According to the United Nations, nine percent of the population of Democratic Republic of Congo—or, 7.5 million people—are in need of humanitarian aid, including food. Almost half of children younger than five are chronically malnourished.

Jerry Hall, a former famous girlfriend and star of a hilarious reality show, is officially engaged to a slime-covered amphibian 25 years her senior.

The news was announced in The Times, one of the many papers that her fiancee Rupert Murdoch lords over, and picked up by the Daily Mail. The piece read:

Mr Rupert Murdoch, father of Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, James, Grace and Chloe Murdoch, and Miss Jerry Hall, mother of Elizabeth, James, Georgia and Gabriel Jagger are delighted to announce their engagement.

The princess and her toad will likely live forever together in wedded bliss—or until the day she realizes the grave mistake she has made.

[Image via Getty]

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

Drama, drama, drama! The loosely organized anti-government radicals who took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were hoping to provoke a war with the federal government—but instead they’ve found themselves at war with each other, feuding, fussing, and freezing.

http://gawker.com/we-sent-the-or...

There’s not much to do in this frozen middle of nowhere, surrounded by tundra and, if you’re lucky, a barricaded courthouse. There are no restaurants, no juice bars, the party scene is shit, and—once you’ve sort of gotten the “Let’s stand around with our guns and look cool” thing out of your system—nothing but free time. The militia boys have spent an increasing amount of that free time, according to social media reports, spreading (and debunking) rumors about each other. Will the militiamen (and militia-ladies) be able to keep it together until Uncle Sam comes knocking? Or will the right to bear arms mean nothing in the impending drama-war? Let’s look at the warriors on the front lines.

http://gawker.com/oregon-militia...

Joe Oshaugnessy is a militiaman from Arizona who took a central role in fundraising, recruiting, and promoting the cause in Oregon from his various online accounts. But according to his former friends at the occupied refuge, he took the money and ran to a nearby hotel where he boozed and partied solo while his brothers in (heavy) arms stood out in the cold. All this was described in a tearful Facebook video posted by former comrade Cai Irvin (below, crying), who wept openly on camera after his buddy went AWOL. The video is now deleted, but Raw Story watched it first:

Oshaugnessy had kept the money he had raised through social media for himself and had spent at least some of it on a drinking binge.

Another militant, Cai Irvin, tearfully announced Oshaungnessy’s departure in a Facebook video.

“Ritzheimer did call me — he’s f*cking pissed, he’s mad, he’s upset,” Irvin said. “He told me to tell all of you that Joe Oshaugnessy is a deserter and a coward.”

Irvin added that “It’s like finding out there is no such thing as Santa...Come on, man.”

But Oshaugnessy isn’t going to let this trash talk stand: on Facebook, he described the boozehound allegation as a smear campaign launched against him by those inside the compound.

Caught in the crossfire between leading organizer Jon Ritzheimer and Oshaugnessy is Maureen “Mo” Peltier, a U.S. Army veteran and de facto spokesperson for the Oregon gang. Her side of the story is long, complicated, and basically devoid of syntax:

Ok, so this is gonna suck. Like hard. I didn’t do my homework. I reported what the guys told me from inside and reacted on great concern for anyone raising funds for the men and women inside. But, of not communicating with most outside, they might have allowed for mistakes.

Joe Oshaugnessy, is raising funds. Funds that go towards his organization and any missions they conduct. He openly states to pay for his room as well as some his supporters funds paid for all those pizzas the other night and more.

Wow....many other donations. The fundraiser does not at all stipulate a connection for the wildlife refuge individuals. So, it’s his fundraiser to do what he and his supporters want.

We just talked on the phone. He sounded super cognizant and clear. Before I go into the full understanding as I now have it, and provide you all my pathetic excuses, I want to repeat what I already told Joe, My deepest apologies first and foremost. And to all of those that hold him with the deepest respect. I fucked up. Big.

I would much rather be in this position than continue believing he raised funds directly asking for the men and women on the reserve and drank it away.

Jon Ritzheimer and him are 30 appox miles apart. Joe reiterates, no way is he going inside. He stands with his word, he was not going to participate all along. With further explanation, I can see how there was a misunderstanding. And they gotta work it out when able. Now is not an easy time to figure that out and patch it up.

See, my experiences written were still true, Joe will tell you that. But, once the guys got mad or felt he backed out and Joe was in his place and Jon in his place apart from another, no further communications took place. Joe has continued supporting them in exact fashion as I have online, interviews, blog shows, phone calls, helping those that wish to support or come and dealing with larger groups that are on their way, etc.

Look, bottom line. Yeah, things are tense, naturally. Miscommunication just took place and I made it worse, not pausing from my phone call to my FB wall. It’s removed now.

But I should have stood firm with my first gut feeling when the rumor first hit me, which was, let the boys handle it. They will run into each other. Lol well, they have, but they did not resolve anything, nor talk. And I let myself react without them even having their own face to face.

So, who do you trust. Mistakes will happen.

Elsewhere at the angry bird refuge, cross words have escalated into an actual brawl: The Oregonian says things turned violent when outsiders arrived late last week:

Lewis Arthur, who leads a group called Veterans on Patrol and calls himself an anti-violence patriot, arrived Wednesday afternoon with a small crew.

By Wednesday night, one of Arthur’s three-person crew was in the hospital, his eye blackened from a punch to the face.

According to big-biceped militia organizer Blaine Cooper, Arthur is a tool of the federal government who tried to beat up an old vet and got the ass-kicking he deserved:

Lewis Arthur with two other men came into refuge last night and the 3 of them assaulted a disabled Vietnam Veteran at the gate. They threw him to the ground and cut his hand, and broke his mirror off his truck. Then stormed into the refuge and ganged up on Blaine Cooper and assaulted him, Blaine Defended himself and was able to hold the three off and make them leave the refuge several witness the event. He was not welcome and is not apart of the Operation. But forced his way in anyway he was told not to come because it was a safety issue. I do believe Lewis Is a Paid Provocateur by the Fed’s to divide and destroy.

Cooper also included two dark, blurry photos of some guy’s bloodied arm which signifies violence of some kind, I guess!

But the Oregonian tells another side of the story:

In an interview Thursday, Arthur blamed the injuries on Blaine Cooper, a prominent member of the group of militants who since Saturday have staged a standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The group’s members say they hope to exonerate two area ranchers imprisoned on arson charges and then turn over land on the federally owned refuge to private owners.

Even Mo chimed in, vlog-style, from a hotel room (!):

One scandal no one seems to be talking about? Brian “Fluffy Unicorn” Cavalier.

This tough-talking, heat-packing bodyguard of OG semi-literate militia-instigator Ammon Bundy is a self-described Marine Corps veteran who it turns out was probably never actually in the Marines:

The menacing, 6ft tall bodyguard was also seen flanking Ammon Bundy during a series of press conferences held outside the refuge and has been heavily involved in coordinating security at the compound where the group is holed up.

[...]

When Daily Mail Online confronted Cavalier over his Marine fabrication he seemed nervous and the bravado of previous days vanished.

‘That’s unfortunate that someone would say that,’ he said, refusing to deny the claim.

Will the Oregon patriot clique be able to make it through this cold winter, or will they succumb to petty infighting and a lack of a conditioner? Will Joe and Jon work it out? Does the Property Clause of the Constitution really grant the federal government the authority to exercise total control over land it owns within the borders of sovereign states? Can Lewis and Blaine stop fighting and focus on everything they have in common? And what about Mo?

Illustrations by Image by Jim Cooke, photos via Facebook and YouTube

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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On the first day, God created the line.

The line, 100 people strong, wound through the cramped lobby of the Town & Country Hotel and Resort in San Diego, a sprawling mid-grade property studded with those high King Palm trees that aren’t native to California. In the line, ever so slowly, the pilgrims moved closer to salvation with each step.

There were elderly black church women with their husbands in sober suits. There were white Midwestern mom types with sensible short hair and sweaters. There were men with bushy Wild West mustaches and dusty t-shirts. There were families from Mexico, and the Caribbean, and the Philippines. And very soon, with god’s grace, all of us would be checked in for the beginning of the 45th annual Morris Cerullo World Evangelism Conference—in time, we hoped, to TAKE HOLD of the promised DOUBLE-DOUBLE PORTION anointing, which will release HEALINGS, MIRACLES, FINANCIAL BREAKTHROUGH, and PROSPERITY like never before. For on that day, this conference constituted the very epicenter of the global “prosperity gospel” theology: the strain of Christian belief that teaches that god wants you to be not just happy but rich—and that the only way to show god that you deserve his financial blessing is to give to his earthly representatives, as lavishly as you can.

Beside me in line was a tall and jittery man in a dark suit and shades, possessed of the greatest possible amount of outgoing-ness that can be bestowed on any person. He was the sort of man who would never stop talking, ever, under any circumstances. At least not until Jesus returned. He was an itinerant preacher in Los Angeles who preached on buses, and on the streets, and anywhere else where needy people were available to hear his message.

