Today in treason accusations:

"How dare they investigate crimes!"

-Mike Pence, outraged

Oy, this nonsense again. Huh? Why this nonsense from Mike Pence, who had this to say about the investigation into Donald Trump's many crimes.

"Truth is while we're watching our nation's capital, even today, we see many Democrats who spent the last two and a half years on baseless accusations. And keep trying to overturn the will of the American people in the last presidential election."

-Constitutional spare, Mike Pence

So, couple of things. Not sure anyone in that administration should be calling anyone's accusations as baseless. The first thing Donald Trump did after the election was baselessly claim that he only lost the popular vote because millions of Clinton voters voted illegally. And speaking of, is it really overturning the will of the people when most of us voted for Clinton? Like, at worst they're trying to overturn the will of the electoral college an institution that has twice in my lifetime handed the Presidency to the candidate most of us didn't vote for.

Um, if Hillary Clinton had millions of invisible, illegal voters at
her command, would we be having this conversation right now?

"Like, not even a little exonerated."

-Robert Mueller

But the premise that there's any overturning going on here is itself some amazing bullshit. This whole goat rodeo started when Donald Trump solicited help from a foreign leader in digging up political dirt on his potential rivals which is, you know, a crime and one the Mueller investigation in no way exonerated him of the last time he pulled this. Investigating said crime isn't overturning anyone's will, it's how the law works. Sorry, I should say alleged crime. But I mean he's clearly guilty, right? I mean, c'mon.

So this, but with more flipping us off.

I don't even think his supporters doubt that he's super-guilty of a litany of crimes, they're just comfortable with it. Because...actually, I don't know why. Why do people still defend him and buy into his whole victim narrative? Is it his charm? Seriously though, this is not the behavior of someone who isn't a Woodward and Bernstein away from Nixon walking his way onto Marine One. Like, did you see this shit he spouted off at a bunch of staffers at the UN today?

He's pretty lucky this isn't the old days,
People in the old days didn't look kindly
on leaders who abused their power either.

According to the New York Times, well, really according to the Guardian reporting what the pay-walled New York Times had to say:

"I want to know who's the person who gave the whistle-blower the information because that's close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days then we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now."

-President Donald Trump,

threatening people, publicly

Yeah, that's the former host of a dumb reality show threatening anyone who comes forward with concerns about his criminal behavior with death by execution. That's not normal. Well, none of this has been normal, but holy shit Republicans, you need to do something about this. Like, now. I mean, how would they like it if we ran the cast of Queer Eye and they won and-holy shit, we should totally elect the cast of Queer Eye...

It might seem a little weird to have five people be
collectively the President, but we live in weird times.

Again, they gave him four billion dollars...

Ah, the old "when your enemies are
closing in flail wildly and hope they
just go away" tact. Let's see if it works.

Well that's a bummer. In theory. Huh? No, not the President's insane, rambling press conference today wherein he baselessly accused Democrats of committing all the crimes they're accusing him of committing. I'm talking about George Lucas and-what's that? Yeah, I know the brewing scandal that might, but probably won't bring down the Trump administration is way more important, but I just can't. I mean, did you watch the press conference? He's a lunatic and our democracy is spiraling towards collapse. I'm going to talk about Star Wars instead. It's less likely to give me an aneurism.

Pictured: George Lucas making Star Wars.
Also pictured: some other people. 

So the aforementioned bummer is that Bob Iger, former CEO of Disney, says in his memoir that George Lucas felt betrayed that the company didn't use his story ideas for the Star Wars sequels. Which sure, he created Star Wars. Ok, not singlehandedly and it's basically a Flash Gordon/Foundation mash-up but it's still his baby and when he sold it to Disney they bought his outline for more movies but were careful not to commit to using them and indeed went off in their own direction.

And however you feel about the Star Wars prequels, you've got to at least feel for Lucas. Star Wars was a huge part of his life for decades.

A huge part of his life, which made it weird that he tried
so hard to kill it with his terrible dialogue and pacing...

Don't be too proud of this
technological terror you've constructed...

