape, and they’ll cave immediately. Well, they’ll threaten to sue for a gajillion dollars first, but they’ll cave.
Hugh Hewitt says single payer is coming.
This is why the GOP is willing to sign onto a shitty bill. They marked ACA as fundamentally unacceptable, but all of its instability is a result of it not being socialist enough. The GOP has no choice but to back a more fundamentally broken alternative. They don’t actually expect the new bill to work any better, they just expect that it’ll reset everyone’s clocks and nobody will notice how horrible it is until after a Democrat has beaten Trump in 2020 and maybe the electorate will blame the Democrat instead of them. If they don’t pass a bill, they’ll have to face the shortcomings of ACA now, which is already driving CA increasingly toward single payer. Hugh lives here in OC. This is the heart of old-guard Republicans, but Clinton won OC in 2016, and he can see full well where CA is going in a way that the Republicans from the south cannot.
Matt McIrvin
I just recently learned that Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech was actually at Disney World (at a convention at the Contemporary Resort). Robo-Nixon already existed at that point over at the Magic Kingdom, but I think he was mute.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Looks like my argument for Seattle was effective, the kid decided to head there for her vacation.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Also too, Trump sucks at tennis. That photo showed him off-balance and hitting a lob straight up into the sky.
jl
@? Martin: Any public policy that will get in the way of using markets to suck up oligopolistic and crony capitalist rent payments is considered socialist by the GOP.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think they have a template and slap on some details. So each successive president will look like an amalgam of all the previous office holders. Until we get a woman president. Then they’ll have to make a new one.Another argument for electing a woman as president. And then the Disney robot president will probably look like Sleeping Beauty, with some wrinkles and few white hairs slapped on.
Matt McIrvin
@? Martin:
It’s a pure shell game–the part whose slow death (mostly from sabotage) they can loudly trumpet is the exchanges, but the part they really want to kill and need to kill is the Medicaid expansion, so they can have tax cuts–and the regulatory changes, to please insurers. The AHCA would actually keep the exchanges but make them even more unstable, but it’d slash the parts of the ACA that work best.
Whenever anyone identifies “Obamacare” metonymically with the exchanges, they’re helping the Republicans’ con job along.
Mel
@SatanicPanic: Looks like it was, indeed, Harrison in 1841 for the first prez photographed!
I had always heard that it was Adams, but instead it’s clear from the research in the article that Adams was actually the second (former, in his case) prez to be photographed. It looks like the confusion cropped up due to the fact that Adams’s photo is still extant, but Harrison’s isn’t. Neat article at The Atlantic! Thanks for the link!
Doug R
So Florida has ALL the Presidents AND the Pirates ride is shorter?
F*ck Floriduh!
Uncle Cosmo
@germy:
Napoleon Ier was an avid chessplayer but not all that good at it. The legend goes that whenever the opponent du jour defeated him, the rematch was conducted within sight of M. Guillotin’s gravity-assisted razor. Just sayin’…
Uncle Cosmo
@ThresherK: FTR, Hoobert Heever didn’t become POTUS until March 4, 1929.
Nicole
The Smothers Brothers had a variety show again in the 1980s, but it didn’t last long. It wasn’t a bad show, but the time for variety had passed.
They did lots of live performances until a few years back, but I recall Tommy Smothers having to stop because he was no longer able to remember routines; I’m not sure if it was dementia or just aging, but he said he couldn’t work anymore.
Uncle Cosmo
@jl: Forget the fat. The current President is morbidly obtuse.
ThresherK
@NoraLenderbee: “Warts and all” is only for the likes of Oliver Cromwell, heh?
Then again, Washington was 64 at that sitting, and would live only another three years. A little airbrushing for what would be the most famous likeness of him is okay, I guess. It’s not like photos of him in his prime exist.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: I’ve been thinking a lot about how much our state changed in my lifetime. Used to be a red state. But once white supremacy was off the table, the Republicans really can’t compete. They have no ideas beyond tax cuts. Even ones they might run on- deregulation in the housing market- they can’t because their base is still white supremacists and allowing more apartments would “ruin neighborhoods”. They’re locked in a death spiral and it’s really hard to imagine them coming back.
Amir Khalid
@Mel:
Seeing as how he was sick from Inauguration Day to his death a month later, there were probably few opportunities to photograph President Harrison while he was in office.
Uncle Cosmo
@jl: With a sign at the table: No comment on advice of counsel.
ThresherK
@jl: No. A bucket of KFC.
