Month: December 2021

The Jan. 6 committee is still amassing information on the lead-up to the Capitol riot, and they’re still dealing with intransigent Trump allies like Mark Meadows. But now a damning piece of evidence has been made public: According to The Guardian, select GOP lawmakers were shown a 38-page PowerPoint detailing how they could overturn the election Trump lost by over seven million votes. And they looked at it not long before violent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.

The PowerPoint, a version of which chief of staff Mark Meadows gave to the committee, was called “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan.” It offered a number of pathways for Trump and cronies to subvert their re-election loss. One instructed Trump to “declare a national emergency, declare all electronic voting invalid, and ask Congress to agree on a constitutionally acceptable remedy.”

It also contained multiple paths for Trump’s number two:

The PowerPoint also outlined three options for then vice-president Mike Pence to abuse his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress on 6 January, when Biden was to be certified president, and unilaterally return Trump to the White House.

Pence could pursue one of three options, the PowerPoint said: seat Trump slates of electors over the objections of Democrats in key states, reject the Biden slates of electors, or delay the certification to allow for a “vetting” and counting of only “legal paper ballots”.

The final option for Pence is similar to an option that was simultaneously being advanced on 4 and 5 January by Trump lieutenants – led by lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, as well as Trump strategist Steve Bannon – working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC.

None of those, of course, happened, and it may be thanks to, of all people, former veep and notorious bad speller Dan Quayle.

The PowerPoint was presented on Jan. 4 to “a number of Republican senators and members of Congress,” though no names were specified. Trump’s lawyers, alas, were not invited to see it. The presentation was mentioned in over 6,000 of the documents Meadows turned over to the committee, and it was pitched to Meadows as a “highly controversial” plan to illegally give Trump four more years.

Though Meadows has played ball with the committee, he’s only done so up to a point. Last week he flip-flopped and refused to formally testify, citing “executive privilege” — the same excuse Trump and other allies have cited, however erroneously, to get out of spilling the beans. The committee has already vowed to find Meadows in contempt of Congress, which perhaps will result in him being cellmates with another, smelly Trump associate: Steve Bannon.

(Via The Guardian)

For about a year and a half, Dr. Dre and his now ex-wife Nicole Young have been entwined in a legal battle over their divorce. Nicole filed for separation in the summer of 2020, and after 18 months it appears that the two parties have finally reached an agreement. On Friday, music executive Breyon Prescott shared a picture of Dre sitting in front of balloons that spelled out “Divorced AF.” “Hey Well My Brother @drdre Just Told Me It’s Final,” Prescott wrote in the caption.

The image comes after a new report from TMZ that said that he and Nicole finalized their divorce agreement. The publication reports that Dre will pay Nicole a lump sum of $2 million and an additional $500,000 to cover her attorney fees. While this is certainly a large amount, it’s significantly less than her initial request, which was $2 million per month in spousal support. TMZ adds that sources with direct knowledge of the deal claim that it has not yet been signed, with one person saying, “This whole thing could blow up again.”

The news comes a little over a month after Dr. Dre was reportedly served divorce papers at the funeral for his late grandmother. In the meantime, Dre is gearing up for his Super Bowl 2022 Halftime Show, which is set to go down in a couple of months. He’ll be accompanied by Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, and Mary J. Blige.

Urban Meyer’s tenure as the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars could be going a whole heck of a lot better. On the field, the team is 2-10, have lose four in a row, and look like a squad that has gotten more and more listless as the season has gone on.

But somehow, these issues pale in comparison to what’s gone on off the field. There was Meyer’s trip to Columbus that occurred after the team lose on Thursday Night Football to the Cincinnati Bengals earlier this year that drew waves of scrutiny and led to whispers that he was on thin ice, for example. And now, a report by Tom Pelissero of NFL.com indicates that things are growing even more tense as Meyer’s “hard-charging and sometimes condescending approach” has led to tensions boiling over.

There are a number of anecdotes in the piece that indicate Meyer’s standing with his players and coaches keeps taking hits. One story, in particular, involves Meyer calling out his coaches in a way that makes it seem like he does not realize he coaches a team that is 2-10.

During a staff meeting, Meyer delivered a biting message that he’s a winner and his assistant coaches are losers, according to several people informed of the contents of the meeting, challenging each coach individually to explain when they’ve ever won and forcing them to defend their résumés.

A constant complaint among Jaguars players is that Meyer apparently “doesn’t treat them like adults,” while it’s not unusual for him to have “tense interactions” with members of his coaching staff. As for their efforts to win game number three, they’ll have quite the task ahead of them on Sunday, as they travel to Tennessee to take on the division-leading Titans.

Warning: This post contains a spoiler for And Just Like That…, which has already made big news but if you’ve avoided it thus far, then tread lightly with the post below.

On Thursday, And Just Like That.., the long-awaited (and, alas, Samantha-less) revival of Sex and the City dropped, and like clockwork, people couldn’t stop talking about one of its biggest twists: Mr. Big (Chris Noth) is no more. The fictional character’s death was so massive it had real-world impact: Peloton, the exercise bike company, on whose product Big suffered a fatal heart attack in episode one, saw its stocks plummet after the episode went live on HBO Max. The news was genuinely shocking — and now we know it’s due in part to the TV-makers doing their best to mislead the press.

