"He's completely uncomfortable with this thing being about him. He was just telling me, I think there should be a little less of me here."

Michelle Obama says of Barack and his library:

"He's completely uncomfortable with this thing being about him."

"He was just telling me, I think there should be a little less of me here."

Lmaoooooo pic.twitter.com/8FLeg3XoDm

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 24, 2026

Pick the most true statement:

Barack Obama is genuinely embarrassed by the new monument to himself.

Michelle Obama thinks she's a comedian.

These two are so sweet and fun. I love it!

Ugh! I'm embarrassed. America is embarrassed. Terrible!

 

pollcode.com free polls

"You did it all with such grace and class and cool that you made the hardest job in the world look like a walk in this beautiful park."

Said Michelle Obama, as "Mr. Obama looked down and wiped away tears."

She's quoted in "Presidents Line Up for Obama’s Long-Awaited Center in Chicago/Thursday’s opening drew four former presidents, as well as Bruce Springsteen, Bono and Jennifer Hudson. Chicago has seen years of planning and legal fights" (NYT).

Biden was there too, bearing with unbearable sorrow:

"What a welcome and much-needed reminder of a President who valued art, beauty, and decency. A glaring contrast to the garish, self-serving chaos of the current one."

Says one commenter at the NYT article "The Audacity of Art at the Obama Presidential Center/Barack and Michelle Obama commissioned 30 artists to create work for their campus, which starts visitor previews next week on the South Side of Chicago."

That's a gift link so you can see the photos of the artwork inside the building, which I think is quite good, and so you can gaze at the "View from the Sky Room" photograph that shows a view from the building, looking out through one of the letters of the text from an Obama speech that you can attempt to read if you stand on the ground and gaze upward at the building.

The view from the Sky Room is garish chaos, but the chaos seems designed to give ordinary citizens a place to play, that is, it's not trying to look good, it's trying to offer what can be used. Included in the play equipment is an N.B.A.-size basketball court and a "sledding hill." We'll see how much freewheeling tomfoolery unfolds in this space. The message is casual playfulness for the people, and it is in distinct contrast to the design ideas Trump has been imposing on the White House and elsewhere. His message is grandeur and elegance.

"This isn't a monument to my legacy. It's a gateway to yours."

May the Fourth be with YOU, from the Obama Presidential Center.

Opening June 19. @BarackObama @MarkHamill pic.twitter.com/OzhhUzD789

— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) May 4, 2026

It's "May the Fourth," and they've wheeled out Mark Hamill, who's stuck with a scripted role. He reads it woodenly, perhaps because he feels a little bad that he's required to be an egotist, and humor is wrung out of having Barack Obama insult him for being a narcissist. Why am I being subjected to this?, I wondered, and what is the point of using "Star Wars" to promote the Obama Presidential Center?

I guess it must be because the Center has been likened to certain "Star Wars" images, but not in a good way.

Trump gets out ahead of Obama on the subject of aliens — extraterrestrial aliens.

Yesterday, Peter Doocy prompted Trump with the same question Obama recently answered: "Barack Obama said that aliens are real. Have you seen any evidence of non-human visitors to Earth?" 

Trump did not answer the question asked:

 

Trump focused on Obama's behavior: "Well, he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that."

The reporter's mind cranked quickly through the implications: "So aliens are real?!!"

Trump: "Well, I don't know if they're real or not. I can tell you he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. He made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information. No, I don't have an opinion on it. I don't talk about it."

There's a lot going on there. Trump continued to try to put the focus on Obama's behavior.

"President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes...."

"The brief clip, set to 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight,' was spliced near the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about anomalies in the 2020 presidential election....In response to questions about the clip, which Mr. Trump posted Thursday during a late-night spree on social media, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said criticism of the video was 'fake outrage.' 'This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,' she said. 'Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.'"

I'm reading "Trump Posts Video Portraying Obamas as Apes/The White House press secretary dismissed criticism of the clip’s racist content, shared by the president’s Truth Social account, as 'fake outrage'" (NYT).

I don't know why Leavitt responded like that. If I hadn't read what she said, I would have assumed Trump shared the video because of the material that took up the first 97% of the video. Look at it here. It's somber technical material about tampering with voting machines in the 2020 election. I would have assumed that he never even saw the discordant image of the Obamas as apes that is spliced in at the very end, in the last 2 seconds.

