Month: April 2021

While the rest of the co-hosts on The View were able to set aside political differences and credit Ivanka Trump for encouraging people to get the COVID vaccine, Meghan McCain couldn’t do the same when it came time to discuss the showdown in Congress on Thursday that resulted in Maxine Waters telling Jim Jordan to “shut your mouth” after he continued to speak out of turn and berate Dr. Fauci. Instead of conceding that Jordan was out of line by hurling Republican talking points at Fauci, McCain announced that everyone “looked bad” including Waters and Democratic congressman James Clyburn, who simply tried to restore order.

McCain then tore into Congress for having a “61 percent disapproval rate” before she launched into a defense of Republican’s distrust in government. Via Mediaite:

“Republicans are contrarian. They’re skeptical of big government. That is who we are. It’s in my DNA and makeup to question authority and question government,” McCain said. “We think big government is bad. We don’t think that bending the knee to big government is the answer to everything. That’s a difference between Democrats and Republicans.”

But despite McCain’s lecture on how it’s in Republicans’ nature to “question authority” — in this case, necessary COVID restrictions — she then argued that to blame Republicans for politicizing the pandemic is “intellectually dishonest.” OK.

Unlike McCain, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel had no problem calling out “meathead” Jim Jordan for arguing with Fauci during his Thursday night monologue. “This guy has been doing this forever. He’s giving his very educated opinions,” Kimmel said in defense of Fauci. “The closest Jim Jordan ever got to being an infectious disease is contracting scabies on a wrestling mat.”

(Via Mediaite)

Brooklyn drill star Fivio Foreign has been quiet to start the year, but today he broke his silence with the video for “Self Made.” Over a video game-y loop with monstrous bass, Fivio details his accomplishments and stills his haters, challenging them to “make another one” and sneering “I hope a lot of n****s get sanctioned.” The simple video follows Fivio as he parties and records flanked by women and goons.

Before taking a break in Q1, Fivio dominated much of 2020, garnering a spot on the XXL Freshman cover and popping up as a coveted guest feature with all sorts of collaborators — mainly New Yorkers. He assisted Lil Tjay in 2020 on “Zoo York” with the late Pop Smoke — a feat he followed up this year on Tjay’s “Headshot” featuring Polo G — then lent his co-sign to Young M.A and DreamDoll on “Move Like A Boss” and “Ah Ah Ah,” respectively. He stepped outside the confines of the Big Apple to work with Polo G on “Bop It,” helping to form the foundation of their chemistry on “Headshot” later on.

Fivio also worked with more Midwestern artists throughout the year, including Big Sean on Hit-Boy’s “Salute” and King Von on “Trust.” Now that he’s cracked the seal on 2021, we can likely expect him to provide updates on his upcoming debut album B.I.B.L.E (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth) any day now.

Watch Fivio Foreign’s “Self Made” video above.

Troye Sivan has done a fine job at recruiting big-time collaborators over the course of his music career. His 2018 album Bloom has a song with Ariana Grande, he teamed up with Kacey Musgraves and Mark Ronson on “Easy” a few months ago, and now he has “You,” a fresh track with Tate McRae and Regard.

The punchy electro-pop tune is ready to soundtrack a summer night out, and on it, Sivan and McRae sing about being fixated on somebody they’re not over yet: “When I try to fall back, I fall back to you / When I talk to my friends, I talk about you / When the Hennessy’s strong, all I see is you.”

In a recent interview with Uproxx, McRae summarized where she’s at now with her music career, saying, “The crazy thing is that I’m still trying to find my sound. I think there are a million different ways that you can play around, and a different million different artists [to work with] that will shoot you in different directions. But I can’t really define what I do [musically]. I think it changes every month… You can do so many things nowadays. […] I get in my head a lot, and I think it’s because I’m so focused on what I’m doing that I doubt myself. But I’m super proud of everything I’ve done. I’m so happy that everything’s out there.”

Listen to “You” above.

In 2015, Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price had a life-changing epiphany.

Price, who founded Gravity with his brother in 2004, was out hiking in the Cascade Mountains with his friend, Valerie. She told him her landlord had raised her rent by $200 and she was struggling to get by on her $40,000 a year income. Price, who was making $1.1 million a year as CEO of Gravity, was struck by her story. Not only did he feel for Valerie—a military veteran working two jobs and barely making ends meet—realized that some of his own employees might be facing similar struggles.

