MONDAY, AUGUST 21
Welcome back to One Day at a Time, dears—where we’re still reeling from today’s solar eclipse, which forever changed the life of every single person in Portland. JK! If we never hear the word “totality” again, it’ll be too soon. MEANWHILE… Did Joey Bada$$ refuse to wear safety glasses while looking at the eclipse? Well…. “Am I crazy for watching the eclipse today w no glasses?” the 22-year-old Brooklyn rapper tweeted. “I’ve sungazed before and afterwards saw colors for a whole day. I didn’t die tho.” Bada$$ continued, “I’m pretty sure our ancestors ain’t have no fancy eyewear. Also pretty sure they ain’t all go blind.” Huh! We’re sure absolutely nothing could go wrong here, an—THIS JUST IN… “Due to unforeseen circumstances, my Cleveland, Chicago & Toronto shows on the #EverybodyTour are cancelled,” Bada$$ tweeted one day after the eclipse. No, those tweets couldn’t possibly be relat—THIS JUST IN… “Doc said I gotta keep these on in the daytime now,” Bada$$ whined on Instagram, below a new pic of himself wearing gigantic, heavy-duty sunglasses. “A lil annoying,” he added, “but they’re pretty fire.” Yes, they are, Joey Bada$$. They’re fire—like the fire of the 27-MILLION-DEGREE STAR YOU STARED STRAIGHT INTO DESPITE REPEATED WARNINGS NOT TO DO SO. Btw, professional idiot Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote by 2,864,974 votes, also looked at the eclipse without glasses! “Stepping out on to the Truman balcony at the White House with his wife, Melania, and son Barron, Trump initially tried to look at the eclipse without protective lenses,” wrote Entertainment Weekly. “In a live video posted to the official White House YouTube channel, an aide can be heard yelling, ‘Don’t look.’” Great work today, everybody! Really inspiring work, all around.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 22
Obviously, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is a creepy idiot. His wife, on the other hand… wellllll…. “Louise Linton, the labels-loving wife of Steven Mnuchin, replied condescendingly to an Instagram poster about her lifestyle and belittled the woman, Jenni Miller, a mother of three from Portland, Ore., for having less money than she does,” the New York Times reports. After Linton posted on Instagram about a trip to Kentucky—hashbragging her photo with #valentino, #hermesscarf, and #tomford—Miller commented, “Glad we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable.” And that set Linton off, who went after Miller: “Aw!!! Did you think this was a personal trip?! Adorable! Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol. Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did.” “After that,” the NY Times adds, “she included emojis of a curled bicep and a face blowing a kiss” before accusing Miller of being “adorably out of touch” and sneering, “your life looks cute.” The post went viral, and Linton hurriedly locked down her Insta. “If she hadn’t made her account private, I would have written back with a very snide Marie Antoinette joke,” local hero Miller told the NY Times, adding that she “could not understand why Ms. Linton highlighted her brand labels on a trip to Kentucky, a state with a high poverty rate.” Ah! So this is what happens when the government is taken over by entitled one-percenters! It’s enough to make a girl want to throw her own #hermesscarf in the trash.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23
The relationship between Senate Majority Turtle Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump has hit a rough patch, according to the Daily Mail, which alleges a “profane shouting match” has led to “the senate leader not speaking to Trump in weeks—and questioning whether Trump will even make it to the end of his term.” “In private,” the Mail continues, “McConnell also made sharp remarks about Trump’s lack of knowledge about the presidency, and his unwillingness to learn the basics of governing, sources said. He’s also said… he is worried and baffled by where Trump is taking the presidency.” You don’t say, Yertle! Nice of you to join the rest of us! MEANWHILE… Following Donald Trump’s support for holy shit honest-to-god American Nazis, “even ardent supporters in the African-American community said the ties that once connected them to Mr. Trump had frayed badly,” reports the New York Times. “Some Black conservatives, prominent and not-so-prominent, are weighing whether to leave the party altogether because they fear that under Mr. Trump’s leadership, Republicans may be complicit in espousing racism.” You don’t say! Nice of you to join the rest of us!
