Month: October 2021

Andrew Yang hasn’t shown the best decision-making skills about his media appearances, and CNN’s Jim Acosta has certainly noticed. The anchor grilled the former presidential and New York City mayoral candidate on Saturday over his decision to appear on Tucker Carlson’s show in an effort to reach a new audience for his fledgling new political party.

Months ago Yang famously appeared on comedian Ziwe’s talk show, where he struggled to name a Jay-Z song and also inexplicably named the Times Square MTA stop his favorite. Those answers didn’t sit very well with New Yorkers, most of whom didn’t vote for him. But that was nothing like when he chatted with Tucker Carlson during his daytime talk show. On Saturday, as The Daily Beast noted. Jim Acosta confronted him about the appearance, taking particular umbrage with how said nothing to challenge the host as he praised, of all people, the Unabomber.

“Tucker Carlson… I mean, let’s just say he’s a bad person,” Acosta said. “And he represents so much of what is wrong in television news these days. You know this all too well; he spouts off white nationalist talking points. So why would you even go on his show?”

Acosta was more direct with his second question: Why didn’t Yang “go after” the Fox host when “he’s citing the Unabomber and just talking about crazy stuff?”

As The Daily Beast noted, Yang did his best to defend himself, saying he was attempting to reach more people for his political party.

“As you know, Tucker commands a massive audience, and if you wanted to try and build a unifying popular movement that does call attention to the fact that our system’s not working, really, for anyone, you have to, again, reach out,” Yang continued.

“And that’s what I was doing on that show. I mean, the goal is to have Republicans who are discontent to channel their discontent in a positive way. And right now, in my view, it’s not going in a positive direction. I’d like to help change that.”

He doubled down on that sentiment afterward on Twitter.

We’ll see if trying to embrace everyone works for Yang, but it’s clear that not everyone is buying it.

[via The Daily Beast]

With Saturday Night Live’s 47th season underway, Kim Kardashian assumed the duty of host for its most recent episode. She began the night with an entertaining monologue that was received well by audience members. Later on in the night, Kim returned to participate in a courtroom sketch that found her taking the role of a judge while simultaneously playing her sister, Kourtney Kardashian. In the sketch, Kim somewhat delivers decisions on family matters which includes Kylie Jenner’s “overdue” baby, Kendall Jenner’s lack of drama, and Kanye West’s tweets.

In the sketch, Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian appear as themselves while other SNL cast members and guests assumed the role of Kardashian family members and friends. Halsey appeared as Kendall Jenner, Melissa Villaseñor as Kylie Jenner, Heidi Gardner as Kim Kardashian, and Mikey Day played Travis Barker. Chris Redd also appeared as Kanye West, Pete Davidson as Machine Gun Kelly, and Chloe Fineman as Megan Fox. All in all, it was an enjoyable sketch that poked fun at the Kardashian family and their friends.

Kim’s monologue was highlighted by her making jokes about her and Kanye West’s divorce earlier this year. “I mean, I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America, a talented, legit genius, who gave me four incredible kids,” she says. “So when I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality.”

You can watch The People’s Kourt sketch in the video above.

Prequels have long been one of Hollywood’s favorite genres, but surely the one about Willy Wonka seemed unexpected. But it had good pedigree: It was being helmed by Paul King, best known as the auteur behind the Paddington series. And Wonka, usually played by weirdos like Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp, was going to be played by an actual hottie: Timothée Chalamet. And on Sunday, the actor decided to introduced the public to the first look at him in his Wonka garb himself.

“The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last,” Chalamet wrote on Instagram alongside two pics: one of him in a crushed raspberry turncoat and hat, the other a close-up of his walking cane, the top of which contained a miniature wrapped gift.

Not even 26, Chalamet will be far younger than previous Wonka actors. Wilder was in his late 30s when he made 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, while Depp was in his early 40s in the more accurately titled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for frequent director Tim Burton.

Based on the photo, Chalamet’s Wonka looks far more brooding than either. The prequel will follow Wonka before he becomes the honcho of a giant chocolate factory, so perhaps he learned to become an eccentric ham a little later on.

The photos caused a big uproar on social media, including a wide array of jokes.

Anyway, get ready for a Hot Willy Wonka Who F*cks, looks like.

(Via EW)

The Chicago Sky made the trek to Phoenix on Sunday for Game 1 of the WNBA Finals against the Mercury, as the 6-seed took on the 5-seed in a matchup of teams that have had to grind through the entirety of the WNBA playoff format.

In the first quarter, the Mercury took early control at home, leading by as many as nine in the opening period and took a five-point advantage into the second quarter. However, it was in that second quarter that the Sky took over, going on a 17-0 run to turn a 29-33 deficit into a 46-33 lead in just under five minutes of game time. Candace Parker led the way in that stretch with seven points, as the Sky locked down on defense and turned around and ran beautiful offense on the other end to extend a double-digit lead into halftime.