And they were. One employee frankly told him his entry-level salary was a rip-off. Another employee had secretly been working at McDonald’s outside of work hours to make ends meet. So Price decided to make a drastic change by investing in his employees.

He researched how much money the average person would need in order to live comfortably and settled on $70,000 a year. In one fell swoop, he dropped his own salary to that amount, while also making it the minimum salary for anyone who worked at Gravity.

The move drew media coverage—and dire predictions from pundits. On Fox News and other conservative outlets he was called “foolish,” a “socialist” and a “lunatic of lunatics.” Rush Limbaugh called the company policy “pure unadulterated socialism” that was “going to fail” and should be a case study in MBA programs on how socialism doesn’t work. Talking heads predicted that his employees would end up in the welfare line.

Six years later, Price has proved the haters wrong—by a lot.

Sharing a video with clips from those outspoken detractors on Twitter, Price wrote:

“6 years ago today I raised my company’s min wage to $70k. Fox News called me a socialist whose employees would be on bread lines. Since then our revenue tripled, we’re a Harvard Business School case study & our employees had a 10x boom in homes bought.

Always invest in people.”

He then added:

“Since our $70k min wage was announced 6 years ago today: Our revenue tripled, headcount grew 70 percent, customer base doubled, babies had by staff grew 10x, 70 percent of employees paid down debt, homes bought by employees grew 10x, 401(k) contributions grew 155 percent, [and] turnover dropped in half.”

The business is thriving, his employee numbers have grown from 130 to 200, and they’ve expanded to a second office in Boise, Idaho. And perhaps most notably, the highest-paid employee makes four times the salary of the lowest-paid employee, not 33 times.

The benefits of taking care of his employees extended into the pandemic, which led to the company taking a 55% revenue hit overnight. Rather than lay people off—with Gravity has never done in its 17-year history—Price held a call with his employees and explained the company’s situation. He didn’t want anyone to lose their job, and he also didn’t want to jack up prices on the small businesses that relied on their services.

In response, nearly every employee offered to take a temporary, voluntary pay cut, ranging from 5% to 100%. That’s the kind of loyalty money and support can buy. And it worked—those employees have been repaid and the company is now giving out raises.

Price is outspoken about his company’s success because he believes it’s a model other companies should follow if they are able. CEO salaries have risen 940% since 1978, while average worker salaries have only risen 12%. The longer that discrepancy goes on, the more normal it becomes in people’s minds, but Price is on a mission to disrupt that norm and convince people that paying employees well pays off in a multitude of ways.

Price says he doesn’t miss anything about the millionaire lifestyle he lived prior to his pay cut. “Money buys happiness when you climb out of poverty,” he wrote on Twitter. “But going from well-off to very well-off won’t make you happier. Doing what you believe is right will.”

Investing in people is what Price believes is right, and he’s lived that belief—successfully—for six years and counting.

The pandemic has revealed how much money there truly is at the top, as billionaires got 54% richer over the past year and while millions of people took devastating financial hits, and large company CEOs received huge bonuses while laying off lower-level employees. Let’s encourage more corporate leaders to take a page out of Dan Price’s book and invest in the people who made them successful in the first place. Those investments can pay off big time, as Price—and now others—have repeatedly proven.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and fellow Republican House member Lauren Boebert are making headlines (again), this time for voting against a bill that has enormous bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

Greene, who’s still waiting for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to answer her debate challenge, and Boebert both rejected a bill that would reauthorize the National Marrow Donor Program. Under The Transplant Act, the program would continue to receive funding for vital research necessary to save the lives of those living with rare and often fatal blood diseases. The program has been around for decades, and it manages a system that matches donors to those needing life-saving blood transplants and marrow donations.

Which sounds like a really great service that could save thousands of lives and should be supported by our representatives in Congress whose job is to serve the public, right? But somehow, Greene and Boebert have found a way to tie the program to that most beloved of all far-right talking points: the pro-life debate.

Greene’s spokesman, Nick Dyer, had this to say about the Congresswoman’s decision:

“Nothing in this bill prevents the funding of aborted fetal tissue by taxpayers. It opens the door for the NIH to use this bill to research the remains of babies who were murdered in the womb.”