And I’m now having SCTV flashbacks to Dave Thomas, as James Whitmore, as Col. Sanders, in the one-man show, Give Em Hell, Harlan.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yeah, I saw that. She should consider Chicago at some point, preferably in the late spring or early fall before the nasty weather sets it. It’s a great city with lots to do. I never would have left if it hadn’t been for the winters.
NCSteve
@schrodingers_cat: Never heard of the Hall of Presidents?
Whatareya, some kind of mooslim shariah infiltratir from a forbidden terrorist country?
D58826
OK it’s all the D’s fault because they will not rush into the arms of the suddenly conciliatory Lisa Murkowski. Or so say the VSP on Nicolle Wallace’s panel. Now it is easy to ignore the idiot Matt Sclapp but the rest keep harping on why won’t Liz ‘single payer’ Warren compromise. Why do the D’s contuse to start from the point that Trump care is rotten at its core(Well maybe because it is). Trump is out on the WH lawn talking about Obamacare is in meltdown. The GOP has been campaigning on repeal Obamacare root and branch from 2009. What is there to compromise over – which weapon you want to use to kill the program?
Every one knows Obamacare is not perfect. Every big program like this has bugs that have to be fixed. From election day in 2010 the GOP has blocked every attempt at fixing things. They have said repeated that the people sent them to DC to repeal Obamacare. They spent 8 years talking about repeal but never gave an ounce of thought to the nitty gritty details of a replacement that would solve the problems of Obamacare.
During the run up to Obamacare passing there were hundreds of meetings, hearings ,etc. There was the bipartisan gang of eight. But when it came time to actually cast a vote the GOP was a solid NO. Sen. Grassley was all in favor of an individual mandate until Obama came out in support and then he flipped.
I think the D’s are correct in being suspicious that this is a combination of Calvin ball and Lucy and the football. And why should the Senate D’s fall all over themselves to compromise when they know the House would not pass anything that looked remotely like Obamacare even if Jesus carried the legislation across the hall to the House chamber.
So yes the D’s should be willing to meet but the R’s have to make the first offer. One of the criticisms of Obama is that he to often gave away to much/to early in the game. I think that the D’s have to adopt a wait and see attitude.
And as far as Liz Warren, she would vote for a reformed Obamacare in a heart beat.
And here we have ahole Schlapp complaining about pursuing the Russia story w/o any facts but he had been more than happy to flog emails/Benghazi for 4 years.
Bobby Thomson
@Matt McIrvin: yeah, we went there during the Nixon administration and I don’t remember him saying anything.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
I would love the spectacle of Trump’s lawyers trying to take on Disney’s phalanx of lawyers. Love. It.
ThresherK
@Uncle Cosmo: (I was imprecise in my post. As a radio geek I’m aware that Hoover, a fellow radio amateur, was on TV while he was in the Cabinet, before he became Prez.)
Doug R
Wikipedia’s got an article of course, with a video of President Obama’s preparation .
Kathleen
@germy: Fun fact. The Weavers were banned from television until at least the mid-60’s. Many folk artists boycotted “Hootenanny” because it would not book The Weavers. The Kingston Trio, who the lefty folk purists deemed “too commercial and impure” refused to appear on shows which banned The Weavers, including the Tonight Show. They also insisted that the audiences be integrated in the venues they appeared in the South. BTW, if you want to examine Early DudeBro, check out the folk scene from the late 50’s/early to mid 60’s.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: It’s still on her list of places to go, though next year is Korea with her mom.
NCSteve
The Hall of Presidents in Disneyworld didn’t seem anomalous when I went there as a kid in ’72 or even more than a bit hokey when we sobered up for Disneyworld day on senior trip in ’80. But now, I somehow just have a hard time imagining Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, and Taylor listening politely as the black guy talks. Well, maybe the first four Virginians. They had that whole “don’t show anything” thing going. Might even have disapproved of Jackson’s conniption fit. But I expect there would have been some choking and a couple of snarky “huh. One of Tom’s, do you think?” cracks passed around.
Steeplejack
@germy:
Thank you! My mind was obsessively clanking away—“God, who does he remind me of?”—and you nailed it: black Tommy Smothers.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
While it is true that Trump speaking is, well, humiliating, Trump silent is also, in some ways, humiliating. Since you’re 13,000-odd miles away, maybe, just possibly, could you cut us a little slack? Just a little bit !!
