Media outlets are making a BFD of the fact that The Former Guy and the Third Lady were the only living ex-POTUS/FLOTUS who didn’t participate in COVID-19 vaccine PSAs. Here’s a link to one such report from CNN:
Washington (CNN)All living former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and their respective former first ladies — with the exception of the [Fucknuckles] — are part of a newly released ad campaign urging Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine when it is their turn, a push that is aimed squarely at combating vaccine skepticism.
Of course, The Former Guy practically invented COVID-19 vaccine skepticism and hid the fact that he and the scowling birther received vaccines before blowing town. TFG put out a tweet-like statement yesterday or today from the Office of the Cranky Butthurt Toddler HQ that I won’t bother replicating here, but the gist is that every American who gets a shot should thank him. Fuck that noise. I’ll thank Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett and Dolly Parton when I get my shot(s).
Anyhoo, it’s completely unsurprising that TFG and the Third Lady didn’t participate in the ad campaign; they’re selfish pricks who don’t give a flying fuck about anyone but themselves, so an appeal to join in to increase vaccine acceptance for the national good would just confuse them. But you know what? That’s fine. I hope butthurt leads them to voluntarily airbrush themselves out of public life altogether and to become completely invisible outside their crackpot cult and tacky branded compounds.
Also, Steve M may be onto something here:
Republicans have been polled on Trump approval and on 2024, and the public has been polled on Biden, but there’s no cross-party polling of Trump or GOP approval, or any potential 2024 matchup. It’s as if pollsters and the press are afraid they’ll find that the GOP is unpopular.
— Steve M. (@nomoremister) March 11, 2021
It’s not Biden’s style, so in his address tonight, he probably won’t mention that the massive relief package he just signed has bipartisan PUBLIC support but had not a single vote from an elected Republican. The rest of us should mention that at every opportunity.
Open thread!
WaterGirl
I think Biden will say that this was a bipartisan bill in that about 75% of the public are in favor of the bill, even 60% of republicans.
I think he will also say that no Republican in the House or the Senate voted for this bill, but that he still has high hopes that they will join the Democrats on infrastructure and other things that all reasonable people agree on.
Low Key Swagger
I agree it is not his style, but he is well aware that there was a messaging opportunity missed in 09. He strikes me as someone who does not repeat mistakes.
dmsilev
One of the commenters over at LG&M suggested that it’s because he’s so vain about his appearance and usually wears suit plus ill-fitting tie plus red hat in public; he’d look even stupider than usual with one sleeve of both the coat and the shirt rolled all the way up to the shoulder.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I agree, I think he’ll mention it. It’s been Jen Psaki’s theme, and she doesn’t say anything off the cuff.
mrmoshpotato
Hopefully the Kremlin’s orange shitstain and the gold-digging birther bitch got bleach injected into their shoulders.
zhena gogolia
@dmsilev:
Ooh, can you imagine that doughy upper arm?
(fat-shaming is okay for Former guy, in my humble opinion)
dmsilev
@WaterGirl:
I think that’s right. Some article or column I read recently made the distinction between “bipartisan” and “nonpartisan”; the former being “supported by political professionals in both parties” and the latter is “supported by the general public, spanning a range of ideologies/beliefs/positions.”, and the relief bill should be thought of as nonpartisan rather than bipartisan.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I hope you’re right! Regardless, every other Democrat, elected or not, should pound that theme constantly. It’s the truth, and people who don’t pay much attention won’t know it unless they hear it repeated.
Hildebrand
The 60 second PSA is so good – and it ends perfectly with President Carter’s smiling face.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Even I would hope he’d have the sense to stuff his orange ass into a golf shirt.
dmsilev
@zhena gogolia: I’ve been trying not to, but yeah that was the basic issue. At some level he knows that he’s not Rambo with an orange head Photoshopped in, no matter how many cartoons Ben Garrison draws.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: Dolly Parton, who is in far better shape than TFG, obviously, had an elegant solution to the roll-up-the-sleeve thing: a dress that strategically bared the tops of her shoulders.
