Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Everybody saw this coming.

You are here: Home / Humorous / WH Xmas Open Thread: “The Spirit of America”… Is Very, Very White

WH Xmas Open Thread: “The Spirit of America”… Is Very, Very White

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… White paper stars hang from the ceiling of the East Colonnade, a passageway that has been transformed by arches lined with clear plastic panels printed with white line drawings of more than 60 examples of American architecture and innovation. They spring from the ground like an austere garden of blueprints…

…[A]s she’s done before, she released a video of herself filmed during her final walk-through on Sunday after returning from Thanksgiving in Palm Beach, Fla. In it, she’s looking at an advent calendar in the shape of the White House, adjusting ribbons, and sprinkling fake snow on trees in the Grand Foyer and Cross Hall, which was filled with evergreens covered in white lights or gold paint…

Whatever tastes viewers have, the first lady’s devotion to Christmas decorating cannot be quibbled with. This year she began preparations as early as July, according to an Instagram post that showed her looking at an array of flowers and fabric swatches. This is within the normal holiday decor preparation time for first ladies, but most other first ladies have not trumpeted that fact. The Trumps have also had fewer state dinners than their predecessors. Such events are usually an opportunity for first families to show off their style. That leaves the Christmas decorations as the preeminent expression of Melania Trump’s tastes…

Former model Melania Trump finally has the advertising budget she dreamed about when she was doing all those degrading cattle calls and low-rent catalog shoots, and yet all the classy designers turn up their noses, murmuring about ‘overextended already, I’m afraid’ and ‘not exactly the kind of job where our staff is at its best, if you know what I mean.’

She wanted “extremely upscale fashion boutique” and had to settle for “mid-range Midwestern shopping mall in one of the more expensive suburbs.” Sure, it excited the Qanon crowd, but those people see portents in their alphabet soup. Even the Wingnut Wurlitzer praise seems pretty pro-forma this year (presumably someone on Melania’s staff is assigned to picking out twitter highlights)… probably they’ve just got too many other Trump-related circuses to defend / promote.

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  6. 6.

    Jeffro

    Between chefs or grand wizards…I think the odds favor grand wizards.

    But then again I don’t really care, do u?

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay:

    I think someone cleared it as I’m not seeing anything in moderation now. I’m having trouble with the site. It keeps hanging up on me. I’ve got a draft post on that pet bleg I’m waiting on some more info on and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to draft it and I’m not sure I’ll be able to publish it.

  9. 9.

    Marcopolo

    Repeating my comment from the very end of the last thread.  This morning Buttigieg was speaking in NH & for some reason decided he needed to say that D’s need to get more serious about the US budget deficit & debt—because apparently we aren’t—w/out mentioning budget trends under R vs D presidents since at least Reagan.

     

    Lawrence O’Donnell just took him to task for that at the both the start (when he first noted the remarks) and end (when he read a rapid response the campaign had sent him & then aired Buttigieg making the remarks which showed the response was misleading) of his show.  It was refreshing.  And this episode is actually a great example of why I have problems with his candidacy.  Watch it if you can.

     

    Fin.

  10. 10.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman: 

    It was in moderation, now it’s eaten.

    The site’s been a bit hinky today, lost nyms, missing forms, oh well,

    It was a lengthish polite reply to one of the Ragebook Uncles here that I wasted time on, I’m better off just pieing,

    Really hope you get the pet post up.

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    Uncomfortable cross between FAO Schwarz and Bergdorf Goodman, from years and years ago

    Washington and Jefferson are both facing in a different direction than they do on the real Mt. Rushmore.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    Melania’s impersonal, anodyne Christmas decorating makes me think of hotel lobbies and department-store windows. I don’t see anything that could be a Knauss or Trump family tradition*. And the overwhelming whiteness looks austere rather than festive and joyful.

     

    *Yes, one imagines alarming things — I do, anyway — about the Trumps’ idea of Christmas traditions.

  17. 17.

    randy khan

    The White House Christmas decorations are the sort of thing I deeply don’t care about (although the blood red forest was kind of frightening), but it’s hard not to notice that Melania is as bad at this as everyone else in the Administration is as bad at their jobs.  There was a comment in the WaPo story on the decorations along the lines of that they could have bought the decorations at some random mall, and that’s sort of emblematic of the whole enterprise – even when they put in a lot of effort, apparently in good faith, there’s just something off about these people.

