Month: February 2021

Matt Gaetz has made a name for himself by sucking up to Trump, both while he was in office and ever since he left office. Along with his sometime partner-in-crime Jim Jordan, he’ll say anything to get attention — and he’s routinely dunked on for what he says over social media. So when he threatened to quit the House to defend his favorite president, people online for once agreed he’d come up with a smart idea.

The Florida representative was on War Room Pandemic, the podcast hosted by former Trump strategist and ex-Breitbart-ite Steve Bannon, where he boasted about, among other things, how he had the votes to kick Liz Cheney out of her gig as GOP leader in the House. (Spoiler: He didn’t, and she will keep her position.) He was also asked if he’d give up his House seat for 45.

“If the president called me and wanted me to go defend him on the floor of the Senate,” Gaetz said. “That would be the top priority in my life.”

The Senate impeachment trial is set for next week, and it follows the House impeachment that happened without a trial — the second time they did so in under a year. It’s not clear if what happened last time — House Republicans, with exception (okay, one), refuse to condemn him — will be happen this time. But there’s still time for Gaetz to switch occupations.

After all, he had the okay from many people online.

Others simply celebrated that his attempts to railroad Cheney — who voted for Trump’s second impeachment — came to naught.

And others simply pointed out that he looks like various cartoon villains.

(Via Newsweek)

Paul George is off to a terrific start to the 2020-21 season, as are the Clippers as a whole. L.A. picked up a 22-point win in Cleveland on Wednesday night to cap off a 4-2 East Coast road trip, that began with George and Kawhi Leonard missing time while in contact tracing protocol.

George is averaging 23.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists, and 1.3 steals per game, as he has bounced back from a rough playoffs in the Bubble to play some of the best basketball of his career. He, like the entire Clippers team, will have to wait until the postseason to truly rewrite the narrative about himself, but for now he and the team are plotting a course to what they hope is a redemption story this summer. To do that they will almost assuredly have to go through the Lakers, who won the title last year after getting out of the West without the highly anticipated Battle for L.A. in the conference finals because the Clippers fell to the Nuggets in the semis.

On Wednesday, that rivalry got some more fuel as Jared Dudley’s book on the Lakers title run in the Bubble came out and included a part noting that the entire Laker team took it as “disrespectful” that Paul George put himself in the same class as LeBron, Anthony Davis, and Kawhi having not won anything — this seemed to overlook that AD had likewise not won anything prior to last year, but, alas. In any case George was asked about that excerpt following L.A.’s win over the Cavs and seemed to have not heard of this new story yet, and had a pretty funny response.

It’s about as good as you can do when someone brings this up and you’re learning of it for the first time. He doesn’t ignore it, he just brushes it off and gives a clever soundbite in the process. Not that any Lakers-Clippers series this year would need any added juice, but this is just another layer to what would be one of the most highly anticipated conference finals in some time.

At the end of last month, during an appearance on Radio.com and V-103’s The Morning Culture, 50 Cent brought up the idea of an exhibition boxing match between him and Floyd Mayweather. While 50 was certainly up for it, he wasn’t too sure it would go down due to their different weight classes. “I don’t think I could make weight though,” he said. “I’d fight Floyd if I could get down there. Or he’d just have to let me not get down to 150. I tried — I looked like a homeless person. I could make it down to probably, like 180.” Despite 50’s worries, Floyd accepted his challenge and showed no concern for their respective weights.

“This year, I will focus on several exhibitions,” Mayweather wrote in an Instagram post. “I will have an exhibition in Tokyo, Japan again. Of course, the one with Logan Paul and I; and if Jake Paul can get past his next opponent Ben Askren, I will have an exhibition with him as well. I also heard that 50 Cent would fight me, but claims I’m too small.” He added, “If he wants to lace up at the end of the year, we can do an exhibition then. I don’t care about weight class with any of these guys. The Paul brothers will make great money with the events, but with 50 Cent it has to be ‘Winner Take All.’”

Taylor Swift is facing a trademark infringement lawsuit from Evermore, a fantasy amusement park based in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Court documents that were reviewed by Pitchfork reveal that the singer’s ninth album of the same name is at the root of the lawsuit, with the plaintiffs claiming it caused confusion for guests of the park and negatively affected their searchability on Google. The park is requesting millions in damages, as well as all legal fees.