“You here for the conference? Where you from? How long you been with Morris? I been with him 30 years,” he said. “Thirty five years ago I was a drug dealer, I was getting high. I haven’t got high in 35 years. Well, I haven’t paid to get high— I got the Most High!” He was already energized by the prospect of what was to come. “We gotta be radical for Jesus! Just like ISIS and them radical for the devil… I’m thinking of moving to a new city. Church in L.A. is like a fashion show. I’m out here with the homeless. You can’t get these other preachers out here. There ain’t no money in the poor! You gotta give a man some shoes before you can preach the gospel to him. You gotta sow that seed. You gotta give that last dime.” Occasionally he would become so invigorated by his own message that he would start dancing a little jig right there in line. Once or twice his well-intentioned spittle flecked my contact lenses as he spoke.

“I say scare the hell out of you—scare the devil out of you. That’s my thing. I don’t know any other preachers that say that,” he said. “When I was preaching on the bus, this young guy, he looked like a gang banger. But he came up to me and said, ‘What was that you was saying?’ I took him right out and laid him on his back on the platform and laid hands on him and anointed him.” He reached into his coat pocket and whipped out a vial of holy oil the color of urine. “I keep one on me!” he said. At that, a short and kindly older man in front of us reached into his pocket and produced a matching vial. “I keep one on me too,” he smiled.

By the time the line finally wound around towards the front desk, my new friend had gone full circle in his spiel and started preaching it all over again from the start. Upon hearing that this was my first of these conferences, he promised me that I was in for a life-changing awakening. He assured me that I would be speaking in tongues before the week was out.

“Anybody asks you why you’re here—” he said, “Tell em god sent you!”

“And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’”
- Acts 2:40

What does god want for you? Does he want you to abandon worldly goods, and dress in rags, and live as a monk? Or, on the contrary, does he want you to enjoy all of the prosperous things that this world affords, as a reward for your faith and obedience to him? Those who preach the prosperity gospel argue the latter, and few have argued it longer or more successfully than Morris Cerullo. For half a century, he has travelled the world, preaching before crowds that routinely number in the tens of thousands, promising that the sick will be healed and the poor will be rescued through sheer faith in the power of Jesus. Taking in many millions of dollars in donations from believers, Cerullo has built a worldwide ministry that includes a publishing arm, extensive TV broadcasts, and an entire family of televangelists and megachurch preachers across the world who call Morris Cerullo “Papa” and credit him with being their “spiritual father.” His ministry is in the midst of raising money to build an 18-acre “Legacy Center” in San Diego that will include corporate headquarters, a gospel training school, gardens, a museum, a movie theater, restaurants, and 127 luxury timeshares. He has been derided by secular types as a fraud, and even blamed for the death of an epileptic girl who stopped taking her medication as a result of his faith healing, but his popularity with true believers persists. Each year, thousands of the faithful gather for an annual conference: five days of marathon preaching, worshiping, miracles, and—most prominently—requests for donation. For it is only through reaping that we may sow; and it is only by giving past all reasonable bounds of generosity that the faithful can hope to win enough of god’s favor to collect on the double anointing that Papa so confidently promises is waiting for us.

Inside a conference center the size of an airplane hangar, row after row of white chairs were laid out on a broad blue carpet. The raised stage, rimmed by heavy blue curtains, was flanked on each side by big screens projecting the proceedings towards those in the back. The stage held not just whatever preacher was hollering at the moment, but a cast of holy musicians and a dozen or more other preachers sitting in chairs off to one side, looking professionally enthralled. A camera platform stood in the middle of the room, recording the events for the livestream; off to one side, a robotic camera on a boom took crowd shots. On one wall hung a banner about 15 feet square showing Morris Cerullo with a raised fist with the inscription “Declaring War on the Devil’s War!” Outside in the lobby, vendors sold prayer shawls and anointing oil ($5) and Jesus art and DVD sets of previous conferences ($210) and a wide variety of books with titles like “Demolishing Demonic Strongholds” and “Dancing With Islam’s Assassins.” Also available was a handsome, leather-bound “Financial Freedom Bible” for $69.95. It worked; by not buying it I had already put myself measurably ahead.

The three daily revival sessions all began with an hour or so of rocking hymns before the guest preacher of the day began his presentation. There was a fat soul singer and a peppy British Christian version of Michael Kiwanuka who reliably got everyone on their feet, along with woman who played the violin who reliably got everyone sitting down again. It was not possible to sit meekly in back while the hymns were sung. The singers were fond of instructing the crowd to turn and greet one another and utter some holy affirmation, which I had to do repeatedly in order to avoid the risk of being exposed as a heathen. “Shake three people’s hands and tell them, ‘Today is your day!’” they’d say, and then you’d have to do it, with enthusiasm. If you didn’t, someone else would grab you and say it to you anyhow. Might as well go along with it. There was no hiding in this crowd. Early on, it was possible even to enjoy it by maintaining an appreciation for the novelty of the unfettered friendliness of such a thing. The very first evening, I sat next to Brian, a nice, unassuming twentysomething young man from San Diego in an unfashionable outfit who warned me right up front, “This city needs god. It is pretty sinful.” As the ecstatic hymn reached its crescendo, they told us to high-five someone and say, “You’re blessed!”

“You’re blessed!” I said to Brian, high-fiving him.

From the row ahead of us, a tan man with a mustache and a mullet and the irrepressible energy of Will Ferrell’s male cheerleader character reached back as well. “You’re blessed!” I said, high-fiving him. I got carried away, lost in the moment. I turned to high-five the person standing behind me, a pretty young woman. “You’re blessed!” I exclaimed. She gave me a weak tap on the hand and a weird look. Not even Jesus has the power to salve a burn like that.

We were treated to a video greeting from Morris Cerullo himself. He is a short man with receding brown hair and pale skin and the wheezing, choked voice of Darth Vader with his helmet removed. Now 84 years old, he has reached the age when his skin begins to tighten noticeably against his skull. He referred to himself as “Papa,” and to his wife Theresa as “Mama,” and was fond of stating “I love you” in a singsong voice to all who were listening, in the manner of talking to an infant. He had been recently afflicted with “wounds” on his legs, he explained, but was now “completely healed” thanks to our prayers. To demonstrate, a graphic photo of a suppurating leg wound was displayed on the big screen. When it appeared, one woman in the audience reached towards it, as if wanting to heal it from afar with her touch.

The opening night’s act was supposed to be Jonathan Cahn, a Jewish preacher who caters to fundamentalist Christians by preaching about various “Harbingers” that point to the end times coming, as well as by cracking a few jokes like “I don’t like football—it’s a bunch of huge Gentiles chasing around a non-kosher pigskin.” Cahn didn’t make it due to mechanical problems with his plane, which presumably were not willed by god. Instead they showed a video of his sermon. If I am not mistaken, he made these points: the World Trade Center was built in the same year that abortion was legalized, which is a Harbinger of the end times; the Freedom Tower that was built after 9/11 is akin to the Tower of Babylon, and a Harbinger of the end times; the White House lit up in rainbow colors after the legalization of gay marriage is a Harbinger of the end times; his church in New Jersey was shut down for some reason and then a Walmart moved into the space and the Walmart now sells his book, which is a Harbinger of the end times; and several other things are Harbingers of the end times, as well. I don’t want to give too much away. There was also a load of numerology tied to the idea of the SHEMITAH, which, if you don’t already know, is a thesis of sorts about how every seven years some good stuff happens and how every seventh seventh year, the Year of Jubilee, some really good stuff happens—and, if you can believe it, that year of Jubilee is this very year, in which we sit. Purchase Jonathan Cahn’s bestselling book “The Mystery of the Shemitah” for more clarity on this point. It is possible there are other numbers involved that I’ve left out.

“Now when Simon saw that the spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, ‘May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!’”
- Acts 8:18-20

Charismatic Christianity can be very charismatic indeed. Its message is faith, and if you buy into that faith, it is set up so that no fact in the world can ever dissuade you. All good things that happen are due to god’s blessing. All bad things that happen are due to the devil, or are a test from god. All inexplicable things that happen are god’s will and must be accepted rather than questioned. When you feel that your faith is at its lowest point, that is when you are required to exhibit that faith the most. There is no occurrence or line of argument that cannot be deflected by this paradigm. There is no argument against this brand of belief. God is perfect; we are flawed. Thank him for what goes right; blame yourself for what goes wrong.

This leaves immense power in the hands of those who are seen as qualified to interpret the will of god. Pastors and preachers are as close as any regular person can get to Jesus for the time being. Their words are taken as undiluted wisdom. It is easy to imagine how many people could be taken advantage of if any of these pastors were unscrupulous. Fortunately, the pastors at this particular televangelist conference were all, we were often reminded, “incredible men of god.”