Hildebrand
@Betty Cracker: I heard that Senator Voldemort has suggested that Florida reject any money from this bill. He really needs to be drop-kicked into the sun.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Every pound of Trump is a pound of evil. That’s just science.
RSA
I’m hoping that once the checks start arriving, the Democrats have a way to send a postcard to every recipient, saying “Your representative <name, party> voted <FOR/AGAINST> the relief check you’re receiving.”
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia:
Totally. Especially given his remarks about others, and Dump’s “Hillary doesn’t have the stamina” bullshit.
Just Some Fuckhead
I often wonder if Trump lives in the fantasy world he spins for others. I read the Cohen book to try and understand that but it didn’t help. But it was a good book. Cohen is a good writer. Hopefully Trump will die in prison so science can get his brain.
Captain C
@mrmoshpotato: Or the Sputnik vaccine that average Russians seem to be avoiding in droves.
Nicole
@WaterGirl: I think you’re right; he will. Certainly that it’s a bill that has wide bipartisan support among the American populace.
Catherine D.
OT, but I loved this: Best ball boys Made me smile.
Redshift
I will mention again that for all the media whining about Biden “betraying his promise of bipartisanship,” in his inaugural address, he didn’t mention bipartisanship, he talked about unity, and we do have a remarkable level of unity on this bill, whether elected Republicans choose to be part of it or not.
Martin
Oooh. Newsom has hired former Stockton mayor Michael Tubbs to be a special advisor for economic mobility.
Tubbs championed and implemented Stocktons guaranteed basic income pilot.
mrmoshpotato
OT – WOTD
waesucks
Nicole
@zhena gogolia:
I very strongly oppose fat-shaming, but I tell you what, I completely fell off the wagon this week regarding that dumb Missouri preacher who told women the Bible wants them to stay skinny for their husbands. Because hearing a man who, ahem, very much fills out his XXL shirt, complain about women “letting themselves go” after they get married got me right where I start to see red.
(I have the same reaction with Trump, and for the same reason- dude is all critical about woman’s appearances but HAS HE SEEN HIMSELF?)
different-church-lady
I’m afraid they’d find the opposite.
mrmoshpotato
@Captain C:
Sure. Not sure about its
efficacy but bravo to Vlad. Even ordinary Russians are going “You fuckers are probably lying.”
Mike in NC
We went for four ghastly years where nobody actually knew Fat Bastard’s height or weight. So much transparency.
Redshift
@Hildebrand:
It’s worse than that – he suggested that all states should return any money beyond the amount of their “covid-related expenses.” Because the “waste” in the bill, in the wingnut view, includes things like avoiding first-responder layoffs in jurisdictions that were hit harder economically because they had taxes to pay for more than Alabama levels of services.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Yes, she did!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato:
The kid just calls her a hooker(she may have said escort).
debbie
Betty, you really have to publish a dictionary of your unique and colorful pejoratives, accompanied by your descriptive drawings/sketches. Fucknuckles is just the latest of your many brilliant gems.
Jeffro
I got my first ‘jab’ today and life is good!
Was very impressed with the set-up and OMG, thank you to all the volunteers (medical and otherwise) and National Guard members helping to staff this vital operation!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nicole: My daughter is very thin and the comments she gets daily piss her off to no end. No one ever talks about thin-shaming. Certainly, it’s nothing compared to fat-shaming but it’s real.
Redshift
@Nicole:
Takes me back to Rush Limbaugh’s one and only interview with David Letterman, where he started talking about ugly feminists or something, and Dave responded with “Oh, like you’re God’s gift to women!” and he had to sit there through the big laugh.
WaterGirl
@Catherine D.: That was awesome!
debbie
@dmsilev:
His golfing uni would have worked just fine.
Nicole
@Just Some Fuckhead: I hear you. My former roommate (and still dear friend) is very thin (as is her twin sister) and the stories she would tell me about things people, including strangers on the street, would say to her- ugh.
How about we all keep our thoughts about other people’s weight, height, hair, age, facial features, etc., to ourselves? Wouldn’t that be nice?
