You all know I just adore TwinsthenewTrend and their videos. Today they got the best surprise.
This was fun. I heard Tim and Fred were listening to some of the songs on my A Promised Land playlist, so I decided to drop in and surprise them. We talked about a lot, from Bob Dylan to old-school mixtapes to the role music played in my memoir. https://t.co/8A0cuVNHZI pic.twitter.com/rQwW8r0wBX
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 19, 2020
I hope this serves as some respite for you. If Biden speaks today, I’ll post that as well.
bonus because I’ve gotten requests. Gabe guarding the garden:
I feel bad because I had to get that photo, but of course since I went outside, it disturbed him and he had to come over to see what I was doing. Then he rolled over in the leaves for a belly rub. I wish I could have gotten that photo because his coloring in the fall leaves was beautiful.
Open thread
schrodingers_cat
Gabe has the I-have-seen-it-all-look.
debbie
PBO will be on Colbert on Monday.
Kristine
That was great. So good to see some genuine happiness on the internet.
But damn, when did PBO get so grey? He’s almost at silver fox stage.
trollhattan
The twins and the president–my day is already made, and after just one coffee.
PBO is scheduled for Terry Gross today–her interviews are always A-grade.
Baud
You’re the best, TaMara. The absolute, number one priority for us during the Biden administration is to avoid wallowing amongst the evil that we know is out there.
waspuppet
So, I’ve only seen the videos of these twins that go viral — do they ever NOT like what they’re listening to?
Leto
So in the same vein as the Twins, I ran across these two doing reaction videos to metal and classic rock. I particularly love this one because watching the arc of their emotions/understanding of the meaning of the song was pretty cool. Started out at “THIS IS DEVIL MUSIC” to “Ooohh… OOOHHHHH!!!!”
THIS ABOUT DRUGS?? METALLICA – Master of Puppets FIRST REACTION FROM HIP HOP HEADS!! WTF!!
schrodingers_cat
Thanks T for the kitteh photo and the video. I find the latest round of the attempted coup tactics of the Orange Man and his crew enraging. He is behaving like a disgruntled ex who just can’t accept that his ex has moved on and is done with him.
zzyzx
@waspuppet: haven’t seen one where they don’t. OTOH they only are hearing classics.
Josie
Thanks for this, TaMara. There is no way to watch this wonderful interview without smiling. Great young men and a great president.
WereBear
I got into photo filters because my cats are not cooperative enough to hang out where the light is best or the floor is the cleanest…
Ramalama
Loved watching the Twins listen to Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams. This particular listen sesh was good, too. I didn’t know their music exposure was really limited, growing up (religious household). Makes sense. Makes them unique x 2.
Elizabelle
What a treasure. Love those twins. Will give this a watch later. Thanks, TaMara.
And always a good time to see Gabe. What a tail!
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: If you are in touch with Mnemo, please tell her she is missed. Lot of talk about her absence on the morning thread.
Agree re Trump as the discarded -ex. Outta here, Trump.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
And Capehart is doing a full hour with PBO on MSNBC tonight at 10:00 (EST).
randy khan
If he got a belly rub, he didn’t mind being disturbed. Heck, if he *wanted* a belly rub, he didn’t mind being disturbed.
Baud
This is a good time for Obama to be making the circuit.
Elizabelle
@debbie: @Kristine:
Love it. The one-two punch.
Joe Biden is hammering at the door. He won. He will replace you.
And Forever President Obama, on a book tour to remind us what an adult president actually sounds like.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: All this good stuff!!
Thanksgiving starts early.
Obama’s publishing date was actually kind of brilliant. No surprise.
patrick II
It seems Karmic that two guys so open and thrilled with new things would somehow find their way to Obama the wise.
They also listened to another, though considerably less polite, smart guy: George Carlin
zzyzx
@waspuppet: or it could simply be that they don’t publish the ones where they don’t like it because it’s boring video.
I have a new rule that I only post on my public accounts about music I like because there’s no need now to trash things that others enjoy when there’s so much stuff that I love myself that I can write about.
Bluegirlfromwyo
I don’t remember who here first tuned me into the twins, but a big thank you! Their big hearted curiosity has been one of my joys during this whole mess we’re in.
patrick II
@waspuppet:
They probably only publish the ones they like, but they have very eclectic taste and I think the quality is high because they take recommendations from the comments and old-timers are feeding them the best stuff.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
No surprise, and certainly no accident. I suspect the release date and media tour schedule were meticulously planned, well in advance, with alternatives for any electoral eventuality.
jeffreyw
@schrodingers_cat:
He has that 1000 yard stare. He has seen a lot of yards.
different-church-lady
Are bobcats hard to care for?
