THIS STUFF ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
Gang rape, meh. This story is appalling but unsurprising. In October 2024 a 20-year-old woman at Cornell went to a Chi Phi fraternity party. She had been drinking and drank more at the party. She may have done drugs, or somebody may have slipped her some. While she was in a semiconscious state, seven men allegedly gang-raped her. One of the fraternity members messaged others saying there was “free pussy” upstairs.
About three weeks after it happened, the woman reported the incident to university police. Cornell investigated, banned the Chi Phi fraternity, and expelled two of its members. But nobody ever prosecuted the assailants.
Last month, the woman filed a lawsuit against Cornell, the fraternity, and each of the seven men she says assaulted her. That put the whole thing back in the news and drew renewed attention to the fact that authorities never prosecuted anybody for an alleged rape. On Oct. 1, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul put the state attorney general, Letitia James, in charge of the matter, most likely assuring that heads will roll. But it only happened because the woman filed a lawsuit that happened to make the headlines. If it hadn’t, everybody would be conveniently looking the other way.
[Check out The Weekly Matterboard, where we break down what matters and what doesn’t]
The Cornell rape is not an isolated incident. A 2025 Cornell study found that 35% of female undergrads reported unwanted sexual contact involving force or incapacitation. Assume it’s the same or higher at every other university and other settings where young people mingle. Young men have always been borderline heathens and date-rape drugs make it easier.
Dads of America: This is on you. Your sons are capable of much worse things than you probably imagine. Teach them better. The first rule of adulting: Don’t rape anybody. The second rule of adulting: If you see somebody in trouble, help them! Impress this on your sons relentlessly and don’t let them leave home until they can prove they get it.
[I placed a bet on falling oil prices]
Overkill. Some states have the death penalty. Tennessee practices the maim penalty. The state tried and failed to execute death-row inmate Christa Pike on Sept. 30, leaving her in critical condition and breathing on a ventilator. The details are gruesome. The executioner stuck at least seven needles in her arm while trying to administer a lethal dose of pentobarbital. It sounds as if the drug was entering tissue instead of the bloodstream. One of Pike’s arms turned purple. A lawyer who was present said there was “blistering and burning” around the injection sites. Pike kicked convulsively. The cruel and unusual procedure went on for two hours until an ambulance took Pike away.
This is the second botched execution in Tennessee. In May, the state tried to execute another death row inmate but the executioner couldn’t find a vein and gave up after an hour.
There are no heroes here. Pike is on death row for the brutal 1995 torture and murder of a 19-year-old woman. She deserves severe punishment. But we all deserve competent government, especially in matters of life and death.
Are you smarter than a senator? Yes, you are! Trumpy Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri really thought he had a winner. During testimony by Jack Smith, the former prosecutor who led two federal probes of Donald Trump, Schmitt thought he caught a lie. Smith said he had never met with Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis, who was pursuing a separate case against Trump. But in text messages, Smith had referenced a basketball game he attended on Feb. 3, 2024. And the only NBA game that night was in Atlanta. Proof! Smith must have been to Atlanta, because that was the only NBA game he could have attended, and since he was in Atlanta he must have met with Willis.
[Believe it or not, the economy is strong]
Schmitt carefully laid his trap, getting Smith to say under oath that he was not in Atlanta on that day. He even got a confused Smith to say he had never been in Atlanta the whole time he was running the Trump probe. Then Schmitt sprung the trap, with an aide holding up the damning text messages on a placard and Schmitt saying smugly, “I don’t think you know we have this stuff … you’ve perjured yourself.”
It turns out, however, that there are also college basketball games, and Smith went to see Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes play the University of Maryland in College Park on the date in question. Wrong league, wrong city, wrong premise, and laughable research. Schmitt, for a week at least, is the biggest jackass in Washington.
Here’s a short clip of the relevant testimony. If you appreciate buffoonery, you’ll get a laugh. The Internet, needless to say, rejoiced. Some of the memes: Schmitt for brains, Schmitt-faced, Schmitting your pants, DipSchmitt, Schmitt sandwich.
