Month: June 2022

This weekend saw some ugly in-fighting amongst the Republican Party. At a GOP conference in Texas, Ted Cruz was heckled by a young conservative, while Dan Crenshaw and his staff were violently attacked. But a Senate candidate took it way, way further.

In a deranged new ad, Eric Greitens — a former Navy SEAL and ex-governor of Missouri, who resigned in disgrace — declares, with a big shotgun in his hands that he’s “going RINO hunting.” RINO, of course, means Republican In Name Only, designated for those who don’t pay absolute fealty to the party line. “The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice.”

The ad then shows Greitens and a gang of men in tactical gear as they break into a house, throw a smoke bomb, and enter, ready to…do whatever it is they’ll do with those weapons. “Join the MAGA crew,” Greitens says as he stands, sans mask, in a teargas-filled living room. “Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limt, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”

Greitens is running for the Missouri Senate seat soon to be vacated by Roy Blunt. Should Greitens win, he’ll serve alongside fellow MAGA extremist Josh Hawley. Greitens served only a year-and-a-half as governor of the state after being indicted on various felony charges and being accused of sexual assault.

His ad is a bizarre mixture of the terrifying and ridiculous, and the responses included both horror and perplexity, with some making mordant jokes and others advising people report it to various authorities.

Father’s Day was yesterday, meaning social media was flooded with tributes to dads everywhere. One of the funniest of them came from Stranger Things star and musician Maya Hawke, whose father is of course Ethan Hawke.

An Instagram post shared yesterday reads, “Happy Father’s Day specifically to Ethan Hawke making his son switch seats with him so he could get at Rihanna.” Indeed, the post shows two photos of Rihanna and Ethan sitting courtside at the 2015 NBA All-Star Game, one with his son Levon seated between them and another with Ethan next to Rihanna. Maya shared that post on her Instagram story and let the image do the talking, adding simply, “Happy Father’s Day dad”

Ethan actually addressed this moment previously: In 2019, he re-shared a similar tweet featuring the same two photos and wrote, “Yes, my son and I remember this GREAT night. His version is a little different than mine.”

As for the topic of the depicted conversation, it’s possible Rihanna and Hawke were chatting about Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, the 2017 movie in which they both starred; The photos were taken on February 15, 2015 and the two joined the cast of the film later that year, Rihanna in October and Hawke in December.

Among mainstream consensus, this 2022 NBA Draft class seems to tout a clear top three of Jabari Smith, Chet Holmgren and Paolo Banchero. For many, Jaden Ivey is often heralded as the No. 4 prospect in this class, with a sizable gap to the next tier of players.

Selecting fourth overall this year is the Sacramento Kings, who Ivey said he’s not been in contact with during the pre-draft process. The speedy guard did not follow up that information with the most resounding of reviews as it pertains to potentially landing in Sacramento either.

“I’m kind of just letting this process handle itself,” Ivey said. “If I got drafted there, it wouldn’t be the worst option.”

That is, uh, certainly a quote. Ivey can obviously wish to play for wherever he wants; the lack of a ringing endorsement to play for a team holding a top-five pick is simply hilarious candidness. We love honesty around these parts. The logical follow-up would be for Ivey to list the worst option he could envision here.

As for why he’s not spoken with the Kings, Ivey did not provide any singular reason.

“I never really made the decision on not talking to Sacramento,” he told reporters. “It just kinda happened.”

Sacramento has consistently been linked to Keegan Murray at No. 4, as well as possibly the trading the pick for an immediate upgrade instead. It appears as though both the Kings and Ivey are not destined to partner later this week, and Ivey’s most recent comments will undoubtedly further that speculation. That said, it wouldn’t be unheard of for the Kings to take Ivey even without a workout or much conversation, as they did just that with Davion Mitchell a year ago. We’ll find out on Thursday exactly what direction Sacramento goes in, but they can at least rest easy knowing they aren’t the worst option out there.

