President Treason made another perfect phone call.

Hi and welcome back to the real world! It is officially 2021 and absolutely nothing is better yet! But, hopefully, things will begin changing soon enough.

As for me, I’ve made a few New Year’s* resolutions:

  1. Stop being so goddamned angry all the time.
  2. Stop ranting about how much I hate the President of the United States to anyone who will listen.
  3. Stop using juvenile epithets to describe the President of the United States, just use his given name already, and treat him with the respect the office demands.

*All resolutions will go into effect on January 20.

Political Crap

Believe it or not, on Friday and Saturday I was thinking about today’s post and wondering whether I would just skip this section until tomorrow, seeing as the only real political news that happened over the New Year’s holiday was that Ted Cruz was being a sycophantic little bitch and humiliating himself on President Dingus’ behalf. But that is hardly news, that’s just a normal Monday.

Still, it’s worth mentioning that Cruz, clearly irritated that Missouri Senator Josh Hawley pushed his way to the front of the line to announce he would object to Biden’s election in the Senate, came up with a novel approach to objecting: he’d ask for a 10-day delay in the certification of the election and an audit of the results in the six states that President Cheater is so mad about losing, and he managed to find 10 other Senators to sign onto this dangerous and unconstitutional hare-brained scheme. This “audit” has already been shot down by Lindsey Graham, but these 11 doofuses are still planning to object to the certification on Wednesday, and in doing so, wasting everyone’s time. Reminder: if at least one Congressman and one Senator object to the certification, both chambers have to debate the merits of objection for two hours before voting. But since the House is controlled by the Democrats, a vote to object is literally going nowhere and Joe Biden will still be President of the United States on January 20. 

Oh, and it goes without saying that the GOP morons who are objecting to President Loser’s loss but won their own races on the same ballot are not suggesting that their personal election results were fraudulent. Don’t be ridiculous!

It’s all pointless and stupid … except it’s also dangerous. They are undermining the democratic process itself and setting a terrible precedent.

Senator Murphy makes a good point — sure, this is all political theater that is going to go nowhere, but if the GOP could get away with stealing an election from the American voters, they now have made it perfectly clear they would. The GOP has long been opposed to the majority of Americans voting, now they are taking a stand against the institution of democracy itself.

But! The story of a few boot-licking GOP Senators undermining our Constitution and republic was so utterly unsurprising that I actually considered skipping this section today UNTIL! we learned that President Perfect Call has been on the phone again, and this time, lordy, there are tapes.

Yesterday, The Washington Post broke the story that President Impeached called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday and demanded that he “find 11,780 votes.” You can read the entire transcript and listen to the entire call here, or just enjoy four minutes of highlights:

Some of my personal highlights from the transcript:

The part where the idiot president thinks that rally attendees = votes:

“So we’ve spent a lot of time on this, and if we could just go over some of the numbers, I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We’d be getting 25-30,000 people a rally, and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense.”

The part where he wants the secretary of state to say — after FOUR recounts — that “whoopsie! he made a mistake”:

“We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know, I mean, having the correct — the people of Georgia are angry. And these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night. Along with others that we’re going to have by that time, which are much more substantial even. And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated.”

The part where he bitches that social media is against him and that Raffensperger should just illegally throw the election to him because he’s a Republican too:

“Oh this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not; it’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I don’t even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican. ”

The part where he threatens Raffensperger and his lawyers with criminal prosecution if they don’t throw the election:

“And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal — it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk. ”

The part where he threatens Raffensperger and his lawyers but suggests it will all go away if Raffensperger magically conjures up 11,000 votes for him:

“Well, you better check on the ballots because they are shredding ballots, Ryan. I’m just telling you, Ryan. They’re shredding ballots. And you should look at that very carefully. Because that’s so illegal. You know, you may not even believe it because it’s so bad. But they’re shredding ballots because they think we’re going to eventually get there . . . because we’ll eventually get into Fulton. In my opinion, it’s never too late. . . . So, that’s the story. Look, we need only 11,000 votes.”

The part where he threatens Raffensperger and his lawyers again:

“But I mean all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff. When you talk about no criminality, I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.”

The part where he literally begs:

“So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”

The part where he threatens Raffensperger and Governor Kemp politically:

“Look, ultimately, I win, okay? Because you guys are so wrong. And you treated this. You treated the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who is down at 21, he was down 21 points. And like a schmuck, I endorsed him, and he got elected, but I will tell you, he is a disaster.

The people are so angry in Georgia, I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now.”

