Tag: Joe Biden

Biden Appointees, Ranked By Hotness

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8. Ron Klain. I’d rather DIE of EBOLA than get with RON KLAIN.

7. Janet Yellen. I’ll be honest…she doesn’t really catch my. . . . . . . . . . . . . .interest

6. Alejandro Mayorkas. Maybe he’ll let me draw the face of a deported child on his bald, bald head. 

5. Avril Haines. Not looking up her appearance, don’t care, name’s hot.

4. Jake Sullivan. You know what they say about big foreheads 😩😩

3. Linda Thomas-Greenfield. She really puts the “Mission to the United Nations” in MILF.

2. Antony Blinken. The last time I was this enamored of a Tony, he was the namesake of my favorite skateboarding video game.1. John Kerry. No explanation needed here! 🥵🥵🥵

It’s Time to Compromise with the Sith

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My Fellow Rebel Alliance Members,

This past week has been a joyous one indeed. After years of fighting and thousands of casualties suffered, we have done it: We have defeated the Galactic Empire. The Death Star has been destroyed. Across the galaxy, Humans, Wookies and Jawas alike have erupted into spontaneous dance. It is a momentous accomplishment, and nobody is more excited than I am. However, despite our happiness, it is critical to remember that there are millions of Storm Troopers and Sith who are just as sad now as you were when Emperor Palpatine murdered your family. Today, we must chart a path to compromise with the Sith Lords to guarantee a new era of peaceful cohabitation.

I understand that many people do not agree with the Sith platform. Their policies, like blowing up planets that don’t submit to their will and force choking anyone who criticizes them, can certainly ruffle some feathers. And yes, I concede that their enslavement of Wookiees, Mon Calamari, and other races was less than kind. However, we must admit we are much more alike than we are different. Who among us hasn’t drank a few too many at Mos Eisley cantina and then killed a few innocent bystanders? Or turned a blind eye to a genocide or two so you could spend the weekend enjoying pod racing? If you can look past all of the “We want to murder them all” rhetoric, you’ll see they are just like you and me.

Now, I will address the Hutt in the room: I am a former member of the Imperial Ruling Council. However, I only joined to protect all of you from his worst impulses, and I am a firm never-Palpatine Sith. That’s why I joined #TheResistance — not because the Emperor killed my children and exiled me from his Star Destroyer. My colleagues and I at The Anakin Project have been critical to your success, whether the results show it or not. 

While this is a grand accomplishment, now is not the time to get carried away. We must be very careful about listening to advice from young radicals like Luke Skywalker. The way forward is through compromise. So open your arms to the Sith — they promise not to cut them off. 

Make John King Get back in front of That Map until They Call Alaska’s ballot Proposition: An Open Letter

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Listen here, you little shit. None of us are having a good time, ok? I hate it here, you hate it here, we all hate it here. 

But if there’s one thing that’s been getting us, collectively as a nation, through this past month, it’s been watching John King suffer in front of his damn map.

For days on end, the powers that be at CNN refused to let him sleep. To let him eat. To let him out of a room with his ex-wife. “Read us the results,” they told him. “The people want to know the latest totals from Bucks County.”

And indeed we did. We relished in his pain, danced in his torment. We delighted in that first light of daybreak when we flipped the TV back on and found him there, as he had been the night before. Outfit unchanged, face in agony, zooming in closer and closer on Atlanta suburbs.

But here’s the thing: it was never about the election. It was about the joy we got in watching one man suffer for all our sins. We need that back in our lives, and with 40% of the expected vote in Alaska outstanding and a ranked choice voting ballot proposition still left to be determined, we have ample ground to demand it.

So get back in front of your map, Johnny boy. Read us the numbers. Tell us which areas historically HATE ranked choice systems and where we can expect boatloads of those famous Ranked Choice Zealots to be voting. Zoom in on the swing precincts. Extrapolate wildly. Do a math.

You have no choice. It’s either your pain or ours.

Joe Biden’s Most Likely October Surprises, Ranked

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5. “And it’s about the, we’ve all got to be — you know, there’s nothing that can’t — and if we are!”

4. “Folks, it’s like when I was the Obama, there was a woman — I mean, when the vice president was president, it was nowhere near as much as now.”

3. “You can’t — today, it’s about today — and so it’s about a reckoning but that’s the possibility and we’re finally, but it’s about so much more.”