The revival’s on-location shoot was breathlessly covered by the paparazzi, with photos regularly showing the cast filming around their old stomping grounds of New York City. Showrunner and executive producer Michael Patrick King said they took advantage of that. As per The Daily Beast, King admitted that he and his team went so far as to stage partially fake scenes to throw off the press’ scent.

“We had to have some red herrings!” King said, revealing that during Big’s funeral scene, he actually had Noth show up, as one of the mourner’s at his own character’s service. But that wasn’t all: Noth was also seen shooting scenes in Paris, which presumably were also intended to throw the press off the scent. (If so, then the actor got a free trip to the City of Lights, which is nothing to sneeze at.)

What’s more, they even planted what appears to be a fake script, suggesting that Big and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) got divorced. The page’s narration had Carrie saying, “I was taping the podcast; I was washing my hair. Yes, I wasn’t eating or sleeping, but at least I felt good about my marriage. Now I’m just one of the wives he was taking care of.”

The plan worked: For months, publications like Page Six speculated that they split up, not that one of them suddenly died after decades of unhealthy New York City living. And all Noth had to do was show up for scenes where he wouldn’t make the final cut. And just like that, everyone is talking about Sex and the City like it was the aughts again.

(Via The Daily Beast)

On January 6 of this year, about-to-be-former president Donald Trump took to a stage outside the White House and whipped-up a massive crowd of already enraged supporters, who’d been fed lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election (that they continue to spread, over a year later). A large portion of them proceeded to bust their way into the Capitol building, leading to five deaths. Whether Trump’s speech directly inspired the violent siege has been hotly debated. But Trump seems to think his fiery rhetoric was actually pretty chill.

Trump phoned into Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show Friday night, and she asked him about his attempts to deflect participating in the Jan. 6 House committee, who have been investigating that day’s events, by invoking “executive privilege.” (Some of his allies, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, have done the same thing, even though that that rule only applies to sitting presidents.) Trump suggested that even if they made him talk, it would still go swimmingly for him.

“Honestly, I have nothing to hide,” Trump told Ingraham. He claimed he “wasn’t involved” in the insurrection, and even painted his pre-siege speech as the opposite of impassioned. “And if you look at my words and what I said in the speech, they were extremely calming, actually.”

Among the things Trump said in his hour-long soliloquy were, “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

During his appearance on Ingraham’s show, Trump also continued to downplay the insurrection. “The insurrection took place on Nov. 3, which was Election Day,” Trump asserted. “This was a protest, and a lot of innocent people are being hurt. A lot of innocent people are being injured.”

He even dramatically lowered the day’s body count while comparing it to Black Lives Matter protests over the preceding summer (where very few people died over hundreds of protests nationwide). “Nobody was killed here other than Ashli Babbitt, who was shot violently by a man who should not have ever been allowed to pull that trigger,” he said. (Five people died that day, not one.)

In the meantime, the Jan. 6 committee continues interviewing hundreds of people, a good many of them who did so willingly. And we’re still learning about some of the perpetrators, including one who claimed he strolled through the Capitol building while pounding Coors Light — which may have been a lie.

(Via Raw Story)

Last Sunday, the same night as one of Succession’s most shocking episodes, The New Yorker dropped a lengthy, revealing profile of one of its more acclaimed cast members, Jeremy Strong. It painted him as intense — not a Method actor, per se, but someone whose approach to playing the deeply troubled Kendall Roy make him at least slightly difficult to work with. The article immediately set off a firestorm, and in the ensuing days longtime friend Jessica Chastain expressed displeasure with the way it was written. Now one of Strong’s directors has done so, too.

On Friday night, Chastain posted a letter from Aaron Sorkin, who directed Strong in The Trial of the Chicago 7, where he played Yippie Jerry Rubin. (He also directed Chastain in Molly’s Game.) Sorkin — who is wisely not on social media — was one of the people quoted in the New Yorker profile, and he worried that he helped contribute to a portrait of him that he felt was inaccurate.

“After reading Michael Schulman’s profile of Jeremy Strong — a profile in which I participated — I wanted to speak up,” Sorkin wrote. “I think I helped Mr. Schulman create what I believe is a distorted picture of Jeremy that asks us to roll our eyes at his acting process.”

Sorkin said he was e-mailed five questions but that “only one and a half of these answers were used.” That, Sorkin wrote, “is perfectly normal,” but they happened to be ones that showed Strong taking his method to extreme measures. One involved him requesting to be tear gassed (Sorkin told him no), and another where he tormented actor Frank Langella, playing a judge, by reading aloud from his (excellent) memoir in “silly voices,” even playing the kazoo as he spoke.

The filmmaker and playwright showed his full responses to Schulman, where he praised Strong’s work on Succession and compared him to Dustin Hoffman.

