The ‘Fuck Your Feelings’ crowd is still pretty sure the election is fraudulent because they feel like it is.

by Therese Odell, posted in Uncategorized

Hello, Thursday!

My best friend hates Billy Joel with a white-hot passion. These Huskies are his spirit animals:

Political Crap

It has been 44 days since President So Much Winning lost the 2020 election and it is 34 days until Joe Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. And still! STILL we are doing this shit:

I mean, has there been a better summary of this idiot’s attempt to overthrow this election been summarized better than: “TRUE! ! This claim about election fraud is disputed“?

Yesterday, President Total Loyalty’s lickspittle Republican chairman of the homeland security committee Senator Ron Johnson held a committee hearing on election fraud, while also admitting there was no fraud.

Though Mr. Johnson conceded in his opening remarks that fraudulent voting did not affect the outcome of the election, he said that “lax enforcement, denying effective bipartisan observation of the complete election process, and failure to be fully transparent or conduct reasonable audits has led to heightened suspicion.”

That’s right, President Fuck Your Feelings’ base is now arguing that the election is fraudulent because they feel like it might be. And I feel like I’m losing my damn mind.

Also, just please note that yesterday news broke that the Russians hacked a bunch of our government networks, including the Treasury and Commerce Departments.

“Officials said a hunt was on to determine if other parts of the government had been affected by what looked to be one of the most sophisticated, and perhaps among the largest, attacks on federal systems in the past five years. Several said national security-related agencies were also targeted, though it was not clear whether the systems contained highly classified material.

The Trump administration said little in public about the hack, which suggested that while the government was worried about Russian intervention in the 2020 election, key agencies working for the administration — and unrelated to the election — were actually the subject of a sophisticated attack that they were unaware of until recent weeks.”

Ron Johnson’s homeland security committee is theoretically the committee that would look into such an alarming development, but instead, they were wasting their time with this Trump-fellating bullshit.

And look, the number of people willing to perpetuate President Fabulist’s delusions that he actually won is dwindling: Mitch McConnell signaled to Republicans that it was over on the floor of the Senate after the electoral college voted, and privately in a phone call warning them to CUT IT THE FUCK OUT AND DON’T GET ANY IDEAS ABOUT JANUARY 6 (more on that in a second). And right-of-Fox-News Newsmax says they will be calling Joe Biden “President-elect” going forward, leaving only OANN for Dear Leader to soak in. Even Vice President Frozen Yogurt is making plans to get the FUCK OUT OF TOWN after January 6, because he knows which way the wind is blowing.

But there are still plenty of Republicans who are willing to tell President No Clothes that his robes are beautiful, and I have no doubt that come January 6, the Trump-wing of the GOP will find some willing senator to contest the electoral college count for a little extra theater to appease President Grotesque. As I said, Mitch McConnell is urging the senators to do no such thing because ultimately, the entire Senate would have to vote on whether or not to challenge a state (or state’s) votes, and the GOP will vote it down, and then in the next election, a bunch of GOP senators will be primaried by QAnon lunatics who felt they betrayed Dear Leader by not couping for him. It’s a no-win for McConnell.

But! There is no shortage of boot-lickers who will be willing to burn it all down, and The Hill posited one terrifying scenario that is going to keep me up at night. According to the Electoral Count Act, if one senator and one congressman challenge a state’s vote, the two chambers go back and separately argue the challenge for two hours before voting on it. However, the law is old and never been used before, and, “The law envisions the ability to challenge electoral votes collectively or individually. Surely a crafty legal mind like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) would challenge, not each state, but each electoral vote separately.” Meaning 538 hours of arguing. Meaning no decision before the inauguration.

Now! this also means a likely President Nancy Pelosi if Republicans really want to fuck around and find out, but it’s a dangerous game for everyone involved and there’s a non-zero chance the GOP isn’t at least gaming this out. I would like to comfort myself in thinking that there’s no way they would chance this, but I also tried comforting myself into thinking this summer that the White House would never be so brazen as to try to overthrow the election if they lost it and look how that’s turned out.

