My homeboy Lavelle and I had this thing we did when a kid wanted to fight me and I didn’t want to fight. I would act like I was taking off my shirt and Lavelle knew that was his cue to jump in and act like he was breaking it up. I was rail-thin growing up. I reached my full man height (6 foot, 2 inches) as a teen but was probably 150 pounds soaking wet, so the last thing I ever wanted was to be outside with no shirt on. If I really wanted to fight then I did so with my shirt on. For some reason, in junior high school I got into a lot of fights and Lavelle broke up his fair share. To me it was an opportunity to save face and it worked most of the time. Until one day this kid Andre moved Lavelle out the way. I was literally fake taking off my shirt when Lavelle did his whole routine and then out of nowhere came Andre, who was a few years older than us, like, “Nah Lavelle, let them fight.”
I kept my shirt on. We fought. I lost.
The larger point in this is that I know what the kids call “pump faking” when I see it. Hell, I was Charles Smith in Game 2 of the 1993 NBA Eastern Conference Finals all the way through junior high school, so let’s just say I’m a scholar.
So when news emerged that President Trump wanted to give the people a $2,000 stimulus check, I immediately called bullshit. The news literally sounded like Lavelle’s and my fake fight move, in which the president wanted to interrupt congressional haggling over a stimulus package while aides had to hold him back.
From the Washington Post:
White House aides intervened Thursday to prevent President Trump from issuing a statement calling for substantially larger stimulus payments for millions of Americans, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the private exchange.
On a phone call Thursday afternoon, Trump told allies that he believes stimulus payments in the next relief package should be “at least” $1,200 per person and possibly as big as $2,000 per person, the officials said. Congressional leadership is preparing a stimulus package that would provide checks of $600 per person.
Trump was in the middle of formally drafting his demand for the larger payments when White House officials told him that doing so could imperil delicate negotiations over the economic relief package, the officials said. Congressional Republicans have insisted that the relief bill remain less than $1 trillion, and it’s currently designed to cost around $900 billion. Larger stimulus checks could push the package’s total over $1 trillion.
The whole thing is self-serving AF. Trump gets to look like he wanted to give the people more money but it was stubborn-ass Congress that wouldn’t go for it. Look at how generous Trump wanted to be if only Congress would listen! And isn’t that just like Trump to run out in the eleventh hour to look like the hero?
The whole thing is bullshit. America has been without financial assistance for months and if this was truly at the top of Trump’s agenda, he would’ve made it happen. Trump has barely tweeted about it, besides the random: “Go big, or go home” Twitter blast.
The reality is that Congress, more specifically Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with his Mitch-ass, has failed America and Trump doesn’t get to be the hero. Plus when is the last time that aides have held the president back? They can’t even take his cell phone from him at night to keep him off Twitter.
MAGA? More Like GTFOH, Amirite?
MAGA people love old history. They love slavery times and old loser flags and old laws that no one has ever heard of.
Apparently there is some law from 1807, the Insurrection Act, that can be invoked in crazy times that allows for troops to be deployed on citizens to prevent an uprising. Wait, haven’t they already deployed this act during the Black Lives Matter protests?
Anyway, MAGA has been calling for this because some white children have trouble being told simple things like, “It’s time for bed” and “Your racist president didn’t win the election.”
From Politico:
At its core, the Insurrection Act gives the president authority to send military and National Guard troops to quell local rebellions and violence, offering an exemption to prohibitions against using military personnel to enforce domestic laws. Historically, it has been used in moments of extreme national strife — the Civil War, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, violent labor disputes, desegregation battles, rioting following Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.
Only once, however, has it been used in the wake of an election — and that was to stop a literal militia from seizing the Louisiana government on behalf of John McEnery, a former Confederate officer who had lost the 1872 governor’s race.
Nonetheless, in the minds of some authoritarian-leaning and conspiracy-minded Trump supporters, the Insurrection Act has become a needed step to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from assuming the presidency. Their evidence-deficient reasoning: Democrats illegally rigged the election and are attempting a coup, and Trump must send in the troops to undo this conspiracy.
What MAGA fails to understand is that there is no uprising. Our guy–as hapless as he may be–won. We aren’t mad, y’all are. We are good over here. In fact, we’ve just been drinking water and exfoliating and waiting for the new year, but go off, sis.
Want to See a Sexless Robot Get Vaccinated?
On Friday morning, sexless robot Vice President Mike Pence rolled up his sleeve and blinded damn near half of America with his untanned arm to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on live TV proving that his role in the White House will forever be as a crash test dummy.
To date, the vice president has attended an NFL football game just so he could walk out after players kneeled during the national anthem. He has jumped into at least seven pools just to tell the president how cold the water is. He’s also allowed the president to try several different styles of kicks against the area where his testicles would be and now he’s gotten a vaccine for COVID-19 to prove that the shot is safe.
Because Pence doesn’t do anything without his handler, Karen Pence–her real name is Karen, but yes, she’s totally a Karen–also took the shot, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams also got the vaccine at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House, the New York Post reports.
“I didn’t feel a thing, well done,” Pence said afterward. “Make no mistake about it. It’s a medical miracle.”
He added, “Today, Karen and I wanted to step forward and take this vaccine to assure the American people while we cut red tape, we cut no corners.”
Adams noted that he’s higher risk for a serious case of COVID-19 with his history of asthma and high blood pressure.
“I am acutely aware of my own increased risk of COVID-19 exposures and the comorbidity that increase my risk of complications,” he said. “As the US surgeon general and a black man, I am equally aware of the symbolic significance of my vaccination today.”
Earlier this week, Pence toured a vaccine production facility in Indiana.
“The last thing I would say to every American is be confident that we have cut red tape, but we’ve cut no corners when it comes to the development of this vaccine,” he said.
President Trump didn’t receive the vaccine but is reportedly going to monitor Pence and make sure he doesn’t experience any malfunctions before he decides whether or not to get the shot.