Except for that Missouri preacher. Fuck that unattractive guy.
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl: I have that same dress!
Shit–meant to post this under my Omnes sock puppet nym….
Just Some Fuckhead
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Apparently Christian Republicans are cool with not-fat sex workers. I guess that’s covered somewhere in Leviticus.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nicole: Maybe let’s not get carried away. We should be able to make fun of people with mullets.
Benw
@Jeffro: yay for you!
I enthusiastically thanked every damn person I could get my hands on (metaphorically – fuck off, Cuomo!) at the vaccination center
Brachiator
Selfish Pricks Won’t Acknowledge Pricks. Details at 11.
I think that someone quoted McConnell as proclaiming that the relief package would not really stimulate the economy. This was one of the most monumentally stupid things I read this week.
VOR
@Nicole: Remember when Trump fat-shamed Miss Universe Alicia Machado? “He called this woman Miss Piggy. Then he called her Miss Housekeeping because she was Latina.”
“I know that person. That person was a Miss Universe person,” Trump told the Fox News morning show. “And she was the worst we ever had, the worst, the absolute worst, she was impossible,” he said. “She gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem.”
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/27/495611105/in-post-debate-interview-trump-again-criticizes-pageant-winners-weight
WaterGirl
@Nicole: When I worked at the Vet School, my favorite vet had shoulder-length hair. One of the other vets reached out, touched his hair and said “hair’s a little long”.
My favorite vet reached out, touched the guy’s midsection and replied “stomach’s a little fat”.
SILENCE
It was perfect.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: I could fix that for you. :-)
Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sorta. Narcissists distort their view of reality to protect against emotional harm – and they fully believe those distortions. But they’re also somewhat aware that they are doing it. You see that in Trumps “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules.” line on Jan 6. He believes the fraud happened, but he also believes that permits him to break the rules (to commit his own fraud). If you then challenge him on that fraud, it’ll get distorted away so that it never happened in his mind, but also create a new justification to break the rules again because that’s the only way to balance things out against your ‘lie’.
This is why you can’t rein in this behavior through transparency. Journalists are completely useless here, because they cannot see their own culpability, no matter how plainly you present it to them. The only thing you can do is hold them properly accountable – put them in jail, ban them from the environment, etc. There is no capacity to learn and grow. In fact, the harder you try, the worse it will get because every time you hold up a mirror, they distort it and accuse you of lying, and then retaliate against you, just making the problem worse.
This is really where our systemic racism becomes most obvious because we have no qualms throwing people of color in prison who are bewildered as to why they are going to prison, but when it’s white men, there must be some sort of misunderstanding. He didn’t know the rules. Let’s go easy on him. See Q Shaman’s mom: he just walked through open doors. How could he have known standing in the rotunda in a loincloth surrounded by people calling for the VPs execution was wrong?
Hildebrand
@Redshift: If red states reject the money (like rejecting the medicare expansion), what happens? I mean, beyond the people of those states getting royally screwed.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: No, McConnell actually said the economy is about to take off, but it will have NOTHING TO DO WITH the 1.9 trillion dollar package that just got passed.
Un-fucking-believeable.
edit: can I just say that it’s wrong that spellcheck underlines that like it’s not a real word.
The Moar You Know
@Mike in NC: Ten years ago I weighed 245. I’m 6′ 2″, same as Former Guy is more or less, depending on inserts. Based on the difference between what I looked like then and Former Guy looks like, there is no way he is one ounce less than 280 and I suspect he’s at least 290.
Took me several years to drop down to 230 and a year-long attack of diverticular disease (of all things, caused because I quit eating out and started cooking for myself due to COVID) to drop me to 200. Be getting part of my colon removed end of April. Hope that stops it. Apparently I am a really, really shitty cook.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Won’t anyone think of the Political Horse Races?!!!
