Month: December 2022

House Republicans have yet to take a firm stance on antisemitic comments made by MAGA poster boys like Donald Trump and Kanye West, but they have started scrubbing old tweets praising the bigoted firebrands in case they need to jump ship.

Earlier today, a user discovered that a tweet from a few weeks ago by the account run by the Republicans’ on the House Judiciary Committee had been removed from the group’s official account. The original tweet was sent in October of this year, around the time Elon Musk welcomed Kanye back to the social media site and just a month before Trump’s account would be reinstated. It read simply, “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” The holy trinity of exhausting narcissistics.

A reporter for The Daily Beast had visited the account to see if the tweet was still live, which it was at 1 p.m. Just 34 minutes later, another user noticed the tweet had been removed.

Why the sudden change of heart?

It seems the move may be tied to West’s disastrous appearance on Alex Jones’s InfoWars show, which was live streaming as the House GOP account deleted the post. On the stream, West donned a black mask covering his entire face and carried a bible onto the set. He then launched into a tirade about Jewish people pushing pornography before expressing his admiration for Adolf Hitler for inventing things like the Autobahn and microphones.

“I see good things about Hitler also,” West said. “I love everyone, and Jewish people are not gonna tell me, ‘You can love us and what we’re doing to you with the contracts and what we’re pushing with the pornography…’ But this guy who invented highways invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud anything good that this person ever did. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table. Especially Hitler.”

It seems that labeling the Holocaust — the only thing Hitler “brought to the table” — as something of value was a step too far for the House GOP because their endorsement of West vanished after this interview.

Then again, House Republicans were probably less offended by West’s endorsement of genocide than they were by his outfit choices. Blatant anti-Semitism and Hitler isolation are fine, but we all know how right-wingers feel about face coverings. Wearing a mask is just a bridge too far.

When was the last time Joe Biden was asked if he goes golfing with Donald Trump because they’re around the same age? Never. That’s a weird assumption to make, but it didn’t stop a reporter from wondering if New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met with Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin “just because” they have things in common.

“Are you two meeting just because you’re similar in age and you’ve got a lot of common stuff there, you know, when you got into politics and stuff?” a reporter from a New Zealand outlet asked Ardern during cool-as-hell Marin’s diplomatic visit to Auckland. “Or can Kiwis actually expect to see more deals between our two countries down the line…” Before he continued, Ardern jumped in and asked a question of her own.

“My first question, is I wonder whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and [former New Zealand Prime Minister] John Key if they met because they were of similar age,” she replied. “We, of course, have a higher proportion of men in politics. It’s reality. But because two women meet, it’s not simply because of their gender.”

She said that Finnish exports into New Zealand are worth more than $335 million and that Finland has Nokia, “biofuels, even basic industrial wares that we use in our buildings. You won’t be aware that a large number of our elevators come out of Finland, agricultural machinery.” Finland, on the other hand, according to Ardern imports more than $8 million in “mostly wine and beef.”

Marin gave a more, let’s say, diplomatic answer (“We are meeting because we’re prime ministers”), but you could tell from her barely-concealed smirk while Ardern was talking that she agreed with her — and that she’s sick of “sexist” questions like this one.

(Via Mediaite)

Boosie Badazz is no stranger to sharing his controversial opinions, and in a recent interview, he did just that.

The Louisiana rapper chatted with DJ Vlad about Jay-Z’s relevancy in hip-hop these days. In a clip that surfaced online yesterday (November 30), Boosie and the YouTube personality discussed OG rappers, such as Jay-Z and Nas, and their place in hip-hop. While Vlad noted that it might be difficult for older rappers to stay relevant, Jay-Z is one of the few who has been able to reinvent himself. But it doesn’t seem Boosie agrees.

The rapper admits that people respect Jay-Z’s business acumen, but when it comes to music, his songs aren’t being played in the clubs. They aren’t resonating with the younger crowds, specifically millennials in the 25-to-35-year-old range.

