MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22

Let's check in again on pop singer Kesha, who suffered a bruising court decision last week involving producer Dr. Luke, who has been accused of drugging and raping her. While the court ruled against letting Kesha out of her contract with Sony—which stipulates that she needs to continue working with Dr. Luke—she's received tons of public support from stars like Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande, Lena Dunham, and Adele. But it hasn't all been pretty. On Sunday, Demi Lovato tweeted her unbridled support for Kesha, while giving shade to "self-proclaimed feminists" who stay quiet when they should be supporting their sisters. Every eye in the room immediately snapped to Taylor Swift, who is quick to talk about "female empowerment" when being insulted by certain male stars (all eyes snap to Kanye). Demi's quip apparently sent Taylor's crack PR squadron into panic mode, inspiring the singer to donate a whopping $250,000 to Kesha's legal fund. Nothing shuts the mouths of haters like money... or does it? Demi was less than thrilled with Tay-Tay's generosity, tweeting, "Speak out about something and then I'll be impressed." Unsurprisingly this sent Taylor's legion of rabid fans into a tizzy spiral, and they accused Demi of making the #FreeKesha movement all about herself. "I didn't shade Taylor," Demi shot back on Instagram. "I'm just tired of seeing women use 'women empowerment' and 'feminism' to further brands without actually being the ones that have the uncomfortable conversations." OUCH! Just so you know, we are totes on Demi's side in this fight, because if Taylor thinks she can just buy feminist credibility, she... hold on. Taylor's PR squad just offered us $100,000 to switch sides, so... ahem. STOP MAKING THIS ALL ABOUT YOURSELF, DEMI!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23

By now, everyone who buys a ticket to a Kanye West show knows that, at some point in the evening, he'll launch into a largely unintelligible 20 to 40 minute diatribe—which for concertgoers means it's a good time to go to the bathroom or purchase some kettle corn. His latest oration went down at LA's 1 OAK nightclub, and had many highlights, including calling former girlfriend Amber Rose "a bitch" who "never stuck no fingers in my ass." He then felt it necessary to add, "I don't play like that." (Kanye is referring to his Twitter war with Amber in which she was gravely insulted, and fired back with... umm... some personal information about Yeezy's sexual proclivities. Okay, fine, he allegedly likes his bottom fingered.) Obviously, Kanye is still working out some of his latent homophobia, and fails to realize that millions of perfectly straight men enjoy ass-play on the regular—because, lucky them, they have pleasure zones called "prostates." In fact, our own Hubby Kip has expressed significant interest in having his prostate massaged, which of course we'd be happy to do—if only our manicurist would allow it. Sorry, hon! ;)

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24

Hayseed patriot Ammon Bundy and 15 more dingbat former occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surprisingly pleaded "not guilty" today in court to charges of federal conspiracy—but we kind of think it was because they're too stupid to understand how the justice system works. Example: Ringleader Ammon stood up during the hearing and demanded to address the court and be returned to Harney County—and was told in no uncertain terms by US District Judge Anna Brown to shut up and sit down. And when Brown reminded the defendants they were innocent until proven guilty, key militia leader Ryan Payne said that couldn't be true, because "we have spent the last month in prison and are led around in chains and shackles everywhere we go." That loud smacking you hear is every person who has ever attended a high school civics class slapping their foreheads in disbelief.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25

Calling all Nancy Drew Clue Crew members: There's been a major break in "The Case of Why Rihanna Ducked Out of Her Grammy Performance Claiming She Had Bronchitis, Even Though That Reason Was Probably Bullshit." According to sources talking to Page Six, Ri-Ri "felt like her performance couldn't compare [to some of the other artists]" and that during rehearsal her song left a lot of onlookers "underwhelmed." This was apparently not the comeback performance she was hoping for, and so? HELLO, BRONCHITIS. (Hey, don't laugh. That excuse really works—especially when you're being asked to give prostate massages.)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26

Last night—right around the same time the final Republican debate before Super Tuesday was taking place—a man in Kansas went on a shooting spree, killing three and wounding 14. Naturally, the NRA-loving GOP candidates saw no need to discuss the shooting during their discussion on national policy—and really, why would they? It would be different if there were only some way to prevent mass shootings from happening in America all the time. But there isn't! If there were, we'd have done it by now, right? Yes, yes. Of course we would have. Moving on.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27

"I saw Zoolander 2 for the second time," Kanye West tweeted this weekend, finally explaining what he's been up to when he hasn't been repeatedly insisting he doesn't like fingers in his ass. "Will Ferrell has reached walking living breathing god status! His existence is a blessing. Perhaps it was seeing him play the same character from 15 years ago with 15 more years experience that showed us how sharp and Bruce Lee status he is. We all know Will Ferrell has always been the one!!! I just want to thank Will Ferrell for the years of joy he has brought into my life with amazing comedy. and also let's shout out to the art direction ... candy on the screens! It is so inspiring. Thank you for existing!" So that's nice. IN RELATED NEWS... Please note that the Portland Mercury would like to formally recall its review of Zoolander 2 (in which Elinor Jones called it "a film about idiots, for idiots") and replace it with Kanye's tweets about Zoolander 2. In fact, the Mercury would like to formally recall all of our movie reviews, ever, and replace them all with Kanye's tweets about Zoolander 2.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28

Speaking of how Zoolander 2 is the greatest motion picture of all time, tonight the Oscars took over Hollyweird, and everyone on the red carpet pretended not to care that the ceremony was the lowest-rated in the past eight years (and the third-lowest rated since the 1970s). "I'm here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People's Choice Awards," host Chris Rock said in his opening monologue. "You realize if they nominated hosts, I wouldn't even get this job. So y'all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now." Rock when on to tear down the show for its nearly all-white slate of nominees ("If you want black people every year at the Oscars, just have black categories like Best Black Friend") and get in a few other searing lines ("This year, in the In Memoriam package, it's just going to be black peoplethat were shot by the cops on their way to the movies") before introducing the stars ("You want diversity? We got diversity. Please welcome Emily Blunt and somebody whiter, Charlize Theron"). But even Rock wasn't immune to charges of racism, with one joke highlighting how white the Oscars remained even after the show's sheepish, self-conscious acknowledgment of #OscarsSoWhite. "Amid generally positive reviews of his jabs at Hollywood and #OscarsSoWhite, the host of Sunday's Oscar ceremony, Chris Rock, is being taken to task for some of his material involving Asian Americans," the New York Times reports, noting that one of Rock's segments involved bringing three children of Asian heritage onstage, introducing them as "Ming Zu," "Bao Ling," and "David Moskowitz," and claiming they were from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm that calculates Oscar votes. ("If anybody's upset at that joke," Rock added, "just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by those kids.") "As they clutched briefcases, [the children] visually illustrated the stereotype that Asians are diligent workers who excel at math," the Times pointed out, before noting that Fresh Off the Boat actress Constance Wu tweeted, "To parade little kids onstage w/no speaking lines merely to be the butt of a racist joke is reductive & gross," and writer Mina Kimes tweeted, "would've stung less if there were more Asians on stage tonight." In conclusion, Hollywood is still racist, we can all do better, and also, apparently, some movies won some awards or something? (Or so we hear! After Rock's monologue, seeing so many old white people stumbling around just reminded us to switch over to The Walking Dead.)