Parker finished with 16 points, seven rebounds, three assists, two steals, and two blocks, as the future Hall of Famer did a little bit of everything for the Sky. Allie Quigley added 18 points and Courtney Vandersloot had 12 points and 11 assists, but it was Kahleah Copper (21 points, 10 rebounds) who did the most damage in the second half to help the Sky extend their lead out to 20 and effectively put away the Mercury with sharp shooting (2-of-4 from deep) and flat out out-working Phoenix.

Also playing a big role for the Sky was Stefanie Dolson, as she came in and provided a different look for Britney Griner, who still put up 20 points, six rebounds, and three assists, but wasn’t nearly as impactful as she had been throughout these playoffs. Dolson’s combination of size inside and her ability to pull Griner out of the paint on the other end, spacing the floor by hitting 2-of-3 from deep on her way to 14 points, proved to be a wrinkle that the Mercury weren’t quite ready for in the opener.

Phoenix would pull back to within 12 late in the fourth, but could never mount much of a real threat to the Sky in the second half, losing 91-77, as they’ll have plenty to work out before Game 2 on Tuesday. They got some quality production out of Griner, Diana Taurasi (17 points), and Skylar Diggins-Smith (15 points), but need to get some of their others going and, most importantly, have to find a way to disrupt the Sky better on offense, because Chicago was able to get to their spots and produce good looks far too easily for Phoenix’s liking.

We’re closing in on a year since the 2020 election, which wasn’t as terrible for Republicans as it could have been but was bad for one of them: former president Donald Trump, who lost to Joe Biden by over eight million votes. Ever since then, Trump and a number of loyalists have claimed, without proof, that voter fraud robbed him of a second term. Some of them are even getting sued to kingdom come. And it’s probably not great that some prominent GOP leaders still refuse to admit Biden won fair and square.

One of them is Steve Scalise. The House Minority Whip went on Fox News, surely hoping for a softball interview. Instead he got Chris Wallace, who has long had no problem grilling Republicans — Trump among them — on issues that actually matter.

At one point during the interview, Wallace asked him, point blank, if Trump’s re-election was stolen from him, tacking on another query: Does questioning the legitimacy of elections, including those considered to be safe by authorities, as last year’s was, “hurts or undermines American democracy.”

Scalise, of course, didn’t answer it point blank. Instead, the congressman — one of a number of Republicans who voted against the certification of the election, even after the Capitol attack — “didn’t follow their state passed laws that govern the election for president.”

But Wallace wasn’t having that. He inferred that what he was really saying was yes. “So you think the election was stolen?” he asked. Again, Scalise dodged it. So Wallace tried one more time.

“I guess the question is: Do you think the election was stolen or not? Last time, I promise. I understand there are irregularities and things that needed to be fixed,” the veteran anchor continued. “Do you think the election was stolen?”

But Scalise wasn’t budging, which is to say he wasn’t answering his question. But surely there’s nothing to worry about when prominent Republicans refuse to say whether or not America’s voting system works.

Megan Thee Stallion has extreme pride in her hometown of Houston as well as her home state of Texas, so it’s no surprise that the rapper is extremely vocal about the state’s controversial abortion bill. The law prohibits women who are more than six weeks pregnant from getting the procedure, and after the bill was upheld and reinstated by an appeals court, Megan Thee Stallion used her performance at the Austin City Limits festival over the weekend to speak out against the it and show support for her fellow Texans.

“This middle finger is also to these muthaf*ckin’ men that want to tell us what the f*ck to do with our body,” she told the ACL festival crowd according to local news station KXAN. “Cuz how the f*ck you gonna tell me what to do with my muthaf*ckin’ body? Drop that sh*t.”

The rapper doubled down on her stance against the bill in an Instagram post afterward. “Y’all know I’m a Texas girl and we deserve better!” she wrote in the post’s caption. “Politicians want to cut off abortion access and control our bodies, lives, and futures — I’m speaking up.”’

This comes after Megan was surprised by Miley Cyrus during the first weekend of the Austin City Limits festival. As the rapper performed on stage, Cyrus joined Megan to show off a few dance moves before returning backstage.

You can view her Instagram post above.

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

Sunday was the worst kicking day of the season around the NFL, as missed extra points and field goals were a story throughout the early window across pro football. Nowhere was it worse than in Cincinnati, where the game refused to end thanks to missed kicks on both sides, with the two teams combining to miss five consecutive field goals to take the lead late after it was tied at 22-22 — thanks in part to a missed extra point by the Packers early in the game.

It started with a missed 36 yarder by Mason Crosby with just over two minutes to play. Evan McPherson followed that up by doinking a 57-yarder off the right upright with 26 seconds to go, setting the Packers up near midfield needing just a field goal to get a win themselves. After moving the ball inside the 35, Mason Crosby strolled out for a game-winner at the buzzer from 51 yards away, only to tug it left (again) and send the game to overtime.

The Packers picked off Joe Burrow on the Bengals first series and were immediately in “field goal range,” a concept that had lost all meaning at this point, and after playing very conservatively, Crosby again yanked a game-winning kick left to give Cincy life once more.

The Bengals were able to get into Green Bay territory and set up a long game-winning attempt of their own, but this time McPherson pulled the kick left, clipping the flag on top of the goal post as it sailed just wide. It was so close that McPherson and the Bengals were celebrating, thinking they made it, only to learn it was, in fact, not good and the game would continue.

Green Bay would eventually get into field goal range thanks to a rather incredible throw on 3rd and long from Aaron Rodgers to Randall Cobb, but it came up just shy of the first down. On 4th and inches with two minutes to play, the Packers trotted Crosby out once again with the game on the line from 49 yards out, but this time the veteran was able to knock it through, putting a merciful end to an excruciating game on both sides.

It was a truly horrific kicking performance all the way around, and Crosby’s reaction after hitting a game-winner says it all, as he just shrugged and strolled towards the sideline with an exasperated “finally.” On the other side, it’ll be a lot of “what if” talk and frustration for the Bengals, who will feel like they let this one get away — and not totally due to the right foot of McPherson.

Democrats control all three branches of government, but that hasn’t stopped one of their biggest arch-nemeses: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The longtime progressive adversary somehow seems to have more power than ever, due in part to his utter shamelessness: He will do anything, even threaten to tank the economy, to show off the power he should no longer have. So when he finally agreed last week to raise the debt ceiling through December, thus avoiding an almost certain economic apocalypse, SNL wasn’t exactly impressed.

During the most recent episode’s Weekend Update, Colin Jost saved a small but savage section for Congress’ most powerful Republican. He mentioned McConnell’s move this week, but he didn’t praise him for clearing the lowest possible bar. Instead, Jost showed a picture of McConnell smiling and flashing a thumbs up, which he said showed him “watching a child fall into the gorilla enclosure.”

McConnell’s gesture this week ensured that we’ll all be back to worrying about the debt ceiling limit — which is sky high thanks to wild spending by the Trump administration, under McConnell’s watch — in two months. “At that point,” Jost joked, “it’ll be almost Christmas, and McConnell will be busy going around to Toys for Tots bins and gluing them shut.”

Jost and co-anchor Michael Che had a lot of scorn to go around during their segment, scorching the likes of Facebook, Instagram, even the night’s host, Kim Kardashian West. But only McConnell got jokes about delighting in the misery of children.

You can watch the segment in the video above.

Olivia Rodrigo has had a great 2021. The singer had her smash debut single “Drivers License,” which spent several weeks at No. 1 on the singles chart. Her debut album Sour was also a big success, debuting atop the Billboard 200. In a recent interview on CBS Sunday Morning, Rodrigo talked about the many “heartbreak songs” that can be found on her discography, as well as how much they relate to her current life.

“I’ve always been obsessed with heartbreak songs. I wrote heartbreak songs before I ever had a boyfriend, honestly,” Rodrigo admitted. “I’ve always been obsessed with that feeling. There’s nothing more painful that being in that feeling of loss.” She discussed “Drivers License” and how personal that song is to her. “I just remember writing it and feeling like it was a page ripped out of my diary, because it was so intimate and vulnerable,” she said. “I just think there was no other option for me: I had to write it, I had to write it for me, to get it out. I would feel sick if I kept all of that in, but really at the core of it I had to do it for myself.”

She continued, “I was really sad, I was a 17-year-old girl going through my first real heartbreak, but I think a lot of people also think that — listening to my music — I’m a sad, depressed person; that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Definitely not crying on my bedroom floor all the time.”

This comes after Rodrigo spoke to Teen Vogue about working on her sophomore album. “I’m gonna take my time to figure out exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it,” she said.

The Houston Texans are a desperate team, as anyone starting Davis Mills at quarterback is wont to be. They’re going for it on fourth down regularly these days, which certainly seemed necessary when they lost 40-0 to the Buffalo Bills. Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots saw more trickery and desperation, but to much better results. That is, until it all went disastrously wrong on a play where, somehow, the Texans blocked their own punt.

After a Mills flea flicker touchdown put the Texans up 22-9 in the third quarter, Houston was forced into punt formation for the first time all game on the next possession. This is a special teams unit that had already missed two extra points and had a kickoff go out of bounds, and they somehow decided that punter Cameron Johnston should get involved in the chicanery.

Johnston was in punt formation when things got wonky before the snap. He ran up to the line of scrimmage, apparently to run something other than a punt, but then aborted the fake punt and backpedaled a bit. But he didn’t go back to his original punting position 15 yards deep in the backfield, which is why his punt attempt doinked right off a blocking teammate’s helmet.

There are a lot of unanswered questions here, and my fear is that those involved will take these horrible secrets to the grave rather than admit what the hell actually happened here. Why did Johnson try to punt it from three yards behind his own lineman? Why did they not just call a timeout and admit whatever was going on here did not go according to plan? Why did he kick what clearly was not going to clear the line of his own teammates, let alone a Patriots special teams unit clearly gunning for the punter in a weird position?

The play set the Patriots up in Texans territory, but they only managed a field goal out of what was a horrible miscue. Later in the game, Johnston managed to get off a punt from normal depth that wasn’t a complete disaster. So maybe don’t expect to see Houston attempt something like that again anytime soon. If only for the concussion risk to their own lineman.