This week: What’s fat and orange and worse than COVID?; How do Trump supporters live with themselves and how the fuck will we live with them?; Mitch and Vladimir sitting in a tree, c-o-n-c-e-d-i-n-g; Behold! The combination of church and state just as the Founding Fathers planned it; And anti-vaxxers now have a whole new reason to go fuck themselves.
Dig it…
This week: What’s fat and orange and worse than COVID?; How do Trump supporters live with themselves and how the fuck will we live with them?; Mitch and Vladimir sitting in a tree, c-o-n-c-e-d-i-n-g; Behold! The combination of church and state just as the Founding Fathers planned it; And anti-vaxxers now have a whole new reason to go fuck themselves.
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I know it’s been a hard year for everybody and that for many people there’s still no end in sight. But just imagine how COVID-19 must feel. I mean, it’s done everything it possibly can to wreak havoc on our world and yet it’s been relinquished to a distant second place in the category of “Worst thing that has happened to humanity in the past 4 years.”
Donald J. Trump: Worst Thing.
In 2016, an astonishing, though minority, number of people thought it would be a good idea to elect a philandering, trash-talking, serial bankruptcy-declaring, baby-punching (I assume) pussy-grabbing (his words, not mine) wretched jackhole (my words, not his) as the President of the United States.
They were wrong.
But that’s a big part of the problem. If there’s one thing all humans have in common, it’s a nauseating aversion for admitting we’re wrong.
But it takes an entirely different level of oblivious denial to dig in your heels and pretend that you were 100% right all along and that everybody else was wrong.
Enter Donald Trump and the 74 million people who over the past four years watched him wave a bible around like he was trying to get it off of him, separate children from their parents like they can just go to the store and buy new ones, cozy up to dictators like they’re allies, insult allies like they’re dictators, cheat at golf more times than there were weekends, and tell over 25-thousand lies, and yet still vote for him a second time!
If Donald Trump no longer being our president is the nation’s long overdue ice cream sundae, then an endless future of having to deal with him and his mouth-foaming supporters is three scoops of dog shit hiding under the whip cream.
I mean, yes, Joe Biden got 9 million more votes than Trump; and yes, Joe Biden’s 302 Electoral College votes were confirmed this week; and yes, there have been recounts and investigations and way too much time spent in actual consideration of a woman who was so batshit insane that even Crazy Uncle Rudy had to reel her in.
And yet, Sorest McLoserman spends all the time he’s not spending on anything else, endlessly trying to top his own false claims on Twitter as well as posting astonishing assaults on self awareness…
Oh, really?
Tell that to Hillary’s face at your inauguration
#HillarysFace
The game is over. But Trump is still running around on the field throwing hail mary passes to nobody while the maintenance crew yells at him to get off their fucking lawn.
He’s the human equivalent of “But wait! There’s more!” when all anybody really wants is much much less.
But unlike Captain Asshat himself, his two most influential supporters have now officially congratulated President-elect Joe Biden. I’m talking, of course, about Mitch McConnell and Vladimir Putin.
According to Putin, he would have weighed in earlier but watching Trump’s endless meltdowns was presumably even more fun than his weekly Pee Tape viewing parties at the Kremlin.*
(*unconfirmed)
As for McConnell… he’s just a dick. Keep in mind, this is the guy who back in 2010 claimed “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Not “help fix health care.”
Not “protect our planet from global warming.”
Not “end social and economic injustice.”
His “single most important” issue was to make sure nothing good got done. He’s like a Bizarro Mother Teresa, which, if DC Comics hasn’t already claimed rights to the character, is mine!
Mine, I say!
Well, on Tuesday, a full six weeks after the election, McConnell finally referred to “President-elect Joe Biden” but even then, only after saying “the Electoral College has spoken” because apparently he didn’t give a shit about the 81 million Americans who spoke first. Because like I said… he’s a dick.
Oh!
By the way!
Speaking of Putin!
It’s now widely believed that Russian hackers working for the Kremlin are responsible for a massive breach of U.S. government computer systems at the departments of Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security. You know, in the event you thought maybe this chum bucket of a year couldn’t get any worse. The breaches may have gone on for months before they were discovered and it’s highly possible they exposed a dizzying array of extremely sensitive and almost certainly damaging public, private and top secret information.
Investigators are not yet certain how the breaches occurred, but here’s a little reenactment of how I think it may have happened…
INT. – OVAL OFFICE – DAY
Obese, lame duck president sitting at desk bingeing YouTube videos of people hurting themselves by accident. The phone rings.TRUMP: Yello.
UNKNOWN CALLER/SPAM RISK: Is this John Donald Trump?
TRUMP: Close enough.
UC/SR: Congratulations! You’ve qualified for an all-expense paid golf outing to Golf Place, USA! Golf!