THURSDAY, AUGUST 24
Today in news to make you say, “Tee-hee-hee-YAAAAS”: Enemy of the people Gwyneth Paltrow is in moderately deep doo-doo with the Truth in Advertising organization that wants regulators to investigate her lifestyle website Goop for misrepresenting its products. These consumer watchdogs have released a list of more than 50 (!) examples of deceptive advertising for products Goop endorses… such as a Carnelian crystal which supposedly “eases period cramps, tempers PMS, regulates menstrual cycles, treats infertility.” This is blatantly untrue because… umm… it’s a rock? Other Goopy products include body stickers that are supposed to relieve inflammation, rose flower essence tincture for combatting panic attacks, a hair treatment meant to help depression, and vaginal eggs, which they claim balance hormones and keep your uterus from slipping. (In Gwyneth’s defense, we’ve slipped and fallen on our uterus a number of times, but getting our vagina steamed is what cured us. Or at least that’s what our crystal says.)
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25
It’s been a minute since Taylor Swift released one of her shrieking vengeance screeds (read: a new pop song), so we were excited today to hear her latest single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” In it she solemnly announces, “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now… why? BECAUSE SHE’S DEAD!” (Oooh… subtle!) The “new” Taylor then spends the remainder of the song whining about how Kanye West and Kim Kardashian stole her innocence by catching her red-handed in a lie (and providing the receipts to prove it). Girlfriend, puh-leeeeze. This sort of snipey shade was cute when directed at lotharios like Jake Gyllenhaal—but here’s exactly why you need to pull your head out of your skinny ass, and learn how to READ THE ROOM: As the most powerful storm in recorded history hit the coast of Texas today, killing at least 14 people, and forcing 30,000 into emergency shelters, President Trump blithely waved at the cameras and wished Texans “good luck!” as he departed for his weekend retreat. He then announced he was formally ordering the military to institute a ban on transgender people joining its ranks, and followed that by pardoning despicable law-breaking racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio (more on him in a sec). Now, we know Taylor couldn’t have known about these events when she chose her single’s release date—BUT HEY TAY-TAY: TRUMP’S BEEN DOING SHIT LIKE THIS EVERY DAY SINCE JANUARY. Girl, no one cares about your touchy, hair-trigger feelings anymore. It’s time for the “new Taylor” to join the rest of the adults in the room, and grow the fuck up or GTFO. (Think she’ll write a song about us now? Fingers crossed!)
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26
And the fury continues with this little public service announcement regarding the many crimes of former sheriff and unrepentant a-hole Joe Arpaio. In a tweet, Trump wrote, “I am pleased to inform you that I have just granted a full Pardon to 85 year old American patriot Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He kept Arizona safe!” Patriot? Safe? From years of reporting in the Phoenix New Times, here’s what we know about Arpaio: He proudly racially profiled the residents of Maricopa County, demanding to see identification based on appearance alone. Under his watch, his department failed to investigate hundreds of cases of sexual abuse—many involving children. He called his own jail a “concentration camp”—where inmates killed themselves at an alarming rate. He marched hundreds of Hispanic prisoners through the streets to a makeshift tent city prison surrounded by an electric fence. He set up “bathroom cams” in his jail cells, which recorded video of women inmates on the toilet that could be accessed on the internet. He arrested reporters for daring to write about his crimes. He used county money to send a deputy to Hawaii to search for Barack Obama’s birth certificate. When a judge ruled that he had been racially profiling Latinos, he hired a private investigator to follow the judge and his wife. After ignoring the judge’s orders to stop racially profiling citizens, he was charged with contempt of court. And those are just the crimes we know about. This is the man President Trump pardoned—which probably gives someone like Charles Manson a lot of hope.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27
And while barely worth a mention, there was one brief shining moment during tonight’s MTV Video Music Awards (AKA the most superfluous ceremony since the Tonys). While host Katy Perry flubbed her way through a comedic (?) opening monologue—something about returning from outer space and being confused by fidget spinners—nerdy songwriter/producer Jack Antonoff was seen staring off into space, eating a banana. It. Was. Beautiful. (We dream of a future when Trump opens his mouth to speak, and the entirety of America looks away to eat a banana. Our day will come.)