WaterGirl
My favorite part:
“I don’t even know who Bob Dylan is.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I bought the audiobook of Promised Land for my ear content for walks and chores. Those familiar cadences and the dry humor are a tonic.
I’m still on his IL state senate days, but he’s already thrown a bit of shade (Alice Palmer, did you think he’d just forget about you?)
Miss Bianca
@jeffreyw:
LOL!
catclub
I have not seen any of their videos. But I think there is so much good stuff – that any particular listener has not yet heard – I have no problem with always liking what you are showcasing.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
I can’t imagine the timing of the pub date and Trump’s shenanigans was anything but coincidence. Divine intervention, should you believe in that sort of thing. Books can be published quicker, but not that quickly, and I can’t imagine any publisher sitting on that level of expense for any length of time.
catclub
I think PBO could start taking over Morgan Freeman roles in movies in ten years.
catclub
Have you not seen the Mr Murderbritches video?
burnspbesq
If you’re a glutton for punishment, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania has posted the audio of Tuesday afternoon’s hearing (yes, the one at which Rudy appeared).
I can’t. I. Just. Can’t.
MomSense
@Leto:
Speaking of metal, I listened to a podcast “winds of change” about the scorpions song of the same name. The topic is whether the song was a cia Cold War op to bring down the iron curtain. It’s fascinating.
Scuffletuffle
Gabe is one handsome dude, I just love his coloring!
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Are you convinced? Do you think it was a CIA song?
jonas
@burnspbesq:
Liz Dye over at Wonkette was liveblogging it. It was like a Simpsons episode with Lionel Hutz.
trollhattan
@catclub:
My take is they must hear a hundred songs for every video. Why do a video to kvetch about one they don’t like?
Obama got them to talk about themselves a bit and I learned they grew up in a religious household and never heard pop music. So they’re a little like Kimmy Schmidt, released into the real world as adults.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
I LOLd at that one.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m only a bit ahead of you (ebook). I’m generally a fast reader, but I’m deliberately taking my time with this because the writing deserves to be savoured.
Had never heard the Alice Palmer story before. PBO has a looo-oo-oong memory!
Leto
@MomSense: you know, I’ve heard that theory too. I’ll have to check out that podcast because it’s kind of fascinating to think about.
“After our decades of hippy punching, we need to reassess. Do you know what’s going to bring down the Iron Curtain? Sweet sweet vocals! Johnson, get to it!” – CIA
trollhattan
@catclub:
I’d forgotten about that. Was that not the perfect name for that angry, angry critter?
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I think it could be.
Miss Bianca
@catclub: Every once in a while I have to go back to the Mr. Murderbritches video and laugh and laugh and laugh (it’s the annotations that kill me).
R-Jud
@MomSense: I *loved* that podcast. Seconding your recommendation.
Leto
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m pretty certain Michelle spoke about it in her book, but with him describing it it’s def more personal.
@trollhattan: I laughed at that too. I’m dreading the day when someone says, “Nirvana? Guns’N’Roses? *insert X*”
“YOU WHIPPERSNAPPERS DON’T KNOW ANYTHING!!!” Also Obama wasn’t lying about mixed tapes. Fuck cassettes. Kids don’t know how easy they have it!!!
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I kept falling asleep when I listened to it, but that was back when sleep was a little easier to come by. Maybe I’ll try again.
whomever
You know, one of the few silver linings about current events is everything Trump and the Republicans do, the more it makes Obama look good. He’s one of the most popular ex Presidents in history. It’s actually a real life version oif Obi-Wan’s comment “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Here is a cuddly, purring lynx.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Loved the twins video. Love them anyway. Throw in Obama and it can’t be beat. Thanks for posting it.
Cheryl Rofer
@whomever: Not only that, many of the spiteful things being done now can be overturned early by Biden, who will then look like a good guy.
mali muso
Aww, this was EXCELLENT! I love the twins and their infectious joy and enthusiasm for music. What a treat to see PBO interact with them. All the feels. :)
FelonyGovt
Thanks for this, TaMara! I just love those twins and I’m amazed how self-possessed they are talking to Pres. Obama. I would be stammering like a schoolgirl!
danielx
@Miss Bianca:
I’d forgotten about that one…led of course to various fantasies involving Republicans all ending in “I never thought Mr. Murderbritches would rip off MY face!”.
louc
Any lawyers out there? Is there a limit on how many lawsuits Trump’s people can file? Every time you think it’s winding down, nope, a judge is ruling on yet another one. I’m starting to get scared that he really is going to block certification in key states.
piratedan
@trollhattan: I think part of the fun with the Twinz is the joy people have sharing their own love of music and rediscovering how music can move you and watching that happen with others… and enjoying a sense of reliving that moment when you hear something that touches you.