I would have speculated that some sneaky person spliced that image in to trick Trump supporters into passing the video along unwittingly and becoming targets for accusations of racism.

Who sticks around for the full 62 seconds? Well, maybe some people do, and then when the Obama image pops up, they probably think What is this bullshit? It doesn't belong. Who put this here?

"The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party..."

"... that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault. Federal law enforcement and immigration agents have a tough job. But Americans expect them to carry out their duties in a lawful, accountable way, and to work with, rather than against, state and local officials to ensure public safety. That's not what we're seeing in Minnesota. In fact, we're seeing the opposite."

So reads the "Statement by President Obama and Mrs. Obama," posted on X by Barack Obama.

A wan vision of failure.

From the front page of the New York Times.

Here's the article: "Biden Has Raised Little of What He Needs to Build a Presidential Library/His library foundation has told the I.R.S. that by the end of 2027 it expects to bring in just $11.3 million — not nearly enough for a traditional presidential library."

That article has 4 authors. 4 authors in search of a President.

ADDED: A few things from the article:

1. An excellent joke from a big donor named John Morgan:  “The Biden staff, they ruined any type of good library for him. He’ll be lucky to have a bookmobile.”

2. They might need to repurpose "pre-existing Biden institutions at the University of Delaware."

3. Bill Clinton is out there seeking donations for an expansion to his presidential library, and he's doing a better job of maintaining relationships with donors.

4. Obama's presidential library is ridiculous. It's a "still-unfinished 'presidential center' in Chicago — not technically a presidential library,' since it will not include hard copies of White House documents — will include a vegetable garden, a branch of the city library, and a basketball gym." Let me add on to that and say it suggests that Biden's best move should be to end to the grandiose bullshit that is the "presidential library"? 

Marc Maron's last podcast.

More than a decade ago, I sat down with @MarcMaron in his garage to tape something new called a podcast. This time, he came to me to record his last episode.

We talked about the power of conviction, decency in an age of division, and the true story of America. I’ll miss Marc’s… pic.twitter.com/kM3sAgtjF0

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 13, 2025

Podscribe has the full transcript with audio, so you can poke around looking for something of interest. 

For Maron's end-of-podcast thoughts, you need to listen to the second-to-last episode, here. This is his real sign off:

I'm happy to see America's lefties swooning in love with freedom of speech.

Let them make many strong and loud professions of love, because I want a lot of material to throw in their face when — if? — they get back to subordinating freedom of speech below endless other more important matters.

Is it possible they'll commit to this love for freedom of speech with such intensity that they will forsake its rivals? It's unlikely, but I'll be delighted to give them credit... or even a vote. 

Now, lets check in with Roseanne Barr again:

Remember when you and your wife called Bob Iger to have me fired? https://t.co/w5BcJ1bsLC

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) September 18, 2025

"Trump just wants the media to cover the story."

I'm reading "Getting media to cover Obamagate/Crazy Like A Fox Trump did it again with a fake but accurate video" by Don Surber, at Substack.

The media refused this weekend to cover the story of the century, in which Obama personally helped create and promote Russiagate which tied the first presidency of Donald Trump up in knots for years and also served as a cover story for Obama using the FBI to spy on Trump....

President Trump knows beating the media better than anyone. He did what no one would ever believe possible when he forced Disney’s ABC to admit it lied about him, He collected legal fees and a $15 million donation to the Trump Presidential Library. He also collected $16 million for the library from CBS for making Kamala Harris sound intelligent in a heavily edited 60 Minutes story. You’re gonna need a bigger library. Trump forced NBC to give him equal time for Kamala’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. His time was on Sunday Night Football, which has 10 times the audience.

The media wants the Obamagate story to go away, but Trump figured out a way to make them admit there is a story. He posted an AI video of Obama being arrested. This is his post on Truth Social....

Crosshairs!

I see Matt Taibbi has a piece titled "Barack Obama Now Squarely in Russiagate Crosshairs/New disclosures from a Tulsi Gabbard-led working group point directly to the top, as the legacy of 'Hope and Change' begins a plunge to the ocean floor."

