Remember when President Obama was VILIFIED for:

• Arugula
• Flag pin
• Tan suit
• Mustard
• Chewing gum
• Private schools
• Healthy eating initiatives
• Michelle's bare arms
• Being black
• Oops! Did I just say being black?
• Overcoming a proudly obstructionist Congress to provide affordable healthcare for millions of Americans
• Being black

As usual, my friend Dale nails it

“I see it in the Facebook feeds today and hear it in the locker room all of the time, you know the 'both parties are wrong, all politicians are crooks'. Nope sorry, not having it, there are differences. Let’s just talk about El Presidente, I mean Individual One. How about: attacks the Intelligence services, praise dictators, sides with White Nationalists, fails to disavow the KKK, attacks women based on their weight and looks, uses twitter to conduct foreign policy, asks foreign enemies to hack into a Presidential candidate’s email, fabricates a racist story about the former President’s birthplace (birtherism) , already has played more than 138% more golf than Obama, failure to criticize the Saudi Prince for the killing of an American journalist, on pace to beat Obama’s travel record (bigly), failed to release his taxes like he said he would, Trump’s use of Executive Orders, lied about Inauguration crowd size, lied on his business dealings with Russia, said Mexico would pay for the wall and then claimed he never said it, criticized a former decorated Prisoner of War, criticized the family of a deceased Gold Star family, criticized Navy admiral, William H. McRaven the former Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, talk of grabbing women by their genitals, made fun of reporter with disabilities, attacks the media daily, pulling out of International Treaties on Climate Change, Nuclear weapons, and International Trade, attacked a Judge because of his ethnicity, virtually curtailed press conferences, large swaths of executive time, wait I almost forgot about lying about paying off porn stars and now a fake National emergency. I mean what will it take? This is your guy? Thirty-six indictments, nine guilty pleas so far, campaign chair going to jail for the rest of his life. These are all great guys, the kind you want running the country, right? Please don't say both sides do it ever again...this is not apples to apples, this is comparing apples to treason. There are differences and they matter."

So ... burning man ...

Sometimes carefully laid plans for a weirdly cool Burning Man exhibit at the Renwick followed by a pilgrimage to see the Obama portraits at the National Portrait Gallery turn into a mostly-chatting-and-half-paying-attention-to-the-arty-stuff wander through the Renwick followed by three hours of catching up at (don’t laugh) TGI Friday’s (I SAID DON’T LAUGH) with a long-lost high-school friend who is now a hella-cool adult friend who will corroborate your story that your TGI Friday’s waitress was probably the shittiest waitress ever to work on a Friday or any other day and I seriously can’t remember the last time I’ve ever left a bad tip for anyone and I used to wait tables so I ALWAYS tip extremely generously and Gareth was my first-ever crush and I just had lunch with him but I’m burying this information deep in this blathery run-on sentence so you probably skipped over that part and saved us all a bottomless swamp of paralyzing awkwardness how ‘bout them Hawkeyes I’m on vacation puppies are cute THIS PART IS IN ALL CAPS anyway where was I oh yeah the Burning Man exhibit was truly cool and breathtaking and informative for those of us who until today had no earthly idea what the hell Burning Man is even about and I totally recommend it but we both heartily do NOT recommend the nearby TGI Friday’s (STOP IT WITH YOUR DERISIVE LAUGHING) especially the slimy booth that had a metal plate over the junction box where the sconce had mysteriously been removed Exhibit A: First Selfie and catching up with Gareth was truly an awesome way to end a truly awesome vacation even through we never got to the National Portrait Gallery but we did get a selfie in front of a nearby George Washington bust Exhibit B: Second Selfie don’t worry I told him a long time ago that he was my first-ever crush and his wife has reportedly come to terms with it and is totally not threatened by me OR IS SHE and he swears it’s not awkward anymore but let the record show HE WAS THE FIRST TO BRING IT UP TODAY BUT IT’S TOO LATE THAT SHIP HAS SAILED SO STOP MAKING IT WEIRD GARETH and the Obama portraits will have to wait until next summer but except for our gaspingly inept waitress today this trip has been pretty awesome.

Good night!

The week in memes

Operation Desert Stormy

My Attorney’s Getting Arrested. MAGA!