The part where he threatens the Senate run-off election:

“You should meet tomorrow because you have a big election coming up, and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam — and because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote. And a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president. Okay? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected. Really respected, if this thing could be straightened out before the election. You have a big election coming up on Tuesday. And I think that it is really is important that you meet tomorrow and work out on these numbers.”

The part where he threatens Raffensperger and Governor Kemp politically again:

“And Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock. What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you. And I only ran against her once. And that was with a guy named Brian Kemp, and I beat her. And if I didn’t run, Brian wouldn’t have had even a shot, either in the general or in the primary. He was dead, dead as a doornail. He never thought he had a shot at either one of them. What a schmuck I was. But that’s the way it is. That’s the way it is. I would like you . . . for the attorneys . . . I’d like you to perhaps meet with Ryan, ideally tomorrow, because I think we should come to a resolution of this before the election. Otherwise you’re going to have people just not voting. They don’t want to vote. They hate the state, they hate the governor, and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that, Brad, right? They like you, you know, they like you. They can’t believe what they found. They want more people like you. So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And, Brad, we just want the truth. It’s simple.”

And finally, the part where he seems to actually believe he won Georgia by nearly half a million votes, despite losing it by 12,000:

“And the real truth is, I won by 400,000 votes. At least. That’s the real truth. But we don’t need 400,000 votes. We need less than 2,000 votes.”

Now, we are only a little over 24-hours out from the release of this audio, so there’s still a lot to shake out. Democrats are outraged, obviously, that the President at the very least abused his power and at the worst engaged in a criminal conspiracy to try to overthrow an election. And Republicans are split: the 11 dummies mentioned above are still planning to throw themselves on President Seditious’ funeral pyre on Wednesday, but other Republicans, including some surprising ones — looking at you Tom Cotton — know which way the wind is blowing and are ready to move on and spend their energies obstructing Joe Biden at every turn, beginning 16 days from now.

Who knows where this story is going to go. While I personally hope it eventually leads to more criminal investigations into President Individual One once he’s out of office and far from the cover of any pardons, honestly, I’m just happy to watch the GOP burn itself down over a bankrupt has-been reality TV host and steak huckster. Delicious.

16 Days.

Going Viral

We surpassed 350,000 American deaths. According to some figures, we are actually over 360,000 and the number is certainly much higher. The vaccine rollout isn’t going well, and now there is some debate over whether or not to start giving the second dose or to vaccinate more people with the first dose.

Joe Biden is going to include a memorial to the victims of COVID-19 in his inauguration.

JUST LOOK AT THIS WHINY BITCH. WOW.

HOW ABOUT BECAUSE DR. FAUCI HAS ADVOCATED WEARING MASKS, SOCIAL DISTANCING AND DOING MASS TESTING, AND HAS FAILED TO HOST A SINGLE SUPER-SPREADER EVENT? CAN WE START THERE, YOU PATHETIC CONTAGIOUS UNDERMINER?

Your TV season is going to be disrupted this winter/spring. Production has ground to a halt on virtually everything being filmed in Los Angeles (if not everything). Here’s a list of shows that have stopped production (as of Friday).

Larry King was hospitalized for COVID but has recently been moved from the ICU.

Louis Gossett, Jr. contracted the virus and was hospitalized, but left the hospital too soon out of fear. Oh no.

Dr. Drew Pinsky, who called COVID-19 a “press-induced panic” and said it was no worse than the flu, has been diagnosed with the virus.

Tony Romo tested positive and was unable to call yesterday’s Los Angeles Rams-Arizona Cardinals game on The NFL Today.

John Bishop, UK comedian and TV star (and soon to be Doctor Who cast member, see below), and his wife have tested positive.

Zara Holland, a Love Island star and Miss Great Britain 2015, was detained in Barbados after trying to board a plane to the U.K. after her boyfriend tested positive. Lord.

Gamer Jarod Nandin has died of COVID-19.

Zelene Blancas, a 35-year-old teacher from El Paso who went viral with a sweet video of her students hugging each other — PRE-VIRUS — has died from COVID.

Jeremy Clarkson wrote about his experience with the virus, and how he was afraid he was going to die.

Broadway professionals discuss what it will look like when the lights go back on. (Whenever that happens.)

Even at a COVID-19 testing site, no one recognizes Tony Hawk. This man is Clark Kent — unless he is HOLDING A SKATEBOARD, no one recognizes him.

March Madness will take place entirely in Indiana, mostly in Indianapolis.

In a “People are Stupid” Roundup:

A man put on an inflatable Christmas tree costume and danced around in a California hospital to cheer folks up, and now 44 employees have COVID, and one is dead.