I do not like the overheated metaphor, especially the evocation of assassination.

And the use of "begins" before "plunge to the ocean floor" shows how silly it is. What is the beginning of "a plunge to the ocean floor"? Breaking the surface? It calls to mind a tumble from a paddleboard. How far down is "the ocean floor"? 8 feet?

"I think the best people age the hardest. You know, I think Obama like, was probably like a very idealistic young man..."

"And that dude aged more than anybody.... Who ages the least? Trump.... He just brushed that shit off his shoulders. Like it was nothing....  So he's got an act, he's basically like a comic.... These other people... have canned speeches.... But it's not them. It's not them. That's why they all fall apart when they're talking.... All of 'em have to be protected from themselves, because when confronted by like some basic facts about the fucking corruption of the world, they don't know what to say. And they, they crumble, and Trump just starts talking shit.... They're like, oh, he's a crazy person. I'm like, yeah, that's the only kind of person that would survive what you try to do to him.... That's the only kind of guy that gets through. Like, you want a perfect person? A perfect person morally falls apart by the time they've been indicted and they have 34 counts, felony counts. Like your whole body's just destroyed by the stress of you possibly going to jail for the rest of your life. You have to be a fucking insane person to ride that out and not look like anything even happened. Then you get shot. You get up after you got shot, you're fucking bleeding from your ear and you go fight, fight, fight. You gotta be a crazy person to get through these. He's a nightmare. For anybody that's trying to rig a system like that, guy's the nightmare. He's the final boss of Fuck You...."

Said Joe Rogan.

Transcript here.

We were talking about Trump not being "polished or smooth" and about a place called "Creatable World."

The first post of the day, here, quoted a NYT writer who said: Trump "wasn’t polished or smooth. His appearance was shoddy, strange, lacking all polish." Trump has tarted up the Oval Office with gold, but he's still rough, lumbering, and orange.

And here's the post this morning about Mattel's line of "gender-neutral" dolls called "Creatable World." But somehow the kids did not flow into the world that Big Toy had envisioned for them.

So this NBC headline caught my eye: "Obama world loses its shine in a changing, hurting Democratic Party."

You see the resonance.

There was once a place called "Obama World" and it was shiny.

Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot/For one brief shining moment that was known as... Obama World!

A brief shiny glimpse at the NBC News article:

The Presidents go head-to-head in my "For you" feed on X.

Obama, perhaps representing the Democratic Party, sticks to a minimalist position: Republicans might take some of your money. Trump is effusive, lists a lot of things that will benefit some of us, and ends with an exciting but vague and weird attack on Democrats: They've lost control of themselves! They are aimlessly wandering around! They've got no grit! They are warped in the past! They think they're going to bring their insane policies back, but it's never going to happen! Meanwhile, Obama merely wafts anxiety about health insurance coverage. 

I wasn't going to post this, but Donald Trump posted it. Whether that means the lip-reading is accurate, I don't know, but here it is:

Trump just shared this on Instagram pic.twitter.com/9pL2t2shYg

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 12, 2025

The funeral for President Jimmy Carter.

The NYT is live-blogging the service at the National Cathedral, here. Excerpts:

It is unusual for five living presidents to be together in one place. Before 1991, there was only one other period in United States history, around 1861, when more than five presidents were even alive at the same time....

President-elect Trump has been talking almost nonstop to former President Barack Obama since the two sat down next to each other a few minutes ago. The conversation seems to be mostly one sided, with Obama listening and responding with shorter answers.

Joe and Jill Biden have arrived and taken their seats in the front row next to the vice president and Doug Emhoff.

While the cathedral is largely full, the congressional section has a lot of empty seats.

ADDED: There are 5 living Presidents and the oldest is the current President!

AND: We've all been trying to frame this joke:

Former President Barack Obama casually and amiably chats with Adolf Hitler as the latter is set to assume power in 11 days, end American democracy, and impose a white nationalist dictatorship. https://t.co/4tbj46yVk8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 9, 2025

PLUS: There is nothing to be sad about here and there is no need to forbid humor.