On Sunday, a preacher from Mexico remarked that a devastating hurricane that approached his country last year had been stopped short by the power of Jesus: “They say that the hurricane hit a spiritual wall and could not enter Mexico.” It was comments like these that could force an outsider—a meteorologist, say—to reckon with the wide gulf between what they believed and what was being taken as fact in this setting. If you are able to suppress the rational side of yourself enough to bridge that gap, you will be rewarded with the ecstasy that seemed to fill everyone in the convention, like the white-haired older man who prowled the aisles shouting “Jesus! Fire! The power of the holy ghost!” and who I saw one day lying face-down on the carpet, completely still, in what I hope was prayer. Or like the old hippie woman with long grey hair and a flowing dress who spent hours in the back of the room waving a flag that showed a dove splayed atop a large rainbow, with a Star of David crowning its head, and the words “Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem.” I imagine it is a satisfying feeling to wave a flag so grandly. (It turned out that her flag-waving was at least in part a sales pitch, because she was selling the flags out front. The next day, a large woman in a leopard-print dashiki was waving the very same flag so energetically in the aisle that I was obliged to take two steps to the side to avoid having my eye whipped out by the flagpole. A few minutes later that flagpole did indeed smack the face of a passing old woman, who responded only with a gentle pat on the dancing flag-bearer’s shoulder.)

Sunday morning, we were treated to a sermon by Mike Murdock, a rather notorious Texan televangelist who bears a passing resemblance to Kenny Powers. He was wearing some sort of silken black robe with red piping, giving him—at least from my vantage point in the back of the room—the appearance of a vampire Elvis impersonator.

“Kiss your Bible,” he instructed us in a deep, syrupy Southern accent. “Now rub it over your face. Stroke your Bible.” Murdock told the crowd that if they lacked prosperity, it was because they had not prepared themselves properly to receive the blessing that god had waiting for them; it was necessary to train ourselves to be “world class receivers” if we hoped to reap what we sowed. “A poor man believed the wrong voice. The prosperous man believed the right voice,” he said, referring to his own voice.

Murdock had mastered the preaching technique of taking some mundane string of words and repeating each syllable in such an emphatic way that the statement became imbued with a palpable sense of meaning that was not, objectively speaking, there. “Wis-dom. Is the a-bil-i-ty. To rec-og-nize diff-erence,” he would say, pausing heavily. “Wis-dom is the ability to rec-ognize dif-rence,” he would repeat, almost whispering. The rhetorical effect was that you felt that you were hearing a profound bit of knowledge, even though if you really think about it, he was not even giving a semi-accurate definition of “wisdom.” Repeated deliberately two or three times with increasing fervor, even the most pedestrian of observations seems a revelation. This is a technique deployed by every evangelist, and it works quite well. Use it in your daily life and see if you do not gain esteem from your confused neighbors.

That evening, Morris Cerullo appeared on stage in the flesh before the adoring crowd. From a wheelchair, he croaked to us that our presence that very evening was no accident, but rather an occurrence ordained by god. As he spoke, more and more people rose from their seats and splayed their hands high, like sunflowers reaching towards heaven.

“Sabababababa. Sandelamoniaha!” Cerullo exclaimed. “Those of you that have the gift of speaking in tongues… lift your voice!” All around, the babbling began. “Eyyyoo. Sabakakay. Ooooo, babababa!” said a woman to my side. “Gasteesdemashonananana. Ooofrabababababa,” said a man behind me. Others just said “B-b-b-b-b-b-b,” like a baby blowing his lips. It was rather embarrassing not to be speaking in tongues. After several minutes, Cerullo put his hand on his heart, gazed towards the roof, and began speaking reverently of “the double portion blessing” that loomed in our future. The crowd was rapturous. Orgasmic expressions abounded on the faces of prim middle-aged women. At one point Cerullo’s eyes glazed over and he cried, “Do you see that mountain? Look at the mountain!” The crowd clapped—yes, we could see the mountain. It was the exact plot of “The Emperor Has No Clothes,” come to life.

At last, we all fell silent. Cerullo told us to look at our neighbor and repeat these words: “Tonight, you will receive the gift of supernatural ability and NOTHING shall be impossible.” A few rows ahead of me, a dapper Indian man was sitting and praying with a crewcut young man in wheelchair. With great gravity, Cerullo yelled, “Now stand on your feet!” The Indian man gave a regretful look, and rose. The man in the wheelchair did not.

“We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none.”
- Isaiah 59:11

Three times a day, before each sermonizing session, a fresh white offering envelope was laid upon each of the thousands of chairs in the convention center. The envelopes included suggested donation checkboxes for amounts ranging from $116 to $1,016, or a space to write in an even greater gift. White buckets sat at the end of each row to collect them all. Also passed out to all of us during the conference were donation envelopes for the Morris Cerullo Jewish World Outreach Pavilion; donation forms for the Morris Cerullo Ministries monthly partnership; registration envelopes to reserve a spot at the Morris Cerullo Worldwide School of Ministry in Orlando this September; a Morris Cerullo World Conference DVD/CD order form; and pamphlets on how to plan to leave money to Morris Cerullo World Evangelism in your will or trust.

Prosperity gospel preachers practice varying degrees of shamelessness. Some build a case for generosity based on selective quoting of scripture and then allow the suggestion to donate to float over the crowd as an omnipresent implication. Others go directly for the wallets. John Avanzini, a veteran televangelist in a slick suit, was the conference’s first stark example of the latter type. Morris Cerullo likes to promise people a double anointing, or sometimes a “double double anointing”—a return of their donations four times over, from god. John Avanzini did not dawdle in such single digits. “It’s in this room. Seldom have I felt it like this night,” he intoned. “I’m gonna speak finances—I’m gonna speak that hundredfold increase tonight! God will take whatever you put into the hands of this prophet tonight and give a hundred fold increase.”

It is worth pausing to wonder why people come to these events. At its core, this conference is a five-day marathon at which people are asked to give money to evangelists several times per day. The hymns and the band and the dancing are all just warmup acts to the main event: the stemwinder sermons concluding with an order to give. It is a financial BDSM relationship, without the sex. Why subject yourself to such a thing, voluntarily? Why not just sit by the pool? It is easy to understand poor people going into preaching as a vocation—all of the preachers were in possession of very nice suits—but it is harder to understand merely being a member of the congregation. The answer is that people do not come here to give; they come here to get. People follow the prosperity gospel for the same reason that they buy lottery tickets: they hope that their investment will be multiplied many times over. And, like the lottery, most of the players here are poor people. The fervent faith required to buy into this promise is a type of faith born only from desperation.

John Avanzini paced the stage, warm now. “I’m gonna ask god to speak to your heart now and tell you what to give,” he said. “I thank you god that this night is a financial miracle night. In Jesus name, amen.” He was waving around a donation envelope. He told the crowd that the time had arrived, and well over half of the people in the house trooped up to the stage with their envelopes and dropped them on the stage. “If you’re watching on the internet, make your offering now,” he said. A sickening feeling rose in me as I watched the procession of retirees and working families tossing their money onto the pile. At that moment it felt as if the charming vampire had finally flashed his teeth. Before he stood to pray over the pile of offerings, I noticed Avanzini cram his own envelope back into his pocket.

In the coming days, preachers laid hands upon the faithful to heal them as they crowded around with grasping arms; they told frail old people to run using the power of god, sending them hobbling slowly if purposefully through the aisles; they prophesied that 2016 would be a year of JUBILEE; they called the devil many rude names; and they instructed how to “activate the blood of Jesus Christ” and “bring things from the heaven realm to the earth realm” and “embrace the double portion anointing.” No one brought all of these talents together as forcefully as a holy man by the name of Steve Munsey, the pastor of an Indiana megachurch with 30,000 members and a Starbucks in its lobby. Munsey sported a well-tailored light grey banker’s suit and floppy blond hair that took on crazy shapes as he grew sweatier and sweatier. “You may have to pardon my sweat,” he said halfway through his testimony. “I feel like Mike Tyson! The good Mike Tyson.”

To call Munsey’s sermon meandering would be an injustice. From politics to scripture to pop culture to supernatural miracles to pure standup comedy it did indeed meander, but always towards a goal that grew ever more certain with each passing minute. “If you wanna be wealthy you gonna have to start saying amen to business,” Munsey declared. “This is the year that god is gonna speak to your debt!” Perhaps realizing that such a declaration is quantifiable, he added, “It’ll start this year—the completion of it may happen next year.” Regardless, we were assured that god would supernaturally baptize us with the spirit of wealth… if. If! “If you know the season and you know the declaration, you will proclaim it, and it will be jubilee unto you.”

It’s just that simple.

Munsey boasted of his $20 million church, attended by R. Kelly (or Robert, as Munsey called him) as a snippet of “I Believe I Can Fly” played right on cue. Here he was, Steven Munsey, a man of god, a man of the people, come to save the needy from the predations of the brainiac elites. “If you’re sitting there, B.B. Brain, judging my tie, you need to go get a hamburger. I’m talking to real people… I’ve come to release it. For those that don’t believe it, you’re like the religious people who want to kill Jesus!” He dove into a long, very long, play-acting version of a Bible story of the old sickly woman who was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ robe, a performance that entailed Munsey crawling back and forth from one side of the stage to the other, alternating pep rally preaching with exaggerated fits of fake coughing. After nearly 40 minutes of this, someone handed him a white hand towel. He wiped his dripping sweat, then leapt up and hollered, “Stand on your feet and shouttttttt!”

