IKEA Monkey

Michelle Obama compares President Trump to a "divorced dad." Jeanne Moos reports that divorced dads are taking offense.

A version of this article first appeared in the "Reliable Sources" newsletter. You can sign up for free right here.

Nancy Pelosi does not appear to be particularly impressed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On 60 Minutes this past weekend, Nancy Pelosi dismissed the growing left-flank of the Democratic Party, Ocasio-Cortez included, as “like five people.” She continued to write off Ocasio-Cortez this week, claiming a “glass of…

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If you think the Lori Loughlin college admissions scandal news is over, guess again, cowpoke! The rodeo has just begun. Operation Varsity Blues continues to ride high.

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James Holzhauer came close to breaking his single-day record Tuesday by winning more than $100,000 on “Jeopardy!”

By amassing $106,181, the native of Naperville extended his winning streak on the quiz show to nine days after taking a commanding lead over his challengers, an ergonomist from Lexington,...

Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl have put their heads together and made an ass of themselves yet again. The Goofus and Goofus of right-wing outrage added to their overstuffed portfolio of unnecessary and unwanted press conferences with a soft-hitting expose on corruption in the college recruiting realm.

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Parenting can be a challenge, but a trio of bald eagles in Illinois have banded together to tackle it.

Ken Jennings is still the gold standard of Jeopardy! contestants, his 74-game winning streak the likely unattainable yardstick by which all subsequent players have been judged. But the current Jeopardy! champ is a close second—quite literally: He’s now the second-place earner behind Jennings.

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It shouldn't be at all surprising that when US Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted her sympathies for the people of Paris (and her prayers for the firefighters), the Stupidest Man On The Internet and his compatriots at Gateway Pundit decided that was incredibly offensive because her tweet simply wasn't Jesusy enough.

The Omar story came on top of a whole raft of stories aimed at whipping up political outrage over what appears to have been an accidental fire, because why waste a good tragedy? Despite official announcements that the fire appears to be related to renovation work, Gateway Pundit suggested something more sinister: "French Media Confirms There Were NO CONSTRUCTION WORKERS at Notre Dame Cathedral at Time of Fire" (based on one tweet paraphrasing a news report). Hoft and his culture war battalion insisted, in two separate stories, that all Muslims everywhere were dancing on rooftops celebrating the fire, even if they didn't set it (but do you know for sure they didn't?). Fox's Shep Smith was scolded for cutting off a French municipal official who hinted the REAL cause of the fire would be covered up by "politically correct" officialdom, and just to be sure readers knew Muslims are bad, the site reminded them of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, too. Hoft's internet outlet also offered some uplifting stories about Parisians -- no, "Catholics with rosaries"! -- singing hymns as the cathedral burned, and proclaimed the survival of some parts of the interior a genuine miracle.

But then there was this horrible tweet by Ilhan Omar, a slap in the face to all Christendom:

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Shocking! Horrifying! CLICKBAITY! The site tried to cram every single outrage into a single headline:

They almost didn't need to run anything else, but longtime Stupidest Guest Blogger on the Internet Kristinn Taylor did his damnedest to explain why Ilhan Omar had personally murdered everyone in Paris with her malicious good wishes. Describing her in the lede as a "prominent Muslim," Taylor pointed out, in case the hed hadn't done the job, that Omar's tweet

failed to use the name of the cathedral or even mention that it is a church–or a Catholic church. Notre Dame is French for Our Lady and is a Catholic name for the Virgin Mary, Mother of God who gave birth to Jesus.

Because presumably Gateway Pundit readers need to have obscure French terms like "Notre Dame" explained to them so they don't think a football team caught on fire. Also, saying that art and architecture are significant, and that they transcend time and location, is actually a deliberate insult to Christians, you see. Omar was actually "denigrating Notre Dame as an art museum." That monster. To clarify why the Muslim lady is completely wrong, Taylor capped his argument with this indisputable truth!

No one sings Ave Maria when an art museum goes up in flames.

And yes, the replies to Omar's tweet are now full of angry "Christians" who are very GRRR, and why is a Muslim lady even "praying" to her fake Mulim "god" who is not at all the real god? Is she trying to curse the firefighters?

So yes, it is an extreme offense to fail to point out that the cathedral is named for Holy Mary, Mother of God. And talking about Notre Dame as an architectural wonder is also very insulting. So let's see how a REAL Christian, Donald J. Trump, discussed the fire:

Trump calls Notre Dame fire a "terrible sight to behold" www.youtube.com

I will tell you, the fire that they are having at the Notre Dame cathedral is something like few people have witnessed. It is one of the great treasures of the world. The greatest artists in the world. Probably, if you think about it, I would say it might be greater than almost any museum in the world and it's burning very badly. Looks like it's burning to the ground.