Also, somebody made this:
Typographical intelligence. On Sept. 29, President Trump signed a “self-policing” pledge with leaders of Google, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and other big AI companies—and misspelled the name of the country it applies to. Under Trump’s signature at the end, it says, “Donald J. Trump, President of the Unites States.” People noticed because Trump posted the document on social media. Four days later, the version with the typo was still there.
Had Trump’s team asked an AI agent to proof the document, it would have caught the mistake. “The spelling error shows how much time and attention went into drafting the document before it was signed and released to the public,” TechCrunch noted. Trump has a laissez-faire attitude toward AI and thinks worries about the damage it could cause are a “hoax.” Maybe he thinks typos are a hoax, too.
[5 things to expect if Democrats win in November]
Pope vs. AI. Pope Leo XIV has pushed back on AI, and now he’s defending human artists against their mechanized competitors. “It is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce,” he wrote on X on Oct. 2. “Algorithms lack the spark of humanity.” More than 10 million people saw the post, and nearly 3,000 left comments. Some argued with the pope and said they use AI because they can’t afford human artists.
The battle between human- and machine-generated art will surely escalate. It’s worth asking whether AI will ever view the pope as a barrier to its plans for intergalactic domination, and try to eliminate him. If so, which overlord would you rather side with: God? Or AI?
Target: ICE. The family of Renee Good filed two lawsuits related to the unprovoked killing of the Minnesota woman in January by Trump’s immigration thugs. One suit targets the government for the negligence of a federal official. The other suit targets the immigration agent who shot and killed Good, Jonathan Ross, and several other Trump administration officials. We hope there’s a trial, with discovery, that reveals just how unprofessional and bloodthirsty Trump’s immigration agency has become—and grants the family maximum damages.
Gas job. At the White House on September 30, Trump announced that South Korea will invest $54 billion in a natural gas pipeline project in Alaska. There were no Koreans present, and Korean officials later said there was no such deal. We’ve been through this before, so we know that when Trump says one thing and somebody disputes it—believe the other party.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, is in a tight reelection race, and if Democrats flip his seat in November it could give them control of the Senate. Trump probably figures he can just mutter something about a huge pipeline project and Alaskans will fall in line and vote for his guy. Alaskans, are you that gullible?
Supreme no more. The Supreme Court begins its current term with the lowest ratings in modern times. The portion of Americans who say they trust the judicial branch is just 46%—the lowest ever in Gallup polling that dates to 1972. The approval rating of the Supreme Court itself is just 34%. Before the Trump era, those ratings were routinely 20 points higher.
The Pinpoint view of the court is that political persuasion and the 6-3 conservative majority aren’t the problem. Dishonesty and corruption are. Justice Brett Kavanaugh probably perjured himself during his confirmation hearing. Clarence Thomas has accepted lavish gifts from rich people with business before the court. Samuel Alito appears to be a wacky election denier who supports the 1/6/21 rioters who rampaged through the US Capitol. The court is riddled with self-interest, no different than venal politicians or greedy corporations. Supremely unsatisfying.
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Thank GOD i can still read your stuff because it makes me laugh. Like i said before keep up the "GOOD WORK". You may become a reporter yet. HaHa.
Awesome compilation! But also sad bc of what it says about our country which is now a decadent, lazy, complacent, unserious populace that ON THE WHOLE confuses reality TV with reality, can't be bothered to seek relatively unbiased sources to learn facts about topics they want to opine on, and have the attention span of gnats given their social-media addictions. And forget about honesty, ethics, morality, guardrails, decency, tolerance, etc - those 'values' are for namby-pambies, Until it hurts badly in their pocket books, they're willing to just buy whatever crap a charming snake-oil salesman is selling them.
But on a happier note, some of us get to laugh with an all-new WTF list every week! Keep it going, Rick!