The crowd complied. Munsey called for a vial of anointing oil, which was delivered. He poured it onto the sweaty towel, held it aloft and declared, “Morris Cerullo, this afternoon I will lay this on you and if your leg isn’t healed I will never preach again! A miracle will occur.” Then he waded into the throbbing crowd, two security escorts at his side, the towel held high above his head. The crowd rushed him like teen girls descending on a tween pop star, everyone stretching desperately to touch the hallowed rag. “Don’t push me,” Munsey repeated again and again as he was propelled down the aisles. “Don’t break my fingers. Just touch it. Don’t grab it.”

A short woman with black hair appeared in front of me, her eyes wide. “I touched it,” she said, grabbing my hand momentarily in her oily grasp, transferring its blessing to me. When Munsey had fought his way back up to the stage, sweat stained his lapels. The crowd was fully in his grasp. Warbling in holy tongues spread throughout the room. “Satan is afraid of your heart,” he crowed from the stage. “Because what’s in your heart comes out. And your money is in your heart.” Fully aware of his power, he made his demands: he told us he wanted 200 people to come forward with $500 each, and 300 people with $200 each, and 500 people with $100. It was the boldest and most specific monetary demand I had heard yet. And they came. The people came. Women and men and couples and grandparents in sensible shoes, trooping up the aisle when summoned. He called for all the $500 donors first, and hundreds of people rose from their seats and walked up, depositing their envelopes and checks atop the holy sweat cloth that now sat on stage. Munsey praised a 101-year-old woman who donated $516 to his cause. “Her blood is gonna be healed,” he assured us. “Hallelujah!” she chirped, before tottering back to her seat with an escort at each elbow. Next he called the $200 donors, and the $100 donors, and with each call hordes of new people approached the stage to give. Assuming they all represented their donations truthfully, Munsey collected a six-figure treasure in a matter of minutes. As the people came he flicked the sanctified towel in their direction, just brushing their fingertips. The music played with more energy, urging everyone on. When almost everyone in the building had emptied their checkbooks, he tossed the cloth high into the air. “When this cloth hits the stage, you gotta act like you’re the wealthiest person in the world!” It did, and they did. Everyone cheered, and danced, and clapped. And Steve Munsey paraded around the stage, pressing the cloth on the foreheads of others, each of whom collapsed in ecstasy.

“Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.”
- Psalm 73:12

Even if you give these preachers the benefit of the doubt—that is, if you assume they are religious people who believe the things they are saying, rather that viewing them as outright con artists—it still leaves the fact that they are sucking up an enormous amount of resources from the poor in order to do nothing more than perpetuate and expand an elaborate system for selling false hope. Even in the most generous view of the prosperity gospel, it is difficult to imagine it having any true social utility, much less one concomitant with the size of the donations it is extracting from people who could really use that money in a retirement savings account. At best this sort of churchgoing is entertainment. A temporary balm for troubles, and one worth paying something for, but a movie ticket is only ten or fifteen bucks. The price of two hours of Christianity seems outrageously high.

So when the Rev. Gary Whetstone leaves his booth selling DVDs in the lobby long enough to take the stage and order this distinctly not wealthy group of people to make sure their donation is large enough to “create a want in your life,” or when Kenneth Copeland, the crooning Pat Boone of televangelists, tells them that he personally saw proof of a devout Nigerian pastor whose artificial elbow was replaced with a real elbow by Jesus one miraculous night and that they can be blessed with miracles as well in exchange for ample monetary demonstrations of their faith, it is not necessary to descend into a religious argument over the value of this advice. A financial argument will do just fine. If god invented anything, he invented math. Holiness doesn’t pay. There are plenty of devout people who are still poor. But the principles of compound interest will never change.

One night, as Morris Cerullo sat on stage evangelizing on the gift of speaking in tongues, the telltale signs of a fight in the crowd arose up front. Several rows of people jumped up in their seats; alarmed murmurs ran through the surrounding audience. A handful of large men in suits rushed towards the aisle, and emerged dragging a shorter, disheveled man who was bucking wildly. His arm twisted behind his back, they muscled him roughly down the furthest aisle, struggling the whole way. Just before they shoved him bodily through the exit doors, he raised his head and howled, “It’s the word of god!”

“Breathe, breathe,” Papa said.

“Damn,” I said.

“Bbbbrrrluplupluplup,” the woman behind me said in a holy tongue.

And only god knows whose words he chose to hear.

[Illustration by Jim Cooke. Photos via author/ Twitter.]

Newly released video footage obtained by Buzzfeed News shows two Alabama police officers fatally shooting an unarmed black man at a traffic stop in October 2013. The victim, Cameron Massey, was 26.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/albertsamaha/v...

The video footage comes from the body camera of one of the officers who shot Massey, Eufaula Police Chief Ralph Conner. A lawyer for Massey’s family says the footage—in which Conner can be heard saying “fuck” multiple times—refutes the officers’ claims that they shot Massey because they believed they were in imminent danger. (Massey’s family filed an ongoing civil suit against the officers and the Eufaula department in July 2015.)

The fatal incident began when Officer John Phillips pulled over Joshua Kelly, 30—along with Massey, who was riding in the passenger seat—for making an illegal lane change on October 17, 2013. Phillips believed that Kelly’s car matched a description of a vehicle that was allegedly “carrying a load of marijuana through town.” After making the stop, Phillips claims, Kelly became “loud, boisterous, aggressive”:

According to Phillips’ statement to investigators, the driver, 30-year-old Joshua Kelly, stepped out of the car. Massey, who was 6’8” and nearly 300 lbs., remained in the passenger’s seat. Phillips told Kelly to get back in, and he did. Phillips then called for a back-up unit. Kelly again stepped out of the car. He asked Phillips why he had pulled him over, and Phillips told him he pulled him over for an improper lane change and because his registration tags were obscured. Kelly became “loud, boisterous, aggressive,” Phillips later told investigators, and he handcuffed him.

As they spoke, Conner arrived.

The video picks up from there. In it, Phillips yells at at Massey to put his hands on the dashboard. It appears then that Massey leans over to the driver’s side of the car. The car rolls forward. Within seconds, Conner shoots Massey once, and Phillips shoots him three more times. Buzzfeed notes that the video shows “Conner pointing his gun at Massey before the car’s engine turned on and then firing when it rolled forward seconds after starting up.”

The officers claim that they were worried that Massey was going to roll over Phillips with the car. Phillips told investigators after the shooting that he also wasn’t sure where the shot Conner fired came from: “Everything was so quick, so instantaneous. At that time, I didn’t know if [Massey] had shot and he’s trying to stay down to keep from us returning fire.”

Mario Williams, the lawyer for Massey’s family, told Buzzfeed, “Officers cannot just shoot people based on absolutely irrational perspectives about a scenario. This was an absolutely unreasonable shooting.”

In 2014, a grand jury declined to indict the officers.

Buzzfeed notes that before the Massey incident, Conner shot an unarmed black man in Montgomery:

Conner, who was hired as Eufaula’s chief in early 2013, had shot an unarmed black man three decades before, when he was an investigator with the Montgomery Police Department. In 1983 Conner shot 22-year-old Bobby Joe Sales in the back after Sales fled from an attempted police stop, the Associated Press reported at the time. Sales survived. Montgomery locals protested the shooting.

Conner’s defense? He said he believed Sales was reaching for a gun. He was not charged in relation to the incident.

Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley had a poor 2015, having divorced from his wife of 50 years in the midst of a widespread rumor that he’d had an affair with a key aide. Bentley has something to look forward to this year, though: a newly rebuilt beach house. But about that.

http://gawker.com/alabama-govern...

The beach house in question is a governor’s mansion on the state’s Gulf Coast which, as the New York Times explains, was built in the 1960s as a retreat for the state’s First Family. But it never quite caught on among Alabama’s governors, whose primary mansion is a pony-sized White House knockoff in Montgomery, and it has been in disrepair ever since getting trampled by Hurricane Danny in 1997. So now Gov. Bentley is going to fix it. The project began in December and is scheduled to be finished in late-May. But how is he fixing it, and why?

The first part of that question is not up for debate, though the answer has spurred a debate of its own. In order to procure the roughly $2 million needed to refurbish the tattered palace, Gov. Bentley will dip into one of the two $25 million grants given to the state of Alabama by BP as penance for the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010.

The distastefulness of a state governor souping up a beach house via funds nominally dedicated to repairing a vital environmental region after a historically damaging disaster is obvious to everyone involved. Bentley tells the Times that “it’s a state-owned property, and it is our responsibility to repair state-owned properties.” He also says that “the needs have been met along the coast,” though the idea that the effects of the oil spill have ceased after five years is faulty. He also argues that if the mansion were somewhere in the rest of backwater Alabama instead of on the beach nobody would care.

