Let Them Play Tennis

Confirming there is no more clueless, worthless waste of space on God’s green earth than the Grifter First Family, this week Melania Antoinette announced – on Pearl Harbor Day, as unprecedented millions of hungry Americans waited in miles-long, often overnight lines at food pantries and increasingly shoplifted; as COVID-19 deaths from a homicidally mismanaged pandemic spiralled past 3,000 a day, bringing the death toll to 290,000, in awful synchronicity roughly that of Pearl Harbor and World War ll; as surging layoffs saw 1.3 million more jobless claims, raising unemployment totals to nearly 20 million Americans, many facing a “benefit cliff” while a comic-book-villain-level GOP hawks oblivious relief plans that would exacerbate those brutal realities – just then, proving again their keen focus on the important issues facing America, the fake wife of our impeached president announced that work is finally done on the new White House tennis pavilion, a fancy little house celebrating “the kings’ sport” that nobody at the White House actually plays. Still, what a relief for those deeply immersed in Melania’s latest renovation project after turning the Rose Garden into a cemetery. “History continues to unfold at the @WhiteHouse & I am pleased to announce the completion of the tennis pavilion,” she wrote. “Preserving this historic landmark is vital & I want to thank all who helped complete this project.” Time for a collective hallelujah, everyone. Anyone?

With her usual impeccable timing, and wearing a hard hat that wasn’t at all laughable, FLOTUS first unveiled the project in March, just as the pandemic was taking off. It called for refurbishing the existing tennis court and erecting a new building on the South Lawn. The result: Limestone exterior, copper roof, pretentious columns, and 1,200 square foot space with kitchen and couches that could house two families and a dog, or six homeless and thus less choosy people. Melania’s “rather Romanov announcement” was greeted with the sort of jubilation we’ve come to expect from a Twitter that’s long had no fucks left to give. “Awesome!! This is amazing!!” wrote one patriot. “This is SO important right now because absolutely nothing else of any urgency is going on.”The “seriously?!” consensus: This might be the most tone-deaf, screw the poors, let them eat cake thing ever offered to a poorer, sicker, hungrier American than ever. Fury at their inability to “read the room” rightly focused on grievous losses ignored, with scorching agreement the new pavilion sure will help bring peace to the millions of sick, hungry, quarantined, unemployed, intubated in ICUs, and families of the dead. The most succinct rage came from Mother Jones‘ David Corn: “282,345,” at that point the COVID death toll. There were also some excellent questions: “What’s the point of finishing the courts when nobody in the GOP has any balls?” and “Are you taking applications for ball people and line judges? Asking for several million unemployed friends.” Our fave: “Four years of hell, and all we got was this tennis pavilion?!” Alas, yes.