After a bit about wacko GOP candidates who believe in the “Big Lie” — and far nuttier matters — the bulk of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver concerned rapidly escalating rent in America, as well as other barriers to affordable housing. It’s a scary topic for the third of the nation that rents rather than owns, especially considering, as he pointed out, the median rent last month passed $2,000, up 15%. But he started things on a lighter note: making fun of Dakota Johnson’s just-for-show limes.

Oliver brought up a particular kind of celebrity video: the ones where famous people invite camera crews into their lavish homes, where viewers watch them “discover things that were clearly put there by stylists and occasionally call it out in a glorious passive-aggressive way.” One of them was the Cha Cha Real Smooth star and random wedding crasher, who, while showing off her kitchen, made sure to dwell on multiple piles of limes stacked on the counter in a most curious fashion.

“I love cooking. I cook a lot. And I bake a lot,” she says. Then she gestures to a bowl of limes sitting on a plate, also containing limes. “I love limes. I love them. They’re great. I love them so much and I love to present them like this.”

“She is so magnificently weird,” Oliver says, then brings up an interesting factoid: Johnson is actually allergic to limes. She herself addressed her fib in a subsequent interview. “It was hard to ignore them, so I just lied,” she said.

But that made Oliver even more skeptical. “She’s probably lying about that as well,” he cracked. “She’s pure chaos, she should be president.”

From there, Oliver delved deep into America’s housing crisis, dwelling on greedy landlords and assistance programs delivered more by profit than the need to help people.

“That is the core issue with rental housing in this country, though: People who think that investments deserve more respect than basic human needs, and then set up a system designed to ensure that some people just spiral downwards,” Oliver said. He then laid out the nation’s impossible system:

“They can’t move somewhere cheaper if nowhere cheaper exists; they can’t apply for federal assistance if there’s nowhere near enough; they can’t even use that assistance if no-one accepts it; and they can’t take their landlord to court if the court system is skewed against them; and they can’t depend on rental housing ever again if they’re evicted even just once. It’s a complete s*itshow.”

You can watch the segment in the video above.

The Republican Party of Texas convention was supposed to be a joyful affair. Some of the most conservative members of the conservative party were supposed to hang out in one of the nation’s most conservative states and rail against their enemies, the libs. Instead they’ve turned on each other. Dan Crenshaw, who already gets into fights with the extremists in his party, was violently attacked by people farther to the right than even him. They even called him “Eyepatch McCain,” repeating a Tucker Carlson insult that went farther than any joke Pete Davidson told (before apologizing, which Tucker has not).

They even came for Ted Cruz. In a video that went viral, the senator is seen sitting at a table as he absorbs the relentless verbal abuse of a young Republican, who winds up repeating a lot of the criticism he receives from Democrats. As the video begins, he lays into him for cozying up to Donald Trump even after he insulted his wife — a point of attack for which Cruz has never found a sufficient response.

“Remember how Trump made fun of your wife and you went and became best friends with Trump. Why do you do that?” the man asks Cruz. “You go and become best friends with Trump after he makes fun of you and your wife? Why do you do that?”

The heckler had an answer, saying, “It is because you are a coward. I do love America, you don’t.”

The young man also took some far right angles. “You care more about the border between Ukraine and Russia than you do about the border between Texas and Mexico. Why is that?” He then called him a “globalist,” as well as a “coward and a liar.”

The heckler was escorted away, but he ended on a high note: He brought up Cruz’s trip to Cancún while his constituents froze during a freak winter storm.

“You know that and I know that, that’s why you are afraid to stand up. When people were freezing and dying you were in Mexico, do you remember that?” he thundered. “Remember when you had the all-inclusive buffet while people were freezing. Do you remember that Ted? When everyone was freezing and people were dying.”

Cruz no doubt did not enjoy having some of his bigger blunders brought up during what was supposed to be a GOP bubble. Recently he’s been far more worked up about “lesbian toys” for Disney’s Lightyear, not to mention grossing people out by talking about Girls Gone Wild.

With how over-the-top proposals can get, it’s hard to have one that stands out above the rest. Recently, though, one fan did just that by getting Snoop Dogg involved.