But it is on the beach, and that specific detail has piqued the interest of one official close to the money: state auditor Jim Ziegler. Ziegler’s theory is that Bentley isn’t fixing the mansion because of a responsibility to the state or so that, as Bentley states, it can be used for events that will foster economic growth in Alabama. Instead, in a statement written before Christmas, Ziegler offered that Bentley’s interest in the mansion stems from the fact that the governor lost possession of two beach homes in the divorce from his wife.

“The governor now has a personal need for a Gulf place, so only now is he restoring the governor’s mansion at the gulf,” Zeigler wrote in a statement.

Bentley now has to refute not only that he’s immorally diverting money, but that he’s doing it for a deeply personal reason. The governor attempted to provide evidence contrary to Ziegler’s theory to the Times, saying that his office has been working on refurbishing the beach retreat for “a long time.” To that end he showed reporter Alan Blinder plans dated August 27. That date is especially curious because, as Blinder notes, Bentley’s wife filed for divorce one day later.

In a separate statement to AL.com, a Bentley spokesperson said that the governor recently purchased his own property on the same peninsula that houses the rundown governor’s mansion. Maybe that is so, but it doesn’t obscure an unchangeable fact as Bentley moves on from the twin loss of his previous beach homes: one plus one equals two.

[image via AP]

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

Earlier today a Fox Business Network yapper dared point out that there is absolutely no way you will ever win the lottery, because you won’t, you dunce. But this position is for some reason intolerable at Fox, which demands that you waste your money on Powerball tickets, and so the dissenter was yelled at on TV.

When FBN’s Gerri Willis exhorted her viewing audience to avoid the doomed game of infinitesimal chance, Media Matters reports, she was immediately cut off by host Charles Payne:

“Gerri! A buck! You can’t put a buck on this thing? A buck? You can’t put two bucks on this? ... You can’t put two bucks? 1.5 billion? ... You can’t take a shot?”

This is strange behavior from a television news network that has at least some obligation to make what appears on the screen correspond with reality. It’s even more bizarre that this is Fox’s second (at least) attempt to persuade its viewers to throw their money away in a lottery contest absolutely none of them will ever win. Sure, making poor dummies act against their best interests, whether by buying gold or voting, is part of the Fox News M.O. But Fox makes money from gold ads. Why the insistence on playing lotto? Just pure contempt for their viewers?

How much more can Fox hate the people who watch Fox?

http://gawker.com/fox-news-buy-e...

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

Predictions about financial markets are, almost without exception, notoriously wrong and worthless. With that caveat: we have our first respectable major DOOM prediction of 2016!

Are there good reasons to be panicky about global financial markets right now? Absolutely! Oil prices are cratering to unbelievable lows, China’s growth that’s been propelling the whole world is slowing down, the bull market in U.S. stocks has been going on so long that everyone expects it to end at any moment, the Fed is raising interest rates, and, ah, something bad is also happening with junk bonds. What will all of these factors mean for the overall world economy?

I have no fucking idea. Fortunately, there are many highly paid experts who also have no fucking idea. But this is the real world, my friends, and clients with assets demand confident forecasts, and the Royal Bank of Scotland has decided to “go big” in the forecast arena this year by telling its clients: Grab your money and run, because everything will be going to shit very soon.

RBS is telling its clients that the coming year could be similar to the DEATH YEAR of 2008, and that we can expect a 10-20% decline in the stock market, and that we can expect a bad year in the following markets: China, emerging markets, oil, commodities, debt, and currency.

:)

Oh and also “Automation on its way to destroy 30-50% of all jobs in developed world.”

Their advice: “Sell (mostly) everything.”

Our advice: “If you’re gonna rob a bank maybe try the Royal Bank of Scotland, sounds like they’re socking away a lot of cash in there.”

Who knows what the new year will bring?

[Image via RBS]

There is, somewhere inside the Rikers Island Correctional Facility, a safe stocked with with a stash of ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana. Some of these drugs went missing. After close to a month of investigation, authorities now feel confident enough to confirm: Somebody probably did those drugs.

Department of Correction Capt. Robert Santana discovered the drugs were missing when he checked the large safe in the back of Otis Bantum Correctional Facility on Nov. 24, jail insiders said.

The safe also holds cocaine and marijuana, but those drugs were still inside.

The captain apparently gave the combination to the safe to a subordinate when he went on vacation. That subordinate shared the combination with several colleagues, according to sources.

The 50-odd pills were apparently, officially, stocked at the jail for training K9 dogs. There were almost certainly, unofficially, stolen by a guard and consumed by one or more people.

“We have not found them, probably not going to find them,” strangely optimistic city jail commissioner Joseph Ponte tells the New York Daily News, adding that the “vast majority of our officers carry out their duties with care and integrity.”

A bit of an overstatement, maybe:

Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

On today’s episode of Dr. Oz, Charlie Sheen revealed that he had gone off the live-saving cocktail of antiretroviral drugs he was prescribed to treat his HIV, which predictably caused the level of HIV in his blood to become once again detectable. Sheen said when he came out as HIV positive, he began to receive offers of alternative medicines that he then explored. At one point he said of his antiretroviral therapy as “amazing for the [viral load] number, but I don’t know how amazing it’s been for me, ya know?”

With his typical foolhardy cockiness, he explained in a pre-taped segment that followed him on various trips to doctors:

I’ve been off of meds for about a week now, and I always feel great. And yeah, am I risking my life? Sure. So what? Um, I was born dead. So that part of it doesn’t faze me at all. I told my mom on Day 1 that the disease picked the wrong guy if it wanted to stay alive.

But man can not survive on bravado alone. He sought alternative therapy from one Dr. Samir Chachoua, who, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz’s report, is not licensed to practice medicine in the U.S. (he does so in Mexico) and claims to know how to cure cancer and AIDS. Chachoua told Dr. Oz that Sheen was “the first adult in history to go HIV negative.” Spoiler alert: This turned out to be false. Earlier in the show, Sheen reported that he was “a little off my game, because right before I walked out here, I got some results that I was disappointed about.”

Sheen said that Chachoua’s “series of injections and blood work” initially produced “incredible results early on”—the HIV in his blood, he claimed, was undetectable without antiretroviral therapy. He says he added his blood to samples of blood taken from two of his friends and after a four-day incubation period “all three were undetectable.”

The story went fully bonkers when Dr. Oz played the clip of Chachoua revealing that he had injected himself with Sheen’s blood. Dr. Oz described this as “something I never thought I’d hear out of the mouth of a doctor.” Sheen confirmed that he watched Chachoua do this. Sheen called it “inappropriate and completely mind-blowing.” He also said it was “radically bizarre,” but in the context of his life, “just another Wednesday.”

At the end of the segment, Dr. Oz, with backup from Sheen’s doctor Robert Huizenga (who is, in fact, actually licensed to practice medicine), implored Sheen to go back on his meds. “I’m gonna take ‘em on the flight home, what am I an idiot?” responded Sheen.

Since he asked, the answer is: yes.

Today, New York police announced the arrest of a 17-year-old suspect in the alleged gang rape of an 18-year-old woman at a playground in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, though the case only appears to be getting murkier as more details emerge.

The NYPD did not release the name of the newly apprehended suspect, but police believe that they currently have all perpetrators in custody. The fifth boy will presumably be charged as an adult along with the four other teenage suspects—14-year-old Denzel Murray, 15-year-olds Shaquille Cooper and Ethan Phillip, and 17-year-old Onandi Brown—who already have been. Each was charged with first-degree rape on Monday.

The story as it was initially reported was that the 18-year-old victim was walking through Osborn Playground in Brownsville with her father when the two were approached by armed suspects, who told the father to leave before they took turns assaulting his daughter. But as police have gathered more information, what actually happened at the park has become less clear but potentially more troubling.

According to the Times, the woman told police that she was “raped by at least one of the suspects and forced to perform oral sex on two others.” This claim seems to have been backed up by the suspects, two of whom, per a Times source, reportedly told police they watched the incident, which they believed to be consensual between the victim and the three others.

The father’s role in the incident also appears to be in question. The Times reports that the man had been drinking beer with his daughter—with whom he only recently reconnected—in the park. According to police, both were “heavily intoxicated” during the attack, a characterization that has been backed up by witnesses inside a bodega who refused to help the man because he was too drunk. Despite initial reports that the suspects were armed, the daughter told police she does not remember a gun and no weapon has been recovered.

But in separate interviews, two of the suspects have painted a radically different version of events, beginning with the father, according to an anonymous police source who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. Per that person, two of the teens say the father and daughter were having sex in the park when the group walked up on them. The source further implies that the father might in some way have facilitated the assault:

“They indicated that father is the one who put her in this compromised position and they took advantage,” the official said, adding that the suspects claim that as they walked into the playground, “One of them says ‘we’ll take it from here.’”