Thanks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@D58826:
Including, Obama.
artem1s
jeebus, you just know, whatever they come up with, it will be all ‘greatest EC win in history’ and ‘fake 4M votes’ and ‘most attendees to my inauguration, period’. they should have him holding a copy of that stupid EC Map. wanna bet Disney will be able to make oodles of dough selling tomatoes at the beginning of this ride in a couple of years.
D58826
So Chuckles is asking how can the two sides put politics aside and come up with heath care reform. You know in a way it isn’t hard. Just look at the various models in western Europe. Not one is ‘free market based’. Why? Because it doesn’t work. People do not pick a cardiologist like they pick a car. Given the nature of the US we probably can’t just pick up a European plan and implement it unchanged but there are lessons to be learned about what works and what doesn’t. One example – prescription drug prices. As long as we have a system that allows Big pharma to jack up the price of the epinephrine injection pens so that the CEO can get a big bonus or the guy who bought a patient for a generic drug and jacked up drug from $12.00 to $5000. per dose then we are doomed.
Oh god listening to one of the NC senators. He claims there is no mandate for universal health care but there is a mandate for reduced premiums. Well maybe in some strange world there is no mandate for universal coverage but there is a mandate for coverage for me and my family. And after you get every one agreeing for coverage for themselves you have universal coverage by default.
D58826
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yep and we even have him on tape saying so.
jl
@NCSteve: From what we know of their thoughts, Washington, surprisingly, might be the least amazed, alarmed or irritated. Probably less so than a lot of white bigot US citizens of today.
Bex
@Mnemosyne: Have you ever read “You Were Never in Chicago” by Neil Steinberg? It’s a great portrait of the city by a Sun-Times columnist.
schrodingers_cat
@NCSteve: I am from Puritan country and my ancestors from the old country could give those puritans a run for their money when it came to strict religious observances and being all purpose killjoys.
D58826
As i listen to the R’s on health care, Syria, Russia, – they are going to need a bigger memory hole.
Woodrowfan
well, there are only 5 with no photos, although #6 and 7 (JQ Adams and Jackson) are very old men in theirs.
jl
@D58826:
” there is no mandate for universal health care but there is a mandate for reduced premiums. ”
Stupid thing for the NC Senator to say. There is always a mandate for cheaper stuff, from bubble gum to fancy houses.
And, most of the other high income industrialized countries who have modern health care systems, that do as well or better than ours in providing service at far less cost, do have market elements in their systems. Netherlands and Swiss are largely market based systems. French has major role for markets.
Of course, it depends on what is meant by ‘markets’. As I typed earlier, for the GOP and the degenerate and corrupt discourse that is public discussion of economics in the US, ‘market’ means allowing oligopolists, monopolists, and crony capitalists to rake off as much rental income from their market power as possible. Anything else called socialist or communist.
The terms of US public debate have become increasingly reactionary over last 30 year, and there are several periods in US history, starting well over 100 years ago that would be called commie by today’s standards.
Also, Todd has his head up his ass, as usual. There is one party that is proposing exactly what Todd says he wants to see: the Democratic Party. But the BS conventions of our corporate media, or Todd’s head being jammed up his ass, prevent him from saying that. I notice that it doesn’t prevent him from explicitly or implicitly making the GOP the model of what should be done in other areas of public policy.
D58826
Wait a minute. Now I understand. The CBO score is wrong because that 23 million people being counted as losing health care is wrong. It seems that according to this GOOPPER as many as 15 million don’t want health insurance. They object to being forced to get it.
Well fine, as a society, we will not force you to get health insurance. But in return for our going along with your freedom, when you show up at the ER with your wife in labor the hospital will have a nice cot off in the back of the parking lot for her. And if she starts to hemorrhage, well I guess we can afford to give you a box of paper towels to clean up the mess. These people, if they really exist, don’t want to be w/o health care they just don’t want to pay for it. They are very happy to let every one else pay for it. I thought that was socialism or maybe just the definition of a red state citizen. Maybe I’m mistaken.
D58826
McConnell, outside the WH, is already poisoning the well in dealing with the democrats
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Now that’s just shrill and uncivil.
les
@? Martin:
They expect the GOP bill to work perfectly. After all, it’s not a health care bill, it’s a tax cut.
ualkity distruibutuion of economic goods.