On the other hand, Lucas' story outlines would have been all midichloreans all the time. You know, the thing everyone points to as the moment they realized that The Phantom Menace was some bullshit. Oh yes, according to a companion book for a TV documentary about sci-fi-it's a long walk, but bear with me. According to this book, George Lucas wanted the Star Wars sequels to be about the "microbiotic world...this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills [and they] are the ones that actually control the universe."

Sorry, butt-hurt that that they didn't
make his magic space germ trilogy.

Which is preposterous and the opposite of what anyone wanted to see, but at least Lucas admitted that "a lot of the fans would have hated it..." And I suppose that's the first step towards realizing that maybe it's time to step back and sell out to Disney, but what was he even thinking? I know we've been piling on the poor guy for years, but like a scab you just want to pick at how fundamentally he seems to have misunderstood why people liked his movies. And just on a cynical level, he merchandised the shit out of the original trilogy, you'd think he'd have an eye for what the fans want. Yet here we are, talking about how butt-hurt he is that Disney didn't make his magic space germ movie.

Anyway, don't feel too bad for Lucas, his name is forever linked with Star Wars and he did get like four billion in cash and stock out of the deal. Four billion. With a 'b.'

See what I did there? Because The Force Awakens is basically
a greatest hits of the first three movies? Well, if I have to explain it...

Highbrowing it.

"Suck it Stallone."

-Dame Maggie Smith

(actual quote)

I love the shit out of the fact that Downton Abbey the movie beat Rambo this weekend. Love it. And look, I don't care about box office numbers or which giant media company made more money that some other media company, I just love that a two-hour follow-up to a TV show about British people in the nineteen diggidies or whatever was more interesting to the public at large than Sylvester Stallone murdering his way through another sequel that should have never been made.

Ok, confession time. I haven't seen either of the films I'm expressing opinions about, but when has that ever stopped anyone on the internet? What's more, I've never seen any of the Rambo movies. But I did read reviews which describe Rambo, I don't know, 12? They describe Rambo 12 as a hyper violent, xenophobic right-wing fantasy where the answer to all of life's adversities is guns.

Screenplay by your racist uncle's Facebook screed.

What do you want them to do, go down in
a dinner jacket? Like goddamn barbarians?

And so in a fit of schadenfreude, I'm pleased to see that no one went to see it. Of course, Downton Abbey probably isn't all that woke either. Again, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have seen the TV show. It was mostly about poorer people being deferential to those in a higher socio-economic class who themselves, while at the top of this grossly unfair system, are actually super kind-hearted. So, you know, it's ok that they control all the wealth, produce nothing and need like six servants to strap them into their evening tuxedos.

But whatever, the important thing to keep in mind here is that America, like as a movie going public, chose Masterpiece Theatre over Sylvester Stallone. Highbrow drama over lowbrow action. Instead of violence and explosions, we instead opted for a window into the past. A movie that invites us to look back at a time of limited social mobility and massive wealth inequity and think about how far we've come. Bravo America.

Oh...right...

More like Trudon't...

I know 2001 was like a long time ago, but blackface? I mean, I guess that sort of thing was acceptable back in-well, it was never acceptable, but white people were doing it as late as the fifties without facing public shame for it, but that's just because racism. But 2001? In Canada? Aren't they like, famously civilized up there?

Oh Canada...

"No, really, whatthefuck?"

-Everyone

I bring this up because photos of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, formerly known as Prime Minister Dream Boat, have surfaced showing him at parties done up in blackface and brownface make up. Yes, both. There are photos and video of at least three separate instances of this dating from the early 90's to 2001. It was like his hobby. And the Prime Minister even says  he doesn't know how many times he did this leaving Canada and I dare say, the world asking, whatthefuck?

On the other hand, Canadians know how
to do apologies. They offer apologies like
Americans offer thoughts and prayers. 

Trudeau has apologized several times imes and at least according to this white American, Trudeau's sorry's are at least convincing and that's you know, whatever, but he's the son of a former Prime Minister. Shouldn't he have known better? Like, even from a completely cynical perspective, say he had some kind of catastrophic failure of knowing how to act like a person and he was somehow unaware of the pain and offense racially insensitive costumes cause, shouldn't the reptile part of his brain have been thinking about how bad this looks?