TRUMP: Wow! That’s great! It’s been hours since I went golfing!
UC/SR: Fantastic. We just need your mother’s maiden name and your personal DHS password.
TRUMP: Well, I don’t know that first thing, but my password is 432KB9– Hey, wait a minute. This isn’t Vladimir, is it?
UC/SR: Nyet.
TRUMP: Good. 432KB9…
And now we’re probably fucked.
###
And finally, it’s time for a special installment of:
“Grotesquely Wealthy Non-Tax-Paying Christian Televangelist’s Profiting From COVID-19!“
First up is Joel Osteen who apparently showed up on the 8th day, when God created teeth.
And there’s his lovely partner, Victoria, who apparently showed up on the 9th day, when God created a pile of stereotypical televangelist wives.
Joel and Victoria’s Lakewood Church in Houston is the largest megachurch in the nation with 52,000 weekly congregants and millions more viewers around the world. Back in late July, Lakewood was so very fortunate to receive a government (read: tax-payer funded) PPP loan of 4.4 million dollars. The Osteens are quick to point out they did not benefit personally from the loans at all. And even if they did, most of that money would have gone directly to whatever small army it must take to mow their lawn every two weeks.
Their actual house.
To say nothing of refilling the pool with fresh holy water every time its subjected to satanic contact with their genitals.
Osteen is one of America’s richest pastors with a reported net worth of over 100 million dollars, so he could have done the truly Christian thing and coughed up the money himself to come to the aid of his probably-underpaid megachurch employees, but as they say,
The Lord works in mysterious fuck offs.
Next up are Marcus and Joni Lamb of the Bedford, Texas-based Daystar Television Network Lambs.
The Lord went with a slightly more “cool but creepy neighbor” vibe when he created the Lambs, but he apparently filled their hearts with the same priority of “Gotta get mine!”
Daystar, valued at over $230 million, received their own 3.9 million dollar PPP loan earlier this year and just two weeks later, purchased a multi-million dollar Gulfstream private jet that the Lambs may or may not have (but almost certainly did) use privately “for beach and golf trips.” In fairness, Joni’s hair is considered an extra carry-on when flying commercial and it was starting to get expensive.
#JonisHair
It’s worth noting that because they’re gross and terrible, the Lamb family have routinely used their platforms to support Trump and Trump-related bullshit, as well as to promote anti-vaccination organizations, though something tells me they might be jumping the line to get the COVID-19 model. Because…
“Gotta get mine!”
– The Lambs
Also, in November, Daystar encouraged its members to sign a petition urging the Supreme Court to either recount or overturn the presidential election results and institute a re-vote. Why? Because that’s what Jesus would have done… if he was an asshole.
UPDATE I DON’T REALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT: The Lamb’s reportedly returned the PPP funds, but only after news of their Gulfstream purchase leaked out, which means they almost certainly wouldn’t have returned it if nobody busted them, and they were obviously financially able to return it. So I hope the next flight they take is filled with crying babies and horrible people who put their bare feet on the armrests.
***
But, of course, there’s also finally some good COVID news, though even just typing that makes me feel like I got something wrong.
America’s first COVID-19 vaccination was administered Monday to brave front line worker Sandra Lindsay who, particularly considering the gravity of the moment, kept a surprisingly solid poker face.
Is she thinking,
- A: I’m proud to lead the way in this fight!
- B: If I die, it will not have been in vain!
- or C: Did I leave the oven on?
It’s genuinely hard to say.
Millions more doses of the vaccines are currently being distributed across the nation with priority going to healthcare personnel, residents of long-term care facilities, and, of course, Marcus and Joni Lamb. “Just leave two doses with our pilot,” said Lamb. “He’ll give ’em to us when we reach a comfortable cruising altitude in our new Gulfstream, y’all! What what!!”
***
Ending, as usual, on a positive note…
This week’s musical guest is The Band.
Not A Band.
Thee Band.
Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, a constant parade of amazing guests artists, and the best singing drummer in the history and future of singing drummers, the one and only Levon Helm.
My brother, Glenn, introduced me to The Band many moons ago. It made sense since Glenn actually went to “The Last Waltz” concert on Thanksgiving Day in 1976 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, which, of course, is epic. There are so many great songs to choose from, but I chose this one and here’s why. When I was in 7th grade, our music teacher, Mr. ForgotHisName, would let a handful of students choose records to bring in every Friday. He would play them for everybody provided they weren’t too loud or too lascivious or too much of both. When it was my turn, I brought in The Band (their second album) and asked him to play “Up On Cripple Creek.” I remember my disco and/or very classic rock-listening friends being quite confused by this. “Is that guy actually yodeling?!”
Yes. Yes he is.
And I loved it. And to all those friends who thought I was a little weird at the time… how ya like me now?
Dig…
It…
Peace, y’all.