Hold on ... did the Great Man just denigrate a CATHOLIC CHURCH by comparing it to a museum? Doesn't he know it was named after the VIRGIN MARY WHO GAVE BIRTH TO JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOR?

Trump then went on to suggest, like some kind of heathen Muslim lady, that the place had mere "cultural" significance, completely ignoring the fact that the cathedral holds the ACTUAL CROWN OF THORNS WORN BY JESUS. (The relic survived the fire, and no, Hoft's Gateway Pundit story does not say the relic is "believed" to be authentic by some people. It IS REAL). Anyway, look at the denigrating!

That is beyond countries, that is beyond anything. That is a part of our growing up. It's a part of our culture. It's a part of our lives. That's a truly great cathedral. I have been there, I have seen it. It's a terrible scene.

They think it was caused by, at this moment they don't know, but they think it was caused by renovation. I hope that's the reason. Renovation, what's that all about? It's a terrible sight to behold.

How true this is. Renovation, what is that?

Oh, never mind, he said "Cathedral" and "Notre Dame," so he clearly had his mind on the building's religious significance, the end.

[Gateway Pundit]

Yr Wonkette is supported by reader donations. Donations from people who were created in God's Holy Image and for whom Jesus died to wash away your sins. So give us some fucking moolah, you.

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James Holzhauer’s dominance on “Jeopardy!” Friday bumped former contestant Roger Craig down another rung on the ladder for the highest single-day winnings on the quiz show.

On Tuesday, the native of Naperville risked $38,314 in Final Jeopardy that led him to win $110,914, breaking the previous...

1998's Meet Joe Black is not well remembered. Despite starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins and marking Martin Brest’s directorial follow-up to the lauded Scent Of A Woman, the story of a supernatural romance story doesn’t really come up too often two decades following its release.

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On Wednesday, scientists revealed the first-ever picture of a black hole. Researcher Katie Bouman's algorithm played a big role.

Jenny Holzer, in the collection at MoMA.

Tags: art   Jenny Holzer

Back in the 1990s, at the moment when history was supposed to have just recently ended, popular culture was awash in moody hitmen and songs about Dealing With Success. The hard part was over, we were right all along, and so would receive what we deserved. With every culmination duly culminated, the most urgent…

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It’s no quantum leap to say Naperville native James Holzhauer is performing well on “Jeopardy!” In fact, he set a game record — $110,914 — for most money won in one day.

But that’s probably no surprise to anyone who remembers the 2001 Naperville North High School graduate and his natural ability...

People have been complaining about iTunes for ages. The bloated and confusingly arcane piece of software has been updated and repurposed and jerry-rigged to handle new tasks for the past 18 years, and one developer says it won’t live to see its 19th birthday. It looks like Apple is finally about to kill iTunes and…

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I have a lot of prescription bottles lying around with unused pills. Some from my wisdom teeth removal, others from a recent bout with food poisoning, and a couple for my creaky, inflamed joints.

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On an early spring day in 2018, the faint smell of formaldehyde floating in the air, 26-year-old medical student Warren Nielsen and four of his classmates prepped a cadaver in the chilly dissection lab at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

Jesus once said “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God,” but, let’s be honest, back when the New Testament was written, there was hardly anything good to spend money on. Now that we have private jets, smart homes, and limited edition sneakers, many…

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If you’re still salty about losing the sweepstakes to adopt Bruno the “extremely high maintenance” cat, fear not. A new chonky boy has entered the fray.

Meet Barsik, an “extremely obese” cat who weighs in at a staggering, almost unfathomable 41 pounds, according to the Animal Care Centers of NYC. That puts him at a near-world record weight, though it’s worth mentioning that Guinness World Records discontinued the category of “heaviest cat” in 1998 to “deter people from over-feeding their pets,” which seems like the right call.

World-record contender or not, Barsik is certainly a big, big boy. Social media posts from the ACC noted that the 5-year-old feline “is too big for our housing” and had to be kept in his own makeshift enclosure. He’s the largest cat to be brought to the organization in its 20-year existence, according to the New York Daily News.

As noted on Barsik’s nascent Instagram page, he’s currently being fostered in the care of Anjellicle Cats Rescue.