2. He learns the dang WAP dance 😦

1. “Corn Pop!”

Trump’s Most Likely October Surprises, Ranked

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8. Replacing Mike Pence. If this was going to happen, by the rules it would have to be done at the convention. But the rules* also say you can’t have your attorney facilitate hush money payments to your porn star mistress during a campaign, so I feel like we can’t rule this out. It’s definitely the least likely item on the list, mainly because Trump values loyalty above all else and Pence has been a sycophant’s sycophant for his entire term.
*laws

7. Mass tribunals for BLM protesters. We’ve seen Tennessee announce that engaging in protests would result in a forfeiture of voting rights, and Trump already sent the secret police to create violence in Portland. So they’re not being terribly creative here, just kind of running down a totalitarian checklist for engaging with the opposition. Feels like show trials should come up fairly soon.

6. Banning mail or something. It almost feels inevitable at this point that we’re gonna reach a stage where sending mail items through the USPS is going to be a fierce act of #resistance.

5. War :). Remember how much he loved the fawning media coverage of his Syria strike? Now imagine that, but with a country no one’s ever heard of. 

4. Finding a doctor to claim Biden’s senile. This would probably need to be ginned up in the last few days before the election, so the news media doesn’t have time to dig up “facts” that “show this doctor has never had Joe Biden as a patient” or whatever. But still, it wouldn’t be too hard to find someone to make the claim. Is the devil jizz lady still available?

3. Killing his niece on Fifth Avenue. Experts agree, murdering a woman with a firearm could bring Trump’s GOP approval rating up an extra 3-6 percentage points.

2. Announcing charges/investigation into Biden, Hillary, Obama or, idk, someone like that. Again, this is an authoritarian classic, and Bill Barr has shown a somewhat sexual excitement at the opportunity to serve as Trump’s attack dog. It’s hard to imagine exactly what the charges would be (Did Hillary ever send an email about Benghazi? Could be something there), but that would largely be beside the point. Like Comey’s letter in 2016, the aim would just be to get the name of a Democrat in the news alongside words like “corruption” and “federal charges.”

1. Approving a COVID-19 vaccine. It’s hard to call this one a surprise, really. He’s been telegraphing it for months, and the administration is reportedly targeting the (fairly promising!) Oxford University vaccine. Whether he succeeds in making the FDA actually grant vaccine approval before the election, or just unilaterally announces that we have a vaccine now, I have absolutely 0% doubt that Trump is going to claim there’s a COVID vaccine by election day. And honestly I just hope there’s even a crumb of truth to it.

