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“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

We still have time to mess this up!

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Infrastructure week. at last.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

No one could have predicted…

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

The willow is too close to the house.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Events / Open Thread: Big Block of Cheese Day

Open Thread: Big Block of Cheese Day

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That is, for certain, one very big chunk o’ cheese. Via Dave Weigel, who says:

There are two mysteries that govern this video release from the White House. One: Why? Two: Why release it on a Friday afternoon, rather than dropping it in the morning and distracting the generation of reporters and staffers who grew up on Aaron Sorkin’s idealistic walk-and-talk drama?…

Can someone with a better grasp of cutting-edge social media explain if this is indeed ‘a thing’, or have I just failed to grasp the satire?

Reader Interactions

70Comments

  1. 1.

    c u n d gulag

    I’m old enough to remember the huge blocks of “Government Cheese” my grandparents used to get from Ronnie Reagan!!!!

    Sure, it was processed “American Cheese” – whatever the fuck THAT is!
    But it was filling – and made GREAT grilled-cheese sandwiches.

    And then, the “Welfare Queens” and their Caddies, and the “Young Bucks,” with their T-bones and 40-ounce Malt Liquors, ruined it for the rest of the country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  2. 2.

    geg6

    It’s a riff off of the West Wing episode where Leo McGarry talks about Andrew Jackson and his big block of cheese, which he used to lure the American people to the White House to talk to him while drinking booze and eating from the big block of cheese. It’s about populism and how the executive can harness it through communication.

    I think it’s a teaser for some social media thingy the White House is doing.

  3. 3.

    Another Holocene Human

    Er, maybe they’d prefer their activists to spread the word before the journalists grab it? Given how f***ing hostile they are to the WH in general.

    I think the commercial is really cute.

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    @geg6:
    I read about this somewhere. Apparently, President Jackson’s big block of cheese was so big, it went bad before they could finish it. I hope Obama is using a smaller block of cheese.

  7. 7.

    goblue72

    Looks like something for immediately after SOTU. A virtual Q&A. That’s the part that makes sense.

    The part that doesn’t is the White House PR department thinking a West Wing reference is going to make them look hip. Rather than just making them look…old. (Message to Gen Xers – You are middle-aged now. You stopped being hip 10 years ago.)

  8. 8.

    Another Holocene Human

    @c u n d gulag: lol, my grandmother got government grapefruits. They were Plattdeutsch people living in Kansas, so they got in the habit of salting the things to eat them.

    Of course, everyone else’s welfare was an undeserved handout and bad and wrong. Self-righteous and racist as Xtian Identity even though they were Catholic.

  9. 9.

    FlyingToaster

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Er, maybe they’d prefer their activists to spread the word before the journalists grab it? Given how f***ing hostile they are to the WH in general.

    This.

    And finally the WH Communications office has figured out that the MSM that inhabits the WH Pool is not helping. So, they’re not wasting their time there any longer.

    About fucking time.

  11. 11.

    Ruckus

    Maybe it’s just a teaser to see what the media makes of nothing. If the gop is going to have hissy fits over nothing why not give them nothings to have those fits over? I know it’s got to be hard to make the gop look stupider but here might be a way to do it.

  12. 12.

    Svensker

    But who are those guys? Assume they’re Hollywood types who of course the WH would have on speed dial. But who are they? Would people not as old as I am know?

  16. 16.

    James E. Powell

    @goblue72:

    (Message to Gen Xers – You are middle-aged now. You stopped being hip 10 years ago.)

    First, does saying harsh things about other people help you to feel better? Does it help anything or anyone?

    Second, there is a very strong correlation between the hip and the non-voting. I really doubt that the White House is going for hip.

  17. 17.

    Another Holocene Human

    @goblue72: Is that a problem? GenXers are now in a demo with Boomers who vote more reliably than young Millenials and the midterms are coming up.

    I think the WH needs to buff up the Dem brand with the flighty, Paul-lovin’ GenXers right now to keep the D power in the Senate. They took a hit with that NSA bullshit, and the GOP knows it. That’s why the GOP denounced their previous infallible convictions on spying powers and privacy.

    The young progressive people I know are working on DREAMer issues right now.

    I don’t think this is pitched to them.