Republican Mass-Shooting Emergency Checklist

1. Find out the color of the shooter: white = lone wolf/mentally unstable; dark = terrorist
2. If the shooter is a dark terrorist, make empty promises about travel bans and “extreme vetting”
3. If the shooter is a mentally unstable white lone wolf who couldn't possibly be described as a terrorist, well what can you do?
4. If an automatic machine gun was used for the mass murders, scream “Second Amendment!” every two minutes
5. If your name is trump, barely—if at all—acknowledge the shooting and hope that your next catastrophic moral, ethical or intellectual failure will make it disappear
6. Type “thoughts and prayers” on Twitter
7. Fire up the NRA we-need-more-guns spin propaganda machine that’s still warm from last week’s shooting
8. Create a distraction by committing treason
or: Declare that you’re fast-tracking never-discussed infrastructure legislation
or: Blame (in any order) Hillary, Obama, Democratic "obstruction" or the victims who didn't report the shooter's suspicious behavior
or: Bleat that this list is “inappropriate,” ignore that everything on it is documentable and scream that you are offended
or: Just wait for trump’s next batshit eruption, announcement or embarrassment to dominate the news cycle
9. Name all other possible weapons—especially knives!—that could have been used in a mass-shooting murder
10. If your name is trump, describe the murder victims as “beautiful”
11. Feign indignance and bleat “now is not the time” when anyone suggests the country needs to discuss and enact preventive gun control
12. Conspicuously do not declare the proper time to discuss or enact preventive gun control
13. Cite the above pre-packaged propaganda in interviews with news sources you otherwise scream are fake news
14. Type “thoughts and prayers” on Twitter
15. Do nothing meaningful, productive, rational, uncorrupt or humane

It’s been a year

since we lost President Obama and started plummeting from dignified, informed, capable, exemplary leadership to the appalling hourly implosions of integrity and morality that somehow count as adequate ever since. Here’s how I said goodbye:

"Selma to Stonewall."

For nearly a decade and all of an era, my President -- my conscientious, intelligent, egalitarian, accomplished, diplomatic, relentlessly inspiring and unapologetically yes-we-can-ing President -- has brought our nation a mountaintop eight years of dignity and clarity and principled leadership and national apotheosis and -- yes, as promised, as expected, as delivered, as savored day after day after day for two consecutive, exemplary, triumphant administrations -- hope. Calming hope. Inspiring hope. Enduring hope. Presidential hope.

And for the first time in the history of our noble, beautiful, glorious, always-full-of-wonderful-life-changing-promise country, he made me a part of it. A part of the dialogue. A part of the people. A part of the staggeringly hard-fought, always-on-the-front-lines-of-vital-importance equality.

And I am so grateful, Mr. President. So exhilarated. So proud to be a part of your vision. Your promise. Your world.

You have indeed brought us -- all of us, across the country, around the globe -- change we can believe in.

So I thank you. We thank you. You have made us immeasurably, profoundly, everlastingly better.

And though we knew this day would come and you and your family would step down with the grace and respect and dignity that have been the hallmarks of your leadership, it's still overwhelmingly difficult to say goodbye. 

Good morning!

Tweets That Always Come Back To Make Him Look Stupider And Staggeringly More Inept If That's Even Possible: Chapter 8,492

Total eclipse of the dumb

Guns and man-buns

My finally-humanoid haircut's first trip to the gym didn't land me a husband or a physique modeling contract or even a secret Putin meeting that's all Obama's fault. But my secret gym boyfriend was there after a months-long disappearance, though he was sporting a man-bun and haircuts and man-buns are not a mutually exclusive zero-sum equation and are therefore immutably incompatible so I am once again seeking qualified applicants for the position of secret gym boyfriend.

I have to note, though, that losing 40 lbs of hair makes your head cool faster and your body sweat less, and when your internal temperature-regulating system is working at optimal performance, you can give yourself a really swole workout. Even though your deal-breaker-man-bunned secret gym boyfriend never even looks up to notice.

Remember when President Obama was VILIFIED for:

• Arugula
• Flag pin
• Tan suit
• Mustard
• Chewing gum
• Private schools
• Healthy eating initiatives
• Michelle's bare arms
• Being black
• Oops! Did I just say being black?
• Overcoming a proudly obstructionist Congress to provide affordable healthcare for millions of Americans
• Being black

Sigh.

I miss the days when the media knew how to turn a president into a legitimate national embarrassment and a scandal knew how to be a SCANDAL.

Oh, Sweetie. Bless your heart.

1. The way you typed this with your chocolate-cake-covered thumbs, you have your surrogates somehow collectively being a very active president. So yes, you totally have an accuracy problem. Just not where you in your delusional narcissism think it is.

2. It's your surrogates' job to provide accurate information about your administration to the press. Not to hide in bushes. Not to yell at black people. If they don't provide accurate information, they can always use the time-honored "let me get back to you" duck and run, which at least gives everyone the impression that they're taking the time to ask questions and do research to be accurately informed while they're most likely stalling for time to find a way to spin your increasingly delusional and bizarre words and actions into a way to blame big black Barack Obama for your catastrophic failings.

3. Speaking of your catastrophic failings, if your surrogates don't have perfect accuracy, either they're incompetent or you are. Which, again, is Barack Obama's fault. Or Hillary's. Or now Comey's! Your hallucinatory little world is filled with wondrous possibilities.

4. "Lots of things happening" is a conveniently passive way of implying your schedule is just packed with important presidenty things, which in the real world do not involve golfing every weekend at tremendous taxpayer expense, locking up your third failing marriage in a gilded New York tower also at tremendous taxpayer expense, being an appallingly absent parent to all your children except the ones who actively sustain your practices of corruption and self-aggrandizement, and desperately changing your lies about why you fired the Republican-appointed, served-under-four-consecutive-presidents, in-the-middle-of-investigating-you-for-corruption FBI director on the national news and THEN by letter while you knew he was out of town instead of being a big brave professional "businessman" president and doing it in person.