And am I a terrible person for even thinking about the political ramifications? Well, yes, but I want to be clear that it's not for his sake. This is the middle of Canada's fifty-day political season which-yeah, fifty days. And he is a member of the Liberal party and his idiocy could help hand the election to Canada's right who I assume, if they're anything like our conservatives, will roll in and make things worse for everybody.

"As head of the Conservative party, I pledge to keep our great country's
universal healthcare system, but we will no longer provide the current
issue of magazines in the waiting room. Three months old, at minimum."

-Andrew Scheer, Conservative party leader,

to the raucous applause of party supporters

Yup, I have a Canadian Grandmother,
so I'm allowed to make Canadian jokes.
Carte blanche as they say in Quebec.

Ok, so Canada conservative probably isn't as bad as American conservative, but still, Trudeau's dumb racists costumes may well have screwed over our neighbors to the north. And I'm torn. I'm only a quarter Canadian have no dog in this hunt, or as my people say, a cheese curd in this poutine, but I don't know what to think about all this. On the one hand, this kind of thing shouldn't be tolerated, on the other, voting in conservatives-even Canadian conservatives-doesn't feel like a good move either.

The only advice I can offer to the people of Canada is this: for years now we've seen scandal after scandal come out about our politicians. When it's a Democrat, they tend to step down in disgrace and that gets us nowhere. When it's a Republican they get appointed to the Supreme Court or elected President. So I guess what I'm saying is hold your nose, vote Liberal and thank Canadian God that you're not dealing with Nazis marching in the streets. Actual Nazis. That's what we've come to.

Pictured: an actual product that exists. If you're curious,
it smells like maple, chai and racial insensitivity.

Of donuts and holes

Pictured: the last straw.

So what country are you moving to? I usually say Canada because I have Canadian ancestors and it's basically what America would be like without the ever-present threat of a trip to the hospital ruining you for life. But now I'm thinking maybe Scotland? Why am I asking, you ask? Why because of this. It's a sandwich soon to be introduced at KFC, and it's a hunk of boneless fried chicken between two glazed donuts. Yes. Really and no, doesn't sound great.

It sounds like a textbook example of capitalism gone horribly awry and perhaps the answer to the question of whether or not our civilization is worth saving. I mean, a donut sandwich? Stop. Just stop. This is not food and it's not ok to sell this to people. You can just walk into the restaurant and buy these. There's no warning label, you don't have to be eighteen, you can just walk in and buy one like it's food, which it isn't.

Rome had the Visigoths, we have this dumb sandwich thing.

"It was the bottom of the forth
and we were down a touchdown..."

-us, telling that story again

Like at all. Not to get all nanny state on you, but just because you can sell an idiot a donut sandwich doesn't mean you're not morally responsible for the resulting diabetes. But this fried poultry sugar bomb nonsense isn't why America is doomed. We're doomed because we refuse to put on our grown up pants. I mean, we let people vape and buy assault rifles and earn shitty wages all because we're stuck in some made up fantasy of the good 'ol days of rugged whateverness and pulling up our bootstraps or something. And it was cute back when the wild west was a thing, but it's the 21st century now and like some middle aged ex-football star clinging to that time we won that big game, it's time we started adulting and got real about keeping our fellow citizens safe and healthy and our air, you know, breathable because holy shit, did you know we broke the planet?

Because we did and yet I read today that the EPA is about to revoke California's ability to set higher emissions standards than the rest of the country. Which is weird because we're still careening towards a catastrophe that will likely lead to our extinction in our lifetime. So why would anyone try to make things worse?

Because eight years of Obama made racists loose their goddamn
minds and now they just want to watch the world burn? Just speculating.

"You can't just tell the auto industry what
they can and can't do. I mean, this isn't
some woman's uterus, this is business."