    Note also the all-white cast. Obama and the WH have been pushing economic zones in targeted cities and PPACA and Medicaid expansion in the last few months. Holder has been speaking out about the VRA. Black voters have been very loyal and will turn out for these state elections and OfA is working on signing up Hispanic voters (which is another reason the WH is working on immigration reform). So I don’t think it’s directed at communities of color, either.

    This is directed at a weak tranche of white voters that need to come back for the midterms. JMHO.

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    @Svensker:
    I’m the correct age to know but didn’t recognize Bradly whatshisname when I first started the video so for a bit it made no sense. Of course after watching it still made no sense either. Maybe it’s just a way to kill a little time while working at the WH. Maybe it’s a shot at the MSM/WH press core about how superficial they are.

  21. 21.

    Tommy

    You mentioned West Wing, so I guess I have to say I think my favorite episode is Indians in the Lobby. Josh tells CJ, after the POTUS talks about how to cook the perfect turkey, that there are Indians in the lobby. She is like isn’t it a day before Thanksgiving? He is like yes, and there are Indians in the lobby demanding to see somebody.

    She goes to see them and they note they are there to talk about a treaty from 1856. The US government isn’t owing up to it. CJ says well things take time. If they could just leave the lobby and wait she’d get back to them on their permits. They say they have been waiting for 15 years, they can wait a little longer in the lobby.

    I think the episode is most famous cause it is where Bartlet is arguing over how to cook a turkey throughout, and at one point disagrees with somebody. He notes, I wish there was somebody I could call. He asks why there isn’t a 1-800 number people can call staffed by experts? He is told there is a Butterball hotline. He says “I love my country” and calls it. Funny things happen.

    I don’t know why I like this episode so much. I am not a Native American. I have no ties to the community. I guess it is just two Americans walking into the White House and saying, “hey we want somebody to listen to us” strikes at my core.

  22. 22.

    aimai

    @Amir Khalid: We had an adorable children’s book about the big block of cheese. Very interesting look at an early use of a basically wide open White House for an early form of regional puffery.

  23. 23.

    ? Martin

    Real thing, and I hope it takes off. An AMA for the whole government would be awesome. I’d love to participate in that.

    @c u n d gulag: We also got government cheese (and butter IIRC) when I was young. And agreed on the grilled cheese part – quite a bit like American cheese, yet not exactly the same. But I was sent off to school with a government cheese sandwich every day for years. Peanut butter and jelly meant that mom and dad found some extra money and I was so excited.

  24. 24.

    Shana

    Perhaps since many of the people in the political press world are of West Wing-watching age they’re trying to get them to talk about it? Or get the old West Wing watchers to get on social media? Other than that I have no idea, but love it anyway.

  25. 25.

    sparrow

    @Another Holocene Human: What’s Plattdeutsch? My people are also Catholic Germans from Kansas. Wonder if we’re related? Just kidding (kind of). I did always think it was weird that we were Catholic and not protestants.

  26. 26.

    tsquared2001

    @Baud: That was my thought. Nerds being nerds and cackling at how funny it is cause this nerd, found it highlarious

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    I’m too lazy to look it up, but they did a “west wing” video thing to help Mary McCormick’s sister when she was running to be a judge last year. I bet that got a lot of hits. I know I watched it twice because I missed those guys and it was fun to see them again.

  28. 28.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Svensker: It’s a promo for an online White House thing that’s modeled after something Andrew Jackson did, but inspired by or via a West Wing TV show episode. The actors in the promo are from the TV show, though only one of them was in that episode because the other joined only in later seasons. Leo explains all in the clip.

  31. 31.

    c u n d gulag

    @? Martin:
    For us, money meant he had ham, pressed-ham, spiced-ham, or chicken-roll sandwiches (which tasted GREAT, but who the fuck knew what was in that stuff – probably the washings of poop and feathers from the killing!).
    Put some Gubmint cheese, and chili-powder on it, warm it up, and, YUM, though!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  36. 36.

    Another Holocene Human

    @sparrow: Plattdeutsch is the name for the dialect spoken on the north German sea coast with ties to the Danish language. Many of the regions were disputed between different kingdoms during the modern era. By comparison, what we call “German” language today is Hochdeutsch, “high German”, the language that Martin Luther translated the Vulgate into.