The lawsuit was filed in a U.S. District Court in Utah on February 2, nearly two months after Swift released Evermore. The park’s director of human resources claims that some of the guests who attended asked if “the Evermore Album was the result of a collaboration between Evermore and Taylor Swift or some other type of relationship.” The singer’s team denied the accusations in a letter filed to court where they called the lawsuit “baseless.”

“Put simply, the Swift Parties have not infringed your client’s trademark,” the letter says. “It is inconceivable that there is any likelihood of confusion between your client’s theme park and related products and Ms. Swift’s music and related products.” Her team also says that the theme park’s merchandise, which includes “small dragon eggs, guild patches, and a small dragon mount,” is not similar to the items that Swift sells on her website. The singer’s team also declined the park’s request to “cease and desist from [the] use of the EVERMORE trademark.”

(via Pitchfork)

Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby revert back to childhood in their video for “Cry Baby” from Megan’s debut album, Good News. Set in a massive toy store at night, the video features pastel dollhouses, a legion of DaBaby action figures that come to life, and all sorts of Pixar-like antics taking place in the background.

“Cry Baby” is the third single after “Girls In The Hood,” “Don’t Stop,” and “Body.” Good News was recently certified Gold by the RIAA and debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Meg first teased the “Cry Baby” video last month after DaBaby was criticized by fans for siding with Megan’s alleged abuser Tory Lanez after Tory posted a screenshot from a video both rappers shot together.

However, it was later revealed that the video was produced before the shooting incident between Tory and Megan, with Thee Stallion advising fans that DaBaby’s feature approval was revoked in the wake of the shooting. Since then, fans have waited on tenterhooks for the “Cry Baby” video, while Megan worked on a contract revision with her label 1501 Certified Entertainment. Megan also appeared on Ariana Grande’s “34+35” remix with Doja Cat, keeping her buzz from 2020 at a loud roar.

Watch Megan Thee Stallion’s “Cry Baby” video featuring DaBaby above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Jim Jordan has a habit of writing easily dunkable tweets. He once claimed the Founding Fathers would be against enacting restrictions during a once-in-a-century pandemic. He said Dr. Fauci would cancel Christmas. They’re lowest-common-denominator statements, easily debunked, and, perhaps, all too easy to mock, too. But that didn’t stop people from having fun with the Ohio representative’s latest self-parody of a tweet.

“The Republican Party is no longer the ‘wine and cheese’ party,” Jordan averred online. “It’s the beer and blue jeans party.”

The representative — who’s made a name for himself as a stubborn Trump loyalist — seems to be referring to how the GOP is now at war with itself. On one side are the traditionalists, like former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who want to return to normal after four years of Trump. On the other are Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley, and Marjorie Taylor Greene who traffic in conspiracy theories and are attempting to keep the Trump vibe alive even after his exit from the presidency.

But again, these Jordan tweets aren’t hard to pick apart, though, again, that didn’t stop anyone from doing so anyway.

Some pointed out that the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol last month weren’t exactly your average blue collar schmo. Some didn’t even wear jeans.

Some called out his fake-populism.

Or the Republican Party’s deference to the rich.

Among them the last Republican president.

And many did what they always did when Jordan says or does anything: They reminded him of his shameful actions as the assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University.

Others reminded him that, these days, wine and cheese are cheaper than jeans.

Besides, slandering cheese is just wrong.

But hey, at least this time everyone wasn’t saying he was one-half of Beavis and Butt-Head.

Trent Reznor was a big presence in Marilyn Manson‘s early career. The Nine Inch Nails vocalist signed Manson to his label Nothing Records, produced his first two albums, and brought him on as an opening act for one of the band’s early tours. Despite this, the relationship between Reznor and Manson would eventually turn sour. Fast-forward to the present and Manson is now facing accusations of sexual assault and mental abuse from his former finance, Evan Rachel Wood, who accused him of “grooming” and “horrifically abusing” her during their relationship.

In the wake of Wood’s accusations, a passage from Manson’s 1998 The Long Hard Road Out of Hell biography resurfaced on social media, detailing an alleged incident involving him and Reznor. Reznor addressed both his current relationship with Manson and the incident in question. “I have been vocal over the years about my dislike of Manson as a person and cut ties with him nearly 25 years ago,” Reznor said in a statement to Pitchfork. “As I said at the time, the passage from Manson’s memoir is a complete fabrication. I was infuriated and offended back when it came out and remain so today.”