The bigger problem is that while such shenanigans would (probably) not work, and they probably won’t even try, the damage to our democracy is done. There are millions of Americans out there, like this former Houston cop who, working for local right-wing lunatic Steve Hoetz, was convinced that an air conditioning technician was behind a huge voter fraud scheme and his van was full of fake ballots. Mark Aguirre, the ex-cop, ran the guy off the road and pulled a gun on him, and one of his associates stole the guy’s van. Reader, there were no fake ballots. But the President keeps adding fuel to this fire with his tweets and the dumb committee hearings and the OANN reports and the threats to fuck with the January 6 count and it is just a matter of time until someone is hurt or killed.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden has made two more historic cabinet choices: Representative Deb Haaland for Department of Interior, making her the first Native American in any President’s cabinet; and Pete Buttigieg as Transportation Secretary, making him the first openly gay person to serve in the cabinet, and the youngest cabinet member since Alexander Hamilton. Biden has also named Brenda Mallory, an environmental lawyer to lead the Council on Environmental Quality.

34 more days, y’all.

Black Lives Matter

Leonard Roberts reveals in a very candid essay in Variety that he faced terrible discrimination on Heroes, from the writers, producers, and his co-star Ali Larter who was just fucking horrible to him. His character was killed off early into season two, in large part — if not entirely — because of Larter. Variety substantiated Roberts’ account with 10 people who worked on the series. Larter has “apologized” to him by claiming she doesn’t remember it this way and that she’s “sorry for any role” she might have played.

The Cleveland Indians are changing their name. Took long enough.

Fox is launching a program called Fastrack that aims to diversify its slate of producers.

Jodie Turner-Smith, a Black woman, is going to play Anne Boleyn in an upcoming Channel 5 series, and the racists are SO MAD. But she gets the last laugh because she’s gorgeous and married to Joshua Jackson in real life, so.

The country band formerly known as Lady Antebellum who is going around calling themselves “Lady A” now even though that was the name a Black jazz singer had been using for years — and who SUED the Black jazz singer to take over her stage name — is now starting a scholarship for Historically Black Colleges because you have to do something to contain the damage, I guess.

Don’t worry: Warner Bros. has concluded their Justice League investigation into abuse on set and “remedial action” has taken place. What that remedial action was and who was remediated against is unclear.

Tyler Perry has donated $100,000 to the defense fund of Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend.

Going Viral

According to The New York Times, over 3,600 Americans died of the virus yesterday. That’s terrifying. California is being particularly hard hit. In Los Angeles, 1 out of every 80 residents are testing positive and they are running out of ICU beds. The good news? We are one step closer to a second vaccine.

In the single-most infuriating news story of the day — possibly the year — the current administration actively sought to take a herd immunity approach, despite claims to the contrary:

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.

“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.

“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee’s select subcommittee on coronavirus.

Alexander also argued that colleges should stay open to allow Covid-19 infections to spread.

Actual scientists have argued that a herd immunity approach would require millions of Americans to die before immunity could be achieved. Additionally, this approach would leave millions of younger people vulnerable to devastating long-term effects of this virus — effects that could lead to early death. While this never became the “official” plan, the mixed messaging that came out of Washington D.C. this year has left many Americans convinced this virus is not nearly as deadly as it is, and now we are seeing tens of thousands dying each week.

And here’s what I don’t understand about all of this: actively seeking to infect millions and millions of Americans with a vicious and deadly disease IS NOT AN ELECTION STRATEGY. I genuinely believe had President ADD been able to oversee a national effort to contain the virus, one that expressed genuine concern with the health and welfare of every American, and empathy towards those who had died instead of singularly focusing on the economy, he’d be coasting towards his second inauguration right now. But because he’s so short-sighted and like any conman wanted the easiest and fastest fix, President Snake Oil allowed this herd immunity nonsense to seep into the national conversation as a viable approach. “We want them infected.” JESUS H. CHRIST. People should go to jail over this.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, King Gustaf has admitted their herd immunity has failed and many have died as a result. Do not expect President King Babyfingers to make a similar admission.

