President Trump had the national champion Clemson Tigers football team to the White House yesterday, and because of the shutdown he had to improvise out of his own pocket:
“The reason we did this is because of the shutdown.” Pres. Trump followed through on his plan to serve Clemson Tigers football team a collection of fast food as the national champs visited The White House on Monday. https://t.co/DXjbgixKR1 pic.twitter.com/f92vfgr1Bt
— ABC News (@ABC) January 15, 2019
The Washington Post’s journalistic instincts kicked in quickly:
So… how much did all that food actually cost?
A Washington Post investigation. https://t.co/2CPNgPjDuj pic.twitter.com/73MDvg0BzF
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 15, 2019
I smell a Pulitzer in the air!
Oh, and then the paper that once brought down a presidency crunched Trump’s original count on the number of burgers in the hopes of making “Burger-Gate” a new thing:
That Clemson victory dinner at the White House? By my estimate, $3,000 spent on 310,000 calories. https://t.co/zwNyKEs9zL
— Philip Bump (@pbump) January 15, 2019
It was far fewer than 1,000 hamberders. https://t.co/zwNyKEs9zL
— Philip Bump (@pbump) January 15, 2019
Leave it to “journalists” to do more investigating when a president spends his own money on something as opposed to everybody else’s.
Hopefully next an intrepid journalist does an investigation into exactly what a “berder” is. That whole WaPo “investigation” comes across as an audition for a job at CNN.
Also, I don’t want to brag, but I called it. Here’s proof:
The shot:
The rest of the week we'll be inundated by MSM articles about the health problems from fat & sodium intake as well as the climate change wrought by meat consumption. pic.twitter.com/hR2BDZ9Wje
— Doug Powers (@ThePowersThatBe) January 15, 2019
And the chasers:
1. US fast food emerges out of a vast network of animal suffering & ecological destruction & in turn has produced an epidemic of ill health. In large swathes of the country it is the cheapest & sometimes only option, thanks to a skein of implicit & explicit subsidies … https://t.co/DmXHMrCcH0
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
2. … backed by ubiquitous, relentless corporate advertising. Yet somehow this unholy stew of capitalist exploitation & corporate welfare has taken on a vaguely populist air. Already I guarantee there are people responding to the first tweet calling me a tedious scold.
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
3. Yes, in many places fast food is the cheapest option, so many poor & working class people depend on it. Yes, it tastes good, because it is literally designed in f'ing laboratories to stimulate our taste centers. So, yes, lots of ordinary people eat it & like it! But …
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
4. … it is super-weird to then extend fast food some sort of populist credibility, as though to criticize it is to criticize the people who eat it. It seems to me that is exactly what McF'ingDonalds wants. It's what Chevrolet & WalMart want. They all want a protective sheen …
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
5. … of virtue, patriotism, populism, down-home community, derived from the people who use their products. But that's just advertising. These are giant multinational corporations. Their primary objective is to deliver quarterly returns to shareholders. All else is subordinate.
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
6. They lobby & bribe politicians to regulate them loosely, to subsidize their products, & above all to help them avoid financial responsibility for the social, health, & ecological damage they do. They plaster advertising on every available surface, object, or medium.
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
7. The status quo is a corrupt deal between multinational corporations & politicians. It's a crap deal for ordinary people, as evidenced by the health outcomes. The fact that they've got ordinary people defending them, casting critics as elitist, is a brilliant f'ing con.
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
8. It's corporatism & crony capitalism masquerading as populism — a bunch of confused & vaguely reactionary narratives distracting from the core goal of concentrating more wealth & power at the top. In short, it is Trump all over. </fin> pic.twitter.com/0ULyC3Hb3e
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 15, 2019
Excuse me, but I’ll be spending the rest of the day thinking about the liberal media reactions to Trump’s burger-fest and doing this: