Month: January 2021

The year 2020 was so bad there was still another election left over for the early days of 2021. Granted, it had the possibility for something almost as seismic as a Donald Trump defeat: The Georgia Senate runoff, scheduled for January 5, could wind up with both houses of Congress blue, costing dreaded Mitch McConnell his ruinous Majority Leader position. It’s still a stressful night. But luckily there was someone who would get us through it: Steve Kornacki.

On paper, Kornacki is a most unlikely Internet boyfriend. He works for MSNBC, which isn’t even CNN. He crunches numbers as news station’s election analyst. He likes khakis. Like hissable Trump minion, he rarely wears suit jackets. But maybe this is exactly why social media has fallen for him. He’s a lovable nerd, and his excitement at things like ballot dumps is an endearing and infectious balm on election nights, which may at all other times inspire us to pull each strand of hair out from their respective roots. Certainly Leslie Jones thought so, back in November.

So the idea of the analyst returning, to preside over two key races had Kornacki heads losing their minds. He was there to provide over-caffeinated reactions to the fates that may befall incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as they hold their own against Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — two of the most closely followed Senate races in history. But even if things take a grim turn, at least people could be pumped for some Hot Kornacki Action.

Moms love him.

And why not? He’s a badass, in his pocket calculator way.

And he’s a khaki king.

In fact, Kornacki wasn’t the only election night big board advocate who was turning heads before the big night. There was also CNN’s dapper John King.

In fact, the night’s real stars seemed to be both Kornacki and King.

That being said, some people said they’d rather see Kornacki in a less apocalyptic. context

According to TMZ, Dr. Dre suffered a brain aneurysm on Monday and was quickly rushed to Los Angeles’ Cedars Sinai Medical Center where he currently remains. Sources close to the famed producer say that Dre is in stable condition in the ICU, but doctors at the moment are unsure what caused the bleeding. Tests are still being run on the West Coast native as the hope is a cause for the aneurysm can be discovered relatively soon.

The news about the 55-year-old hip-hop mogul comes after super-producer and longtime friend Jimmy Iovine said that he and Dre have plans to build a high school in South Central Los Angeles. The school would be somewhat of an extension of the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy, an undergraduate pogram they established in 2013. In addition to that, the West Coast producer has been entrapped in a high-profile divorce case with his ex-wife Nicole Young. It was previously reported that she is seeking $2 million per month in temproary spousal support and an additional $5 million in attorney fees. Dre said that her $2 million per month request was “ridiculous” as he was already paying for a number of her bills. Initial reports of the divorce said that the couple did not have a prenuptial agreement, but that was quickly refuted. However, Nicole has requested that a judge reject the agreement as she claims Dre ripped it up during the early part of their marriage.

Hopefully Dre will recover quickly and begin his return towards good health soon.

(via TMZ)

This story is currently being updated.

It’s fair to say few have clung to as many false hopes in such a short span of time as outgoing (and possibly flatulent) president Donald J. Trump. In between filling his Twitter feed with baseless accusations, he sometimes lodges incorrect claims about some gambit that could lead to the four more years he so desperately wants to serve. One of the most prominent has been that when Congress meets on January 6 to ratify Joe Biden’s presidential win, his vice president, Mike Pence, can simply overturn it. Finally, the day before, Pence allegedly broke the news to him that, no, that’s not true either.

Sources told The New York Times that during his weekly lunch with the president, Pence had to belatedly point out that his role at the joint session between the House and Senate is largely formal. He does not, Trump learned, have the unilateral power to alter results sent to Congress by the states, all of whom long ago certified their votes.

It’s unclear how Trump reacted. Did he flip the lunch table, sending his Filet-O-Fish into Pence’s tartar sauce-drenched face? Did he deflate like a balloon? Did he calmly absorb the news, accepting the grim legal and economic fate that awaits him after January 20? Almost certainly not the latter, but the first two are in the realm of possibilities.

Pence, however, did tell Trump that, as per the NYT, “he would keep studying the issue up until the final hours before the joint session of Congress begins at 1 p.m.” But that sound suspiciously like him trying to calm him with a comforting lie.

Mind you, Wednesday’s joint session is bound to be a nightmare anyway, given how many congress members have vowed to raise Cain over Biden’s clear win. As per NYT:

In a process that is likely to go on for many hours, Mr. Pence will preside on Wednesday over a roll call of the states. If at least one senator and one House member object to the results from a state, they can force a debate of up to two hours about those results. Each chamber will then vote separately on whether to certify that state’s results.

Sounds exhausting! But at least that, too, will only be a formality, if one that wastes gobs of time:

For results to be overturned, both the House and the Senate would have to agree to do so. Because the House is controlled by the Democrats, there is no realistic possibility of any state’s outcome being rejected. In addition, many if not most Senate Republicans appear likely to join all Democrats in rejecting challenges to the results.

But truly the only ones it will affect will be both chambers of Congress as well as Pence, who will likely have to spend an inordinate amount of time listening to nonsense before formalizing what’s been known since early November: Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Donald Trump lost.

(Via The New York Times)

The presentation of the 2020 Heisman Trophy didn’t arrive with the normal level of pomp and circumstance, simply due to the realities of the current landscape. In fact, the award was presented virtually on a Tuesday evening and seemed to fly under the radar as a result. However, the group of finalists, featuring Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith, Alabama quarterback Mac Jones, Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, and Florida quarterback Kyle Trask performed at a remarkably high level during a challenging season. In the end, Alabama senior wide receiver DeVonta Smith took home the coveted hardware.

Smith led the country in receptions (105), receiving yards (1,641), all-purpose yards (1,912) and receiving touchdowns (20), all while being a game-breaking weapon for the best team in the country. He certainly benefitted from having an elite quarterback in fellow Heisman finalist Jones, but the 6’1 pass-catcher was dynamic, and Smith’s impact took on even a greater role after fellow standout Jaylen Waddle went down with an injury in October.

In an all-time run of productivity, Smith accrued at least 144 receiving yards in seven of his last nine regular season games, with the two (relative) hiccups occurring in blowout wins that saw Alabama rest starters for extended minutes. Though the game didn’t “count” for Heisman purposes, Smith also reinforced his impact with seven catches for 130 yards and three touchdowns to help Alabama defeat Notre Dame in the College Football Semifinal.

With the win, Smith becomes the first non-quarterback since Mark Ingram in 2009, the first wide receiver to claim the Heisman Trophy since Michigan’s Desmond Howard in 1991, and only the third winner at the position in the award’s illustrious history. Now, the next step for Smith will be taking the field against Ohio State with a national title on the line and, after that game transpires later in January, he will make the jump to the NFL as a presumptive first round draft pick.

The past couple of years have been rather quiet for the Top Dawg Entertainment, who’ve only released three full-length projects from their talented acts since the start of 2019. In fact it’s been three years since signees like SZA, Kendrick Lamar, and Ab-Soul have put out new albums. Luckily it looks like that will change this year. On New Year’s Day, Ab-Soul hopped on Twitter with some good news about his upcoming fifth album. “Yea the album is on the way, but you knew that,” he wrote in a tweet. One person asked if there was one coming from Kendrick, too, to which Ab-Soul simply replied, “Yup.”

Ab-Soul’s upcoming album will be his first since 2016’s Do What Thou Wilt, while Lamar’s fifth will be his first solo release since 2017’s DAMN.. Ab-Soul’s tweet came just a day after the Roskilde Festival — which will take place in the Netherlands between June 26 and July 3, 2021 — confirmed that new music from Lamar, who headlines the festival, would arrive at some point this year. “Lamar first visited Roskilde Festival in 2013 when he played an unforgettable concert on the Arena stage,” a message on the festival’s website read. “Two albums later — and with new material along the way — he is once again ready to take Roskilde Festival’s main stage with a concert that is likely to be one of the absolute highlights of the summer.”

Ever since the election two months ago, John Fetterman has become the most famous lieutenant governor in these United States. He may be a burly beast built like Thanos, but he fights for the side of good, ridiculing Trump’s lies, taunting Republicans whose allegations of voter fraud wound up involving Republican voters, even daring the powers-that-be to take down the pride flags he has flying on state grounds. All that made the news on Tuesday even more disturbing.

As per The Philadelphia Inquirer, the state’s Republican lawmakers refused to seat a new Democratic senator, Jim Brewster, who’d narrowly defeated challenger Nicole Ziccarelli. There was much rancor. There was shouting between Republicans and Fetterman, who was presiding over the session. And after an hour Republicans had voted to remove Fetterman from his spot at the rostrum, even escorting him out of the chamber after he refused to leave.

Pennsylvania Republicans had already tried to contest the senator’s win. As per the Inquirer:

“Brewster narrowly won reelection over Republican challenger Nicole Ziccarelli, who is asking a federal judge to throw out the election results. At the heart of that legal dispute is several hundred mail ballots that lacked a handwritten date on an outer envelope, as required by state law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed those ballots to be counted, which gave Brewster the edge in the race.”

But even though Brewster’s re-election had already been certified by the state, Republicans simply refused to acknowledge their defeat. For now, at least, Brewster will have to be wait to be sworn in, while Republicans insist they receive more court time on a case they already lost.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Pennsylvania lawmakers condemned the Republicans’ gambit, with Senate Majority Leader Jay Costa calling their ploy right out of “the Trump playbook.” Governor Tom Wolfe called it “simply unethical and undemocratic,” adding, Republicans in Pennsylvania and nationally have spread disinformation and used it to subvert the democratic process.”