ALSO: The only missing spouse of a President is Michelle Obama. Fortunately, Town & Country has the explanation: 

According to journalist Jeff Zeleny, speaking on CNN, she had scheduling conflicts. "I'm told by her advisors that she has scheduling conflicts," Zeleney said on the network's broadcast of the funeral. "She's still in Hawaii," he added.

She was scheduled to be in Hawaii! The last time I saw "scheduling conflicts" used as an excuse, it was Kamala Harris explaining why she wasn't going to do the Joe Rogan podcast. 

"Democratic campaign strategists condescended to women, which is what both parties have been doing for a century now."

"But the parties are now also divided by class and on abortion, and a great deal of Democratic messaging has involved college-educated women telling women who never went to college how to think about their own bodies, or their own very real American dreams. Trump liked to say that he will, as President, protect women, whether they want him to or not. The Harris campaign said the same thing, only with more celebrity endorsements. None of this is good for women or for children or for men...."

Writes Jill Lepore, in "Democrats Tried to Counter Donald Trump’s Viciousness Toward Women with Condescension/The Harris campaign felt the need to remind women voters that they can vote for whomever they want. Women understood this. The campaign failed to" (The New Yorker).

It's hard for Democrats to criticize Democrats. They approach the topic but get distracted by how much worse the other side is. But the Democrats lost, and they need to figure out why and change something.*

I don't even know what "Donald Trump's Viciousness Toward Women" is supposed to refer to. I go back to the article and search for the word "vicious." Yes, I remember reading this the first time:

"[T]he 2008 Barack Obama Democratic Party intersectional coalition has died. It is not that the coalition is wounded or endangered..."

"... it is that it is dead. Trump made historic inroads with Hispanic voters, Black voters, young voters and other demographic subgroups that have been vital to the Democrats since 2008. Trump won the nation's single most Hispanic county -- 97% Hispanic Starr County, Texas -- by 16%. Queens County, New York, famously one of the most ethnically and racially diverse counties in the country, moved over 20 points toward Trump from his 2020 performance. Overall, Trump won just under half the national Hispanic vote, and he made historic inroads with Black men. Voters under the age of 35, such a core Democratic constituency in the not-so-distant past, are now a swing voting bloc. Obamaism is dead. This is a seismic shift in the American political landscape, and it's not clear where Democrats go from here...."

Writes Josh Hammer, in "The Death of Obamaism, and the Historic MAGA Opportunity" (Real Clear Politics).

Is Obama helping Kamala by vocalizing about vomit on his sweater?

I'm reading "Obama raps lyrics to Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ at Detroit rally/'Love me some Eminem,' Obama said after rapping lyrics to the hit song 'Lose Yourself; during a rally in Detroit as Michigan begins early voting" (WaPo)(free-access link so you can watch the video).

“I have done a lot of rallies, so I don’t usually get nervous,” Obama said as he took to the stage to promote Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday. “But I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem.... I notice my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomit on my sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, I’m nervous but on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs but I keep on forgetting,” Obama rapped as the crowd cheered. “Love, love me some Eminem,” he added.

I'm not sure who he hopes to influence with that, but what do I know? I'm only an undecided voter in Wisconsin. I'm not awed by celebrities, and everyone acknowledges that Kamala is the candidate with the most celebrities. Does it augment or diminish her? 

But I just want to say that I do not like the picture of mom's spaghetti vomited onto Obama's sweater. I can barely picture Obama wearing a sweater — as opposed to a beautifully ironed shirt with a casually unbuttoned collar and rolled up sleeves. 

And I don't like thinking about spaghetti-vomit on that sweater. I get Eminem's lyric about his pathetic self, who's not only vomiting onto his bad clothes but stuck eating his mother's home-cooked food. I saw the movie "8 Mile" when it came out. I understand the context of the lyrics

But Obama is not so in thrall to Eminem that the thought of encountering Eminem would physically overwhelm him. Obama was President and had to go head-to-head with Putin and Xi, and he's supposed to be vouching for Kamala, who's asking to do the same, so I don't want to hear about his getting weak-kneed over a pop star.

And most of all, I don't like "mom's spaghetti" as a marker of wretchedness. Many of us are bereft of a mother — including you, Barack Obama. To have mom's spaghetti, even upchucked, would be to experience one's mother alive in the world again.