-Republicans

The free market, that's why. Now, to be clear, California doesn't force automakers to meet its standards. Ford or Chevrolet or whoever are 100% free to make cars that meet the lower Federal standards, they just can't sell them here. Which sounds pretty free market-y to me but what do I know? What this move does do is take from the state the right to protect its environment-an environment that is frequently on fire-from irresponsible car companies so it's a little weird that it's coming from the state's rights people.

But surely they must know that now is the time to strengthen regulations and to make sure-well, twenty years ago was the time to strengthen regulations, but here we are. So again, why would the administration do this? Why would anyone think it's ok to put fried chicken between two (two!) donuts? Who can say? But I think the answer to both these questions has something to do with how we, as a people, have just given up.

You don't suppose it's because Donald "eats cheesburgers in bed" Trump
is in his seventies, knows he won't be around for the worst of it, and does
 not now, nor has ever in the past cared about people who aren't him?

Today in unsolicited marketing advice:

You know who needs to calm down? These people. Yeah, these people. What do you mean who? Can you not see what I'm-oh...you didn't click on the link. I see. Guess I'll just have to explain. Again. This is actually about a video game thing, so if you're tired of me, a grown-ass adult, talking about goddamn video games, this probably isn't for you. If you're going to bail, now is the time.

It's actually an ad for a video game which I assume, despite what
this shot might suggest, is also available to non-white people as well.

"Twenty-three skidoo!"

-Old people

Still there? Ok, don't say I didn't warn you. The link, which I know you didn't click on, but you probably should to get the full effect, is a video about a new Nintendo thing. It's sort of a fitness accessory for the Switch that's also a game because Nintendo is like, super weird. They, despite being the manufacturers of video games, an historically sedentary pursuit, insist on trying to make us get off the couch. There was that balance board thing, and that bowling game your grandparents played at the home. It even goes back to the Power Pad.

What's a Power Pad? I'm glad I pretended you asked. It was sort of a forerunner to something like Dance Dance Revolution, but even dorkier. It was a plastic mat you laid on the floor. It had buttons you would stand on to control onscreen action like running, jumping and aerobics. It was a great idea in theory, but in practice, kind of dumb.

Pictured: kids getting exercise while playing video games.
Not pictured: the moment they discover that it's way easier
and less effort to kneel on the floor and pound the buttons
with your fists. (source: my idle childhood)

It's physically impossible to not
look like an idiot playing this thing.

But back to the new dumb thing. It's called Ring Fit Adventures and it's a game you play by strapping one controller to your leg and sticking the other into some kind of high tech yoga ring that senses you squeezing and moving it around. It's all part of some kind of compulsion on the part of Nintendo to give us new and weird ways to control games instead of you know, just using the game pad as a game pad. Probably to make sure we look as ridiculous as possible. 

Look, they nailed it with the controller
so like, maybe stop trying to innovate?

According to the promotional video:

"In this game you won't be pressing buttons on the...controllers to move and attack. Instead, you'll use your whole body to explore the world, battle enemies and reach the goal."

-the human-simulant

in the promotional video

It's clearly a ridiculous premise, but there
are like nine Fast and the Furious movies
about people using illegal street racing to
save the world.They made nine of those.

The game itself is sort of an RPG where you must defeat a body-building dragon with the power of meeting your daily fitness goals through yoga and low-impact exercise. Which, ok, whatever, it's the game-ification (it's not a word, I know, but here we are) of exercise and that's super I guess. As I mentioned before, it's not the most active of hobbies and it's good that someone is trying to make it a little less-what's the word? Sack-of-shit lazy? But what I want to talk about is the people in the video. Have you watched it yet? No? Go do that.

Back? Great. because I mean:

Is it me or does whatshisbucket look like his skull is about to
 force its way out of his face and devour his be-jazz handed co-host? 

"For real, take it down a notch..."

-actual born-agains

Right? Who are these people? And how disproportionately excited are they about this game? Like, I like video games, I have forever. But there are limits. It's just a game. An exceedingly mediocre one sold largely on the merits of the ring peripheral's gimmick I suspect. And that's fine. It is about getting exercise and not necessarily the game itself, but this is a level of cloying enthusiasm usually not often found outside of morning talk shows. I mean, born-agains would say these two are laying it on kind of thick.

