MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13

Welcome back to One Day at a Time, dears—where the news cycle has been dominated for months by a disliked dimwit charlatan who, impossibly, has amassed a staggering amount of power. We speak, of course, of Ben Affleck—who appeared on this very page last week, following news that the stupid tattoo that covers his entire back was not, as Affleck claimed, for a movie, but is, in fact, real. But now for an even more awkward rumor: According to the Hollyweird gossip mill, Ben has decided he doesn’t want to be Batman anymore, and is begging Warner Bros. to let him out of his vacuum-sealed bat-themed fetish costume contract. Fingers crossed he’s stuck playing Batman forever—the only thing making those movies tolerable is knowing poor widdle Ben is as miserable making them as we are watching them. MEANWHILE... STOP LETTING HARRISON FORD FLY AIRPLANES. Just two years after Ford crash-landed a plane on a Santa Monica golf course—which followed his 1999 helicopter crash-landing and a 2000 incident in which his Beechcraft Bonanza plane “scraped the runway during an emergency landing”—NBC reports that today Ford, flying another of his private planes, was “instructed to land on runway 20-L at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, but mistakenly aimed for a taxiway, instead. His plane passed over the top of an American Airlines 737 carrying 110 passengers and a six-person crew.” NBC adds, “Ford, 74, was heard on air traffic control recordings asking, ‘Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?’” Okay, gramps—time to hand over the keys. (Hey, George Lucas! Will you build a little Millennium Falcon cockpit in Harrison’s garage that he can “fly”? Trust us, he’ll never know the difference.)


TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14

Congratulate us, everybody! We were able to fit in exactly one full day of good old-fashioned gossip before Donald Fucking Trump, who lost the popular vote by 2,864,974 votes, stomped in and ruined everything. UGH. FIRST UP... The abrupt resignation of former national security advisor and suspected Russian collaborator Michael Flynn is merely the latest event in what the New York Times calls a “remarkably tumultuous first month” of Trump’s administration. “The chaos and competing factions that were a Trump trademark in business and campaigning are now starting to define his presidency,” the Washington Post notes. “None of this is normal,” said Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. “The incompetence, the sloppiness, and the leaking is unprecedented.” Oh, but surely it’s not that bad, right? Right? WELLLLL... “Over the weekend,” writes the Verge’s Russell Brandom, “North Korea launched a midrange ballistic missile in an unannounced test, an implicit threat to much of East Asia.” Yet Trump—dicking around at his rich-boy playtime resort Mar-a-Lago—was briefed on the incident, not in a secure room, but “in the middle of the resort’s public terrace,” Brandom notes. “Even worse, his aides lit the documents with their cell phones, since apparently no one had a lamp handy.” Only one problem with that: Android phones—like Trump’s!—are remarkably susceptible to hacking, with the Verge noting it’s incredibly easy to “compromise the camera, allowing the attacker to see whatever is in front of the phone.” Which shouldn’t be a problem... so long as, Brandom notes, “the target doesn’t physically hold up the phone and point it at sensitive intelligence documents.” ON THE UPSIDE... At least one other country is even more fucked up than ours! Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, was bizarrely assassinated in a Kuala Lumpur airport earlier this week. A suspect in the apparent poisoning was seen in surveillance footage wearing a shirt with “LOL” on it. So for now, at least, North Korea still takes the prize! Make no mistake, dears: America is gaining.


WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15

“Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election,” the New York Times reported today. Yes, this is as bad as it sounds. Like, grounds for impeachment bad. (Or, y’know, it would be, if Republicans would ever allow such a thing to happen.) (Spoiler: They won’t.) Anyhoo, Trump is going to talk to reporters tomorrow, so we’re sure this will all be addressed in a perfectly reasonable manner then!


THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16

In a failed attempt to convince America that his administration has not devolved into chaos, and he is not a person who flies into rants (despite his ranting Twitter account), President Trump held a chaotic 77-minute rant/press conference today. “For a president who has already lost a court battle, fired an acting attorney general and a national security adviser, and lost a cabinet nomination fight,” the New York Times wrote, “Mr. Trump was eager to demonstrate that he was still in command.” And how did he demonstrate this? By whining like a spoiled baby about how he’s grossly mistreated by the press, refusing to answer direct questions about his possible collusion with Russia, and lying about a number of subjects, including his electoral win which he claimed was the biggest since Ronald Reagan’s. (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.) Oh, but it gets better. Because when a Jewish reporter asked if the government planned to do anything about the recent uptick of anti-Semitic threats of violence, the first thing Trump squealed was, “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life!” Yeaaah... anti-Semitic people never get super defensive about anti-Semitism. Later when an African American reporter asked if the president would meet with the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss his urban agenda, Trump shot back, “Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?” Because... all Black people know each other? If you haven’t already, we BEG you to read the transcript of this press conference, because you will laugh yourself to tears... and then probably cry yourself to sleep.


FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17

Speaking of hilariously sad things, no one has been shat upon by the Trump administration as “heavily as” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Ever since Christie hitched his wagon to Trump’s corrupt horse back in February 2016, the governor has been kicked off the transition team, overlooked for cabinet appointments, and passed over for a job that went to his underling. And now? He’s being forced to eat MEATLOAF. According to the Boston Globe, Trump dined with Christie this week, and after telling others at the table to order whatever they’d like, he turned to the governor and said, “Chris, you and I are having the meatloaf.” And he did. He had the meatloaf—because in this battle to see who has the bigger piece of meat, Christie lost once again. (Sorry to forever ruin your taste for meatloaf.) AND IN A STORY THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TRUMP... A Florida man has been arrested for plotting to blow up Target stores up and down the East Coast. Why? Because he thought that after the explosions, Target’s stock prices would plummet at which point he’d buy as much as possible thereby making himself rich. On second thought? This story has everything to do with Trump.


SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18

Following an absolutely bruising week in Washington, failed President Donald Trump held a rally in Melbourne, Florida, in an attempt to find Americans who at least pretend to like him. At his rally, Trump crowed about his few accomplishments, continued to berate the media, and invited a supporter onstage who claimed to salute a cardboard picture of the president every single day. So the next time you feel down about yourself, remember these sad people and their pathetic leader. You have sooooo much further to fall.


SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19

Today White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus visited the Sunday morning political talk show circuit to explain what the President meant when he tweeted on Friday that the “FAKE NEWS media” was “the enemy of the American People.” During these appearances, Preibus admonished the media to “get its act together” and to stop using “unnamed sources” (AKA patriotic whistleblowers). However, of all the networks, no one fought Preibus as hard as (shockingly) Chris Matthews of Fox News. “When the President says we’re the enemy of the American people,” Wallace said, “it makes it sound like if you’re going against him, you’re going against the country.” Later, he put an even finer point on it. “You don’t get to tell us what to do, Reince!” Matthew barked at the stunned chief of sataff. “You don’t get to tell us what to do any more than Barack Obama did. He never said that we were an enemy of the people.” Now we’re not saying we’re suddenly going to start watching Fox News... but what if Trump supporters were to suddenly stop watching? If the president no longer had his cardboard cut-out saluting followers, where would he be?