Derp Roundup: Jenna Bush Has A Posse -- And They're Big Jerk Babies

Welcome to another edition of Derp Roundup, the feature where we bring you the very best of the worst detritus that's clung to our browser tabs all week. We find the stories that are too short for a full post but too stupid to ignore altogether and serve them up to you in a delicious frothy blend -- add whatever brain solvents you may need to help digest them.

1. Our Lead Derp this week comes from Friend of Wonkette Tommy Christopher over at the Daily Banter. Last Tuesday he was recording a reporter's-perspective tour of the White House as part of his beat for the website. While he was there, a crew from NBC's Today Show was shooting some film of Jenna Bush Hager, who was doing a serious investigative fluff piece to be aired Friday. And then for some reason, the lighting guy decided to Git Tough with Tommy, blocking his camera so that no precious Jenna Photons would be captured by a mere web reporter, because NBC had not yet promoted her super-secret visit with Barack Obama. It's a fairly impressive display of assholery!

   "Do you banter? I love to banter! Bantering's one of my favorite things, bantering." As Tommy points out, the appropriate thing for the NBC crew to do would have been to ask that he not put up the video until after they'd promoted their special super-secret Jenna Visits the First dad story, rather than treating him like a paparazzo or a mere tourist peasant. Instead, they seem to have thought they were the Secret Service,protecting some very important B-Roll of an important journalist from some mere amateur -- who has White House press credentials, and unlike Jenna Bush, actually works the press room regularly. And now you know, children, How We Get The News. (Also, too, the full "Day at the White House" video is pretty cool -- mandatory viewing for news/politics nerds. And there's not aCGI gecko in sight.)

1. Here's a thing that Yr Doktor Zoom noticed this morning while watching Up with Steve Kornacke:  You've probably seen thiskind of nifty "Imagination" ad from GE, which started running during the Winter Olympics:

   It's visually very pretty, and we like those flapping-wing jetliners. But suddenly, this morning, every instance of the little girl talking about what her mom makes at GE has been genderswapped: now it's "My dad makes..." And in fact, it appears that they shot two versions, and in some countries, the "Dad" version has been running instead of the "Mom" one ever since the original February release; this version is on the GE Indonesia YouTube channel. 

   So what's up with that, GE? Just a nice gesture for Father's Day weekend, or were you getting complaints from MRA's, or was this swap planned all along for "balance?" Too many women suddenly applying for science & tech jobs? Wonkette demands answers! (OK, yeah, we figure Father's Day, but still... weird, huh?)

   Update: You knowwho else worked at GE, and satirized them directly in two of his major novels (and really, throughout his career) but nonetheless got a very kind write-up on a GE corporate blog? 

1. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe is very worried that Barack Obama is not merely doing things in foreign policy that Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe disagrees with; rather, he said on a Family Research Council podcast thing, that the fact we aren't still throwing soldiers into the civil war in Iraq (after the Iraqi government demanded that we leave) proves that the Preznit is actively Not On America's Side:

   “Never in my political career in my memory did it ever occur to me that we would have a president of the United States who would be doing things supporting the enemy ... Our system isn’t set up for Congress to deal with this kind of a situation"

   AFA chief patriarchal douchecanoe Tony Perkins agreed that the Obama administration isn't merely "incompetent," but that it's "either they are working intentionally to undermine America or they simply have no clue whatsoever.” Inhofe replied that he pretty much agrees, but that he can't come right out and say that the President of the United States is deliberately working for America's Enemies, since "I’d lose all credibility" for some reason. Oh, come, on, dude -- have the courage of your convictions. File articles of impeachment in an election year and see how well that plays for Republicans in November.

1. In a story that may be of interest to Sen. Thad Cochran, we learned that the State of New Jersey may soon correct an oversight in its state laws, and is trying to make bestiality illegal, resulting in one of the finer headlines of the month, from Gawker:  "NJ Residents: Fuck Animals Now While You Have the Chance." The hed is perhaps a bit misleading, since the article notes that the bestiality ban is likely to pass the State Assembly's version of the bill, the state Senate hasn't even introduced a companion bill, so there is probably a good chance that New Jersey critter-diddlers can breathe a sigh of relief.

1. Also on the topic of giving good hed, we bring you this story from the Daily Mail, which we think just might be trying to jam too much information into a single headline:

    Is the lake pictured on every iPad secretly CURSED by the ghosts of disabled babies who were thrown into its waters because they wouldn't survive? 

   Also, we're pretty sure that, whatever the fascinating anthropology of the Native American legend about Nevada's Pyramid Lake, and its clear thematic overlaps with a similar tale from Mexican-American folklore,  La Llorona,  the definitive answer to the headline's question is "No."

1. From the Wonkette Tipline, we learned that Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield, last year's winner of Wonkette's coveted Legislative Shitmuffin of the Year Award (state division), will be honored with a satirical musical revueto be called “Casey Stampfield: The Musical.” The show by Music City Theatre Company opens June 27, and will touch on Campfield's many sterling accomplishments, like his "Don't Say Gay" bill, his attempt tocut welfare payment for families whose kids got poor grades, on the assumption that being hungrier would motivate them to study harder, and his recent comparison of Obamacare to the Holocaust. Nashville residents are encouraged to check it out!

1. You know that David Brat guy who beat Eric Cantor in the primary last week? He has his own Derp History that suggests that he'll be a wheelbarrow full o' fun in the months between now and November. For instance, last week, even though he is allegedly an economist, he punted instead of answering a question about whether there should be a minimum wage, saying only "I don't have a well-formed response." Look, dude, President Martin Sheen was an economist, and he could give you five reasons in three minutes why the minimum wage matters.

   Also, too, several press outlets covered Mr. Brat's innovative thinking about theology and capitalism, in which he warned that if Christians don't more vigorously defend Jesus's advocacy of the free market (Parable of the Talents, fuckers!), then it would be really easy for a new Hitler to take over, right here in America.

Ah, yes. Let's go out on a song:

With votes, natch.