I know this thing is weird and it can't possibly be easy to explain it, much less convince people to buy it, but I'm not sure why someone at Nintendo thought that two J. Crew models orgasming over the twenty-first century version of a workout video was the way to go.

Only one controller is in the ring, the other one you strap on your leg.
Not for nothing, but they could have called it Strap-On Adventures.

Cor blimey! They've gone an' nicked the loo!

Look, I don't know how the international art thief world works, but I mean, what are you going to do with a solid gold, one hundred and twenty pound toilet?

Anywhere it wants? Wait, I'm sorry, what was the question?

Above: Guggenhein staff member Jade
Solomon, seen here rethinking her career path.

I ask because this. Oh yes, this is not a hypothetical. A solid gold toilet is a thing that exists and someone has stolen it. Stolen it! Can you believe it? The missing toilet is actually an art installation by Mauritzio Cattelan called 'America,' which, we'll get to that, but it's a solid, 18-karat gold, fully-functional toilet. It was first installed, like literally installed, plumbed and everything, in the Guggenheim in New York back in 2016. And yeah, you could even use it.

That's great and all Mauritizio, but
c'mon. Like it's a golden toilet called
America. Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Why's it called America? Because art. I guess it's a commentary on America's weird relationship with the wealth. According to Cattelan:

"It holds out the promise of a quintessential American dream -- access to opportunity and development for all -- while making visible what is not attainable for most: gold."

-Mauritzio Cattelan, art'splaining

Here, I'll use it in a sentence: remember
that time Britain nicked India?

The piece was recently loaned out across the pond-as they say-to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, which is Churchill's birthplace. Yeah, I don't know what Churchill has to do with solid gold social commentary, but there it is. Anyway, like the Guggenheim installation, the toilet or "bog" to put it British-ly, was hooked up into the palace's plumbing which caused a flood when it was nicked. Which is British for stolen. Incidentally, isn't their slang adorable?

The CEO of Blenheim Palace released a statement about how, even without the golden toilet, they still have plenty to offer visitors:

Like what? Why, room after room of
paintings of white dudes in wigs.

"It's...a great shame an item so precious has been taken, but we have so many fascinating treasures in the Palace and the remaining items of the exhibition to share. The investigation continues, but it will be business as usual from tomorrow, so visitors can continue to come and experience all we have to offer."

-Dominic Hare, a man 

who let thieves walk

off with a golden toilet

Anyway, I can't help but feel a little like maybe this is why we shouldn't lend our art to Britain. And I don't know if you know this, but their police don't even carry guns. In fact, their population is, by and large unarmed. If this were America, I'm sure someone would have already been indiscriminately gunned down over this outrage.

"'Ello 'ello, what's all this then?"

-Official police statement

A filthy, yet apt analogy.

We hardly knew ye.

I know that journalism in America, like as a thing, is long dead, but for serious. Huh? For serious what? Why for serious this. And this. And this. But don't click on those links, because you're just going to encourage them to keep doing this. It's like feeding the squirrels. What is? I'm getting there, settle down. Every year Apple has a press conference which they call a keynote address, but really it's a press conference. And then news outlets show up and pretend that giving a giant electronics manufacturer free coverage is news.

I mean, that's not news, right? Like, the planet is on fire, the President is reckless goon, the UK is imploding and the Bahamas were recently leveled by a hurricane. That's news. Horribly depressing news, but you know, actual news. Apple revising their line of cell phones is not. It's, you know, business.

Pictured: Not news...so like what are we doing here?

We’re spiraling towards extinction,
but on the bright side you can
ger an iPhone 11 for just $699!

I guess it's one thing for tech sites to talk about it, and maybe business news can too because business reasons but it doesn't really feel like the kind of thing that should share headline space with say, our many mass shootings and climate disasters. Like, CNN, and whatever you may feel about CNN, at least they're not Fox, but anyway, CNN had an entire article about how surprisingly affordable the new iPhone is...which, that's just an ad for Apple, right? And by affordable they mean seven hundred dollars.

I mean, unless...wait, do you hate Jennifer
 Aniston? What are you, a monster?

