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By far the stupidest part of my morning (and that’s saying a lot) is the 90 seconds I spend scrolling through the stories published by Radar Online while I was asleep. Their posting schedule is truly wild—and most mornings I find roughly 10 inflammatory, incendiary, and impossible-to-believe stories in my feed. But this morning I saw one so out of left field that I had to click through and read the entire thing.




In the story, they write that Hillary Clinton headlined an event held Thursday night at Rutgers University (which was filled to capacity), where she reportedly discussed “American democracy and its institutions, her political career and her role in the women’s political movement.” They claim she was paid $25,000 for the appearance. Not bad! But they also report that the university paid Nicole Polizzi (aka Jersey Shore’s Snooki) $32,000 way back in 2011.

Radar’s interpretation of this is expectedly hard on Clinton. They write:

After losing the presidency to billionaire Donald Trump and fracturing her wrist in India, the controversial democrat has now been shamed by Rutgers University, who paid her $7K less for her speech than they paid Jersey Shore star, Snooki!


There are many ways to interpret this, and none of them (in my view) read as insulting toward Hillary Clinton. While I have no data in front of me to back this up, it’s hard for me to believe that the former Presidential candidate—one of the most famous women, no, people on the planet—would not be able to demand more money than someone known for binge drinking and pickle juice on any given day, at any given venue. Perhaps $25k is her minimum! Perhaps she just took their first offer because she didn’t want a public university to pay her typical fee!

But even if—and this is a huge if—she demanded more than Snooki and was vehemently denied by the good (?) folks at Rutgers, can we really blame them for putting Snooki first? Let Ms. Polizzi, a New Jersey hero and icon, have this little victory, you know? I’m sure that even Hillary, if given a moment to consider the pay disparity, would agree. “I totally get it,” she’d say, putting a hand on the shoulder of the Rutgers administrator. “I’ll take the $25k.”

I’ve reached out to Rutgers University and will update this post if they respond. Per usual, I’m not expecting them to!

[Radar Online]

I don’t know how to introduce this, so I’ll just paste it in and walk away:




[Metro UK]

Shocking.

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