If you had any doubt that politics are more like “Veep” than “The West Wing,” Jeb! Bush resoundingly proves that awkward tragicomedy is the reigning genre of Washington. Constantly avoiding comparisons to his older brother, taking his mother along for campaign appearances, and struggling with a “glasses-on or glasses-off” wardrobe choice, Jeb!’s presidential campaign feels more like a kid desperately trying to run for class president after his brother ran a few years ago promising free pizza for lunch and ended up invading the neighboring middle school. You might find Jeb! listed in the thesaurus as an antonym for suave—and his total inability to hide how poorly he is doing gives him a touch of humanity that is never afforded to a frontrunner. Here, we’ve collected the most “Jebby” moments of the 2016 campaign, for your cringe-inducing pleasure.

“You might swing my vote”

This video (which has no sound, don’t worry) shows a potential voter telling Jeb! that his vote just may have just been swung. This admission of potential interest was enough to brighten Jeb!’s face (and likely his entire week), causing him to jog over to the man with a gleeful expression and wrap him in a bear hug. Still, giving away a hug for a vote is pretty cheap compared with the $2,800 Jeb! ended up spending per vote in Iowa.

Sean Simon

Sean Simon is an Editorial News Senior Fellow at Law Street, and a senior at The George Washington University, studying Communications and Psychology. In his spare time, he loves exploring D.C. restaurants, solving crossword puzzles, and watching sad foreign films. Contact Sean at SSimon@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Jebbiest Jeb! Moments of the 2016 Race appeared first on Law Street.

Most of us remember Todd Akin, former Missouri Senate candidate, for his comments about how women cannot get pregnant if they are “legitimately raped.” Unfortunately for him, and for everyone who has to deal with his moronic comments, the fiasco hasn’t ended there. In a recent attempt to explain his 2012 comments, all he did was dig himself into a deeper hole. It’s probably time to just stop talking, Mr. Akin. I mean, I’ve heard from doctors that if you legitimately have stupid thoughts, you won’t say them because your mouth has the ability to shut the whole thing down. Or, in this case, your hand will lose its ability to write a book if you plan to write legitimately ridiculous words.

In his new book (how did he get a publishing deal?), Firing Back, Akin defends his infamous 2012 “legitimate rape” comments and blames the evil media for spinning the whole thing. Someone needs to explain to Akin what spinning means, because he obviously doesn’t know. The media saying exactly what a politician says during an interview is not spin, Mr. Akin. That’s what we call “reporting the facts.”

In what I am sure is a positively invigorating piece of literature, Akin tries to educate his readers about what “legitimate rapes” are. You see, some rapes are not “legitimate” because some women falsely accuse, and when he spoke about a woman’s body shutting “that whole thing down,” he didn’t mean the reproductive system battening down the hatches. Rather, he was referring to rape-related “stress” inhibiting her ability to get pregnant. He does concede that perhaps his wording was a little off.  I feel like I need a Todd Akin Dictionary of Rape Terms to understand this guy’s insane reasoning.

Well, almost…

His comment brings up so many questions: what exactly is “illegitimate rape?” When a woman rejects sex sarcastically? When her attacker rapes her in a certain location? As far as I, and hopefully most other people with common sense know, uteri and fallopian tubes don’t have the capability of self-realization. I’ve never heard a case of ovaries yelling, “We’re under attack! Shut the whole thing down!” to their reproductive-system comrades.

Reviews say that the take away from his new book is that despite his apology immediately following the comments in 2012, Akin is legitimately not sorry. Apology redacted.

But not actually…

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Marisa Mostek (@MarisaJ44) loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured Image Courtesy of [Jennifer Moo via Flickr]

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Todd Akin Needs to Legitimately Stop Talking appeared first on Law Street.

Twitter has become one of the easiest ways to provide snippets of information to the public. Celebrities, writers, and of course, politicians, can accrue followers to spread their messages. But not everyone is as twitter-savvy as they could be. In fact, some politicians have tweeted some pretty embarrassing, stupid, and ridiculous things. So….(drumroll please!)

Thank you, dog!

Let’s countdown some of the biggest political Twitter mistakes, gaffes, ridiculous statements, and abuses of 2013!

10. Rep Tom Latham’s inability to understand satire

The tweet in question:

Thanks Politiwoops, for archiving this!

The backstory: A few weeks ago, The Daily Currant published an article claiming that MSNBC pundit Chris Hayes was sickened by Veteran’s Day. Tom Latham retweeted the link, and posted about it on Facebook, stating he was sickened by the statements that Chris Hayes didn’t actually make. The problem? The Daily Currant is a satirical news outlet, much like The Onion.

Now, Latham did take down the post very quickly, but still, someone on his staff should have thought to point out that he was getting mad over a fake news story. Fact checking, guys. It really isn’t that hard.