Las Vegas went ahead with a fireworks display on New Year’s and crowds obviously showed up.

And here’s a roundup of people partying all over the world as if all this isn’t happening.

Over in Los Angeles, which the CDC labeled the “most dangerous place in America,” anti-maskers stormed a mall because they are assholes.

“People are Stupid” Vaccine Subcategory:

A pharmacist was arrested in Wisconsin after intentionally destroying 500 doses of vaccine. Things to be concerned about (besides the obvious): some states have given legal protections to pharmacists who have religious objections to filling certain prescriptions. This is an anti-abortion thing, as the prescriptions that are objected to are Plan B pills, abortifacients, and birth control pills — which is particularly fun because sometimes these pharmacists might work in the only pharmacy in an area for literally hundreds of miles. But I don’t see any reason why these same laws wouldn’t protect pharmacists who might have a personal conflict with the vaccine. Stay tuned. 

HEY, NEW YORK POST: A HEADLINE SUGGESTING THAT THE VACCINE MIGHT HAVE KILLED A GUY IS NOT HELPFUL.

All Other TV News

Ken Jennings is having a week. So, today marks the last week of Alex Trebek’s Jeopardy! episodes, and a new host has not been announced yet. The show will have guests fill-in, and clearly it is something of an audition process for the job. But the frontrunner is Ken Jennings, Jeopardy’s! most famous champion. Which explains why last week he tweeted out a blanket apology for some of his previous, offensive tweets: a manager clearly got a hold of him and told him that if he wants that Jeopardy! job, he has to do a social media mea culpa quicklike:

Which, absolutely, good. This might surprise you considering how angry I can become on some issues, but the truth is I do believe people have the ability to mature and change and shouldn’t be held a prisoner indefinitely to past poor judgment. As long as you own up to your mistakes, understand what you did wrong and apologize genuinely, we can all move forward together.

Enter Bean Dad.

Someone once famously tweeted something along the lines that there is a new main character on Twitter every day, and your goal is to not become that character. For those of you who remain off of Twitter — and you should if you can — Bean Dad became the Main Character on Twitter this weekend. Bean Dad is a podcaster named John Roderick who co-hosts a show with … Ken Jennings. And what Bean Dad did to earn his nickname and the ire of Twitter this weekend was to tweet out a long, self-congratulatory thread about how he refused to teach his nine-year-old daughter how to use a can opener, insisting that she figure it out herself, and announcing that none of them would eat until she did.

Reader, it took many many tears, six hours, and untold costs in future therapy until she figured it out. People were divided on whether or not this was good parenting, which he clearly believed it was, or if it was child neglect or even abuse. As a parent, I understand his philosophy, but I also think that it’s in your parental job description to teach your children how to use a damn can opener.

Ken Jennings stuck his neck out and defended his co-host:

But, yeah, being a “loving and attentive dad” is not what got Bean Dad in real trouble with the mob on Twitter and why I am unable to share his thread here. I am unable to share his smug and obnoxious thread because Bean Dad took down his profile when people unearthed his other, older tweets:

Oh, Ken Jennings.

Meanwhile, also not real happy with Bean Dad right about now? Bush’s Baked Beans:

In business news: Roku might buy up all that Quibi content, and quickly made a deal with Discovery+ to stream the channel, thereby avoiding that headache they had with HBO Max. And over on Hulu, they’ll be carrying 14 ViacomCBS channels to their live TV package.

If you missed it, Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper got VERY drunk on New Year’s Eve.

James Corden is threatening to move back to the United Kingdom.

Hey, creators: Don’t be shitty to your fans.

The Mandalorian has unseated Game of Thrones as the most-pirated TV series.

Farrah Penn is a Buzzfeed writer who does a very specific thing: she watches only the pilot and finale episodes of a series she’s never seen before and then tries to figure out what happened in between. Whitney shared Penn’s post about Supernatural, and I thought it was fascinating because she came to the same conclusion that I did, as a very casual viewer of the show, that the series was always at heart about the relationship between the Winchester brothers. A number of fans were dissatisfied with the finale because they were invested in other characters and other relationships, but if you take just the first episode and the last episode, it’s clear that the brothers’ bond was the point all along.

Penn also tackled Lost, which is particularly interesting because the finale is hard to understand even for those who have watched every episode multiple times. But I was pleased to see that despite that, Penn came to the same conclusion I did about the show which is that it was always about the relationships between the survivors, not about the polar bears or the giant foot or the whispers or even the island itself. The island was just a place for the survivors to find one another, and help each other to survive. And listen! If someone who has only seen two episodes of this show can understand that, I DON’T KNOW WHY THE REST OF YOU CAN’T. AND NOW I’M ALL ANGRY AT A HYPOTHETICAL YOU ABOUT THE FINALE ALL OVER AGAIN.