“When I go to these clubs in Atlanta — these 25-to-35 clubs — I’m not hearing Nas, I’m not hearing Jay-Z,” he said. “Every club I go in, it’s not one or the other… Jay-Z is respected by these people for being the boss that he is. When Jay-Z flashes across that muthaf*cka, it’s somethin’ with a billion dollars; it’s somethin’ with 500 billion, 200 billion when them young n****s see him.”

“It ain’t his songs flashing across no f*ckin’ social media; it’s his hustle,” he continued. “That n**** got hustle.”

The “Wipe Me Down” rapper’s comments follow a recent discussion, where another rapper, 21 Savage, made remarks during a session on Clubhouse, where he said that Nas was not relevant to the younger generation, sparking a massive debate on social media.

Check out the clip below.

As terrifying as the idea of Herschel Walker being named Georgia’s senator might be, it’s hard to deny that his campaign — which has been a nonstop roller coaster ride of incoherence mixed with mortifying gaffes, several secret children, and at least one “erection” — is the gift that keeps on giving. And while Election Day was nearly a month ago, Walker is still out there on the campaign trail, and Trevor Noah couldn’t be happier.

The Daily Show host has spent the past several months gleefully covering Walker’s many missteps, and on Wednesday night he was ready to talk about Walker’s most recent controversies, including whether the former football player even lives in the state of Georgia at all. “According to new reports,” Noah explained, “the Georgia home that he’s claimed as his residence has actually been rented out for years.” When Walker accidentally admitted that he lives in Texas in a recent speech, Noah admitted that he was shocked: “Because I did not think Herschel Walker knew the name of two different states.”

But Walker’s biggest problem, according to Noah, is that “every time he speaks, things go wrong.” Most recently, Walker attempted to share his views on Donald Trump’s border wall… and somehow ended up bringing his dog into it.

After playing the clip, Noah — through near-tears — did his best to translate what he had taken from the speech. His takeaway: “I’m sorry, WHAT?”

Did this man just win an argument with himself? ‘Cause I think his plan is to, what, build a border wall so that he can trap immigrants inside America? Is that what he’s doing? ‘You see, once they get in, they can’t get out! Then they gotta get jobs and raise a family and settle down, and THAT’S how we get ‘em, yeah!’

It’s almost like Walker started out talking about border security, and then ended up telling everybody how to break into HIS house. And personally, I don’t think he needs a wall. Because the hardest part about breaking into his Herschel Walker’s house is figuring out which state it’s in.

You can watch the full clip above, beginning at the 2:45 mark.

Timothée Chalamet has been slowly but surely taking over Hollywood over the last few years. He moved on from being the pretentious love interest in Lady Bird (opposite Saoirse Ronan) to being the pretentious love interest in Little Women (opposite Saoirse Ronan and Florence Pugh) to being the pretentious candymaker in the upcoming Willy Wonka movie (opposite some Oompa Loompas). Somewhere in there, he also played a crimson-haired cannibal. The point is that the man has been busy…and loves to hang out with Saoirse Ronan.

Now, Chalamet is hard at work on the new Dune installment (opposite Florence Pugh…again). The actor shared a photo from the set of the upcoming movie, which is currently being filmed in the United Arab Emirates. While we don’t see Chalamet’s face, you can tell he’s already in character as Paul because of how scared his stance looks. He’s a good actor! He is also wearing an ominous skeleton hoodie.

Chalamet will reprise his role as Paul Atreides in the sci-fi epic alongside Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgård, and others, along with newcomers Pugh, Austin Butler, and Christopher Walken. Filming has been taking place throughout the summer and fall in various countries around the world.

While there have been no official stills from the sequel, which will hit theaters in November of 2023, many of the cast have been sharing their own shots from those picturesque sand dunes. Just last week, Zendaya posted a similar photo.

Either filming is going really great, or they have both been lost in the desert for over a week. It’s probably the former.

(Via IndieWire)

Every Sunday, you turn the volume up on your television all the way and grind to the absolute bop that is season two of The White Lotus’ opening credit theme. You’ve been so lost in dance during the opening credits that you probably haven’t even noticed that they contain clues and subtle hints at what’s to come in the very horny and very good season.