According to Pitchfork, the passage came from an unpublished 1995 interview with Empyrean Magazine, which Manson decided to use for the book after the publication cited “unethical interview procedures” were used to gain information from him. In it, Manson says the two “poked our fingers into the birth cavity” of a heavily intoxicated woman.

(via Pitchfork)

One of the greatest things about the American experiment is the idea of self-rule, “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Instead of power being held by a ruling class or monarchical dynasty, we routinely elect our leaders from among the citizenry to represent us in the government.

It’s a system that works well when the representatives we choose are among the best of us. But the fact that virtually anyone can serve as an elected official also leaves us open to potentially disastrous leadership. We could end up with, say, a malignant narcissist autocrat wannabe or a kooky conspiracy theorist in positions of power—a reality that clearly puts the security of the entire country in danger.

The Constitution stipulates the requirements for holding office, and they are extremely simple by design. To serve in Congress, you have to be 25 years old, a citizen for at least seven years, and live in the area you represent. To serve as President, you have to be 35 years old, a natural-born citizen of the U.S. and have lived in the country for 14 years.

That’s it. Super basic. On paper, a guy who collects trash for a living (a noble job—no criticism) is as qualified to be president or a member of Congress as a professor of constitutional law. There are no educational qualifications and no previous job or relevant experience required. There are also no psychological screenings, meaning that, theoretically, a literal psychopath serial killer could be elected to the position that controls the nuclear codes.

A viral video shared by “Politics Girl” highlights how absurdly weird it is that people can get a job in the most powerful positions in our government without being the least bit qualified:

It’s true. There is no official vetting process. And while there are some constitutional disqualifications—such as participating in rebellion or insurrection (ahem), impeachment when included as part of a conviction (double ahem), and not taking the oath of office—most attempts to create additional qualifications have been deemed unconstitutional.

There’s wisdom in that. Adding official qualifications is a slippery slope, and most of what we could come up with would be arbitrary anyway.

Relevant job experience is a definite plus for a person seeking public service, no doubt. But one strength of our representative system is the diversity of experience and perspectives it inevitably brings to the table. Having lawmakers who come from a spectrum of careers and backgrounds is a good thing, and can help ensure that more Americans are seen and heard in our government.

What about education? Most of us would agree that an elected official should be smart and knowledgeable. But how do we measure that? Quality of education can vary greatly, rendering specific levels of education virtually meaningless. Earning a degree might indicate an ability and willingness to learn and work, but it is not a guarantee of intelligence or relevant knowledge. People who haven’t gone to college might have gained skills and insights through service to their community that would be more valuable to governance than book learning. And since there are barriers that make higher education inaccessible for some Americans, having an education requirement would be an unjust form of gatekeeping.

They have to at least know about government, though, right? A certain understanding of civics seems like a logical prerequisite, but how do we measure that? Do we create a test a person has to pass before they can get on a ballot? Might not be a bad idea, but would that actually solve the real problem we’re looking at? A constitutional law degree doesn’t make someone conscientious, and a genocidal maniac could study and pass a civics test.

So how about a psychological screening of some sort? Again, not a bad idea on the surface, but here we run into the issue of who conducts it and what they should look for. Would there actually be a set of dealbreaker diagnoses that would disqualify someone? Or would we just provide the results to the public and let them decide themselves whether a person is fit to serve?

The problem there, of course, is that mental health issues that shouldn’t preclude someone from serving—an anxiety disorder, for example—could unfairly lead people away from a candidate due to the stigma attached to mental health. There’s a huge difference between a run-of-the-mill mental health issue and a full-blown dangerous personality disorder, but any diagnosis could be weaponized. Where and how do we draw the line?

Since party politics is a feature of our system (one that George Washington warned us against, for good reason), some make the argument that the parties themselves need to vet candidates before they get on the primary ballots. A Brookings Institute report from 2018 pointed out that activist groups have begun producing more candidates, which is leading to more underqualified, ideologically extremist candidates. If we’re going to have a two-party system, those two parties need to ensure that the candidates in their parties aren’t total whack jobs. The suggestion made by the report authors is “to strengthen the position of the institutional parties so that they maintain voice and influence in the process of developing candidacies—not instead of voters and activists, but alongside them.”

But what happens if a party itself moves farther to the extremes, either because of the candidates that are getting attention or because the social reality has pushed the voters in that direction? (Ahem, QAnon.)

And isn’t partisan politics itself a big reason we’re in this spot? A system that places people in two distinct boxes is inevitably going to lead to extremism, as parties resort to increasing demonization of the other side as they vie for power and influence.