I enjoy watching then experience it, and while many of us have decades of growing up with a lot of these songs, for them its fresh and in a way its a tacit acknowledgement just because its old, doesn’t mean it still can’t be fresh.
Mike in NC
@louc: Someday Rudy Giuliani will only be remembered for his appearances in drag on Saturday Night Live.
trollhattan
? Me, after looking at the county COVID dashboard. They continue adding new cases to the daily graph and we’ve hit about a third more than the previous historic high set in July. Dreading the first couple weeks of December, after they post the Thanksgiving (and giving, and giving) infections.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
In a just world he’d have faded to the background after his sell-by date passed (arguably more than a decade ago).
Thanks, Donny.
catclub
@louc:
I don’t see how. The only consistent thing in every suit is they have no evidence of voting fraud to present.
FelonyGovt
@louc: Lawyer here, although without any election law expertise. There’s no real limit on the different lawsuits they can file in various states.
I keep wishing that some judge determines the Trump campaign to be a “vexatious litigant” (I love that phrase) and imposes conditions on their ability to file new lawsuits, but I doubt that will happen.
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
It’s a song by a German band, The Scorpions, about the optimistic mood there during the fall of communism. People really feel that way at the time.
There’s a livestream on The David Pakman Show YouTube channel right now, a media briefing by Trump’s campaign lawsuit team. Rudy G just finished a long incoherent ramble with hair dye running unnoticed down his cheek. He’s nuts. They’re all nuts.
piratedan
@FelonyGovt: I guess one of the things that I am prepared to be pissed off about; is that who is paying for all of these lawsuits? do I suspect that Trump will just pass the costs of his litigious failures onto us? Is it likely that he just does his usual and stiffs everyone and no one gets paid for their time.
Omnes Omnibus
@FelonyGovt: The only real limit on the lawsuits is time. Once a certain deadlines pass, suits start to become moot. That being said, everything being filed seems to just short of frivolous. Lawyers will avoid sanctions, but they can’t win.
FelonyGovt
@piratedan: That’s probably one of (several) reasons the major law firms have dropped the representation- they weren’t getting paid. Along with the adverse public reaction.
TaMara (HFG)
@Amir Khalid: Okay, I was this many days old when I learned any of this, including the Scorpians were a German band.
And I was a long-haired band-girl in the 80s. They gonna revoke my big hair card.
Barbara
@louc: The number of lawsuits is limited by not engaging in lawsuits that keep alleging the same thing on behalf of the same party in the same court. I would not worry about slowing down certification, because unless one of those lawsuits results in a court granting injunctive relief that requires certification to be held up pending resolution of the claims, the lawsuit itself has no impact on the timing of state certification procedures.
FelonyGovt
@Omnes Omnibus: @Barbara: Have you seen Sarah Cooper’s bit as a lawyer for the Trump campaign?
SiubhanDuinne
@FelonyGovt:
Wasn’t there a judge several years ago who did exactly that to Orly Taitz? I know someone socked her with a fine for perpetually filing “frivolous lawsuits,” and I feel as though I first came across the term “vexatious litigant” at around that time and in that context.
It is a lovely term :-)
scav
They’re really never going to clue into how apeshit bananapants they appear, are they. I think they all fail that mirror task.
WaterGirl
@piratedan: Not all of the lawsuits were brought directly by the Trump campaign. Some have been brought by other organizations. I imagine the strategy is if you can’t get through that window, try another window, or try the same window in a different court, with a different judge.
Miss Bianca
Aww, that was cute. The Youtube and Twitter embeds weren’t working for me from the site for some reason (that’s usually a sign I gotta shut shit down and reboot), but I got the link working in Firefox. Good to finally hear the twins! And, of course, PBO. Sigh. Man, it’s gonna feel good to have adults back in the WH.
cain
@Leto:
I dunno, our younger generation really love the 80s and 90s music as much as they like their current stuff.
I mean just recently thanks to tiktok – ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac became #2 in the charts. I mean, how many kids do you think decided to explore some more of the 70s? :D
JMG
GOP leaders of the Michigan state legislature flying to DC to meet Trump tomorrow. They will then,
I guess, announce they will name their own slate of electors. I hope there’s a crowd to meet them at the airport when they get back.
Omnes Omnibus
@FelonyGovt: “Ten ballots that just… don’t… smell good. Patchoulie or something…. ”
That’s good stuff.
FelonyGovt
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s right, Orly Taitz. Now THERE was a “vexatious litigant”.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
The woman who came on after Rudy Giuliani is making some X-Files level wild allegations about wholesale rigging in the election.
Link, if you feel like taking a dip in the crazy.