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @Jay: I found your post in Trash.  It was exceedingly long, which is often an indication of spam, and it had exceeded the allowed link count.  I restored it, but you will want to watch that.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    The video is really funny. Maybe I just think of Christmas differently- I think it’s supposed to have people in it.
    Cold. That’s the best single word to describe it.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @WaterGirl: That’s funny, because I was just coming back to say I fished it out of the trash after I’d fished BillinGlendale out of spam. Someone approved the latter before I could get to it because I was looking for Jay’s comment in the trash. I’m guessing that was you.

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Didn’t Bill Clinton have a budget surplus one year? I remember there was media coverage about how it was good to have some healthy level of both budget deficits and national debt, and that paying down the latter completely was harmful.

  37. 37.

    PJ

    @Eljai: He’s trying to win over Republicans (Never-Trumpers obv, not the still faithful) and the media by showing them he’s a “very serious person.”

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    For those who haven’t noticed, we have a pet rescue bleg post I just put up. You know what to do!!!!

  42. 42.

    Barbara

    Her vision, as it were, always seems to be monochromatic.  Last year it was all red.  This looks bland and uninspired.  I think she probably felt like she got criticized for going bold last year (and last year was pretty bold) so went to the other end of the spectrum.  I am just glad that the Christmas tree lighting traffic seemed to be lighter than normal.

  47. 47.

    Marcopolo

    @Amir Khalid:

    Didn’t Bill Clinton have a budget surplus one year? I remember there was media coverage about how it was good to have some healthy level of both budget deficits and national debt, and that paying down the latter completely was harmful.

    So at the rate budget surpluses were running at the end of the Clinton administration it looked like the national debt would possibly be paid off in 5-10 years.  Alan Greenspan, then the head of the Fed, was the person who started “worrying about budget surpluses.”  Surprisingly this happened after a Republican (Bush) was elected and provided him with cover for passing a tax cut.  Who could have foreseen Bush also getting into not one but two ginormously expensive wars?  Here is a link to Greenspan’s Fed testimony:

     

    The most recent projections from the OMB indicate that, if current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach $800 billion in fiscal year 2011, including an on-budget surplus of $500 billion. The CBO reportedly will be showing even larger surpluses. Moreover, the admittedly quite uncertain long-term budget exercises released by the CBO last October maintain an implicit on-budget surplus under baseline assumptions well past 2030 despite the budgetary pressures from the aging of the baby-boom generation, especially on the major health programs.

    The most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of paying off the federal debt is in reach before the end of the decade. This is in marked contrast to the perspective of a year ago when the elimination of the debt did not appear likely until the next decade.

    But continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether the federal government should accumulate large quantities of private (more technically nonfederal) assets. At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses currently projected imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government. This development should factor materially into the policies you and the Administration choose to pursue.

    I believe, as I have noted in the past, that the federal government should eschew private asset accumulation because it would be exceptionally difficult to insulate the government’s investment decisions from political pressures. Thus, over time, having the federal government hold significant amounts of private assets would risk sub-optimal performance by our capital markets, diminished economic efficiency, and lower overall standards of living than would be achieved otherwise.

  48. 48.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @NotMax: No, there was actually concern towards the end of the Clinton administration that by 2010 the debt would be paid off, including borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund and the government would have to invest in private equity or debt.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @Barbara:

    Christmas isn’t about theme colours. Christmas itself is already a theme. Melania should focus on what people celebrate at the festival: peace on earth, goodwill among people, and all that shit.

  55. 55.

    joel hanes

    The Trumps have also had fewer state dinners than their predecessors.

     

    And they have no apparent relationship to the arts.  They aren’t doing a White House concert series, nor do they seem to have any connection to any kind of music.   I don’t think that Trump listens to music.

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @NotMax: Oddly enough, I was going to add that the only character I found interesting by the time I stopped watching was Borstein’s.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Yutsano:

    It’s…sterile. But it’s not bleeding trees so…improvement? 

    Bloodbath vs lifeless?  Yeah, I guess it’s an improvement then.

  65. 65.

    David ??Booooooo?? Koch

    @Eljai:

     

    @PJ:

     

    He’s trying to win over Independents in Iowa and NH who are permitted to vote in Dem primaries.

     

    All the Bernie supporters who pushed to grant Independents access to a Dem primary are about to have a coronary.

  69. 69.

    Jay

    @mrmoshpotato:

     

    the Dolt 45 “Christmas” White Supremacy House decorations have always been what somebody with money, no taste, wants to show off, and no real family, ( loved ones) thinks Christmas and the Holidays should look like.

     

    A very Botox Holiday.