After the one-two punch of Chastain and Sorkin coming for the New Yorker profile, the publication itself decided to respond. “This is a nuanced, multi-sided portrait of an extremely dedicated actor,” they wrote in a statement to Deadline. “It has inspired a range of reactions from people, including many who say that they are even more impressed by Jeremy Strong’s artistry after having read the article.”

In the meantime, since the public got a fuller picture of Strong’s methodology, it’s sparked a conversation about actors whose dedication can sometimes take them to extremes — and, in Strong’s case, get results. Still, his onscreen pops, Brian Cox, does worry.

(Via Deadline)

In the post-social media world, it’s easier than ever for musicians and celebrities to connect with one another. And, it’s not surprising that the new class of female songwriters would find solace in each other’s work, just as much as their fans do. I’m talking about Taylor Swift being a fan of Phoebe Bridgers, Phoebe Bridgers giving Olivia Rodrigo advice on tour, Olivia Rodrigo name checking how much she loves Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever — you know, just girly things.

In case you missed that last one, actually, it’s part of a recent new Los Angeles Times profile by critic Mikael Wood, who sat down with Olivia to talk about her incredibly successful year and all those Grammy nominations. Along with Olivia praising Billie’s latest album — “I’m obsessed with her new record,” Rodrigo said — there’s a choice quote from Phoebe praising Olivia that fans will be sure to love.

“Olivia’s music is so exacting — it makes you feel something,” Bridgers told The Times. She further noted that the industry “tries to defame musicians that teenage girls love, even though they forget that teenage girls invented the Beatles.” And she finished by noting that usually women who get into the industry at such a young age are dismissed: “It’s cool to see people finally be taken seriously at her age.”

Did you know Olivia was also at Phoebe’s recent show at the Greek? Incredible stuff. Check out the whole article here.

The Charlotte Hornets are awfully shorthanded right now, as the team is without LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier, and a handful of other players due to injuries and the league’s health and safety protocols. Despite this, Charlotte defended its home court on Friday night against the Sacramento Kings, 124-123, although it took quite the journey to get there.

The Hornets had the ball with the shot clock turned off and the game tied at 123. Thanks to a layup by Cody Martin and a foul, it appeared he was going to go to the charity stripe to ice it with 5.5 seconds left, but a review indicated that Martin’s foot hit the ground before he shot the layup. Because the foul happened before that, he went to the free throw line for a pair of shots and hit one.

Martin looked like he was going to be the scapegoat moments later, when he appeared to lose track of whether the Hornets had a foul to give and fouled De’Aaron Fox. He managed to get bailed out four times, though: Fox, who is shooting a career-high 74.1 percent on free throws this season, went 0-for-2, and in the ensuing scrum, the Kings missed both of their tip-in attempts to steal a win.

Ever since rumors abuot Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles dating began to swirl, the actress and filmmaker has faced harassment and an incredibly sexist narrative due to the age gap between her and the former One Direction star. Harry is 27, and Olivia is 37, a perfectly normal and even small age gap if it was reversed in Hollywood, but because of rampant sexism, Olivia has had to deal with lots of useless commentary about her age. And all that attention has come while she’s been trying to work on her second feature length film, Don’t Worry Darling — the follow up to her acclaimed breakout, Booksmart — which happens to star her boyfriend as well.

Olivia praising Harry’s acting is part of what first led to rumors the pair were a couple, and since then both parties have mostly kept their mouth shut about the relationship. But in a recent cover story for Vogue, Wilde had to admit that her happiness is part of what makes her want to speak out against the endless media scrutiny.

“It’s obviously really tempting to correct a false narrative,” she began. “But I think what you realize is that when you’re really happy, it doesn’t matter what strangers think about you. All that matters to you is what’s real, and what you love, and who you love. In the past 10 years, as a society, we have placed so much more value on the opinion of strangers rather than the people closest to us. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. And I’m healthier than I’ve ever been, and it’s just wonderful to feel that.”

As Vogue further points out, she never quite confirms the relationship by name… but we all see the writing on the wall. And as far as happier than ever, well, I kind of think I would be too if I was dating Harry Styles — or making a film starring him. And while you’re here, check out a teaser trailer for Don’t Worry Darling above.

Over the last couple years, the world of hard seltzer was exploding with new additions. It seemed like every time you turned around, another brand had launched their own version, including several celebrity-backed options. One of which was Travis Scott’s Cacti hard seltzer, which he announced last winter and we gave a full review of this summer. Up until the last few months, it seemed like the seltzer was just another extension of Travis’ many brand collabs, like his McDonalds deal or the merch that went along with it.

But today, in a statement reported by AdAge, the seltzer’s backer Anheuser-Busch has announced the drink will be no more. It’s likely that the move is due to the continuing fallout from Scott’s Astroworld festival, which tragically left nine concertgoers dead due to trampling and crowd control issues.

“After careful evaluation, we have decided to stop all production and brand development of Cacti Agave Spiked Seltzer,” Anheuser-Busch said in a statement. “We believe brand fans will understand and respect this decision.” Though asked directly if the decision was due to the events at Astroworld, the brewer declined to comment further, and so far, Scott hasn’t issued a comment about the decision either.