It’s Been a Huge Week for Worms

Welcome back to Barf Bag. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the wildest political news of the week was that presidential spoiler candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a dead worm in his brain. It was worm experts‘ time to shine!

He revealed in a 2012 deposition during divorce proceedings that a parasitic worm had gotten into his brain, ate a portion of it, and then died. The New York Times reported on that fact this week, and in an interview, RFK said he no longer experienced the memory loss and brain fog he had attributed to the worm. (Why is a brain worm relevant to a divorce, you might ask? RFK was arguing that his cognitive issues had affected his earning power. He also had mercury poisoning, which can affect memory, and he attributed that to eating far too many tuna fish sandwiches.)

This information coming to light would be sobering for a normal candidate, but we are not dealing with one of those. Hours after the story came out, RFK said on Twitter that he could still beat Joe Biden and Donald Trump in a debate even if he voluntarily consumed “5 more brain worms.” His campaign said the intracranial carcass would not affect his ability to serve as president and, based on that statement, I think they should also be checked for brain worms.

heavy whiff of end times when neither buying a porn actress's silence to win one election then trying to overthrow the republic after losing another, nor declaring that a worm ate your brain, counts as an obstacle to vying for the presidency of the united states

— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) May 8, 2024

Speaking of worms! On Monday, disgraced actor and alleged sexual predator Kevin Spacey endorsed RFK, saying that “When the world turned its back on me, Bobby leaned in.” Spacey’s endorsement came one day before reports that he will face trial on a civil sexual assault claim in the U.K. 

I wish these slimy, wriggly men would leave us all alone.

• Update on Noem Nonsense™: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) included the story of shooting and killing her 14-month-old puppy Cricket in the draft of her first book before it was cut. She also reportedly offered to resign from her job early in order to lead the NRA. [Politico/Axios]
• Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) pretty heavily implied that part of the impetus to pass the bill to ban slash force a sale of TikTok is because users share a lot of pro-Palestinian content. [Axios]
• Former President Donald Trump claimed that the gag order in his hush-money-as-election-interference case means he couldn’t answer a reporter’s question about whether or not he’d testify. [Twitter]
• House Republicans passed a bill to add a citizenship question to the census, something the Trump administration tried and failed to do via executive action because it’s comically unconstitutional. [The Hill]
• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a man who is under House ethics investigation for alleged sex crimes, had the gall to speak the following words on CNN: “There’s not a single human being who has publicly accused me of any wrongdoing of any kind.” [Twitter]
  
• Right-wing rag The Daily Wire is now selling supplements that claim to address “declining sperm concentration.” [Media Matters]
• Former Barack Obama campaign manager and White House advisor David Plouffe is co-hosting a podcast with Kellyanne Conway???? [HuffPost]
• Sorry, but this is barf: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 82, is officially running for another six-year term. [NBC News]

This has been your weekly Barf Bag, thanks for reading!