The credits, designed by Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore of the creative studio agency Plains of Yonder, have three parts, or chapters, that tell their own story and mirror the season. The beginning is just like the beginning of the season: idyllic Italian art. Then as the music escalates, the images get more menacing. When the music escalates even more the images get even more graphic and weird. Here’s how it was described to Fast Company:

“The first chapter paints an idyllic portrait of Italy set against an operatic voice singing over a harp. Then gears shift and a digitized version of the familiar White Lotus theme song kicks in, bringing some illustrations to life, like feathers being plucked off in a bird fight, or ominous shadows slowly rolling over the paintings. Then the soundtrack bursts into a ‘sweaty dance beat,’ as Bashore puts it, and any sense of politeness is thrown out of the picture. There’s a blow job scene on the beach, two goats mounting, a man stabbing a boar, and a representation of a naked woman being mounted by a swan, much like in Greek mythology, where Leda is raped by Zeus disguised as a swan. Not what you’d expect from a Renaissance painting, is it?”

The designers, who read the scripts for the entire season and therefore know how it ends, told Fast Company that the images that appear on screen with the actors’ names also have meaning. For example, Aubrey Plaza’s name appears next to a pair of fighting birds, which suggests that there’s tension within her marriage. Simona Tabasco’s name appears alongside a cat with a dead bird in its mouth, which Crawford says depicts her as a “gorgeous predator [who is] also hunting to survive.” Meghann Fahy’s name is beside a painting of two babies, representing her character Daphne’s two children. In the first season’s opening credits, Jennifer Coolidge’s name appeared with a monkey. This season she’s still a monkey, but it is chained to a blonde woman trapped in a castle. So if you look closely enough, you might be able to figure out exactly what happens in season two of The White Lotus, or at the very least, get a sense of every character’s essence.

(Via Fast Company)

Martin Scorsese‘s daughter, Francesca, was cut from Bones and All (one of the best movies of 2022), but she’s doing just fine. The We Are Who We Are actress recently turned 23 years old, and one of her birthday presents came in the form of a flattering compliment from Jennifer Lawrence. “Very late birthday post!!! Thank you to everyone who made me and @martinscorsese’s birthdays so special,” she wrote on Instagram, adding, “JLaw said my tits looked amazing so I can die happy now.”

A few things here:

1. Imagine your dad is Martin Scorsese.

2. Imagine your dad is Martin Scorsese, and you share a birthday party with him.

3. That was nice of Jennifer Lawrence.

Francesca turned 23 just one day before her famous father turned 80, so they celebrated together amid a sea of celebs at Cipriani South Street in Manhattan, including The Wolf of Wall Street stars Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio… Her album also included moments she shared with her friends, such as The Offer heartthrob Sebastiano Pigazzi and Euphoria actress Kathrine Narducci.

If you’re not following Francesca on social media, you really should. Otherwise, you’re missing gems like this.

Marty is also worth a follow on Instagram. I mean…

I want Jennifer Lawrence to compliment me for my birthday. But I’ll settle for that hat.

(Via the Daily Mail)

Selina Meyer had a bag man, Donald Trump has a Supernanny.

While the former (non-fictional) president normally doesn’t seem to care what people think about him or the shady shenanigans he regularly gets up to — like, say, inciting an insurrection at the Capitol — Trump is working harder than he ever did as president in order to distance himself from his dinner with infamous Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes. And Jimmy Kimmel is happily eating up every tiny morsel of Trump’s frantic attempts to turn back time.

On Wednesday night, Kimmel shared that “as a result of that little dinner party with Donald Trump last week, they say they’re beefing up security at Mar-a-Lago. They said they will no do increased vetting on guests — and by ‘increased’ vetting, they mean they [will] start vetting guests.”

The funniest part of this news, however, came when Kimmel learned that “According to reports, the new security protocols require a senior campaign official to now be with Donald Trump at all times. They’ve hired a Supernanny to take care of Donald Trump!”