Photographs of Obama Sitting on a Couch, Ranked

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10. Can you imagine feeling as if there was a realistic chance you’d lose to John McCain and Sarah Palin? And can you imagine holding hands with your mother-in-law? The things this man went through, my word. I know this is more of a “loveseat in a Holiday Inn that’s shooting way above its paygrade” than a couch, but it makes the cut nevertheless.
Vibes: 6/10
Comfort: 3/10
Upholstery: 2/10
Overall: 3.67/10
9. Relaxer in chief. Featuring Diamond Joe, probably explaining something to somebody who already knows what’s up. Aviators galore. This photo makes me feel older than Ronald Reagan on the day he left office (a.k.a. the same age as Biden on the day he enters office). Two point deduction in comfort rating for being alone with Biden in his office. White flowers on blue cloth: pure malarkey. 
Vibes: 7/10
Comfort: 4/10
Upholstery: 2/10
Overall: 4.33/10
8. Whose podcast is this anyways? Also, how come the Oval Office has to have the same shitty floral print on the washed-out couch, just with a slightly more tasteful a color scheme than the couch at the U.S. Naval Observatory? As for Barry O though, he looks cool as can be (at least for pairing cuffed pants with square-toed shoes). I would bet anything in the world that Axe flubbed a “how do you like dem apples” joke five minutes after this photograph was taken.
Vibes: 4/10
Comfort: 7/10
Upholstery: 3/10
Overall: 4.67/10
7. This is the Mendoza Line of Barack Obama Couch Pics. Great head tilt. Nothing but respect for the manspreading leg-cross.  And the uncomfortably close quarters at the end of the couch with your pornstachio’d roommate is a cherry on top. The bro-bama era looks chill as heck.
Vibes: 8/10
Comfort: 5/10
Upholstery: 2/10
Overall: 5/10
6. A rare couch pic where Obama smiles with his teeth. But this sectional is a little too Martha Stewart-y for my taste. Props to Michelle for matching her blouse to the (yet again!) flowery print, this time on an assaultingly rosé cloth covering.
Vibes: 8/10
Comfort: 5/10
Upholstery: 4/10
Overall: 5.67/10
5. Huge liberal fail. Classic Ivy League Obama can’t figure out how to lay on a couch. Big fan of the two-tone upholstery though. Hope he got some friends to help him move this couch rather than leave it for the next tenant. 
Vibes: 9.5/10
Comfort: 0/10 — not on the couch
Upholstery: 8.5/10
Overall: 6/10
4. A classic entry in the Barack-smizing-on-a-couch-with-Michelle-and-featuring-extremely-90s-energy genre. My guess is this was a free starter loveseat from her parents’ basement. The comfort-colors teal jars with the bright white (and picture-frame-less) background, but I think it accentuates Barack and Michelle’s wonderful style decisions for this photograph. 
Vibes: 9/10
Comfort: 8/10
Upholstery: 5/10
Overall: 7.33/10
3. Holy shit these vibes. Pensive. Composed. Cool as hell. Withering houseplant in the background. I would stay up all night listening to this version of Obama lecture me on the import of the Harold Washington mayoral campaign or whatever he was into at the moment. 
Vibes: 10/10
Comfort: 7/10
Upholstery: 6/10
Overall: 7.67/10
2. Does this man ever show his teeth while posing for a couch photo? Does he need to? My only gripe is with the couch’s upholstery—it feels like a missed opportunity to pair it with the graphic and artistic choices of the rug, squatty-potty statue, and prints. I wish I had been as confident as these two clearly were about everything from their interior design to their life choices. 
Vibes: 10/10
Comfort: 10/10
Upholstery: 7/10
Overall: 9/10
1. Excellent all around. Not only does the couch look comfy as all get out, the plush exterior interacts perfectly with the color scheme of the pillows, wall, and background art. The perfect couch for a loving family, especially since it gives them plenty of personal space but also the option to cuddle up together. 
Vibes: 10/10
Comfort: 10/10
Upholstery: 10/10
Overall: 10/10

So, um, it’s Joe

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Think back to those heady days of 2017. Think about the righteous anger of a people relearning what it means to be subjected to minority rule. Think of the fury directed at the buffoonish demagoguery of a wannabe strongman. Remember the wide-eyed possibilities we’d dreamt up. 

Maybe Michelle would run. Or Oprah! One of these hotshot senators could do the trick, or maybe we’d finally let Bernie take a crack at it! 

Now think back to the relief of November 2018. That feeling that you weren’t crazy. That reassuring sense that help was on the way, that the cavalry was on the horizon. 

Now look at a photo of Joe Biden. Fuck. Try to calm down. Fail. This is, apparently, our guy. 

It’s a very strange sensation, to watch the most important primary of our lifetime just kind of slip into the background. I was never a Bernie backer but his politics are closer to mine than Biden’s are, and I can’t imagine how surreal this has been for the Berners. Years spent organizing and rallying and volunteering and dreaming and then… Clyburn endorses Biden, half the field drops out and endorses him over the course of 15 minutes, Super Tuesday’s a sweep, and it all ends with a whimper as a pandemic ravages the globe. 

Ok. Cool. Fuck. It’s a little bit like if your smart friend vouched for some guy 12 years ago and now, on the strength of that recommendation, that dude is responsible for saving the fucking world. 

Again, it’s cool. 

But after all that, we have to take a few breaths. Based on a cursory knowledge of the age demographics of our subscribers, I’m gonna guess that much like me, Joe wasn’t your first choice. Or second. Or really in your top five. And this isn’t going to be a lecture about how you have a responsibility to vote for him anyway, or how entertaining third parties is a form of privilege (read a very good piece on that here though). 

This is just to say that it’s really fucking strange that the American experiment—the world’s oldest democracy, having survived world wars, pandemics, depressions, a civil war, and approximately 350 years of refusal to live up to its founding principles—now hinges on the capabilities of a guy we thought would be remembered at best as a funny uncle to the American people and at worst as a creepy uncle to the American women.