Matt McIrvin
@MomSense: My favorite fact along those lines is that the CIA indirectly patronized Abstract Expressionist art during the Cold War. The idea was to promote the idea of the US as an intellectually daring society that tolerated an avant-garde.
I think it’s hilarious because I remember John Birch Society magazines calling Abstract Expressionism a Communist plot back during the Eighties (probably way further back than that too). I thought it was absurd, but they just had it backwards!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh, Rudi… please let this be real
ETA: as to Winds of Change, their sequel podcast needs to be about Jonna Mendez, the CIA master of disguise whose stories, if I saw them in a Bond movie, I’d think were a bit much.
waspuppet
@catclub: I have no problem with only highlighting what you like; when I was a critic, I did that too. My dark side says they’re going viral by telling aging white boomers what they want to hear.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid:
OMG. Really? Like, “I just stepped out of the shower after a home-done dye job and didn’t dry my hair properly”? OMG.
White America showing its ass (and bad dye jobs) to the world. If I weren’t out of can’t evens, this would be one of those things that warrants one.
Amir Khalid
@TaMara (HFG):
The Scorpions are legends in German rock.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: That’s a lot like tallest little person, isn’t it?
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Holy crap. Is that … hair dye? OMG.
I thought at first he was bleeding from the ear. That is just grotesque.
ETA: The late-night hosts are going to have So.Much.Fun with this tonight. I can’t wait for Colbert’s monologue.
louc
@Barbara: Thanks! That’s what I was worried about. Someone just tweeted that the NV supreme court would certify that Biden won the state’s electoral votes on Nov. 24 and then a lower court judge would be hearing a Trump case the next day on overturning or annulling the election results. I wondered how that was at all possible.
scav
Team Repub is going to lose their grip on big business as this exercise in dada daddy-issues random-tantrum continues. The cries of The Economy Hates Uncertainty! have been jettisoned with all the other traditional hack slogans.
TaMara (HFG)
@Amir Khalid: And I love them…but it was the 80s and I suppose I didn’t pay close attention to the details of what I was listening to.
NeenerNeener
@Amir Khalid: That’s Jenna Ellis, of the epic Gish Gallop on Bill Maher’s show last week. She spewed lies faster than Bill could disprove them.
Doc Sardonic
@TaMara (HFG): Please send in your current card for processing to begin your probationary term. Any further offenses will result in revocation of said card, termination of your ability to purchase Aqua Net, and a complimentary Pixie cut from Sweeney Todd’s wife.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Now, now, let’s not condescend. Wind of Change was a worldwide hit.
Amir Khalid
Wow. Now Rudy’s got hair dye running down both cheeks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Never cared for it. And I was in Germany during the relevant period.
Miss Bianca
@scav: OK, I gotta admit that despite the seriousness of it all, “dada daddy issues” just cracked me the fuck up. Soooo stealing that one!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Mary Trump made a great point on TV once, the kind that seems obvious once someone crystalizes it: For all the talk about Republicans performing for an audience of one, trump himself is performing for an audience of one: The ice-cold sociopath who shunned attention in favor of real money and real power, and probably never actually cared enough about Donald to actively abuse him. In Donald’s mind, Fred will barley look up from his desk to say “You lost to that guy?”
Steve in the ATL
@louc:
Yes.
@louc:
No.
Longer answer: there are mechanisms to discourage frivolous filings, such as litigation expenses (painful to trump!), losing (for a variety of reasons), and possible sanctions. But it can be very difficult to stop serial plaintiffs from filing frequent suits. See, for example, prisoners filing habeas petitions (paging Immanentize!).
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: @TaMara (HFG): and the inspiration for the band name “Eagles of Death Metal”, whom no one had heard of before the Paris bombing and no one has heard of since.
Someone referred to the Scorpions as a death metal band, and the retort was that they weren’t death metal, they were like the Eagles of death metal. And a band name was born somewhere in Palm Desert.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JMG:
Who is paying? This feels like a crime.
rikyrah
I don’t even know how I found them, but they are such a delight.
I didn’t know that there is a entire cadre of youtubers who do nothing but reaction to music videos.
love all of theirs. The Aerosmith, Pavarotti, Jolene, Animals, Elvis…they are all great videos.
catclub
Unfortunately, I think you WAY overestimate the sanity of big business leaders. As soon as you hint there might be regulations or tax increases they are all in for insanity if it comes without those.
Sane GM wants nationalized healthcare – all their retiree l healthcare liabilities go away. The are not sane that way.
jackmac
@trollhattan: Excellent interview with Terry Gross. She’s always on her “A Game”. One thing I did not know is that PBO said he quit smoking 10 years ago. He said he went cold turkey. As an ex-smoker, I know that couldn’t be easy, but especially with the pressures he had to endure in office. (I also bought his book today, so that’s something to look forward to).