LOVE IS DEAD. AGAIN.

Recover quickly, Tom Kane.

Congratulations, Johnathan Van Ness and Mark Peacock!

 

 
 
 
 
 
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In Development

  • Glitch, a Korean drama series, is coming to Netflix.
  • Margaret, a 2012 film that is considered a forgotten masterpiece, is now available on HBO Max.

Casting News

Mark Your Calendar

  • Surviving Death will debut on Netflix on January 6.
  • Chris Rock: Total Blackout, The Tamborine Extended Cut will premiere (or re-premiere) on Netflix on January 12.

R.I.P.

Kerry Vincent, Food Network star

Barbara Shelley, Doctor Who actress, and British horror film star

Joan Micklin Silver, Film director who directed Crossing Delancy and Hester Street

Mike Fenton, Casting director who was cast Back to the Future, E.T., One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Godfather: Part II, American Graffiti, Chinatown, Young Frankenstein, Norma Rae, Blade Runner, A Christmas Story, Poltergeist, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Footloose and Aliens. DAMN.

Tanya Roberts, Bond girl and recurring actress on That 70s Show

Edward Irastorza, Visual effects producer who worked on everything from the Hercules and Xena series to Pan’s Labyrinth

Paul Heller, Film producer who worked on My Left Foot and Enter the Dragon

Gary Klar, Actor from Day of the Dead

MF DOOM, Rapper

Phyllis McGuire, Last member of The McGuire Sisters

Alto Reed, Saxophone player for Bob Seger’ Silver Bullet Band 

Gerry Marsden, Lead singer of Gerry and the Pacemakers

Paul Westphal, Basketball Hall of Famer

Ron “Mr. Disneyland” Dominguez, Disneyland executive with an amazing origin story

Richard Bates, Head of government relations for Disney

WATCH THIS

Discovery+ Launches: Discovery’s streaming service launches today, with some 54 new shows and specials. You can check it out here. It will cost anywhere between $4.99-$6.99 a month.

Jeopardy!: Alex Trebek’s final episodes begin this week. His final episode will air on Friday. 11:30 a.m., ABC (But check your local listings)

The Bachelor: Matt James becomes the dating show’s first Black Bachelor. It only took TWENTY-FIVE SEASONS. Season premiere. 7 p.m., ABC

30 Coins: A strange child is born in a small Spanish town, which might be linked to the newly appointed priest and a mysterious coin in his possession. Series premiere. 8 p.m., HBO

The Hustler: In this new competition series, five contestants answer trivia questions to build a pot of winnings, but one of them is a plant. JUST BRING BACK THE MOLE ALREADY. Series premiere. 9 p.m., ABC

The Neighborhood: Dave and Calvin go to an escape room in the winter premiere. 7 p.m., CBS

Bob ♥ Abishola: Bob finds himself in a feud with Kemi. Winter premiere. 7:30 p.m., CBS

All Rise: Lola’s baby is due at any moment — and she faces a hard decision about a plea deal in the winter season premiere. 8 p.m., CBS

Bull: Bull represents a religious leader accused of killing his wife in the winter season premiere. 9 p.m., CBS

The Wall: Season premiere. 9 p.m., NBC

Late Night:

  • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Gordon Ramsay, Vanessa Kirby, Sturgill Simpson
  • Late Night with Seth Meyers: Amy Poehler, Burna Boy, Chris Coleman
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Stacey Abrams, RuPaul, Maren Morris
  • The Late Late Show with James Corden: Rosario Dawson, Ingrid Andress
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live: Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt James, Machine Gun Kelly
  • The Daily Show: The Daily Social Distancing Show
  • Watch What Happens Live: Ashling Lorger, Eddie Lucas

MON. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC Dancing With the Stars
(new)
The Good Doctor
(new)
CBS The Neighborhood
(new)
Bob ♥ Abishola
(new)
All Rise
(new)
Bull
(new)
CW Whose Line is it Anyway?
(repeat)
Whose Line is it Anyway?
(repeat)
Penn & Teller: Fool Us
(new)
Local
FOX L.A.’s Finest
(new)
The Masked Dancer
(repeat)
News/Local
NBC Ellen’s Game of Games
(new)
Ellen’s Game of Games
(new)
Weakest Link
(new)

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