The outspoken Fetterman predictably did not mince words, saying, “This was a corruption of the fundamental democratic franchise in our state.” In any case, buckle in, everyone, the next couple weeks will be a bumpy — or even bumpier, somehow — ride.

(Via The Philadelphia Inquirer)

The process of transforming a world where injustice persists into one where justice reigns is a long, slow, multi-faceted one. Much of it is invisible work, and progress is often two steps forward, one step back.

But occasionally, a project comes along that is both a symbolic and practical manifestation of change. The Echo Project in Laurens, South Carolina is one of those projects.

In 1996, the Redneck Shop and “World’s Only Klan Museum” was opened in the historic Echo Theater in Laurens. The Echo had been a segregated theater during the Jim Crow era, and the town of Laurens itself was named for a wealthy slave-trader, Henry Laurens, so perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising. But still.

With Confederate flags flying and a swastika hanging on the back wall, the Redneck Shop sold racist clothing, bumper stickers, KKK robes, and other paraphernalia to neo-Nazis for years.

In an odd series of events, the ownership of the building changed hands, which changed history. First it went from the former KKK Grand Wizard John Howard (who founded the shop) to his young protege Michael Burden (who lived in the building). During a temporary falling out with Howard and change of heart in 1997, Burden sold the deed to the building to Reverend David Kennedy, a Black civil rights activist whose church helped Burden out.

There was one caveat in the deed transfer—Howard would be allowed to keep running the Redneck Shop in the theater until he died.

Strange arrangement, right? Rev. Kennedy had held protests in front of the shop in the building he owned, but legally he couldn’t close it. And this went on for years. In 2006, the theater even hosted the Aryan Nations’ World Congress.

Finally, Rev. Kennedy took legal action to oust Howard and his racist shop and museum, and after a 4-year-long lawsuit, was successful. In May 2012, the Redneck Shop closed for good. (Kennedy’s story has been turned into a feature film, “Burden,” starring Forrest Whittaker, which was released last year.)

Now the theater is being prepped to become a diversity center that will focus on racial harmony and healing, which will also house a museum on racial reconciliation.

Regan Freeman helped co-found the Echo Project with Rev. Kennedy and has raised $300,000 toward the building’s renovation. He’s in the process of collecting stories of Black residents around Laurens to help build the history of the area, but it was a woman’s tweet that led him to a disturbing treasure trove of items that will add something tangible to that history.

According to ABC News, Freeman responded to a tweet from a woman who owns the land that John Howard had lived on. She had bins of items that had belonged to Howard, which she was offering to the Southern Poverty Law Center. After some negotiations, the woman sold them to Freeman. The bins include posters of Hitler, a “Klan Rally Instructions” manual, photo negatives of cross burnings, and offensive caricatures of Black people, and “business cards” KKK members would leave Black families as a form of intimidation. (The cards said that their visit had been a social one, and “don’t make the next visit a business call.”)

“This stuff isn’t from 100 years ago. Some of it is maybe from the last decade or two,” Freeman told ABC News. “I think it is important to see it and see how deep this hate goes so you can see why we need to fight so hard to change.”

Freeman plans to go through the items with historians from the University of South Carolina to determine which of them should be preserved and which will best inform the storytelling Freeman plans to do at the theater.

Though it’s appalling that the theater housed a shrine to hatred a dozen years into the 21st century, the Echo Project offers a ray of hope that transformation is possible.

“We’re hoping The Echo Project will become a place where every race could be respected — a place where diversity is not only just talked about, but is celebrated through action,” Kennedy told ABC News.

Beatuiful. Can’t wait to see it, Reverend Kennedy.

Transgender rights are some of the most controversial issues of the day. In recent years, there have been passionate fights in state and federal governments over transgender people’s rights to serve in the military, gain access to gender-affirming healthcare, and use the appropriate restroom.

It’s reasonable to believe that we could make more progress on these issues if people understood the experiences of transgendered people.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans have gained greater acceptance into mainstream society over the past few decades after becoming more visible.

When then-prime-time sitcom star Ellen Degeneres came out of the closet on her show in 1997 it was a landmark moment for gay rights because many Americans who weren’t familiar with the community felt they knew Degeneres.

This led to greater understanding and acceptance of LGBT people.

One way that we can help others better understand the transgender community is by explaining what it feels like to live with gender dysphoria. Many transgendered people experience gender dysphoria which, to put it simply, is the excruciating feeling of being trapped inside the wrong body.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Some people who are transgender will experience ‘gender dysphoria,’ which refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.”

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)1 defines it as “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and their assigned gender.”