Yes, of money. But, as the CNN article gushes, it's less than some previous models have cost. Holy shit! Also there're new iPads and Apple Watches which, like the phones, are now relatively less expensive. So what if you don't even wear watches, why not pick one up? Or two? Also, also the Apple Streaming service is only five bucks a month and sure, you already subscribe to like five of these but what's one more? You don't want to miss Jennifer Aniston's new show do you?

Sure, you could get a Galaxy, that is,
if you don't really care about having
friends to call on it. Pfftt...Galaxy...

Ok, full disclosure, I totally have an iPhone, so understand that my principled outrage only goes so far. In fact, it's sort of a comfortable hypocrisy, but then I'm not saying the stuff they make is bad...well, it's not great, I mean, a couple of my iPhones have broken on me over the years and I did get a lemon of a Macbook once, but what am I supposed to do? Not keep buying their stuff? Switch to a Windows laptop or a Galaxy phone? Like a barbarian? Where was I? Oh, right, the intersection of news media and the corporate interests that drive them.

All I'm getting at is that maybe let's all be a little more skeptical of the incestuous tangle of corporations and their constant circle jerk of cross promotion and-sorry, that was a surprisingly graphic analogy...but was it apt right? Because I think it was.

Above: an incestuous circle jerk of cross promotion.

Today in entirely plausible:

And he shoots them in front of children
they bus in from local D.C. schools just
so he can bask in their tears. 

I know that there's nothing, literally nothing we as rational people can do or say to convince people still riding the Trump bus that maybe it's time to get off. Like, he's been repeatedly accused of sexual assault, he leaps to the defense of Nazis and he actually hunts puppies for sport. Like, right there on the White House lawn. Sure, I made that last one up, but even if I didn't, do any of us think that it'd make a difference to the people who still, despite all the incompetence, still wear those dumb MAGA hats and show up for his rallies?

The answer I'm looking for is no, because holy shit, White House officials told CNN today that the CIA pulled an undercover agent deep in the Russian government back in 2017 because they were afraid that the dumb idiot most of us didn't vote for anyway would get them killed. Of course, in a move surprising to no one, the CIA is now denying this.

Although it was probably only a matter of time before
undercover operative Ted Nugent was discovered...

(source: like anyone cares about sources)

And now that everyone in charge of the CIA is a Trump appointee and we're just supposed to accept their full throated support at face value, here's what they have to say:

Pictured: the former head of the CIA
whose security clearance was revoked by
Trump because irony is alive in politics.

"CNN's narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-of-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President's handling of our nation's most sensitive intelligence-which he has access to each and every day-drove an alleged ex-filtration operation is inaccurate."

-Brittany Bramell, CIA spokesperson,

not saying it didn't happen

All I'm saying is that Trump's
security was foiled by Omarosa.

Yeah, but it's not the same thing as it never happened. First of all, it's part of the CIA's job is to not tell us things. Secondly, the President is basically a 243 pound toddler with first strike capability who fills important posts with friends and family members, so pulling an operative because Trump might out them to Vladimir Putin over cheeseburgers is 100% a smart move based on objective analysis and sound collection. Oh, and remember that time the President wasn't exonerated by the Muller investigation? Cool.

They know he's a gameshow host
and not like, a meteorologist right?

And lastly and more importantly, how are we supposed to believe anything anyone says anymore? Remember that time the President called us all idiots by changing the map of where hurricane Dorian was going to land? And then the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration backed him him and his revised, yet dumb claim that it would hit Alabama? Welp, it turns out it was only because Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross threatened to fire them if they didn't.

I mean, who are these people? Anyway, the point I'm making isn't that the CIA thing is definitely true just because I, personally, have a low opinion of technically the President Donald Trump and want to believe it. It's that this seems so entirely plausible that I have no trouble at all believing it and that in itself is a problem. Again, this is someone willing to fire the head of NOAA because their correct forecast disagreed with a map he scribbled on.

Not only do I buy that we pulled a spy out of Russia before Trump
could get them killed, but I think it would have been kind of criminal not to.