Joe Biden is probably going to get vaccinated sometime next week, and Mike Pence is scheduled to be vaccinated tomorrow at a public event. OK, but what about President Mucus?

Between the federal government already bungling the distribution and a quarter of Americans saying that they aren’t going to get it, the vaccination effort is going to be particularly hard to manage. Twitter is vowing to moderate and remove false information about the vaccine. And I wish that would be enough to stop disinformation.

But hey, the NFL is considering filling the stands at the Super Bowl with vaccinated health care workers, and that is not a terrible idea, honestly, especially if they really use the event to promote people getting the vaccine.

French President Emmanuel Macron has the virus.

Sophie Turner is REALLY UNINTERESTED in your excuses for why you won’t wear a mask.

At least five crew members on Mission Impossible 7 have quit after Tom Cruise’s COVID rant. But George Clooney, for one, doesn’t think Cruise overreacted.

The Rookie has had a number of COVID cases on set.

Crew members on Mythic Quest are super pissed at how the outbreak was handled there, and call Rob McElhenney’s message that there was no evidence the virus spread on set “horseshit.”

All Other TV News

HBO Max and Roku have finally ended their standoff. Beginning today, the HBO Max will be available on Roku, just in time for Wonder Woman: 1984 to begin streaming next week. The HBO Max app will also be available on the PS5 — if you can find one.

Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s series of five films on Amazon Prime, blurs an already blurry line between TV and film. So what does it matter if something is a film or a show? It’s an interesting question that IndieWire does a good job of breaking down as it relates to awards and our own prejudices about television and movies.

The upcoming Clarice series on CBS will make mention of Buffalo Bill, but not Hannibal because the rights to Thomas Harris’ characters are split in completely insane ways. WHO NEGOTIATED THIS? (But it also explains a lot about Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series …)

Ralph Malph and Chachi are fighting because this year is absurd. (Related: I was today years old when I learned it is “Ralph Malph” and NOT “Ralph Mouth.”)

You think 2020 has been bad? Trying being a kid in 1987:

Renewals

In Development

Casting News

Mark Your Calendars

  • Shadow and Bone will premiere on Netflix in April.

  • The Resident returns on Fox on January 12.

  • Marrying Millions will return on Lifetime on January 27.

  • Carmen Sandiego returns on Netflix on January 15.

R.I.P.

Jeremy Bulloch, The original Boba Fett

WATCH THIS

The Stand: Alexander Skarsgård, James Marsden, and Whoopi Goldberg star in the new take on Stephen King’s classic epic apocalypse novel. Series premiere. CBS All Access

Homeschool Musical Class of 2020: High school seniors from across the country perform musical numbers from the safety of their homes and talk about their experiences in this insane year. Premiere. HBO Max

4 Blocks: A crime boss longs to leave the life in this new drama series. Premiere. HBO max

Late Night:

  • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Paul McCartney, Pedro Pascal, the Voidz
  • Late Night with Seth Meyers: Kristen Wiig, Carrie Underwood
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Joe and Jill Biden
  • The Late Late Show with James Corden: Gal Gadot
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live: Viola Davis, Daveed Diggs, the Bird and the Bee featuring Dave Grohl
  • The Daily Show: The Daily Social Distancing Show
  • Conan: Sienna Miller
  • Watch What Happens Live: Craig Conover, Austen Kroll
THUR 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC Station 19
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CBS Young Sheldon
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CW Dogs of the Year
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(new)		 World’s Funniest Animals
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FOX Thursday Night Football
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NBC Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors
(new)		 Dateline

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