    In Europe, a language is a dialect with an army.

    eta: my great-greats and great uncles spoke plattdeutsch in the fields but my great great grandmother was an English teacher so the women, who worked in the house (the first to get up–to light the fire!), including my grandmother, spoke English as a first language. My grandmother took German in high school but it was (Americanized) Hochdeutsch and was disappointed to find out that their country platt and her high school German were mutually incomprehensible.

    also, because of cuius regio, cuius religio the Staatensystem was a patchwork of religions–but still odd to find Katholiker in the north, I think… anyway, at that time, 1840s, US gov and their govs were giving peasants financial incentives to emigrate, so they did

  37. 37.

    JoyfulA

    @Amir Khalid: It must have been a country club Republican US history book I had in high school. The takeaway was that all those everyman guests left the White House a wreck and made it all dirty..

  39. 39.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Tommy: Hah.

    Tomlin: “He’s upgraded it to a calamity.”

    Whitford: (enters) “I’m telling you, it’s an apocalypse!”

    Martin Sheen: “It’s an apocalypse now”?

  40. 40.

    pat

    Since this is an open thread, I am pleased to announce that the idiots running that hospital keeping a brain-dead woman “alive” have finally turned off the machines.

  42. 42.

    oldster

    Man, I hate to say this, but the years have not been kind to Bradley Whitford.

    I remember thinking he looked like a young whippersnapper in WW. Now he’s looking…well…

    Yeah, okay. Nowhere near as old as I do. But then again, he is nowhere near as old as I *am*. I *earned* this look, dammit.

  43. 43.

    Tommy

    I am watching Karen Finney on my DVR and their talk about Wendy Davis, makes me sick to my stomach.Not what they are saying but just the whole topic.

    Maybe the favorite pic I have of me is this:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/7261049678/in/set-72157630405240228

    That is me as an infant and my mom. At the time she was raising me and working two jobs to put my dad through grad school. Dirt poor. So I get that Wendy’s time with kids and school is different then she might have said, but it isn’t an easy thing. Heck I found out my mom was married before she married my father in 1966. I found this out when I was 41 at a funeral.

    There are things in my family we don’t talk about. Things I know have become elaborated on over the years. That she is being attacked as Wendy Davis is being attacked pains me.

  44. 44.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Baud:

    Next up: We turn West Virginia blue again with “Big Lump of Coal Day.”

    Or “Big Lump of Cole day”.

  47. 47.

    lamh36

    Alright YE OLE FOGIES at Balloon Juice any of ya’ll plan on watching the GRAMMYS tonight. I’m gonna have to since my lil sis is over because she wanted to watch it with me. She love my snarky commentary I guess :-).

    It’s gonna be hard though, since Sherlock will be on at 9pm (CST) and she ain’t a Sherlock watcher..lol.

  48. 48.

    dww44

    So, I’m seeing ads for cuckoo rice cookers to the right, to the left, below as well as above. And, they’re not cheap. That’s what I get for following my curiosity to Amazon after one was mentioned in John’s thread about his dead crockpot. Being surrounded by multiple photos of the same rice cooker is a bit ridiculous though.

  49. 49.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @oldster: @Bill E Pilgrim:

    The guy’s 54-years old. His hairline was noticeably receding in that picture from “Presumed Innocent”, which was released 24 years ago. I’d say the years have paid no special attention to him.

  50. 50.

    PurpleGirl

    @sparrow: There were sections of Germany that stayed Roman Catholic after the Reformation, mostly in the southern regions (IIRC).

  51. 51.

    jeffreyw

    Mrs J’s folks got a chunk of cheese back when the Gov’ment had too much to store for whatever reason. I had some idea at the time that there was a semi scandal over the deal of there being so damn much cheese available but the details escape me. It was 30 years ago.

  55. 55.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    @Tommy:

    I don’t know why I like this episode so much. I am not a Native American. I have no ties to the community. I guess it is just two Americans walking into the White House and saying, “hey we want somebody to listen to us” strikes at my core.

    Also one of my favorites.

  57. 57.

    pat

    @WereBear:

    Not quite as creepy as the thirteen year old girl who is also brain dead but in an undisclosed location after her family refused to let them turn off the machines and took her out of the hospital. The nuts who took her away evidently even performed surgery (on her CORPSE) to install a respirator and a feeding tube. I’m sure you’ve heard about it.