According to Black’s Medical Dictionary, gender dysphoria occurs in one in 30,000 male-assigned births and one in 100,000 female-assigned births. A study published by Cedar’s Sinai says that 73% of transgender women and 78% of transgender men first experienced gender dysphoria by age seven.

“Gender dysphoria can come from the body, where one may feel distress over a part of their anatomy, such as their genitals, chest, or hair,” Jessie Earl writes for The Advocate. “Dysphoria can also come from social factors, such as not feeling comfortable wearing ‘women’s’ clothing or being referred to by gendered pronouns.

These explanations provide a clear way for the medical community to understand gender dysphoria. But how do you get through to someone who’s still stuck in an outdated mindset that being transgender is a form of perversion?

A Reddit user who goes by the name Cascadeon recently provided an easy-to-understand metaphor for what it feels like to live with gender dysphoria. Their simple answer is a great way to explain the issue to someone who has a hard time understanding what it’s like seeing things from a transgendered perspective.

This is an analogy I used to tell people, I don’t know if it helps but maybe.

Gender is a lot like a pair of shoes. If you have on a good, comfortable, well fitting pair, you don’t notice it or think about it. As you walk around you aren’t constantly thinking about your shoes and the comfort, it’s just there and fine and normal and it doesn’t concern you one single bit. It’s almost hard to notice because if they feel fine it seems to silly and unimportant to spend energy thinking about it.

But if your shoes are too small and tight or there is a rock in them it’s all you can think about. Every step is annoying and miserable and you don’t want to do anything else until you fix this damned rock. Doing anything else seems crazy until your shoes stop hurting you.

So I think in that sense, most people probably can’t really conceptualize the feeling of their gender well because it just fits right and always has, so it’s hard to imagine how all the small, normal things just constantly feel wrong, even if you are alone in your home.

In the end, empathy is the key to understanding. By finding more effective ways to present the experiences of marginalized groups, we can bridge the gap between these communities and those who deny them their rights. Or, in other words, teach them what it’s like to walk a mile in their shoes.

Though a divorce seemed just as imminent for Kim and Kanye back in 2016, it appears this time the super star couple really are finished. According to the extremely reliable celebrity gossip source Page Six, “multiple sources” have confirmed that the pair are working on a settlement agreement and their marriage is over.

“They are keeping it low-key but they are done,” says the Page Six source. “Kim has hired Laura Wasser and they are in settlement talks. Kim got Kanye to go up there [Wyoming] so they could live separate lives and quietly get things sorted out to separate and divorce. She’s done. Now this divorce is happening because Kim has grown up a lot. She is serious about taking the bar exam and becoming a lawyer, she is serious about her prison reform campaign. Meanwhile Kanye is talking about running for president and saying other crazy sh*t, and she’s just had enough of it.”

Kanye was notably absent for most of Kim’s 40th birthday party, a celebration on an island in the middle of a global pandemic that drew lots of criticism. Though he wasn’t present, Kanye did come for one day and send a hologram of her late father as a present for Kim. Romantic? Kanye also spent the holidays in Wyoming instead of with the massive Kardashian family, who did manage to keep Christmas and New Year’s lowkey due to national medical advice to keep gatherings small and stay at home due to the pandemic.

And a separate source explains Kanye’s side of things, that he’s fed up with being involved with the media frenzy and everything being a part of that family involves. This source says that Kanye found their reality show “unbearable” and “is completely over the entire family” and “wants nothing to do with them.” The couple seemed to be on the rocks due to political disagreements like Kanye’s support of Trump and decision to run for president himself.

The couple were married in 2014 and have four children together: North, 7, Saint, 4, Chicago, 2 (three next week), and Psalm, 19 months.

J. Cole’s partnership with Puma has gone beyond just wearing their gear during special events. Cole’s become a major member of the Puma roster, working on creative instillations with the company and even getting his own signature sneaker with the company, the RS-Dreamer, which dropped back in July of 2020 right as the NBA and WNBA restarted their 2019-20 seasons in both of their Florida bubbles.

Now, Cole and Puma have something new up their sleeves. In an image posted to Cole’s Instagram account on Tuesday, the rapper is shown wearing a pair of vibrant yellow sneakers from the apparel company that have never been seen before. With the post was the caption “The Off-Season… Let’s work.“

Sources tell Uproxx that the name of the shoe is the Dreamer 2, the latest in the Puma Hoops Dreamer line. Not much is known about them outside of the name and the color scheme, but they do look to have a similar vibrant yellow color as the second signature sneaker Puma dropped as it got back into the basketball game, the Uproar Spectras. These, however, are yellow with yellow laces on what looks to be a black sole and midsole with a black tongue that features the RSD logo. While the price is still unknown, the first RS-Dreamer retailed for $125.