On May 19, concert and tour producer Ian Vaughn shared a video on TikTok, of a couple posing for a photo with Snoop. The video has recently gone viral, as ET Canada notes, because of what happened next: The man got down on one knee, in front of both Snoop and the woman he was with, and pulled out a ring, to which the woman responded, “Oh sh*t!” The man then said, “Would you make me the best man in the world, right next to Snoop?”

She covered her mouth before responding with an excited, “Hell yeah!” She looked at Snoop, who offered a “wow,” as her now-fiancé tried to dap her up but was left hanging. He then stood up and the three shared a group hug.

Snoop, meanwhile, has been celebrating his own marriage recently, as he and Shante Taylor, formerly his high school girlfriend, marked their 25th anniversary on June 12. Snoop shared multiple Instagram posts about the occasion, noting in one of them, “Thank you for 25 beautiful year[s]. We are stronger together.”

The hearings for the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 are entering their third week, showing just how close democracy came to ending in America. But we’re not out of the weeds yet. Far from it, as even Bill Maher has noted. On Sunday night’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the host looked at some of the extreme MAGA candidates that have arisen thanks to Donald Trump, who are far nuttier than even the guy who occasionally accidentally blurts out the truth.

Oliver started with the architect of Trump’s brazen plan to overturn the election: John Eastman, his legal adviser at the time of the failed insurrection. “Eastman was the one who devised the theory that Mike Pence could single-handedly negate the election results,” Oliver said. “The idea that a single person could decide the presidency is completely against the ideals of this country, which is why the Constitution starts with ‘We the people’ and not ‘Mike.’”

He then turned to the more than 100 GOP primary winners in this year’s midterm elections who have embraced Trump’s “Big Lie.” Alarmingly, many of them are running for secretary of state, which would give them undue influence in how elections are carried out. One of them is Jim Marchant, who’s running for that position in Nevada and who declared that his state’s voters “have not elected anybody since 2006 — they’ve been installed by the deep state cabal.” When asked to elaborate on who, exactly, is electing politicians, he replied, “I don’t know, actually. I think it’s a global thing. The people in power want to maintain their power.”

“Wow. The people of Nevada have not legitimately elected anybody since 2006?” Oliver said. “That is a pretty bold claim—especially coming from the guy who himself was elected to the state assembly there in 2016.”

Marchant, Oliver pointed out, is part of a group known as the America First Secretary of State Coalition, who seek to gain control of the election process. Among them is New Mexico candidate Audrey Trujillo, who’s said “a lot of people, whether we can prove it or not, feel that this election was stolen.”

Then there’s Kristana Karamo, a proud anti-vaxxer and candidate for secretary of state in Michigan, who believes the Democratic party “has totally been overtaken by a satanic agenda.” She’s also against premarital sex, saying that that opens “a door for us to get to the point where we have people who want to normalize pedophilia.”

“These are just three of the worrying candidates for secretary of state around the country,” Oliver concluded. “There are many, many others, which should frankly give everyone pause, because the Jan. 6 committee is reminding everybody just how close we came to democracy basically collapsing. It was a handful of people in the right position choosing to do the right thing that saved us from a constitutional crisis. But there are multiple candidates running for consequential positions right now on the platform of basically, ‘Let’s do the coup again, but better next time.’”

(Via The Daily Beast)

The very top of this year’s class of free agents is going to be determined by what happens at the June 29 player option deadline, as the biggest names that could potentially come available decide whether to opt back in for one more season, sign an extension with their current team, or hit the open market.

Bradley Beal, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving are the most intriguing among them, and the latest news regarding the latter indicates he might end up on the market. Per Shams Charania of The Athletic, Irving’s discussions with the Nets regarding his future in Brooklyn have grown “stagnant” and the two sides have reached an “impasse,” as neither

However, multiple sources tell The Athletic that conversations about Irving’s future have gone stagnant between him and the Nets. An impasse currently exists among the parties that clears the way for the seven-time All-Star to consider the open marketplace, those sources said.

Charania mentions the Lakers, Knicks, and Clippers as the three top suitors for Irving, all of whom would have to acquire him via a sign-and-trade — unless the Knicks could unload max cap space on a team like the Thunder.