Delk
I got jabbed this morning. Sadly, I didn’t receive, I gave.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin: I think whatever is going on with Trump’s brain is the result of long-term stimulant abuse. If you go back 40 years, there was a completely sane and reasonable Trump. Sure, he had issues with honesty and grandiosity then but it’s nothing like now.
debbie
@Redshift:
These jerks are too cowardly to specify the provisions they think aren’t related to COVID relief because there aren’t any. Where are the goddamned journalists who will ask this question?
JanieM
@WaterGirl: That’s because it’s really “un-be-fucking-lievable.” ;-)
Benw
@WaterGirl: spellcheck and auto-correct are the worst. I’ve sent so many texts to my friends complaining about ducking things they must think I live near an experimental firing range
Just Some Fuckhead
@debbie:
Pretty sure they’re off moaning about Biden’s lack of press conferences.
Redshift
@Hildebrand: I haven’t heard of any governors (not even his own) taking any interest in Rick Scott’s advice. Apparently Scott has a history of telling other states what they ought to do.
The article I read also said that DeSantis is unhappy that Scott didn’t get more money for Florida, apparently oblivious to the fact that pushing for the bill to be half as big and then refusing to vote for it isn’t really conducive to influencing it in your favor.
JanieM
@Benw: I turn spell-check off on every device and app I use. I like a peaceful life.
ETA: auto-correct as well, unless I’m the one in charge of the list.
tokyokie
Amir will be happy to know that I spent a portion of my stimulus cheque today on a new first-kit LFC jersey. Although I should have gotten a break on the price, given the level of the Reds’ play of late. Maybe the squad is still in mourning over the passing of Gerry Marsden.
Nicole
@Just Some Fuckhead: Fair enough. A mullet is a choice, to be sure.
Nelle
@WaterGirl: My dad worked heavy construction. One guy kept riding him about this and that. One day, over lunch boxes, the guy asked, “John, why do you have such a big stomach?” Dad thought a minute and then said, “Well, the good Lord gave me a choice between a big stomach and a big mouth and I chose the big stomach.” The other guys about pitched over laughing and Mr. Big Mouth was left sputtering.
WaterGirl
@Nelle: Good one!
rikyrah
I watched the video about a half dozen times
WaterGirl
@Nicole:
Ha! A talented friend of mine used to do my house projects – my deck, etc – and I always knew immediately when he thought something was a bad idea. All he would say is:
“It’s a look.”
Baud
Trump didn’t do it because they wouldn’t pay him.
Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think that’s just how narcissism works. That’s the ratchet. Every one of your own failings gets blamed on others with you becoming the victim. And they add up over time. And if you are also ambitious the scale of the injury goes up as well. Trump real-estate guy was subject to one level of injury, but Trump Obama-critic was subject to a MUCH larger level of injury.
That’s why I was expecting Trump to not make it out of the WH in one piece – he raised the stakes immensely, which meant that the injury would increase to match, which means he’s need to distort and deflect would need to increase, which means he’d believe more and more people were out to get him, etc. It just becomes a vicious cycle.
Could there be stimulant abuse? Sure. Could just be age as well, where he’s less and less resilient to the injury while the scale of the injury keeps increasing. Or some combination of all of them.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Men’s clothing is much more limited stylistically than women’s. A woman can wear a sleeve that bares her shoulder while covering the rest of her arm, and nobody will bat an eye. A man who wears anything the slightest bit novel will get a lot of strange looks.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Baud: Or Trump thought it would be a video of him drinking bleach and shining a light up his ass.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Fair enough. I like to emphasize that she doesn’t think our first non-white President was here.
Amir Khalid
@Benw:
Spellcheck and autocorrect are the Devil’s handiwork. All they do is infuriate me. Keep them turned off, and just remember to check your spelling.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
This is stupid in so many ways.
I was also offended by the nutcase preacher’s assertion that Melania was some kind of ideal “trophy wife.”
WaterGirl
@Baud: I suppose they probably asked him. ??
noncarborundum
@Hildebrand:
Has no one spoken to you about the massive delta-v that would require?
Sure Lurkalot
@WaterGirl: Of course it’s not the Biden package that’s going to fuel the take-off! It’s the 2017 tax cuts trick-trick-trickling down everywhere like raindrops keep falling on your head. Have you been skipping your Voodoo Economics 101 class?