We could wade into this exhausting argument about whether life begins at conception or not and debunk all the myths surrounding late-term abortions — which is undoubtedly what Greene wants us to do — but instead, we’ll just point toward the fact that abortion is legal, what a woman does with her body is her choice, and that programs proven to save lives should be prioritized over conspiracy-mongering.

Oh, and we’ll also round up some really sharp Twitter commentary on the subject:

Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey have reunited in the new video for “Where I Belong,” which picks up where their 2002 video for “I Know What You Want” left off. You may remember how that video ended on a cliffhanger, with an SUV full of masked men rushing Busta’s mansion to the blaring sounds of his It Ain’t Safe No More… album cut “Call The Ambulance.”

“Where I Belong” taps into a similar aesthetic, even replaying the scene as Busta monologues, “The past chases you until it catches you.” The narrative picks up “18 years later” with a cameo from Trippie Redd, who calls up Busta and tells him that he’s found the missing Tae (LaShontae Heckard) and sets off another action-packed clip in which the veteran rapper picks up his old partner Michael Jai White for an assault on a pair of samurai in their pursuit of the missing paramour.

However, as the two would-be saviors learn, things aren’t always as they seem. As the video plays out, Busta and Mariah’s performance sequences cut in to remind viewers of the two stars’ indelible chemistry. The video, which was originally posted to Facebook Watch, has finally found its way to YouTube, prompting a fresh wave of interest.

“Where I Belong” is the latest single from Busta’s recently released Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God, itself a nod to his radio-dominating heyday. Even more nostalgia ensues on prior videos “Outta My Mind” with Bell Biv Devoe, and the Mad magazine-referencing video for “Yuuuu” with Anderson .Paak.

Watch the “Where I Belong” video above.

If you scroll down Taylor Swift’s social media feeds, it won’t take too long before you come across a photo of one of her cats. Over the past year or so, though, some fans have noticed that one of those felines, Meredith, hasn’t popped up in a post in a while. Swifties began to wonder what happened to the cat, and now Swift has taken it upon herself to offer an explanation.

In the description of a video shared on social media this afternoon, Swift wrote, “WELL WELL WELL you all really went out and left my greatest expectations in shambles this week. Word on the street is you made Fearless (my version) the biggest country album first week of the last 6 years and the top release of 2021 so far. Honestly??? How?? Did I get this lucky???? I wanted to say thank you to you so today I will be addressing a very pressing issue.”

Holding her cat Benjamin Button, Swift says, “We’ve been hearing some rumors on the internet recently… they’re not about you, Benj’, they’re about your sister.” Swift then shared screenshots of comments from fans wondering where Meredith has been, then wrote in text, “The truth is, Meredith just HATES having her picture taken.” She then goes on to show a series of funny and awkward photos of the cat. Swift concluded, “So yup, there it is, there you have it. That’s the explanation: She’s just a really private little cat. She likes her business kept to herself, she doesn’t like a camera shoved in her face, and who can blame her? So um, there’s your update on Meredith.” Swift then ended the video with a clip of her asking Meredith, who gets herself away from Swift as she speaks, “Do you have any comment on the recent allegations that you’re a missing cat?”

Check out the video above and learn more about Swift’s cats, and the pets of some other musicians, here.

Calling Mel Kiper Jr. the GOAT of NFL Draft coverage undersells his importance to a gigantic date on the league’s offseason calendar. Kiper hopped onto ESPN Daily with Pablo Torre on Friday to discuss his role in growing the industry, from his pre-ESPN days to his role as the face of Draft coverage for the Worldwide Leader for nearly four decades.

All of it’s good, and if you like Draft talk, we highly recommend listening. Having said this, there is one thing we need to highlight from the episode, something Kiper tweeted about after it was posted:

Pause.

Ok, so, I read this tweet and felt compelled to immediately find where in the episode Kiper discusses how he consumes pizza. It turns out this was not an inside joke between himself and Torre — after discussing his well-documented breakfast that he eats whenever he can get his hands on it (pumpkin pie with whipped cream), Kiper broke down how he consumes pizza with the same gusto that he breaks down tape on a safety out of UT-Chattanooga with an UDFA grade.