The Lakers, of course, would provide a reunion with LeBron James, who Irving rather famously wanted to get away from in 2017 when he requested a trade out of Cleveland. Time heals all wounds though, and the two have reconciled and James would not hesitate to sign off on replacing Russell Westbrook with Irving, even fully understanding the potential headaches that come with him. While the Lakers have not wanted to send picks out in salary dump moves with Westbrook, adding Irving is a completely different story, but if there are multiple suitors for Kyrie, one has to wonder if Westbrook plus picks has any chance to entice the Nets over a different offer — although, reuniting LeBron and Kyrie as well as Russ and KD would be an all-time trade from a narrative perspective.

The Knicks were the runners up for Kyrie’s (and KD’s) services in 2019 when they were deciding on their future, and could send Brooklyn a combination of veterans and young players along with future draft picks that might be more enticing than a Westbrook-centric deal. New York’s desperation for a point guard is well known, and they were expected to make a run at Jalen Brunson but he now seems destined to return to Dallas. Kyrie would be quite the consolation prize, but it remains to be seen what Brooklyn would prioritize in return.

The Clippers can put together the best “win-now” package in return for Irving, but also have the most delicate cap situation of them all. Charania notes for the Clippers, the best option would be for Kyrie to opt in and be traded on his current deal rather than a new contract. They can send out a number of players that the Nets might believe could surround KD and keep the team competitive (and by proxy, KD happy), with a potential package being led by Reggie Jackson and one of their various wings (Norman Powell, Luke Kennard, Marcus Morris).

With nine days until the player option deadline, there’s time for Kyrie and the Nets to work out a plan for the future, either one that keeps him in Brooklyn or one that sends him elsewhere and sets the Nets up for their best path forward. This report certainly feels like a warning to Brooklyn that options are available for Kyrie, but after the year they just went through with Irving, the Nets might just not be willing to play hard ball with the star. If Irving were to leave, the Nets would truly become one of the all-time “what if?” teams after seemingly setting themselves up to be one of the league’s elite only to never fully realize that potential and crumbling from the inside.

Beyonce is entering a new era, but so far, she’s done so quietly; The recent announcement of her upcoming album Renaissance came via Tidal and an update to her social media bios. Now, she’s back with more covert news, as it looks like she’s releasing a new song tonight: This morning, she again updated her online profiles to read, “6.ㅤ ㅤ BREAK MY SOUL ㅤ midnight ET,” seemingly indicating that a song called “Break My Soul,” presumably the sixth track on Renaissance, is dropping tonight at midnight.

As for what Beyonce’s upcoming music will sound like, recent reports have indicated the LP will incorporate dance and country music.

In a 2021 interview, Beyonce perhaps slyly hinted at Rennaissance when she said of working on new music, “With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible. I’ve been in the studio for a year and a half. Sometimes it takes a year for me to personally search through thousands of sounds to find just the right kick or snare. One chorus can have up to 200 stacked harmonies. Still, there’s nothing like the amount of love, passion, and healing that I feel in the recording studio. After 31 years, it feels just as exciting as it did when I was nine years old. Yes, the music is coming!”

A Harry Styles fan from Italy just had possibly one of the best Pride Month moments of 2022, as Mattia, as they are named, got Styles to help them come out.

In fan-shot footage of the moment from Styles’ show at London’s Wembley Stadium last night (June 19), Styles spots the sign and takes it to hold it up on stage for everybody to see (and loudly cheery at). It reads, “From Ono to Wembley: Help me come out.” Styles then made a bit of a ceremony of it by grabbing a rainbow flag and declaring, “When this flag goes above my head, you are officially out, OK? I think that’s how it works. When this sign goes over the head, you’re officially gay, my boy.”

Styles then waved the flay around, at sub-head levels to amp up the crowd, before whipping it over his head. He then tossed the flag and exclaimed, “Congratulations Mattia, you are a free man!”

Styles has apparently become a go-to figure when it comes to helping fans come out, as this isn’t he first time he’s done it. At a Milwaukee show in 2021, a fan asked Styles to help her come out to her mother, who was in attendance but in a different part of the venue. Styles then declared, “Lisa! She’s gay!”