5. "Cancel all press briefings"? Isn't that what a despotic dictator would do? I'll give you a moment to ask your presidential surrogates if anyone knows the word despot.

6. Getting back to point #1, your inability to write an accurate tweet makes your proposal to "hand out written responses" is the exact opposite of "the best thing to do."

7. And while we're on the topic of your tweets, they're getting longer and more punctuationy and more desperately-blame-everyone-else-but-yourselfy by the day. You're not fooling anyone but your arrogance; you are unhinged, flying off the rails, and hopefully literally and very soon slamming your smug face into the side of a mountain in a catastrophic crash of your own psychopathy.

8. I loathe you.

9. I loathe everyone who voted for and still defiantly supports you.

10. I loathe you.

10 things Andrew Jackson accomplished before he died in 1845

1. Got really angry about the Civil War that happened 16 years later
2. Invented Post-Its
3. Skipped the White House Correspondents Dinner to enjoy some beautiful chocolate cake with Frederick Douglass
4. Knew more about ISIS than the generals like a total badass
5. Carried the all-time record for the biggest crowd at his inauguration ... until you-know-who came along
6. Launched the man-bun
7. Figured out the difference between Syria and Iraq before bombing them
8. Was -- fun fact! -- the first president to tweet about fake news at 5:00 in the morning
9. Opened a state-of-the-art Holocaust center
10. Watched helplessly as Barack Obama started the 1861 Civil War

The Art of the Fail

GOP House. GOP Senate. GOP "President." Eight years of whining and criticizing and blaming and grandstanding in which they had ridiculously abundant time to craft viable, bipartisan legislation to replace the whipping-boy Affordable Care Act that their hatred for has nothing to do with the fact that Barack Obama is black nope nothing at all.

Instead they sat on their whiny, incapable hands for eight years and in the 26 days between their dear leader declaring that "nobody knew that health care could be so complicated" and today's GOP-controlled Art-of-the-Deal flaccidly-aborted-at-the-last-minute non-vote, they hastily cobbled together a criminally and intellectually and morally incompetent replacement proposal whose most celebrated feature was that it used less paper than the Affordable Care Act did.

THEY FAILED. CATASTROPHICALLY. AT THE ASTRONOMICAL EXPENSE OF OUR CONFIDENCE AND OUR RESPECT AND OUR TAX DOLLARS. They wasted almost a decade of time and resources and money and bipartisan goodwill and public trust whining impotently about how (they barbarically hoped and prayed) the Affordable Care Act was failing and solemnly lying that they were going to "fix" it.

And our petulant, inarticulate man-boy president immediately -- IMMEDIATELY! -- blamed the Democrats for his controlling party's catastrophic failures today and dismissed this entire colossal waste of time and money and potentially lives as an inchoately threatening lesson in "a lot about loyalty."

He's been an Art of the Failure at almost everything he's done in his pampered, self-aggrandizing life. And now he's dragging our entire country down his narcissistic, intellectually bankrupt rabbit hole with him. And there's very little of consequence we can do but wait until he uses his favorite big-boy word and implodes. And it's looking to be an excruciatingly long, painfully slow self-immolation.

Momentum trumps inertia

The catastrophic crash happened in the last year of the George W. Bush presidency. The steady climb of recovery happened over the course of the entire Barack Obama presidency. Our petulant, willfully ignorant man-boy president has been in office six weeks minus golf vacations and has done little to nothing besides ride the Obama momentum.

Oh, wait. He HAS done something: He just tweeted a graph showing year-by-year how Obama steadily drove the consumer comfort recovery and then implied that he himself had something to do with it.

So either he's a moron or he thinks you're a moron. I'm going with option 3: He's just in this for the free healthcare.

"Selma to Stonewall"

For nearly a decade and all of an era, my President -- my conscientious, intelligent, egalitarian, accomplished, diplomatic, relentlessly inspiring and unapologetically yes-we-can-ing President -- has brought our nation a mountaintop eight years of dignity and clarity and principled leadership and national apotheosis and -- yes, as promised, as expected, as delivered, as savored day after day after day for two consecutive, exemplary, triumphant administrations -- hope. Calming hope. Inspiring hope. Enduring hope. Presidential hope.

And for the first time in the history of our noble, beautiful, glorious, always-full-of-wonderful-life-changing-promise country, he made me a part of it. A part of the dialogue. A part of the people. A part of the staggeringly hard-fought, always-on-the-front-lines-of-vital-importance equality.

And I am so grateful, Mr. President. So exhilarated. So proud to be a part of your vision. Your promise. Your world.

You have indeed brought us -- all of us, across the country, around the globe -- change we can believe in. So I thank you. We thank you. You have made us immeasurably, profoundly, everlastingly better.

And though we knew this day would come and you and your family would step down with the grace and respect and dignity that have been the hallmarks of your leadership, it's still overwhelmingly difficult to say goodbye.