And was Tucker Carlson gushing over the smell of plastic-wrapped bread? I’ve seen both the coin locks on carts and cart escalators in American stores. I get the impression that Carlson doesn’t get out much.
Tucker’s got people for that of course.
Though to be fair, plenty of people don’t go to Aldi.
Great opening.
The interview went much better this week.
The coin locks are standard in many UK supermarket chains. My local Tesco has both the coin-locked carts and a cart escalator. They also have clever gates at the pedestrian exits to the parking lot that lock the cart wheels if you try to take the cart home with you. One can only imagine what Tucker would have made of that.
I think Stewart once a week is a good idea - he can do his thing in a more focused manner and we can still get a rotation of other hosts with their own particular perspectives.
Brilliant. Vintage Stewart, and what a gift from Carlson to bail him out of last week’s near-disaster.
I had vibes of the bit when President Bush the Elder went to a grocery store, and was impressed by the laser scanners ringing up the purchases. It was clear he hadn’t done his own shopping for decades, at least. Fucker is the same way. Wow, fresh bread? Coins to unlock carts? Cart escalators? All known in the Western World, and used when appropriate.
Of course, with people who lie all the time, it’s hard to tell if this was just Fucker making a really stupid lie, or if he was genuinely impressed by things that are so commonplace, but with which his rich ass is just unfamiliar.
Ironically, those carts that impressed him, I hate. I was at another store recently with the same stupid system and it annoyed me. I don’t carry quarters around.
And it doesn’t really fix the “Taking it to my homeless encampment” problem. 25 cents for a cart that costs a couple of hundred dollars, maybe? Sounds like a good deal to me! Plus, once I’m back in camp, I have the time to cut the chain on the thingy that unlocks the coin, and use it to get my coin back. Win win!
The whole coin in the shopping cart thing (that Tucker did) was the softest this Country is better than Ours comparison I’ve ever heard of between any two countries ever. So bizarre. I never would have thought to compare those two hyper-specific but extremely minimal things in any sort of bragging way.
My feelings too. Good to know he heard the complaints, even if he doesn’t accept the criticism. He certainly knows what’s at stake in November, and I’m sure will dump on Trump as appropriate between now and then.
As I remember, people misinterpreted what amazed GHWB. It wasn’t just that there were barcode scanners but that these were somewhat advanced ones not already in use in supermarkets. Though to be fair, at that point he had been president for four years, VP for eight years and a high government official for years prior to that. I would not be surprised to hear that he hadn’t done his own grocery shopping in a long while.
I first saw those coin locks on shopping carts at a Pathmark in New Jersey, back in the last century.
The coin is an incentive for random people to do the job of the store employee charged with retrieving loose shopping carts and returning them to the corral.
I think those paid luggage carts at the airport had a similar thing where you could get a quarter back by returning them to the machine.
If you’re willing to go into a homeless encampment to earn a quarter, more power to you!
Maybe not that but at least collect the carts that are loose in the parking lot.
See, you’re talking about the actual function of these things, while Fucker was making up a stupid reason for them, so he could bash America for having homeless people.
And Mother Russia does not? Somehow I doubt that, though I can’t imagine being homeless in a Russian winter.
Of course not! Field Marshal Potemkin fixed that problem years ago!
It also works with airport luggage carts:
That’s because Tucker is profoundly stupid. All the more so when his example of Russia’s greatness is an old and trivial mechanical gadget that around here anyway has mostly been eliminated because it’s unpopular and conveys a sense that customers are untrustworthy jerks, and it doesn’t actually work – if I’m going to be a jerk and leave my shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot I don’t care if I lose a quarter.
Remember that this is the guy who also bragged that Russian supermarkets have bread!
I’m mildly obsessed with it. I wonder what comparisons were made that got cut and didn’t make it into that segment? I imagine he was just walking around the grocery store riffing on a lot of comparisons that were not used.
I’m trying to think of examples, but just can’t. I’m not dumb or witty enough. Maybe like…Russia doesn’t put any useless health information on the packaging and that uses less ink and that’s better for the environment. Something like that, but funny. I know there is an evilness to Tucker, but this segment was profoundly banal but humorous to me. Anyways…