9. Ari Fleischer publicly admitting he’s kind of a huge jerk 

The tweet in question:

Courtesy: PublicShaming

The backstory: Alright, you caught me, Ari Fleischer isn’t actually a politician, but I couldn’t pass this one up. He is a former White House Press Secretary though, so he counts. In this tweet from January of 2013, he referenced the fiscal cliff deal reached in Congress on January 1, 2013. In that deal, tax deductions for individuals donating to charities would be limited. But, it’s important to note that it would only apply to individuals making $250,000 or more, yearly. If Mr. Fleischer was worried about this change to tax breaks applying to him, he’s clearly doing relatively well. So, for him to choose to withhold money from charities because it either a) wouldn’t benefit him as much or b) because it made a political point, was pretty awful. The fact that Fleischer happily tweeted this fact for all the world to see?

Downright despicable.

8. Rep Juan Vargas’s really really bad typo 

The tweet in question:

Thanks again, PolitiWoops!

The backstory: We all make typos, and autocorrect has brought down even the most text-savvy among us. But this is very, very bad. What’s worse is that neither he nor his staff noticed this god awful typo for 8 weeks. That’s right, this tweet remained on Rep Vargas’s twitter for 2 months.

7. TN State Rep. Frank Niceley just lying to constituents on Twitter

The tweet in question:

The backstory: Everyone threw blame around during the shutdown. But most of it came from pundits and commentators, not elected officials themselves. Using the hashtag #harryreidsshutdown was pretty disingenuous, and it’s safe to say that this was simply not polite political rhetoric.

Play nice, Frank Niceley. Otherwise your name will be misleading.

Politicians are supposed to provide information to their constitutions and fight for their interests, not mock each other.

6. David Cameron proves it’s not just American politicians who are embarrassing on Twitter

The tweet in question: Well, it’s not really a tweet, it’s more something that happened on Twitter. David Cameron, the current UK Prime Minister, followed an escort agency on Twitter on November 20th. This is what Carlton of London’s Twitter looked like a few weeks ago.

The backstory: Ok, this one isn’t actually that embarrassing. It turns out this is an older Twitter account set up during the previous Prime Minister, Gordon Brown’s time in office. This account is barely used today. But it auto follows back anyone who follows it. So, a bunch of spam accounts have a Twitter follower that reads as “UK Prime Minister.” Even if this isn’t the PM’s team’s doing, they should have really taken care of these old accounts a long, long time ago.

Pretty embarrassing, right, Hedgehog?

5. Steve King meets “DREAMers”, tweets his fear

The tweet in question:

Shout out to Public Shaming!

The backstory: A group of “Dreamers,” or young, undocumented immigrants who have usually been successful in the US, visited Steve King’s DC office. They didn’t invade. They walked in to voice their concerns, as they have the right to do. I highly doubt Steve King actually felt unsafe, and if he did, it’s because he’s a racist neanderthal who does things like compare these “Dreamers” to drug mules.

I need to take a quick eye-roll timeout.

4. Jeb Bush doesn’t do his research 

The tweet in question:

The backstory: Apparently, there’s some crazy rumor going around that the US is closing its embassy in Vatican City. It’s not true. Completely not true. It’s being moved into a new compound with the Italian Embassy in Rome, but they will still have separate offices and staff. The Vatican Embassy will even have it’s own entrance. And it will actually be located .1 miles closer to the Holy See. I got all of this information by tapping top secret wires, of course.

I’m only half this coordinated.

I’m kidding. I got it through a google search. Which was apparently not something Jeb Bush thought to do before tweeting this information.

3. GOP’s “racism has ended” flub

The tweet in question:

The backstory: I would write some snarky response to the RNC’s claim that racism has ended, but the good people of the internet have already done it for me! The hashtag #RacismEndedWhen started trending and some truly inspired responses were born:

Check out this compilation, courtesy of BuzzFeed.

2. Speaking of Racism, Obama Advisor tweets N-Word 

The tweet in question:

The backstory: Dan Pfeiffer, a senior advisor to President Obama, was tweeting back and forth with New York Times journalist Jonathan Martin regarding an article about the shutdown.

Apparently he meant to say “bigger” but had a very unfortunate typo. Another Journalist, Lachlan Markay caught the error and immediately retweeted it, despite Pfeiffer’s attempts to delete it. Pfeiffer had tweeted it from his official White House account. Again, we all make typos. But if you’re going to be tweeting from your official White House Twitter handle, it really is important to double, triple, and quadruple check what you’re saying.

1. Rep. Steve Stockman thinks babies should be given guns

The tweet in question:

Public Shaming caught this one.

The backstory: There’s a lot of terrifying implications about this tweet. First, it implies that Rep. Steve Stockman thinks that women who have abortions should be shot. This comes from Stockman’s campaign Twitter, meaning that he wants people who might vote for him to know this. This is horrifyingly violent rhetoric. Rep. Stockman, put down the computer, please.  

It’s time to stop for the day.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Pete Souze via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Biggest Political Twitter Mishaps, Gaffes, and Weird Statements of 2013 appeared first on Law Street.