But the damage has already been done, and Trump — surprisingly — seems keenly aware of that. Which is probably why he issued yet ANOTHER (yawn!) statement on Wednesday, which Kimmel estimates to be his “like 400th statement attempting to cover his orange ass. Ever so slightly trying to distance himself from this white supremacist Nick Fuentes, Trump said that if Fuentes had expressed his views at the dinner it wouldn’t have been accepted. And that if he’d known about them, that dinner wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

While Kimmel was willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt here, he thinks the former POTUS’s argument starts to fall apart a bit given that noted anti-Semite Kanye West was the invited guest. “He expressed his anti-Semitic views well ahead of the dinner,” Kimmel noted of Ye. “Repeatedly!”

You can watch the full clip below, beginning around the 3:40 mark.

On November 22, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner provided a vague progress report on the investigation into Takeoff’s murder. The 28-year-old Migos rapper was fatally shot in the earliest hours of November 1 while attending a private event with Quavo at 810 Billiards & Bowling in Houston. Takeoff was laid to rest at State Farm Arena in his hometown Atlanta on November 11, and there was outside concern that the manhunt for Takeoff’s killer had run dry.

“I feel good where we’re progressing,” Finner told KPRC 2, per iHeart. “You remember on that day, I met with his mother. I talked with that lady personally, made a promise and there’s a lot being said. We want all investigations on murders when people are being killed to move. But the main thing is we get it right. I do not want to send family members on a rollercoaster ride, and then we have to come back and say, ‘Whoa, that wasn’t the person.’ I want everyone to be patient and just understand there will be some justice here in Houston, Texas.”

Over the weekend, reports began leaking that a 22-year-old named Cameron Joshua and referred to as either Lil Cam or Lil Cam 5th had been arrested by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office for a felony charge of unlawful carrying weapons. Speculation caught fire that Lil Cam 5th was connected to Takeoff’s murder because his arrest report listed that Lil Cam 5th was alleged to have possessed an illegal handgun on November 1 in Houston. But it was nothing more than speculation.

The link was officially made yesterday (November 30). As relayed by The Associated Press, Lil Cam 5th “has been charged in connection” with Takeoff’s murder case, though Lil Cam 5th “is not believed to have fired a weapon during Takeoff’s shooting.” Lil Cam 5th’s attorney, Christopher Downey, asserted that “Cameron Joshua did not shoot Takeoff.” There has still not been a suspect publicly identified as the one responsible for shooting and killing Takeoff.

As of now, Lil Cam 5th’s arrest appears to be a small piece in a large puzzle that authorities are still trying to assemble. It’s been one long month since Takeoff’s tragic passing, but after this week’s developments, it’s probably safe to assume that Finner is asking the public to be patient for a reason.

After a seemingly lengthy period of radio silence, there has been some significant movement in the still ongoing sex trafficking investigation involving Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz. His former confidant Joel Greenberg was just dealt an 11-year prison sentence after being zeroed in by the Department of Justice for using taxpayer money to buy drugs, crypto, and sports memorabilia.

Greenberg has also been accused of allegedly providing sex workers to politicians. In the case of Gaetz, one of those workers was allegedly a minor. (The congressman has denied any wrongdoing.) Despite facing a litany of charges, Greenberg has reportedly been cooperating with federal investigators resulting in a lighter sentence for his serious list of crimes. Via The New York Times:

Mr. Greenberg has told federal authorities that he witnessed Mr. Gaetz have sex with the 17-year-old girl and that she was paid. In documents filed in connection with Mr. Greenberg’s sentencing, the Justice Department said he had “provided truthful and timely information” that led to the charging of at least four other individuals and “provided substantial assistance on other matters” that the government would address only in a sealed filing.

However, the investigation into Gaetz has reportedly hit a significant hurdle. The worker in question “has said she does not believe she was a victim.” The lack of charges against Gaetz and others implicated by Greenberg did not go unnoticed by Greenberg’s attorney who surprisingly called out the DOJ.

“If the government is so concerned with general deterrence, then why hasn’t it prosecuted the other individuals, including public figures, who were also involved in Greenberg’s offenses?” Fritz Scheller said during the sentencing hearing. “Indeed, Greenberg’s plea agreement refers to the involvement of multiple co-conspirators, including individuals involved in his sex offense.”

Scheller also revealed that Greenberg’s cooperation was corroborated “by other witnesses and records,” which should probably concern his co-conspirators, whoever that may be.

(Via The New York Times)