+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
Most Shared

Sarah Silverman torches a guy mocking welfare recipients in a very Sarah Silverman way.

A senator, author, and comedian walked into a bar — er, signed onto Twitter — but the "joke" that got told failed to impress.

In fact, it was wrong in more ways than one.

It all started on Feb. 5, 2018, when Sen. Tammy Duckworth blasted President Trump online for having suggested it was treasonous for Democrats to not clap for him at the State of the Union. That assertion didn't sit well with the Democrat from Illinois.



"We don't live in a dictatorship or a monarchy," she retorted, refusing to "cater to the whims of Cadet Bone Spurs" by clapping only when he sees fit.

"Cadet Bone Spurs," of course, was a jab at Trump, who infamously avoided the draft as a young man due to apparent bone spurs in his heels.  

Conservative author Jack Posobiec took offense to Duckworth's remarks, insinuating the senator was a hypocrite for using "juvenile language."

That's when Silverman jumped in.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Trevor Project.

"Oh Jack — another misunderstanding!" she tweeted, clearly having interacted with Posobiec before. "The left doesn’t have a problem [with Trump's] choice of words or that he’s crass or some shit — it’s the actual CONTENT — that he’s accusing actual treason [because Democrats] didn’t CLAP for him."

Posobiec answered with a "joke" that didn't really add up — and also pushed a harmful stereotype.

"Are you OK, Sarah?" he wrote. "Your eye is so lazy it’s collecting welfare."

"I’m trying to understand your joke," Silverman responded. "That people on welfare are lazy?"

She continued: "Wait — so people who receive welfare (ie most 40 hr/wk employees who work 4 the Walton family, 1 of the richest families in the world) are lazy? Is that the joke? Sorry! Need help 2 understand ur funny joke!"

Silverman touched on an important point: Why do people think welfare recipients are lazy?

As she noted, many workers at Walmart, one of America's wealthiest companies, are forced to rely on government assistance because their employer — and many other corporations like it — pays them such low wages. A 2014 report, for instance, found Walmart workers cost taxpayers $6.2 billion in public assistance. In other words, instead of Walmart paying their workers higher wages, you — the taxpayer — end up footing the bill.

It's not welfare recipients' "laziness" that's costing Americans — it's corporate greed.

Photo by J.D. Pooley/Getty Images.

Posobiec quipped that "next time" he'd "use more profanity" so that Silverman would be able to "keep up."

And in typical Silverman fashion, the comedian responded in earnest: "No! I really didn't get it! Can [you] explain?"

"Also, I see ur a sci-fi fan," she wrote, assumedly having read a line in Posobiec's Twitter bio. "Next generation or voyager? I loved Next Gen (Data: swoon!) but I was in Voyager! Or no trek? 2001?"

To that, Posobiec didn't reply.

Silverman's seamless segue into nerd culture banter may seem disingenuous, seeing as she and Posobiec appeared to be clawing at each other's throats. But recently, Silverman's made efforts to reach across the aisle in order to build bridges instead of walls. Earlier this month, she befriended an internet troll who'd been belittling her — and later paid for his medical treatment too.

We don't all have the luxury to cover hospital bills for strangers online, of course. But we can fight mischaracterizations about those less fortunate by using facts and a little friendliness (and maybe even pepper in a little nerd culture along the way).

Props, Sarah.

From Your Site Articles
Badge
The Coca-Cola Company
Recycled Records
Sponsored

Spin your own sustainable music with the Recycled Records beat machine

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
recycling
Joy

Airbnb host wakes his guest up in the middle of the night so she wouldn't miss the northern lights

Best. Host. Ever.

@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less
nature
Pop Culture

Woody Harrelson wrote a hilarious little poem for his viral baby doppelgänger

His response was so wholesome.

@DanielleKGrier/Twitter

Baby Cora bears a striking resemblance to actor Woody Harrelson.

We can all get a little fascinated by doppelgängers and it's fun to find people who look alike. But what do you do when your baby girl looks uncannily like a famous middle-aged man?

Mom Dani Grier Mulvenna shared a photo of her infant daughter Cora side by side with a photo of Woody Harrelson on Twitter, with the caption "Ok but how does our daughter look like Woody Harrelson." The resemblance truly is remarkable, and the tweet quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of likes, shares and replies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Science

Conjoined twins with fused brains separated; surgeons practiced for months in virtual reality

Arthur and Bernardo finally get to see each other face to face.

Image by sasint/Canva

Surgeons prepared to separate 3-year-old conjoined twins in Brazil using virtual reality.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn't terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it's true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we've gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That's why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Unearthed BBC interview features two Victorian-era women discussing being teens in the 1800s

Frances 'Effy' Jones, one of the first women to be trained to use a typewriter and to take up cycling as a hobby, recalls life as a young working woman in London.

Canva

Two Victorian women discuss being teens in the 1800s.

There remains some mystery around what life was like in the 1800s, especially for teens. Most people alive today were not around in the Victorian era when the technologies now deemed old-fashioned were a novelty. In this rediscovered 1970s clip from the BBC, two elderly women reminisce about what it was like being teenagers during a time when the horse and buggy was still the fastest way to get around.

Keep ReadingShow less
video
Family

Therapist is creating a stir arguing that parents who fight create a toxic home for children

Kids shouldn't have to act like adults.

via Pexels

Parents who just can't stop fighting

Whitney Goodman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shared a video about kids who grew up in homes where their parents were always fighting, which made many people feel seen. It also started a conversation about who deserves more empathy in the parent-child relationship: the parents or the children.

Goodman is known as the “radically honest” psychotherapist and the author of “Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy.”

"If you grew up in this kind of house, you may have noticed that your family would split off into different alliances or teams to try to manage the material discord. Because the marriage wasn't a good or safe foundation for the family, everybody else had to kind of go and form these new teams,” Goodman explained in an Instagram post.

Keep ReadingShow less
therapists
Joy

People fell in love with Marty the cat after his owner wrote a heartbreaking goodbye letter

“I know this is a small tragedy in the grand scheme of the world, but one that I feel acutely knowing that I expected many more years with my friend."

Photo by Juanita Swart on Unsplash

RIP Marty

Tons of people found themselves clicking on the trending hashtag #RIPMarty, expecting to hear tragic news about a celebrity of some sort.

Instead, they learned about Marty the cat, whose owner shared the most heartbreakingly beautiful goodbye letter following his passing. That letter quickly went viral online, leaving folks completely invested Marty's story, not to mention utterly devastated.

Will Menaker, who shared the letter on Twitter, began by sharing how he and Marty first met. Or more accurately, how Marty introduced himself by emerging from under a car and unapologetically following Menaker up to the steps of his apartment seeking pets. Eventually, as the weather began to get colder, Menaker experimented with bringing Marty inside.

“From that moment on I was in love. I wouldn’t say I ‘had’ a cat, but from then on I shared a house with a tuxedo cat I would name Marty,” Menaker wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less
animals
Trending Stories