     

    A bland, store bought fruitcake has more Christmas Spirit than the White Supremacy House, and can be redeemed with a bottle of mediocre rum or brandy and a week to let it soak in.

  73. 73.

    Sab

    So, in contrast to the White House. We are hauling our fiber optic tree out of storage this weekend. It is very pretty, but small. It has pinecones attached, and sort of chemical smelling fake snow that the cats find repellant. This is good, because it lasts year after year.

    Our first year with the first of our  current cats was disastrous for our amazing eight foot tall fiber optic tree The cats loved it. They loved its lights. They loved racing up and down its trunk, fighting in its branches, and chewing on the fibers. They shredded it. They demolished it.

    My parents always had a real tree. My Dad’s cat occassionally sprayed the tree, but basically he was okay with it.

    When I put Dad in a nursing home I had to throw out three gnerations of Christmas ornaments. It was oddly wrenching. The old glass ones weren’t even pretty anymore. The old lights were a serious fire hazard. I still have the child and dog proof plastic, felt, wood and ceramic ornaments, but nobody wants them.

    This year I am going to do popcorn and cranberry strings for the birds outside.

    What sort of string is safe for the birds? I am intending to use just extra-tough sewing thread. Is that safe for birds?

    My cats will be entertained by watching birds outside eat popcorn.

  74. 74.

    Mary G

    My theory is that no good decorators will work with her for fear of bad press and/or non-payment, so she does what she does, copies something out of a magazine like Town & Country, but for very little money.

  76. 76.

    Jay

    @Sab:

     

    a heavy nylon or polyester thread should be fine, you can also add nuts, suet balls and suet/peanut butter/seed balls to the mix, just semi freeze them ( suet) before threading them on.

     

    You can buy the suet/fruit/seeds/peanut butter premixed and formed for suet feeders, then cut cubes off and roll them into balls.

  78. 78.

    HumboldtBlue

    I’ll just say, Merry Christmas, Everton!

     

    That’s a man named Jamie Webster who happens to be a Liverpool Red singing a song to the Reds cross-park rivals, Everton FC.

     

    Yesterday, Liverpool defeated Everton 5-2 to extend their Anfield unbeaten streak against their city rivals to 20 years. Liverpool fans are renowned for their music and their humor and Melania’s three-dollar ass could learn a bit of class from them.

  79. 79.

    Sab

    @Jay: So the birds don’t know it’s Christmas. Morally, I have to keep this on all winter, because otherwise they will starve because I led them on.

    I am okay with that. Feed onward.

  80. 80.

    Amir Khalid

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I hope someone spares a thought for poor Marco Silva, who is out of work this Christmas. Expecting him to beat the Reds at Anfield, in their current form, to keep his job was demanding too much.

  81. 81.

    J R in WV

    @Jay:

     

    Cat with Sectoral heterochromia, when the iris of a single eye contains two colors pic.twitter.com/BWAD6GYSiK— 41 Strange (@41Strange) December 6, 2019

    I’m taking eye drops for treatment of Glaucoma which are expected to change the color of the iris of my eyes, which stated out hazel and are I suppose headed for dark brown. Liked the original equipment greenish hazel, but don’t care if the other option is blind.

  82. 82.

    J R in WV

    So.

     

    At 4 am I decided I could use some cheer up, and went to Gocomics, where I clicked into Pearls before Swine. Fourth panel I got to one where Stephan Pastis tells us about his sweet dog Edee, his only dog ever. ” We put our dog to sleep Thursday. She had cancer.”

    …

    “So run, Edee, run to that beautiful field where you always receive the love and affection that you gave.”

     

    Not funny, but uplifting in it’s sad way. Gonna back to bed now.

    Bletch.

  84. 84.

    glory b

    @Kent: Until this administration, HGTV has done a yearly special on the decoration of the White House. It was, as I recall, a 2 hour program, and I found it fascinating. There are (or were) LOTS of volunteers who help, and it’s a major project.

     

    Interestingly, they said (during the Obama admin, at least) that the White House hosts about 2 or 3 events every day between Thanksgiving and New Years. The First Family doesn’t attend all of them.

     

    They always had lots of homemade decorations from kids at hospitals, military families, etc. They also had a tree that had an ornament created by an artist from each of the states and territories.

     

    But, none since the Trumps arrived. I don’t know that I’d watch anyway.

  86. 86.

    Boris, Rasputin's Evil Twin

    Is it possible the Trumps read “A Christmas Carol” backwards, so Scrooge is a miser at the end? Something like the “Blackadder Christmas Carol”.

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