Lee Drutman, senior fellow at the New America think tank, wrote about why we need multiple parties in the U.S. in 2019:

“Under the two-party system, U.S. politics are stuck in a deep partisan divide, with no clear winner and only zero-sum escalation ahead. Both sides see themselves as the true majority. Republicans hold up maps of the country showing a sea of red and declare America a conservative country. Democrats win the popular vote (because most Americans live in and around a handful of densely populated cities) and declare America a progressive country.

The only way to break this destructive stalemate is to break the electoral and party system that sustains and reinforces it. The United States is divided into red and blue not because Americans want only two choices. In poll after poll, majorities want more than two political parties.”

Expanding our options beyond Republican and Democrat sounds like a fabulous idea in my book.

In the meantime, we the people are still left to vet the people who get put on the ballot. So maybe the answer in the short term is to 1) Encourage and enable better candidates to run for office, and 2) Educate and encourage the voting populace to do a better job of vetting. Relying on a candidate’s own messaging isn’t enough. What have they actually done in their communities? What have they said in public or on social media? Look at various media sources to see what kinds of red flags may have been spotted.

Of course, this process only works if people actually care about not having kooky conspiracy theorists and malignant narcissist authoritarians in our government. Ultimately, when we start electing highly problematic people to lead us, that’s a reflection of where we are as a society. And unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for a voting populace that doesn’t recognize when an elected official is an actual danger to the country and when they’re just being subject to partisan attacks. (A good hint to the former is when members of the official’s own party, especially one that tends to stick together, speak out and say, “Yeah, this is a bridge too far.”)

Answers here aren’t obvious or simple, but it’s clear we need to do something different. The way we’re going now, we very well could end up with a psychopathic serial killer in Congress. And my biggest fear is that a good portion of the nation wouldn’t even blink an eye if we did.

Chrissy Teigen is good at Twitter. She’s also fabulously, unimaginably wealthy. So while she hobnobs with the masses on social media, she also lives a very different life than almost everyone. That was made abundantly clear on Wednesday, when what began as what seemed like a simple prompt — the kinds that yield thousands and thousands of quote-tweets, with hyper-personal responses — turned her into one of the “main characters” of Twitter for a day. That’s to say, she went viral for the wrong reasons.

It began innocently. Teigen thought she had a solid prompt tweet, writing, “what’s the most expensive thing you’ve eaten that you thought sucked?” On a second glance, it’s not the greatest prompt tweet, which tend to be relatable to almost everyone, whereas this one implies that you could at some point afford something deemed “expensive.” But she would have maybe gotten away with it had she not offered her own response.

“one time john” — she wrote, referring to her husband, John Legend — “and I were at a restaurant and the waiter recommended a nice Cabernet. We got the bill and it was 13,000 dollars. HOW DO U CASUALLY RECOMMEND THAT WINE. we didn’t even finish it and it had been cleared!!!”

Teigen tried to make it relatable, with its all-caps bewilderment and suggestion that $13,000 seemed like a lot to a famous model, TV personality, and entrepreneur married to one of the most successful musicians alive. But people did not find it relatable. And so Teigen got aggressively quote-tweeted, but not for the reasons she had hoped.

Some took the waiter’s side.

There were even Parasite jokes.

Eventually Teigen — who, again, is usually good at Twitter — checked back in, attempting damage control, of sorts.

She did, however, have her defenders.

The popular voice-based app Clubhouse has become one of the hottest trends among social media platforms, with celebrities signing on. Names like 21 Savage, Ne-Yo, and Lakeith Stanfield have hopped on the app, but fans of Cardi B are wondering why it’s taking so long for her to get on Clubhouse.

https://archive.vn/o/jOZ66/https://twitter.com/iamcardib/status/1357047747451359232

The rapper took to Twitter on Wednesday to respond to why she hasn’t signed up, saying, “People keep asking me to join clubhouse knowing damn well my mouth gets me in trouble.” To anyone who’s spent any time on Clubhouse, Cardi is right to be wary. In recent months, a number of artists, including Mulatto, Meek Mill, and Kevin Hart, have been brewed controversy with things they’ve said on the app.

While a Clubhouse appearance is unlikely from the Bronx rapper, one thing fans can definitely expect from her is new music. She recently announced that her first song of the year, and follow-up to her recent No. 1 single “WAP,” would arrive at the end of the week. The track is titled “Up” and will most likely appear on her highly-anticipated sophomore album, set to drop later this year.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.