“Once any medical issues are sorted out and we have a vet-supervised weight loss plan in place, we will likely make him available for adoption once he is steadily losing weight and at a safe pace,” Angelique Iuzzolino, Barsik’s foster mom, told VICE via email. “This may be a month or two, we just aren't sure yet. Our priority is his well-being and [we’re] not in a hurry to rush him out the door. We do know that any adopter will have to be dedicated to sticking with his plan and helping him get to a healthy weight.”

If you want to eventually adopt this absolute unit, I’d keep a sharp eye on his Insta feed for updates. In the meantime, you can donate towards Barsik’s continuing care, and check out the many other animals at Anjellicle and the ACC that are in need of help.

We believe in you, big chungus cat. Just look at how well Bruno has been doing lately!

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President Trump moved to clear out the senior ranks of the Department of Homeland Security on Monday, a day after forcing the resignation of its secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, as he accelerated a purge of the nation’s immigration and security leadership.The White House announced the departure of Randolph Alles, the director of the Secret Service, who had fallen out of favour with the president even before a security breach at his Mar-a-Lago club that the agency effectively blamed on Mr Trump’s employees.Government officials, who asked not to be identified discussing personnel changes before they were announced, said at least two to four more high-ranking figures affiliated with Ms Nielsen were expected to leave soon, too, hollowing out the top echelon of the department managing border security, presidential safety, counterterrorism, natural disasters, customs and other matters.The wave of departures of officials originally appointed by Mr Trump underscored his growing frustration with his own administration’s handling of immigration and other security issues. In recent days, Mr Trump has threatened to close the southwestern border altogether only to back off and give Mexico a one-year notice in the face of warnings about deep economic damage from such a move.The shake-up, coming more than two years into Mr Trump’s term, indicated that he is still searching for a team that will fulfil his desire for an even tougher approach to immigration. It also signalled the enduring influence of Stephen Miller, the president’s hard-line senior adviser who has complained about recalcitrant homeland security officials.Some of the president’s allies complained that he was going too far, taking out subordinates who actually share his goals on immigration at the prodding of White House aides hunting for scapegoats for the failure to control the border as he has promised to do.“Without names, there’s people in the White House that speak about immigration,” Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said in an interview. “They haven’t accomplished a whole lot, so they need to find some other way to make themselves look important.”The latest shuffle came just a day after Mr Trump pushed out Ms. Nielsen for not doing enough in his view to secure the border and three days after Ronald Vitiello, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was told to step aside so the administration could go in a “tougher direction,” as Mr Trump put it.Officials said they expect to see the departures of L. Francis Cissna, the head of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services; Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, one of his top deputies; and John Mitnick, the department’s general counsel and a senior member of Ms. Nielsen’s leadership team. All of them were said to be viewed by Mr Miller as obstacles to implementing the president’s policies.Since President Trump’s inauguration, White House staffers and cabinet officials have left in firings and resignations, one after the other.The White House is also pressing for the resignation of Claire Grady, the acting deputy secretary, who under law would normally fill in for Ms Nielsen. Mr Trump has already announced that he will install Kevin McAleenan, the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, as Ms Nielsen’s acting replacement, which he cannot do if Ms Grady remains in place.The latest moves appeared to be a housecleaning of officials associated with John Kelly, the president’s former chief of staff and his first homeland security secretary, who was pushed out at the end of last year after months of tension with Mr Trump.Mr Alles, a retired Marine major general who served with Mr Kelly in the military and goes by Tex, was the first person from outside the Secret Service to head the agency in more than a century and some administration officials said he had a hard time fitting in.At Mr Trump’s instruction, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told Mr Alles at least 10 days ago to expect a transition after two years in office and to develop an exit plan, according to officials familiar with the discussions.Mr Trump, who talks with members of his own Secret Service detail, had soured on Mr Alles a while ago, convinced that as an outsider he was not popular among the agents, officials said. The president even made fun of the director’s looks, calling him Dumbo because of his ears. But a Secret Service ally of Mr Alles disputed the notion that he did not fit in, saying that the director was well liked among the work force.Mr Alles was told to develop an exit plan before the arrest of a Chinese woman carrying a malware-laced device at Mar-a-Lago, exposing holes in the security of the private club. The Secret Service was so disturbed that it issued a statement faulting the club’s staff for not tracking its guests closely enough.Some Secret Service officials said on Monday that they suspected that Mr Alles’s departure was accelerated in part because of the episode.The White House made no mention of that in its statement announcing Mr Alles’s departure issued shortly after it was reported by CNN.Mr Alles “has done a great job at the agency over the last two years, and the president is thankful for his over 40 years of service to the country,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in the statement.She said he would be replaced in May by James M. Murray, a career Secret Service official who oversees protective operations.Mr Alles was the focus of an early fight between Mr Trump and Mr Kelly in the first months of the administration. Mr Kelly threatened to resign as homeland security secretary if Mr Alles was not made Secret Service director, according to former administration officials.Randolph Alles, the director of the Secret Service, received instructions 10 days ago to come up with an exit plan and was expected to leave on his own timeline.CreditDavid Goldman/Associated PressIn an email message to his work force on Monday, Mr Alles confirmed that his departure was ordered by the president last month.“No doubt you have seen media reports regarding my ‘firing,’” he wrote. “I assure you that this is not the case, and in fact was told weeks ago by the administration that transitions in leadership should be expected across the Department of Homeland Security.“The president has directed an orderly transition in leadership for this agency and I intend to abide by that direction,” he added. “It is my sincere regret that I was not able to address the work force prior to this announcement.”Regardless of when the decision was made, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Mr Alles should testify before Congress about the Mar-a-Lago breach.“The public and Congress need to know the extent to which adversarial governments — like China — and their agents are attempting to gain access to, or conduct electronic surveillance on, conversations or other information regarding national security at President Trump’s properties,” he said.Not all of Mr Trump’s allies were happy with the moves.“There’s no doubt that Cissna has proved his competence, in a lot of things he’s doing — things that the president is for,” Mr Grassley said. Referring to Mr Cissna and Ms Kovarik, both of whom once worked on his staff, Mr Grassley said, “If he gets rid of these two, it’s self-defeating because I don’t know anyone else in the department or at least in immigration” who could do better.One administration official said Mr Cissna angered Mr Miller by refusing to make changes to asylum policy without congressional approval. Under current law, unauthorized immigrants facing expedited removal may seek asylum before an immigration judge if found to have a credible fear of persecution or torture.As for Ms Nielsen, she expressed no unhappiness about her departure on Monday and thanked Mr Trump “for the tremendous opportunity” to serve her country and the employees of her department for their efforts to secure the nation.The latest departures, along with previous vacancies, will leave the Department of Homeland Security without a permanent secretary, deputy secretary, two under secretaries, Secret Service director, Federal Emergency Management Agency director, ICE director, general counsel, citizenship and immigration services director, inspector general, chief financial officer, chief privacy officer and, once Mr McAleenan moves, Customs and Border Protection commissioner.“The purge of senior leadership at the Department of Homeland Security is unprecedented and a threat to our national security,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, complained about “congressional dysfunction” in addressing border security, but added, “I am concerned with a growing leadership void within the department tasked with addressing some of the most significant problems facing the nation.”The New York Times

