After a lengthy period of “will he or won’t he,” that’s gone on since last April, Elon Musk finally bought Twitter for the hilarious price of $54.20 per share—$44 billion total—a much higher price than what many analysts consider the company to be worth. Following the acquisition, Musk started telling people that he planned to […]
Author: Ali Breland
Elon Musk Made It His Job To Make Himself Look Dumb
In 1987, Oliver Stone released Wall Street. The film, in theory, was an indictment of the rapacious excess wrought by rising financialization. At the center was Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas. “The personification of heartless 1980s excess,” according to the Washington Post, Gekko is calm and venal; suave but loathsome. Yet the film’s screenwriter, […]
Laura Loomer Loses GOP Primary, Opportunity to Vie for Most Racist Congressperson
You can’t formally measure racism. But if you could, Laura Loomer would have had a solid chance of becoming the most publicly racist Congressman in the last decade if she had won last night. The 29-year-old lost her primary election in Florida’s 11th Congressional District, in a close race with incumbent Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.). The district is […]
Greg Norman: A Portrait of a Choke Artist as an Old Man
In 1996, Australian golfer Greg Norman went into the last round of the Masters with a six-shot lead. Over eighteen holes, he beefed it. Norman lost—badly. And he cemented himself as the premier choke artist of his generation. “Rarely has a world-class athlete,” the New York Times noted of Norman’s collapse at the time, “so thoroughly […]
“It’s Potentially Illegal”: As Crypto Crashed, Coinbase Stopped Some Notifications
Back in November 2021, cryptocurrencies, which saw a huge surge during most of the pandemic, suddenly began to nosedive. Joe Hovde, a New York-based data scientist decided that this might be his moment to buy into crypto: He took a risk on the price plunge and bought some Ethereum, the next most popular crypto asset […]
Requiem for a Dark Brandon
Not since Hillary Clinton dabbing on ‘em has a meme been so brutally murdered in public the way “Dark Brandon” was on Monday when several administration officials, and high-profile Democrats, started tweeting photos of president Joe Biden with laser eyes. If you’re not terminally online Dark Brandon is a riff on Dark MAGA, a short-lived meme about Trump. […]
The Police Failed, Says a Texas Congressional Report on Uvalde Mass Shooting
In a new report, a Texas Congressional committee criticized the “systemic and egregious poor decision making” of the local, state and federal law enforcement who were present at the Uvalde mass shooting, in which 21 people died, many of them young children. “At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they […]
Once Again, Ted Cruz Says the Supreme Court Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage was “Clearly Wrong”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Saturday criticized the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that legalized gay marriage, on an episode of his own podcast, as first reported by NBC News. “Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states. We saw states before Obergefell—some states were moving to allow gay marriage, other states were […]
A Republican Stood Up to Trump. So Right-Wingers Smeared Him as a “Pedophile.”
If you didn’t know any better, you could be forgiven for assuming that the far right was waging a campaign to get Merriam-Webster to add “my political enemies” to its list of definitions of “pedophile.” For years, “pedophile” (often shortened to “pedo”) was used as semi-ironic 4chan shorthand for anyone internet trolls thought was a weirdo. […]
Mass Shootings and Our Never-ending Doomcycle
The beats are almost always the same. A shooter enters a crowded space with a loaded gun, usually one modified to kill dozens of people in seconds—and usually one that they obtained legally. They open fire and murder innocents. Earlier this month it was 10 patrons at a Buffalo supermarket; this week it was 19 children […]