But that’s where we’re at. The world is ending, the president’s a neofascist, climate change is hurtling at us with growing speed, and a coalition that most young people aren’t part of picked Joe Fucking Biden to save us. That’s how democracy works. It wasn’t rigged, it’s not unfair. More people thought he should be the guy than any other. 

Godspeed, Joe. I guess. 

Picking a Campaign Song for Every Candidate Left

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A great campaign song can transform an election. Bill Clinton had “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac, Barack Obama used “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” by Stevie Wonder to great effect, and who can forget the old-timey background music from Birth of a Nation that Donald Trump presumably blared?

But when it comes to trademark songs, the current crop of candidates seems to be vacillating between incredibly blessed and just remarkably cursed choices. That’s not good enough. With that in mind, we set out to help. Here are the songs each of the Democrats contending for the nomination and also Mike Bloomberg should use this campaign season:

Bernie Sanders – Everything I Wanted, by Billie Eilish. Oh sure, he’ll promise you everything you say you want. Healthcare. Education. Jobs. A planet to inhabit. But what if, hear me out, it’s actually a socialist nightmare?!?! Not what you’d think???!!! If you’re being honest!!! (This article is a sponsored post provided by the Mike Bloomberg campaign. “Bloomberg 2020: You’re Gonna Get What You Deserve, You Little Shits.”)

Joe Biden – Ocean Eyes, by Billie Eilish. Say what you want about Joe Biden. No seriously, go ahead and talk about this and this and hell, even this. While you do that, I’m just gonna be staring into those baby blues. 

Elizabeth Warren – No Time To Die, by Billie Eilish. This isn’t a rallying cry for a comeback. Nor is it about any of the song’s lyrics. It’s more just a general symmetry between the song and the candidate. Like, they both seemed like they were gonna be hits. And people generally don’t hate either of them, exactly. But, like, did you remember this song existed? Probably not. Did anyone in Nevada remember that Liz killed the CEO of Wells Fargo? Certainly not.

Mike Bloomberg – Bad Guy, by Billie Eilish. This one’s fun because Mike Bloomberg’s NYPD illegally surveilled the city’s Muslim population and threw black men against the wall for fun. He is, in most modern ethical frameworks, a bad guy. It’s the titular role!

Pete Buttigieg – idontwannabeyouanymore, by Billie Eilish. Look, we were all about it for a minute. Abolish the electoral college? Yes daddy. Unpack the Supreme Court? Um, ok king! Parlay white male midwestern mediocrity into the most powerful position alive? I’M TRYING. But the more we got to know him, the less we wanted to be just like Mayor Pete. We’ll stick to more inspirational role models for now, like that girl who was selling feet pics to save Australia <3. 

Amy Klobuchar – All The Good Girls Go To Hell, by Billie Eilish. I will maintain until my dying day that Amy Klobuchar should have leaned into the ice queen aesthetic from day one. No one wants a nice senator who promises to win back Trump counties; we want a firebreather who will sucker punch your mom for not saying “God rest his soul” after mentioning Paul Wellstone. Also, this song includes the line “Peter should know better,” which is a pretty good summary of every time Amy opens her mouth on the debate stage. Case closed.

Tom Steyer – You Should See Me In A Crown, by Billie Eilish. Idk idk, he’s rich or something. I honestly don’t get this dude’s deal. He’s the second richest billionaire in the race and his plan seems to be siphoning off just enough support from Biden (???) to finish third in one of the first four states? This seems like a dumb plan. This campaign is dumb. 

Pop Punk Hits Remade for the 2020 Election

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“Coercing a Foreign Government into Damaging a Political Rival Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off” — Panic! At The Disco ft. Rudy Giuliani

“I’m Not Okay (I Promise…SERIOUSLY)”  — Mike Bloomberg

“Check Yes, Vladimir” — Donald Trump

“Lifestyles of the Rich & Hopeless” — Tom Steyer

“The Middle America” — Amy Klobuchar

“A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Intricate Policy Planning” — Elizabeth Warren

“I’m Just a Kid (And I Was a Mayor)” — Pete Buttigieg 

“Thnks fr th Obma Yrs” — Joe Biden

“Angry Deb8er Boi” — Bernie Sanders

“I Will Do (LITERALLY) Anything” — Hillary Clinton

“Welcome to the White Parade” — The Republican National Committee 

“Wake Me Up When the Primaries End” — Everybody