Nielsen's departure was first reported by CBS News. A senior administration official said Trump asked for Nielsen's resignation and she gave it. Trump said on Twitter: "Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service." In another tweet, Trump said Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, would become acting DHS secretary.

We have the video to prove it.

A swarm of bees took over the bullpens in Sunday’s match up between the Angels and Rangers. The buzzing action peaked in the fifth when Texas reliever Kyle Bird was preparing to come in at the bottom of the inning, but ultimately had to leave the bullpen to warm up elsewhere because the insect invasion had gotten so…

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There is truly no take on Joe Biden’s handsiness that matters more to me than Bill Maher’s, a person who once blamed the Me Too movement on “fucking fragile” millennials and claimed it would create a “police state” for sex. On Friday night, Maher delivered his much-needed opinion, joking that Biden is “not Harvey…

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A few years ago I started sending “Nice to Meet You!” emails to people after they had given me a card at a networking event. Sending a note gets their email added to my inbox so I can find it weeks or years later, but I’ve also always thought it was also just a classy move. Sending an email says that you appreciate…

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This fragrant Korean chicken soup features whole small chickens stuffed with sticky rice and assorted goodies in an herbal broth. It's traditionally considered a summer dish, but it's equally delicious year-round. Read More

Any burger lover worth their salt knows that grinding your own meat is absolutely essential if you want the best possible results, and if you already own a KitchenAid, you can add a fancy, metal grinder for just $53 today, $20 less than usual.

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Emilia Clarke didn't fare nearly so well.

For those who are still debating whether or not to check out Disney’s latest live-action revisit Dumbo, may we offer you this interview with Colin Farrell and Danny DeVito - which can only be described as a delightful free-for-all - as a potentially deciding factor?

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