@jl:
Your right. Gravity exists whither human beings exist or not. ‘Free Markets’ are a human social construct. We can make them what ever we want them to be. We can have like in the US shareholder capitalism/markets and your definition fits that. Or we can have stake holder capitalism/markets in which worker, communities, and owners all have a stake in the distrubtion of economic goods. Sure the boss will be paid more than the worker but not by the outrageous differences of today. George Romney, as head of American motors, made 63X what his line employees made. And the family lived quite well. Today a CEO feels he is being picked on if he is only making 400 x what his line employees are making.
d58826
jl:
Of course, it depends on what is meant by ‘markets’. As I typed earlier, for the GOP and the degenerate and corrupt discourse that is public discussion of economics in the US, ‘market’ means allowing oligopolists, monopolists, and crony capitalists to rake off as much rental income from their market power as possible. Anything else called socialist or communist.
Your right. Gravity exists whither human beings exist or not. ‘Free Markets’ are a human social construct. We can make them what ever we want them to be. We can have like in the US shareholder capitalism/markets and your definition fits that. Or we can have stake holder capitalism/markets in which worker, communities, and owners all have a stake in the distrubtion of economic goods. Sure the boss will be paid more than the worker but not by the outrageous differences of today. George Romney, as head of American motors, made 63X what his line employees made. And the family lived quite well. Today a CEO feels he is being picked on if he is only making 400 x what his line employees are making.
d58826
@les: It’s just the first step in repealing the legacy of every D president since FDR.
les
@d58826:
And then they’ll start on Republicans like Lincoln.
d58826
@les: So sad and just when people were getting to know about Lincoln . A rising young star in the party.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
There are photographs of John Quincy Adams, though they were taken well after he was president. Adams was unusual in having a distinguished post-presidential career. He was elected to the House and stayed there for almost two decades. Apparently William Henry Harrison had his picture taken just after his inauguration, but the picture has been lost. Lincoln, though, was the first president who really saw the power of photography as part of making a media image, so he was the first president to be photographed a lot. Rapid improvement in photographic technology likely had a lot to do with it, too.
Interestingly, though, it took more than a century between the first presidential photograph and photography replacing painting for presidential portraits. The first president who had a photograph as his official portrait was Jimmy Carter, and the photographer was Ansel Adams.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Is he competing for wrongest person on the internets now that Kristol is occasionally making sense? Obamacare would work if the Republicans weren’t sabotaging it. If they genuinely want to avoid single payer and don’t want Obama to get credit, they should patch the problems in Obamacare and pretend doing so is repeal and replace. The Democrats might even let them get away with the pretense if it gets them on board with a functioning system. Their big problem is they care far more about massive tax cuts for the ultra-rich than they do about long-term success.
d58826
New show same narrative – its the fault of the unreasonable D’s. If they would only be willing to compromised. If they only would stand up and do whats right for the country. Why are they pandering to their base.?
In 2009-2010 they did stand up for what is right and do the right thing for the country and the R’s used Obamcare as a hammer to beat them over the head with ever since. Of course they are appealing to their base, they are the ones that help elect them. When will we ask the R’s to stand up for the country and do what is right even if it is unpopular with the base. Yurtle has already come out and said he doesn’t want to compromise. Der Fuhrer is tweeting that its all the fault of the D’s and they won’t be needed to get Trumpcare past. Other R’s are saying that a defeat of Trumpcare or any compromise with the D’s would be viewed as a betrayal by the GOP base. All of this has come out this afternoon and the talk shows keep pushing the that D’s must come to the table and betray their base because to do otherwise would be partisan.
d58826
@Roger Moore: I suspect that if the R’s put Obamacare on a sound longer footing, Obama would not care if they renamed it Trump care. There was one tongue in cheek suggestion that the program be fixed and then renamed Romney care.
jl
This thread has wandered from the important topic of the post: presidential appearance and demeanor. I will bring things to order.
But the article really only focuses on obese presidents. Arthur looked big and fat, regardless of whether he was technically obese or not.
And I wonder of Teddy Roosevelt was really obese the way Cleveland or Taft were. Maybe time as a cowboy out west increased his lean muscle mass to make the BMI cut-off inaccurate for him?
A History of Fat Presidents
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/28/a-history-of-fat-presidents/#f1397ac102ef
WaterGirl
@germy: Exactly! But with a bit of a tan.
WaterGirl
@The Moar You Know: All I wanna know is does the Dumpster look as good as Chris Christie looked in his baseball uniform. And I’m not talking about the photo from when Christie played in high school. Seems like Christie and the Dumpster would be a match made in heaven.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
Kushner will never let it happen. There’s that whole thing about Christie sending his dad to prison that he will never forgive or forget.
NR
@d58826:
The right thing for the country would have been Medicare for all.
divF
@jl:
Kind of like bobblehead figures of baseball players ? I would think that, with a minimum of 4 years prior notice, they would do something a little more customized.