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Skimm for January 29th

Skimm’d with red wine and the debate.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Your Holiness, thank you for granting me this private audience” - Leonardo DiCaprio, speaking in Italian to Pope Francis. The Pope was wearing white…and only white.

SAY THAT YOU LOVE ME

THE STORY

Last night, all the GOP candidates put on their serious faces and said ‘I’m just a candidate, standing in front of America, asking you to love me.’

DID IT WORK?

Google it. Fox News and Google hosted. Megyn Kelly was there. Someone whose name rhymes with Ronald was not.

WHAT’D THEY TALK ABOUT?

Sen. Ted Cruz (TX)...as in the new monkey in the middle without The Donald there. He’s #2 in the Iowa polls, which made him a target for the other candidates on ISIS, immigration, etc. Cruz blamed the moderators for being mean, and threatened to leave the stage. Being popular is hard.

ISIS...as in the national security issue apparently has people sitting at home asking Google ‘is America safe?’ Gov. John Kasich (OH) wants to work more closely with America’s Arab leader friends to fight the group. And everyone agreed that President Obama’s ISIS strategy isn’t working.

Fmr. Sec of State Hillary Clinton…as in the one on everyone’s sh*t list. Gov. Chris Christie (NJ) even put on his “Law & Order” pants and said he was ready to prosecute her. Sen. Rand Paul (KY) said he doesn’t blame Hillz for Bill’s wandering eye, but thinks it DQs her from championing women’s rights.

Immigration…as in the one with the Floridian in-fighting. Fmr. Gov. Jeb Bush (FL) and Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) went at it over amnesty, and whether undocumented immigrants should have a pathway to citizenship.

Electability…as in the Fox moderators are wondering whether Bridgegate will come back to haunt Christie. And whether Bush would have any shot in the general election. Meanwhile, others are wondering why Dr. Ben Carson barely spoke. Except to recite the Preamble to the Constitution.

Donald Trump…as in the one who decided that debating wouldn’t make America great again. Unless, apparently, Fox News agreed to donate to his charities. They didn’t. So instead, he held a rally to benefit veterans literally blocks away. Other candidates called this ‘childish.’ He preferred ‘winning.’

theSKIMM

Welcome to the big show. This was the last chance for the GOP candidates to tell ‘Murica why it should pick them, choose them, love them before the first votes of 2016 start coming in. Iowa gets to caucusing on Monday (here’s your 2016 calendar). And Trump said ‘pass.’ We’ll see how that goes.

REPEAT AFTER ME...

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOUR CEO SCHEDULES AN ALL-STAFF MEETING FOR THE AM...

This sounds important. Yesterday, the World Health Organization said the Zika virus is “spreading explosively,” and called an emergency meeting to decide whether it needs to be declared a health crisis. The Zika virus: you get it from a mosquito bite, and symptoms include fever, rash, and pink eye. It’s been around for decades, and hasn’t caused much trouble until now. That’s because now, t he virus has recently been linked to babies born with abnormally small heads. Recently, the virus has spread to at least 20 countries (mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean), leading health officials to warn pregnant women against traveling to those areas. The WHO thinks there could be as many as four million cases in the next year - and there is no vaccine. Hence, emergency meeting.

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU AND YOUR LONGTIME ROOMMATE MOVE OUT...

Splitting up is hard. Today, Xerox is expected to announce it’s splitting into two companies . One will focus on hardware (aka “can you Xerox some copies?”) and the other will focus on services that you didn’t know Xerox had anything to do with (aka payrolls, IT outsourcing, etc). Xerox is the latest in a line of older tech companies - think: eBay and HP - to break up and downsize in a world where young tech workers are drawn to smaller companies. This comes after billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn announced last year that, by the way, he’d bought up almost a tenth of Xerox’s shares. And he had some ‘ideas for the company’s future.’ One being that Xerox should split into two companies. And the other being that he wanted seats on the new service company’s board. Looks like what Carl wants, Carl gets.

WHAT TO SAY WHEN THE GUY YOU’RE SEEING SAYS HE HATES REALITY TV…

This is over and it hasn’t even started yet. Today was supposed to be the start of peace talks to hopefully end the Syrian civil war . But yesterday, rebel forces said they’re still not sure if they’re going to show. Tht makes things difficult, since it’s hard to talk when half the chairs at the table are empty. Refresher: for five years, Syria’s been in a brutal civil war that’s killed more than a quarter million people. And the international community has been taking sides. There’s Team Assad, backed by Iran and Russia. And Team Moderate Rebels, backed by the US and Saudi Arabia. All of this chaos has given a little group called ISIS a golden opportunity to seize land and power in the country. Everybody would really, really like the civil war to end, and the UN has been trying to get the two sides to sit down for years. Rebel forces are saying they won’t talk it out until Assad stops bombing and starving civilians. It doesn’t look like he’s willing to do. Outlook: not peaceful.

WHAT TO SAY TO YOUR FRIEND WHO JUST GOT AN iPHONE…

Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Baaaanks. Barbie just got here too.

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOUR FRIEND AND HER BF START TO DRESS THE SAME…

Got nothing on Kristen and Dax.

SKIMM READS

“The Swans of Fifth Avenue” by Melanie Benjamin

Take “Gossip Girl” and move it to the 50′s. It’s a true story about a famous writer that becomes BFFs with NYC socialites, and then airs their dirty laundry in a magazine article. Be prepared to laugh...out loud.

SKIMM WINE

Skimm’ologist says: Sip on this pink bubbly to get you in a “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” kind of mood.

SKIMM SHARE

SKIMM BIRTHDAYS

*indicates a Skimm’bassador. You get cake! You get cake! You get cake!

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