MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5

DEATH PARADE DAN KITWOOD / GETTY IMAGES
Welcome back to One Day at a Time, dears—your brief respite from constant fears of nuclear war! Hold on... this just in... turns out your brief respite is already over! Sorry! SO, ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR... “A new nuclear policy issued by the Trump administration... is touching off a new kind of nuclear arms race,” reports the New York Times, in a story that either ran on their front page or in their “HOLY SHIT WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE” section. “The Pentagon envisions a new age in which nuclear weapons are back in a big way,” the NYT continues. “Its strategy bristles with plans for new low-yield nuclear weapons that advocates say are needed to match Russian advances and critics warn will be too tempting for a president to use.” Those “Russian advances,” BTW, aren’t just code for Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump giving each other sneaky handjobs underneath a Kremlin table. Russia, it turns out, is ramping up their nukes—including developing an “autonomous nuclear torpedo that... appears designed to cross the Pacific undetected and release a deadly cloud of radioactivity that would leave large parts of the West Coast uninhabitable.” Hey, wait a sec! We’re on the West Coast! ALL WE CAN HOPE FOR... is that in these times of geopolitical tension, Donald Trump (who lost the popular vote by 2,864,974 votes and has the lowest approval rating of any president in the history of modern polling) will only use this kind of horrifying, barbaric military force as a last resort, and never glorify it or—hold on.... This just in... “President Trump’s vision of soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the boulevards of Washington is moving closer to reality,” warns the Washington Post! “Officials say they have begun to plan a grand military parade later this year showcasing the might of America’s armed forces.” Wait. Is it too late to add a “HOLY SHIT WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE” section to the Mercury? Maybe between music listings and Savage Love? We should have a crossword, too. And a word jumble!


TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6

In addition to possibly bringing about nuclear annihilation, Donald Trump is also very, very racist. Or is he? This week, Donald Trump Jr. defended his daddy, insisting Trump couldn’t be very, very racist... because he used to hang out with “all the rappers”! “It’s been terrible to watch, because I know him, I’ve seen him my whole life, I’ve seen the things he’s done,” whimpered Trump Jr., who is sad that bullies are being so mean to his dad. “It’s amazing, all the rappers... all his African American friends, from Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton, I have pictures with them,” Donny whined to right-wing cesspool the Daily Caller. “It was only when he got into politics that all of a sudden, ‘Oh, he’s the most terrible human being ever.’” Actually, dipshit, we’re pretty sure your very, very racist father was also the most terrible human being ever before he accidentally became president? But just to be sure, let’s ask all the rappers.


WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7

And so, in the continuing saga of “Men! What’s their fucking problem?” we return to Quentin Tarantino. (Heavy sigh.) Last week, Uma Thurman alleged that on the set of Kill Bill, Tarantino coerced her into driving an unsafe car and creepily volunteered to be the off-camera person who choked her character and spit in her face. (And yes, we did throw up a little bit in our mouth while typing that.) While Thurman says her relationship with Tarantino is fine—she blames the film’s producers, including Harvey Weinstein, for trying to cover up the car accident—the director’s not out of the woods. This week, audio surfaced of Tarantino on Howard Stern in 2003—where he defended child rapist Roman Polanski, claiming the director’s 13-year-old victim “was down with this,” that statutory rape “isn’t rape,” and also, “by the way, we’re talking about America’s morals, not talking about the morals in Europe and everything.” (Ah! In that case, Quentin, never mind!) While we wait for Tarantino’s inevitable performative public apology (though we’ll have to see if he also apologizes for his other problematic behaviors, like the fact that he likes to use the n-word waaay more than any white person should), we’ll ask again: Men! What’s their fucking problem?


THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8

Now it’s time for “Men: What’s Their Fucking Problem? White House Edition!” This week, not one but TWO men in Trump’s administration, Staff Secretary Rob Porter and speechwriter David Sorenson, resigned following allegations and evidence of domestic abuse against their ex-wives. But wait, there’s more: Porter never even received a security clearance—even though he handles highly classified material, and the FBI warned the administration of the abuse charges and his obvious susceptibility to blackmail. Chief of Staff John Kelly (whose only job is to bring stability to the White House, and he’s clearly fucked that up) ignored the FBI’s warnings and even defended Porter with a public hum job calling the accused wife beater “a man of integrity and honor.” (FUN FACT: This grotesque statement was co-written by White House communications director Hope Hicks—who’s reportedly in a romantic relationship with Porter AND OMIGOD WE’RE LIVING IN AN EPISODE OF DYNASTY!) So Porter and Sorenson are out the door they never should’ve been allowed to enter in the first place... and how does our Assaulter-in-Chief respond? By strongly speaking out against domestic abuse, of course. HAHAHAHAAAA JK. “People’s lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation,” Trump tweeted, even after seeing police reports, restraining orders, and photographs of Porter’s alleged abuses. But, sure... men’s lives are being “shattered and destroyed.” Especially if you’re a president accused by 20 women of sexual harassment and/or assault but can’t be prosecuted, thanks to protection from a corrupt, Republican-controlled House and Senate. (Ugh! This is the worst episode of Dynasty ever!)


FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9

Today in “The media shall be saved by badass women reporters”: Homophobic ghoul/Vice President Mike Pence has been in South Korea to cheer on our Winter Olympic athletes—or at least the ones that aren’t gay. And while it’s an open secret that Pence is purposefully kept in the dark by his White House cohorts, it took fearless Washington Post reporter Ashley Parker to rub this sad fact in his stupid smirking face. After responding that he’d just found out “this morning” about Rob Porter’s domestic abuse allegations, and only after hearing about it on “the news”(!!), Parker followed up with a verrrry pointed question. “This is now a number of times when you found out—you’re the Vice President, you’re the number two in the administration—about something very late [even] after a number of other senior staff below you have found out about it,” Parker said. “Can you comment on why you often seem a little bit out of the loop on some of this major news?” Oh shit yesssssssss. Congratulations to reporter Ashley Parker, on becoming our current nominee for the One Day at a Time Pulitzer Prize (for throwing shade).


SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10

Earlier this week we mentioned that itty-bitty, inconsequential nuclear destruction thingy. And yes, it’s worrisome! That’s why we’ll take our comfort wherever we can get it—even when it’s from former Apprentice contestant/Trump cohort Omarosa. After being removed (some say dragged) from her high-profile White House job, she gained immediate employment on another reality show, Celebrity Big Brother. When asked by fellow contestant Ross Matthews about her time with Trump, Omarosa replied, “I was haunted by tweets every single day, like what is he going to say next?” Later she confessed that she tried to emotionally distance herself from the White House turmoil, but couldn’t, “because it’s bad.” Fearing the lasting effects Trump’s actions could have on America, Matthews asked her, “I need you to say, ‘it’s going to be okay.” “No, it’s not going to be okay,” Omarosa tearfully replied. “It’s not.” (Yes, we realize those are not technically comforting words. But don’t forget! Trump is liar, and so is everyone around him—which means everything actually will be okay! Right? Right?)


SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11

And finally, let’s end the week on a high note, shall we? As we reported last week, the SPICE GIRLS ARE GETTING BACK TOGETHER EEEEEEEEEEEE! However, as we also reported, they won’t be doing any singing BOOOOOOOOO! However again, TMZ is now reporting that our reporting was wrong, and they will not only be singing, but kicking off a world concert tour in 2018 EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Now that is the way to end a pretty terrible week, and... wait. THIS JUST IN: “I’m not going on tour, the girls aren’t going on tour,” Victoria “Posh/Party Pooper Spice” Beckham told Vogue today, reconfirming what we were told last week, that the Spice Girls would only be reuniting to “collaborate on a series of projects” that unfortunately won’t include singing. But there is an upside: If you’re reading this, you haven’t yet been burned alive in a Trump-induced nuclear holocaust! Hooray! (Told ya we’d end on a high note!)