According to The Journal, the father told investigators that he ran away after the group came upon them before returning to the park and being stopped a second time by three of the suspects. He then ran into a bodega, where he was turned away, before finding two officers, who accompanied him to the park where the woman was found with “injuries consistent with sexual assault.”

[via New York / image of Osborn Playground via AP]

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

As anyone who pays attention to Kristin Cavallari news on a daily basis knows, Kristin’s jewelry company is called “Emerald Duv.” What we haven’t known—until today—is how “Emerald Duv” is supposed to be pronounced.

Three hundred and twenty-one days of Kristin ago, we asked Emerald Duv’s customer service department this very question. Doov? Duhv? Dee Yoo Vee? The response we got from Cavallari’s design partner Chelsea Bulte did little to clear up our confusion.

Enter this newly surfaced interview Kristin did with one of Billy Joel’s ex-wives on Yahoo! Style’s online fashion news show “#NYFWCoffeeBreak” in September. You didn’t catch it when it aired, either? Well, during the interview, Kristin finally dared to say “Emerald Duv” out loud.

And she said it like “dove.”

Sadly, no amount of therapy will cure me of hearing “Emerald Doov” each time I see the name in print.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

20% Prime savings on video game preorders, cheap flashlights, and a well-reviewed vacuum cleaner highlight today’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more.

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As if you needed another reason to get Amazon Prime, members can now save 20% on select all video game preorders, including blockbusters like Quantum Break, Uncharted 4, and the open world Legend of Zelda.

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Update: It seems like this is a new, permanent Prime benefit! It applies to all physical games, and is valid during preorders and for two weeks after release.

Head over here to see the full list, and note that you won’t see the discount applied until checkout. [20% Off Video Game Preorders for Prime Members]

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The UE Boom Bluetooth speaker is the best you can buy, according to Gizmodo, and it’s available again for its $100 Black Friday price, the best price we’ve ever seen by a solid margin. [UE Boom, $100 with code BOOM100]

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The Philips Norelco Multigroom 5100 is actually seven different grooming tools rolled up into one device, and you can own one for an all-time low $25 today on Amazon. This is a strong contender for your favorite beard trimmer in this week’s Kinja Co-Op. [Philips Norelco Multigroom 5100 Grooming Kit, $25 after $5 Off Coupon]

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You can never have too many LED flashlights, and Amazon’s discounting several models from Dorcy, today only.

The highlight here is a 4-pack of mini weatherproof lights for just $8, but if you need something bigger and brighter, there are plenty of other options as well. Just note that this is a Gold Box deal, meaning these prices are only available today, or until sold out. [Dorcy LED Flashlight Sale]

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It’s great that we live in a world of $30 Bluetooth speakers, but most of them aren’t exactly known for their attractive industrial designs, to put it charitably. Not so with this aluminium Inateck model, which looks good enough to keep out on display, and is even water resistant if you want to take it in the shower. [Inateck Ultra-Portable Aluminum Wireless Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker, $30 with code SZL2HN7E]

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Nearly a decade after release, the venerable Xbox 360 controller is still one of the best PC gamepads you can buy, and the wireless model is down to just $33 today on Amazon. [Wireless Xbox 360 Gamepad, $33]

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It’s tough to find fault with a 4-port car charger for under $10, especially when one of them is Quick Charge 2.0-compatible. [Tronsmart Quick Charge 2.0 54W 4 Ports Rapid USB Car Charger, $9 with code 4PORTCAR]

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Need some microUSB cables to go with that? [Tronsmart 6 Pack Durable Premium 20AWG Charge Micro USB Cable, $8 with code 6USBCORD]

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The best SSD for most people is back below $300 for 1TB. Your computer will thank you. [Samsung 850 EVO 1TB, $290]

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I’m not sure I’d call $45-$50 jeans “cheap,” but that’s about as good as it gets when it comes to Lucky Brand. This is a Gold Box deal though, meaning these prices are only available today, or until sold out. [50% Off Lucky Brand Jeans at Amazon]

If you’re in any way dissatisfied with your current vacuum cleaner, Amazon will sell you a highly-rated Hoover for just $75 today, an all-time low.

While the T-Series WindTunnel lacks the obvious visual flair of those colorful Dysons, it does include an extension hose, a fold-down handle, and most critically, a retractable power cable. It typically sells for about $130, so be sure to lock in an order before the price returns to normal. [Hoover T-Series Wind Tunnel, $75]

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If you’re sick of winding and untangling your garden hose every time you use it, this nifty alternative from Ohuhu expands to 50’ when you turn on the water, but shrinks back down to 17’ when you you’re done. [Ohuhu 50 Feet Expandable Hose with Brass Connectors and Sprayer, $25 with code 6UWLTFML]

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Yeah, the Nexus 6 has been replaced by the new 6P, but it’s still a great phone if you don’t need the latest and greatest tech, and you can get one for just $250-$300 unlocked today (depending on the storage capacity), which is half the price of the new model. [Motorola Nexus 6 Unlocked Cellphone, 32GB-64GB, $250-$300]

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If you have any old hard drives or SSDs lying around, don’t let them go to waste; pop them into this cheap enclosure and turn them into external storage. The best part: No tools required. [Inateck 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk HDD External Enclosure/ Case With USB 3.0 Cable (Black & Silver), $13 with code OUYW6A3O]

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Today only, Amazon’s bundling the original Robocop trilogy, and the 2014 reboot, into one affordable package. I’d buy that for 22 dollars. [Robocop Trilogy and Robocop 2014, $22]

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Even by our lofty standards, 12,000mAh of battery power for $10 is a hue steal. [icefox F1 Portable charger|High Capacity 12000mAh Power Bank, $10]

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Need more juice? [Lumsing 16000mah Harmonica Style Power Bank, $20 with code 938MNSKK]

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Motion-sensing stick-anywhere night lights are super useful for dark hallways, cabinets, and closets, and we’ve found two great options today.

Unlike most of these lights, this model from OxyLED features a rechargeable battery and attaches via an adhesive magnetic strip. When the battery runs low, just pop it off the magnet, plug it into a microUSB cable for a few hours, and snap it back in place. [OxyLED Stick Anywhere Motion Sensing LED Night Light with Rechargeable Battery, $18 with code FCL7VCAX]

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If you don’t need quite as much light, here’s a cheaper option with fewer LEDs. [BYB Stick-on Anywhere Motion Sensor LED Night Light, $10 with code GCNFSAXA]

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We see “toy” drones for $46 fairly frequently, but this model is unlike any other.

Of course, it can fly and record 720p video like similar drones, but with a few modifications, it can also transform into a remote controlled car, or even climb up walls. I own a DJI Phantom, and I still kind of want to buy this thing just to try out the other modes. [DBPOWER Hawkeye-I, $46 with code F7VTOJKP]

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I have to say, Mpow’s new Magneto Bluetooth earbuds look a lot nicer than the uber-popular Swifts, and at $26, they’re not that much more expensive either. They even snap together magnetically for tangle-free storage! [Mpow Magneto Wearable Bluetooth 4.1 Wireless Sports Headphones, $26 with code B28QLRB7]

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Anker, purveyor of your favorite charging gear, also makes a Wi-Fi security camera and a desk lamp, and they’re both on sale today.

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The AnkerCam streams to your smartphone, tablet, or computer in 720p, and even lets you talk to the person (or pet) on the other end. It’s well reviewed at $100, but today, you can get it for $60, with no subscription fees required. [AnkerCam HD Wi-Fi Security Camera, $60 with code FQJ4OJKE]

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The Anker Lumos desk lamp features multiple dimming levels, flicker-free LED bulbs to help with eyestrain, and an infinitely-adjustable design. There are lamps out there with more features, but this is a fantastic price. [Anker Lumos Desk Lamp, $26 with code JKCOICF6]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VVRJ3S

This Moga Bluetooth game controller is compatible with hundreds of popular Android games, and even if you don’t think you’d use it that often, it might be worth checking out at $8. [MOGA Mobile Gaming System for Android, $8]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

If you missed out on last week’s $60 2DS sale (which is still available, by the way), you can get one for $85 today, but with a copy of Mario Kart 7 included. Chances are, you were going to buy that game anyway, so the deals are basically a wash. [Nintendo 2DS + Mario Kart 7, $85]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1218527274...

http://kotaku.com/5984276/dont-l...

Steaming your clothes might not get them as crisp as ironing, but it does a decent enough job in a fraction of the time, and for $15, why not? [Pure Enrichment PureSteam Fabric Steamer, $15 with code STEAMR15]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

Burt’s Bees is your favorite lip balm by a wide margin, and you can save 15% on your resupply today on Amazon.

http://co-op.kinja.com/most-popular-l...

This coupon is only available when you purchase through Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program, but you can always cancel after your first package is delivered. Also, your discount won’t appear until checkout. [Extra 15% off Burt’s Bees Lip Balm]

If you can’t afford an Oculus Rift and a computer to run it, this Google Cardboard-compatible View-Master headset only requires your phone, and can be yours for just $20. [Viewmaster VR With Google Cardboard Support, $20]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...