“This is what I do, Pablo,” Kiper said at the 21:07 mark of the pod. “I take the cheese off. I take the cheese off the pizza, ok? And I eat the pizza with mashed potatoes. So mashed potatoes and pizza without cheese is what I do. Now, you say — and I think I’m healthy because I’m not eating the cheese, right? I don’t eat the cheese, I just leave a little on there for the flavor. You’re just like, ‘Why do you get away…’ the cheese does give you the flavor, and I do leave a little bit on … just a liiiiittle, just a liiiiittle, but it’s mostly just the sauce and the dough, and then I put the mashed potatoes on it, and that’s what I do.”

As someone whose last name ends in a vowel and calls Naples their ancestral home, I found this baffling. Beyond the fact that this is essentially carbohydrates + tomato sauce + a different carbohydrate and eating it would almost certainly require a nap, the issue I am having is wrapping my head around what this tastes like. Mashed potatoes are, obviously, terrific, but this seems like it’d just be a big textural mess with some tang from tomato sauce. And even then, unless these potatoes are really cheesy and really garlicky, it’s just hard to fathom how this works. While I am very much empathetic to baked potato pizzas, which does not have cheese and sauce but covers it with potatoes and things like cheese and bacon, this is very much not that.

Mel, you’re a legend, but candidly, this seems not great, although I am willing to try the exact slice you have — from the pizza place you like the most, with your preferred mashed potatoes — to reevaluate. Feel free to email at your leisure.

Last year, the Fox News nighttime talk-show response to Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot and killed two Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, was not a good look. Tucker Carlson defended the 17-year-old vigilante, and Sean Hannity’s Fox News show hosted Pam Bondi, who declared the following in the below video: “You’ve got a little boy out there trying to protect his community…”

Well, Sean Hannity is now under fire for his reaction to Chicago police shooting and killing 13-year-old Adam Toledo in late March. CNN published body-cam footage, which police claim shows that Toledo had been holding a gun. It appears as though an officer shot him while he began to raise both hands, and the Toledo family attorney maintains that Toledo was not holding a gun when he was shot by an officer that fired a lone bullet. On a Thursday episode of Hannity’s radio show (The Sean Hannity Show), the host stepped in it by referring to Toledo as “a man.” Here’s what he said:

“We are awaiting the release this hour of Chicago Police bodycam footage that captured the fatal police shooting of a young 13 year old man by the name of Adam Toledo. And if social media is any indication, there’s a lot of chatter today about possible unrest. I hope it doesn’t happen but with Chicago’s track record, every weekend — you know, I guess, you’d have to go with the odds, considering there are dozens and dozens of shootings and killings every weekend in Chicago — that this might not be particularly good.”

As one can imagine, the double-standard here is not going over well. The backlash has begun with everyone from Richard Marx to George Takei calling out Hannity’s unexplainable decision to refer to Toledo as “a man.” Will Hannity issue a correction? We’ll have to wait and see.

(Via MediaMatters)

In a storyline that only ALLBLACK could cook up, the Bay Area rapper takes a job at a bakery and saves the day when things get real in his hilarious new video for “Ego.” Assisting him in the shenanigans are Drakeo The Ruler and Kenny Beats, who play supporting roles and provide a crunchy, post-hyphy beat, respectively.

The video opens with ALLBLACK and his partners shooting dice in the back of the bakery before getting narced by ALLBLACK’s “cousin,” the bakery manager. He tells them that Drakeo is coming in later, so they take over the store, tying him to a chair and blasting ALLBLACK’s new song on the radio.

Unfortunately, the next person who comes in is a masked robber, who tries to stick up the employees. When they discover he has no gun inside his threatening paper bag, ALLBLACK decks him and becomes a hero. Meanwhile, Drakeo is also being hailed as a hero elsewhere after rescuing a cat from a tree, receiving a key to the city at a press conference with a hating-ass superhero in attendance.

Kenny Beats makes a cameo in a separate scene, riding a shopping cart down one of the Bay’s notorious hills with ALLBLACK as they’re pursued by an exasperated police officer.

“Ego” is the first single from his upcoming debut album TY4FWM, which is due May 7 via his own Play Runners label and distributed by Empire. Features will include E-40 (of course), G-Eazy (naturally), Mozzy (!), Sada Baby (!!), and Vince Staples (!!!).

Watch the “Ego” video above.