    Check out http://docbastard.blogspot.com/ for some of the gory details.

  60. 60.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Amir Khalid: Loved that, thanks. ‘”Alabama have another put in at the scrum”. That was my favorite language difference when I lived in London, the billboards reading “Safeway want you to save money this Christmas” or whatever.

    Going in the other direction, a UK columnist for the Guardian who lived in NY once wrote a piece explaining to those back home how Americans see them, and one of the lines that cracked me up was “First of all you have to realize that to the American ear, “football hooligan” sounds about as menacing as “lawn tennis ruffian”.

  63. 63.

    Randy P

    @Tommy: Your story reminds me of two different things.

    One was an episode in the Lincoln movie. I think there was a couple who just dropped in on the President to complain about something or other about his policies, and that was apparently a routine thing in those days.

    Another was a hilarious play called “November” we happened to catch in New York one year, written by David Mamet and starring Nathan Lane as a foul-mouthed semi-corrupt president running for re-election. There were a lot of jokes around the ceremonial “pardoning of the turkey” (I believe the turkey died — offstage — before he could get to it) and also an angry Indian who for reasons that escape me decided to fly to Washington and assassinate Nathan Lane with a traditional tomahawk.

  64. 64.

    Randy P

    @PurpleGirl: And apparently the Catholic-Protestant split was the main cause of the 30 Years War, which I’d never heard of and found out about in historical plaques while visiting some old towns in Bavaria. Elsewhere since then I’ve heard of the 30 Years War described as one of the most pointless wars ever fought.

    One of those towns, Rothenburg, has a town legend of being saved from the invaders when the town mayor drinks a 3-liter tankard of wine in a single long swallow, thus winning a bet with the invading general. This story is commemorated in the town clock and a play.

  65. 65.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @oldster:

    He’s 6 years older than me, and I thought he was much older when I first saw him in anything- which was Revenge of the Nerds II.

  66. 66.

    Citizen_X

    Hah!. Libtards. Leave the cheese to the French. If Obummer was a real American, he’d have an Everybody-Gets-An-AR-15 Day,

  67. 67.

    jl

    @Jack the Second:

    ” Virtual? VIRTUAL? Then how do I get my goddamn cheese? ”

    Yeah, eggzackly! There is no real cheese involved. Which makes it somewhat like the many all American cheese food products we all love and enjoy and shovel down our gullets. But Nobummer cannot even produce that.

    This is clearly the next megapolyptic hyper crisis that will bring down the Obama regime.

  68. 68.

    Mnemosyne

    @goblue72:

    Actually, the young’ns will probably be thinking, Why is that guy from Cabin in the Woods talking about politics? And then their parents will explain it to them.

    (BTW, even if you don’t like slasher movies, CitW is an enjoyably tricksy one, with some interesting things to say about slasher movies and their audiences. Still very gory, though.)

  69. 69.

    SRW1

    @sparrow:

    The people in the South of Germany (where I am from) sometimes call people who speak ‘Plattdeutsch’ ‘fishheads’. It’s a reference to the historical abundance of fish in the traditional diet of the Plattdeutsch folks. Another clue as to the location of the region where Plattdeutsch dialect is located is that ‘platt’ means ‘flat’, as in flat coastal regions.

  70. 70.

    SinnedBackwards

    As I understand none of the television or movie references (that is a brag), I will happily concur with SRW1’s point that Plattdeutsch refers to northern coast dwellers.

    As most of the German states coalesced into the new Germany in the 19th century, independent (mostly Protestant) Holland followed its own path (even being given a hunk of Catholic now-Belgium after the settlement of the Napoleonic Wars).

    The Dutch language of today is essentially state-official Plattdeutsch. The rest of what is now Germany that spoke those dialects mostly speaks standard German now.

    The in-between language/dialects of the Friesian Islands today speak a language that is the closest other language to English.

    And by the way, the great cheese giveaway was to benefit the farmers from whom the evil government promised a too-high price for cheese, thus stimulating overproduction.

    I suppose I should bless the politicos for actually handing it out to citizens, rather than destroying it, but I am not that forgiving.

    More than you wanted to know, I expect.

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