Amazon’s having a Skittles and Starburst sale! Just pick your favorite variety, and you’ll see an additional 15% discount at checkout. [15% off Skittles]

This coupon is only available when you purchase through Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program, but you can always cancel after your first package is delivered. Also, your discount won’t appear until checkout.

Tech

Storage

• PNY 64GB microSDHC Class 10 UHS-I Memory Card ($27) | Best Buy
• PNY 32GB microSDHC Class 10 UHS-I Memory Card ($17) | Best Buy
• PNY 16GB microSDHC Class 10 UHS-I/U1 Memory Card ($10) | Best Buy
• Inateck 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk HDD External Enclosure/ Case With USB 3.0 Cable (Black & Silver) ($13) | Amazon | Use code OUYW6A3O

Power

• icefox F1 Portable charger|High Capacity 12000mAh Power Bank ($10) | Amazon
• Safemore Smart 8-Outlet with 4-USB Output Surge Protection Power Strip ($24) | Amazon | Use code WT76JB3Y
• Dynex Assorted Batteries with Storage Box (42-Pack) ($11) | Best Buy
• 1byone 3100mAh iPhone 6/6s Battery Charger Case, All Colors ($20) | Amazon | Use code XWIBH9E2
• Lumsing 16000mah Harmonica Style Power Bank ($20) | Amazon | Use code 938MNSKK
• Tronsmart 6 Pack Durable Premium 20AWG Charge Micro USB Cable ($8) | Amazon | Use code 6USBCORD
• Tronsmart Quick Charge 2.0 54W 4 Ports Rapid USB Car Charger ($9) | Amazon | Use code 4PORTCAR

Audio

• BÖHM Wireless Bluetooth Headphones with Active Noise Cancelling Headphones Technology ($60) | Amazon | Use code MZOD6LHS
• Inateck Ultra-Portable Aluminum Wireless Bluetooth 4.0 Speaker with 15 Hour Playtime ($30) | Amazon | Use code SZL2HN7E
• Inateck Premium Genuine Wood In-ear Noise-isolating Hi-Fi Headphones ($10) | Amazon | Use code SJMG5223
• Mpow Magneto Wearable Bluetooth 4.1 Wireless Sports Headphones ($26) | Amazon | Use code B28QLRB7
• DBPOWER Portable Wireless Speaker ($24) | Amazon | Use code 2WSILLD9

Home Theater

• Sceptre X505BV-F 50" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV ($340) | Walmart
• Samsung UN32J5003 32-Inch 1080p LED TV (2015 Model) ($198) | Amazon
• Polk Audio 9500 BT SurroundBar Home Theater System with Bluetooth ($450) | Adorama | Use code 1POLKADOT1
• Carson XL Black and Cherry TV Stand for TVs up to 70" ($119) | Walmart

Computers & Accessories

• Arris SURFboard SB6121 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem ($49) | Amazon
• ASUS F555LA-AB31 15.6-inch Full-HD Laptop (Core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD) with Windows 10 ($350) | Amazon
• Sceptre E248W-1920 24-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor ($100) | Amazon

PC Parts

• Thermaltake Core V21 Black Extreme Micro ATX Cube Chassis ($40) | Newegg | After $20 Rebate

Mobile Devices

• Motorola Nexus 6 Unlocked Cellphone, 32GB-64GB ($250-$300) | Amazon
• MOGA Mobile Gaming System for Android ($8) | Amazon

Photography

• Tamrac 550201 Explorer 2 Shoulder Bag for Digital/Film 550201 ($20) | Adorama

Home

• Hoover T-Series WindTunnel Pet Rewind Bagless Upright Vacuum ($75) | Amazon
• Command Bath Multi-Hook ($6) | Amazon
• Philips HF3520 Wake-Up Light With Colored Sunrise Simulation ($115) | Amazon
• Panasonic 2-Camera Home Monitoring System ($100) | Panasonic | Use code NEWYEAR
• Mainstays Student Desk ($50) | Walmart
• Ameriwood 3-Shelf Bookcases, Set of 2 ($38) | Walmart
• Lifesmart Bahama DLX 5-Person 28-Jet Spa with Free Value Package and Delivery ($2499) | Home Depot
• Lifesmart Coronado DLX 7-Person 220-Volt Spa with 65-Jet Includes Free Energy Saving Super Value Package ($3499) | Home Depot
• 2 Pack Origami R1407 Shelves ($125) | Woot
• BYB Stick-on Anywhere Motion Sensor LED Night Light ($10) | Amazon | Use code GCNFSAXA
• OxyLED Stick Anywhere Motion Sensing LED Night Light with Rechargeable Battery ($18) | Amazon | Use code FCL7VCAX
• Countertop Soap Dispenser ($10) | Amazon | Promo code MLBEVOAT

Beauty & Grooming

• Rowenta Curl Active 1.25" Curling Iron ($50) | Best Buy
• MelodySusie® Large Capacity Cosmetic Makeup Organizer Transparent Acrylic Storage Box ($32) | Amazon | Use code MS1636OF

Kitchen

• 2-Pack of Contigo Addison 32oz Water Bottles ($15) | meh
• Anybest ergonomic Knife and Scissors Sharpener ($4) | Amazon | Use code 11ANYBES
• X-Chef 14Oz Stainless Steel Beer Mug ($9) | Amazon
• X-Chef 17-inch Stainless Steel BBQ Barbecue Skewers ($7) | Amazon
• VonShef Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker For All Cooking Surfaces, 6.3 QT ($45) | Amazon

Fitness

• Body Rider Folding Exercise Bike ($50) | Kmart
• Weider 300 lb. Weight and Bar Set ($185) | Sears | Use code SEARS5OFF50

Apparel

• 50% Off Lucky Brand Jeans at Amazon
• Crocs Men’s Walu Express Loafer ($21) | Amazon
• GoLite Flatiron Fleece Jacket - Women’s ($64) | REI
• Take an extra 15% off Sale Styles at Patagonia with Code ANTWREN1

Camping & Outdoors

• Jetboil Flash Cooking System ($70) | REI
• Bienna Rechargeable Emergency Lantern with 15600mah Portable Charger ($24) | Amazon | Use code DNFHRVD6
• Outdoor Survival Paracord Bracelet with Fire Starter Scraper Whistle Kits, Set of 2 ($6) | Amazon | Use code DXLG3UYR

Tools & Auto

• Ohuhu 50 Feet Expandable Hose with Brass Connectors and Sprayer ($25) | Amazon | Use code 6UWLTFML
• AUKEY Wireless FM Transmitter with 2 Port Car Charger ($12) | Amazon | Use code DDAIMP5L
• Mpow Grip Magic Air Vent One Step Mounting Magnetic Car Mount Holder ($5) | Amazon | Use code ZZSRPFAU
• Dorcy Waterproof LED Flashlight, 55-Lumens ($5) | Amazon | Other Dorcy LED Flashlights also on Sale
• Craftsman 230-pc. Mechanic’s Tool Set ($100) | Sears
• Take $25 off $50 at Advance Auto Parts with Code WD532
• Bluetooth 4.0 Recever With Handsfree Car Kit Design ($12) | Amazon | Use code 3ZCGRHTU

Media

Movies & TV

• Mr. Robot Season 1 ($30) | Best Buy
• Preorder X-Files Season 1-6 ($15 each) | Target
• Hotel Transylvania 2 3D ($25) | Amazon
• Robocop Trilogy and Robocop 2014 ($22) | Amazon
• Batman: Under the Red Hood ($9) | Amazon
• Superman/Batman: Public Enemies ($9) | Amazon
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World ($9) | Amazon
• The Cannonball Run ($8) | Amazon
• Labyrinth ($8) | Amazon
• 300: Rise Of An Empire ($7) | Walmart
• Finding Neverland ($5) | Amazon
• Falling Skies: Season 3 ($15) | Amazon
• Falling Skies: Season 4 ($15) | Amazon

Books & Magazines

• FREE Moby Dick: or, the White Whale [Kindle w/ Audio] | Amazon
• Astronomy Magazine Subscription ($10) | Discountmags | Use code 76171
• Rewinder Audiobook ($3) | Audible

Music

• FREE Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits | Google

Gaming

• Amazon Prime Members get 20% Off Preorder Video Games | Discount applies in cart.