LurkerNoLonger
@Nicole:
Not to poor Joe Dirt, he was born that way.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Just as stupid, but thanks for the correction.
Republicans are floundering. They
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator:
Sure it is, as long as you don’t mind your wife doing porn.
Hildebrand
@noncarborundum: Worth whatever it takes.
CarolPW
@LurkerNoLonger: Sometimes it’s what inadvertently happens when you loose all patience with your hair and cut it off with the kitchen shears (not that it happened to me or anything).
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Meant to add that the Republicans refuse to co-operate with the Democrats and only make themselves look like resentful idiots. It is incredibly childish. And yet they actually believes this will work for them.
Just Some Fuckhead
@CarolPW: I started cutting my own hair when Covid hit big last March. Ordered a clipper set off of Amazon and watched Youtube videos to figure it out. Mrs. Fuckhead helps me out with some of it. She, OTOH, will not allow me to cut her hair. When she gets her second vaccine shot and it’s effective, her first appointment will be to get her hair did.
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: Voodoo Econ is an 8am class. Of course I’m skipping it! :-)
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: Total coincidence!!!! :-)
laura
@Martin: Michael Tubbs is a terrific man. It’s a doggone shame he wasn’t reelected and I’m thrilled that Governor Newsom is making a spot for him in his Administration. Michael Tubbs!
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I was also offended by the nutcase preacher’s assertion that Melania was some kind of ideal “trophy wife.”
I don’t think she did any actual porn.
Melania is not my favorite person by any means, but I don’t think she should be slammed unfairly.
There’s enough verified stuff to judge her by.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator:
So we shouldn’t believe our lying eyes?
SixStringFanatic
@Benw: Make a new contact in your phone and just give it the last name “fucking”, no other info necessary. Spellcheck will then give the word a pass.
Worked for me, anyway.
Ken
You may be thinking of the Levite’s concubine, which is in Judges. The moral of the story is that if your sex worker is raped, murder and dismember her, and use the pieces of the corpse to whip up a lynch mob against the rapists.
Hmm, now that I retell it, somehow “moral” doesn’t seem quite right…
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: You didn’t see the naked photos of Melania?
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
That’s not really porn.
Also, I think she did the photo shoot before she married the Orange Beast.
Ken
@WaterGirl: Does that count as porn nowadays? There’s a joke that, where young men used to have to sneak the magazines out of their fathers’ sock drawers, now they can see the same thing by turning off ad block.
Anyway, IIRC Former Guy once appeared in a softcore Playboy video — fully dressed, I hasten to say.
Uncle Cosmo
How much you wanna bet the average Russian suspects that there’s a “fellow traveler” in the Sputnik jab that infects recipients with a disease they’d have to get inoculated against every year** – and that Vlad the Paler’s mafiyosi buddies control the antidote.
** IIRC there was a SF novel from the 1950s (whose title escapes me) in which the Commies conquered the USA with a biological warfare agent that was fatal unless you got the antidote regularly – it was how they kept the population under control – until the protagonist discovers that in fact the antidote also contained a booster dose of the original agent, which otherwise would have become ineffective.
Benw
@SixStringFanatic: lol good ducking tip!
Brachiator
@Ken:
The woman is killed by her original attackers, not by her “master.” It is also not clear that she is a sex worker.
Still, it is an ugly, atavistic story. Some biblical scholars and theologians have tried to clean it up, but none of the attempts are persuasive at all.
Elizabelle
@Redshift: I saw that one! I think Rush was trying to compare Hillary Clinton (even then!) to the hood ornament on a Pontiac.
It did not go over well, and good on Letterman.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator: Let’s just agree to disagree because I am def not interested in what you consider real porn.
catclub
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The kid just calls her a hooker(she may have said escort).
So does anyone have theories on why she has not filed for divorce, [yet!] as most predicted here?
catclub
@SixStringFanatic:
I have always wondered if the spellcheck dictionary is accessible.