Peripherals

• Mayflash Wireless Wii U Pro Controller to PC USB ($15) | Amazon

PC

• Influent ($2) | Steam
• Fallout 4 ($45) | Amazon

PlayStation 4

• Far Cry 4 ($22) | Amazon

Xbox One

• Destiny: The Taken King - Legendary Edition ($34) | Amazon
• Assassin’s Creed Syndicate - Gold Edition ($47) | Amazon
• EA SPORTS Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR ($30) | Amazon
• Sunset Overdrive ($15) | Toys R Us
• Ryse: Son of Rome Legendary Edition ($15) | Amazon

Wii U

• Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge ($8) | Amazon

3DS

• Nintendo 2DS Blue Console with Mario Kart 7 ($85) | eBay

Board Games

• Rory’s Story Cubes - Batman Action Game ($5) | Amazon

Toys

• DBPOWER Hawkeye-I 3D Flip 2.4GHz 4CH 6 Axis RC Quadcopter Drone with 2MP HD Camera ($46) | Amazon | Use code F7VTOJKP
• Estes 3 Rockets + Mini Launch Pad & Controller Bundle ($25) | Woot
• Razor “B” Kick Scooter ($20) | Toysrus
• HEEL-TG Bike Wheel Light YQ8007 DIY Programmable 144 RGB LED Full Color LED Array ($37) | Amazon

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Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker

No one ever said it’s easy to take a stand against the federal government: it’s cold, there aren’t enough snacks, everyone is pissy, and a bunch of strangers won’t stop sending you hate mail and dicks.

http://gawker.com/drama-alert-th...

Oregon militia organizer Jon Ritzheimer really, really fuckin’ hates Uncle Sam. But what he hates even more is all of the obscene and generally unhelpful emails and packages that strangers from around the country and Gawker are sending to his band of armchair commandos. In a new Facebook post and accompanying video, Ritzheimer says he’s sick of this garbage:

It’s sad that there are people who would spend this kind of money on this rather than spending it to do good in the world. I’m done living in fear of an oppressing force. I’m going to uphold my oath to the Constitution and sleep great at night knowing that I did everything in my power to ensure what our founding fathers did for us will not be lost.

He takes particular issue with an enormous dildo and a “bag of dicks” that appear to be made out of candy—a form of snack, so I’m not sure what his beef is here. Militia spokesperson Maureen “Mo” Peltier echoes Ritzheimer’s disgust:

People spending money to send items representing their hate. That could have been spent on good things. Or those in need. Or something.

Billy Gober posted a genius idea, sell it back on ebay. So, keep sending stupid shit, it’s gonna turn a dime for them. Lol Economics!

I love the idea of the Oregon militiamen selling dildos on eBay, so yes, consider the plan fully endorsed.

Ritzheimer’s video ends with him sweeping the entire table of anti-militia mail onto the floor in an extremely dramatic fashion.

As unpleasant as this occupation has been, we can at least take satisfaction in knowing that we, as a people, came together as one to make the leader of the armed band of dangerous idiots get mad online.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

After experiencing mechanical problems and drifting into Iranian waters on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports, two small U.S. Navy boats and their crews were detained and held by Iranian authorities. American officials say Tehran assures them the ten sailors will be returned safely.

According to Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook, Navy commanders lost contact with the two riverine boats—one of which ultimately ran aground, the AP reports—as they moved between Kuwait and Bahrain. The incident took place near Farsi Island, an Iranian island in the Persian Gulf.

“We have been in contact with Iran and have received assurances that the crew and the vessels will be returned promptly,” Cook said.

One Navy official in Washington told the New York Times that the two boats had failed to arrive at a scheduled rendezvous with another ship to refuel. How contact was lost in the first place remains unclear.

From the Times:

The semifofficial Fars news agency in Iran said that the boats had illegally traveled more than a mile into Iranian territorial waters near Farsi Island, in the Persian Gulf. It said that forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy had confiscated GPS equipment, which would “prove that the American ships where ‘snooping’ around in Iranian waters.”

Tabnak, a semiofficial Iranian website, said that 10 American service members had been arrested, but that Iran had assured the United States they would be released immediately.

Late last month, Iran, which is due to fulfill the terms of the arms deal it agreed to last summer in just a few days, initiated a rocket test near U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Photo via U.S. Navy/AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Louis Virtel is a comedian, prolific tweeter, and one-time Jeopardy! contestant whose sassy appearance on the show went viral last year. Yesterday, to promote its “Snap of the Union” stunt on gop.gov (“House Republicans will give you an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at President Obama’s final State of the Union address. How? Via Snapchat, of course.”), the House Republicans used an gif of Virtel’s flamboyant reaction to nailing a $5,000 Daily Double. Virtel was not amused.

Virtel sent off a series of tweets and then, in an essay on Hitfix, expanded on his opposition to forced association with a party that has been consistently behind on LGBT equality when not outright opposed to it. “Every fearful, closeted kid I knew growing up in suburban Illinois had one thing in common: ignorant, blindly adherent Republican parents,” he wrote.

But Virtel’s most eloquent argument has less to do with his feelings and focuses on how stupid it was for the GOP to use his loudly, proudly gay mannerism in the first place. Virtel writes:

So instead of “dragging” the GOP for being a gross, harmful creepshow that continues to endanger the lives of LGBT Americans, I will solemnly say this: The fact that the GOP can’t detect gay pride in arguably the gayest Jeopardy! moment of all time is proof of their brutal ignorance. There is nothing sassy or cute about the GOP invoking my image to prove they’re hip with the kids, who almost unanimously think they’re a joke anyway. The GOP’s aggressive, antigay hysteria fills me with contempt, and this is just another laughably moronic mistake to consider alongside their regressive legacy.

This is such a good point, I want to vogue to every word of it.

[Image via gop.gov]

Tonight, at 9 p.m. Eastern, President Barack Obama will deliver his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. The White House has promised a “non-traditional speech.” It’s a stretch, but that could mean the outgoing president will reveal himself to be a member of an interdimensional race of shape-shifting reptilians, as this YouTube user suggests in an hour-long documentary, a portion of which is embedded above.

If he does, or if he doesn’t, we’ll let you know in an official Gawker Liveblog, later this evening. Watch this space—and the skies!

Hillary Clinton has been on a deeply uncomfortable streak of trying to show the world her more “likable” and “human-like” qualities. And according to a new poll from The New York Times and CBS, it’s only making things worse.

From The Times:

The tightened race between Mrs. Clinton and Senator Bernie Sandersof Vermont is revealing a sharp generational divide within the Democratic Party, with primary voters under 45 favoring Mr. Sanders by a roughly 2-to-1 ratio.

... Over all, 48 percent of Democratic primary voters across the country support Mrs. Clinton, while 41 percent back Mr. Sanders, the poll found. Just a month ago, she led Mr. Sanders by 20 percentage points nationally.

Despite this, seven out of ten likely Democratic voters still believe that Clinton is destined for the nomination.

The Clinton campaign itself, however, isn’t quite so sure and has taken to pimping out Chelsea Clinton for the sake of a more palatable Bernie burn.

A burn or, you know, blatant untruths. Either way, the Democratic race is tightening up, and Hillary knows it.

[h/t New York Times]

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Image via AP.

On Tuesday morning, it emerged that Kim Davis would attend this evening’s State of the Union. Her lawyers, however, declined to say who had invited her. Thankfully, the Huffington Post has figured it out: Jim Jordan, Republican from Ohio and chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.

http://gawker.com/the-state-of-t...

After a morning that seems like it make for a fairly decent political comedy of errors, maybe directed by the Coen brothers, or maybe something much more low budget, Jordan confirmed that the tickets had come from him:

“Yeah, so we gave a ticket to—at the request of the Family Research Council—we gave the ticket to Kim Davis’ family,” he said.

Jordan said he was fine with his ticket going to Davis, who has been lionized by many conservatives and chastised by many liberals for her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and that the secrecy wasn’t intentional.

“I found out today,” Jordan said. “And I’m being totally honest with you: That’s—Family Research Council asked us, her family wanted a ticket, and we said ‘OK.’”

Jordan’s Freedom Caucus, the vanguard of the radical right in the House of Representatives, led the coup against former Speaker John Boehner last fall.

Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Long before he met with Sean Penn for an interview that would lead, at least partly, to his recapture last week, lawyers for Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán applied to have his name trademarked, the Guardian reports, citing Mexican journalist Carlos Loret de Mola.

According to de Mola, writing in Mexican newspaper El Universal, during the drug kingpin’s last period behind bars—so, sometime February 2014 and July 2015—lawyers tried to register the name “El Chapo Guzmán,” apparently in preparation for the biopic he was reportedly interested in having made about himself. IMPI denied the request.

This wasn’t the first time El Chapo tried to take action to trademark his identity. In 2011, Reuters reports, Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán, who is believed to be Guzmán’s daughter, applied to trademark the names “Joaquin El Chapo Guzman” and “El Chapo Guzman,” which would have extended to clothing and apparel. Those requests were also rejected, given that Guzmán was, at the time, a wanted fugitive.

“The name Joaquín does not belong to any narcotics trafficker wanted by the authorities, since the name of this person is only ARCHIVALDO GUZMÁN LOERA,” a lawyer for the Guzmán family, José Antonio Magaña Jiménez, wrote back in an appeal letter. “The name GUZMÁN is a common surname in Mexico.” He added that the trademark was not trying to “apologize for crime,” the Guardian reports.

(According to Reuters, a brand under the name “El Chapo,” registered in 2006, is listed on the IMPI website.)

More than anything he should probably trademark his likeness: Someone made a bunch of money off El Chapo masks this past Halloween.

Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.