Month: June 2023

Latto told her haters to put it on the floor. But when it comes to the sizzling beef between Jim Jones and Pusha T, they’d instead put it on a beat. In response to the latest round of shoots, Jim Jones hit the streets of his hometown, Harlem, New York, to deliver yet another diss track to Pusha T’s shots at him.

What started over a simple matter of opinion, when Jones stated that he didn’t feel that Pusha T wasn’t one of the 50 greatest rappers of all time, has turned into a musical feud that won’t die out. On Jim Jones’ new diss, “Summer Collection,” he aimed not only at Pusha T but also his brother No Malice.

In one of the track’s opening punches, Jones rapped, “Y’all n****s don’t know what to do in a raid / Kanye gave y’all whips, but that’s what they do to the slaves,” a cleverly worded double entendre referencing both the brutality of chattel slavery as well as Pusha T’s business dealings with Ye and his record label G.O.O.D. Music.

Jones is letting it be known that he wasn’t a fan of the jabs Pusha T threw during the Louis Vuitton fashion show by poking fun at Pusha’s style. “You be dressing kinda weird man you really need a stylist/Plus we all know what you identify with / Plus you kinda, sorta dress, n***a, you been a fly b*tch/And then he said I was trying to chase a feature / N***a’s a gorilla cause he got some apes in his features/All my gorillas got stones, I’ll have these apes come and meet you,” rapped Jones.

Before the song ends, Jones is sure to take a dig at Pusha T’s brother and Clipse member, spitting, “Plus, you got your brother rappin’ / What you tryna bring the Clipse back? / Speaking of your brother, what happened to that boy? / It looks like they’ve been selling crack to the boy.” Jones must’ve figured that if Pusha T can mention Drake’s young son in his 2018 diss “The Story of Adidon,” then his adult brother and fellow rapper is up for decision.

Watch the full video directed by From The Block above.

Donald Trump has a history of fleecing his supporters. Back in 2021, it was revealed that of the $75 million he’d raised to ostensibly investigate voter fraud, most of it he spent on himself. If you’re donating to his third presidential campaign, then surprise! You might actually be helping the big guy pay off his ever-mounting legal bills.

As per The New York Times, the Trump team made a little, barely noticed change to how their 2024 campaign raises money. When it kicked off in November of last year, 99 cents of every dollar raised went to his campaign, with a mere penny going to the PAC Save America. But starting in February, the fine print changed: Now 90 cents goes to the campaign and 10 cents go to the PAC.

Since the change, it’s estimated that Save America has raised $1.5 million.

But what is the Save America PAC? Begun before Trump even announced his candidacy late last year, it has been used, NYT reports, to pay for “bills related to various investigations into the former president and his allies.” It’s also been used to pay staff salaries, to support other candidates and groups, and on other assorted sundries.

The Save America PAC used to be flush with cash. In February of 2022, it had amassed some $122 million. A lot has changed since then:

By the beginning of 2023, the PAC’s cash on hand was down to $18 million, filings show. The rest had been spent on staff salaries, on the costs of Mr. Trump’s political activities last year — including some spending on other candidates and groups — and in other ways. That included the $60 million that was transferred to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that is supporting Mr. Trump. And more than $16 million went to pay legal bills.

And Trump sure has some legal bills to pay. In the first half of 2022, Save America had spent $1.9 million on such matters. By the second half of last year, that had ballooned to $14.6 million.

For the record, other GOP presidential candidates do not split their donations at all — not Nikki Haley, not Mike Pence, not Vivek Ramaswamy, and not Trump’s biggest critic/rival, Chris Christie.

(Via NYT)

One of the more interesting free agents on the market this summer is returning to his old team. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Minnesota Timberwolves center Naz Reid agreed to a contract extension with the team that could keep him around for the next three seasons. Wojnarowski reports that Reid received a three-year deal with the team that will pay him $42 million, although it has a player option that could let him hit the open market after two seasons.

Reid was viewed as a player who could have been in line for a substantial deal with a team that would allow him to start, as he has been a reliable player in a bench role over the years for the Timberwolves. Instead, Reid is going to stick around, and should provide some incredibly important frontcourt depth with the ability to serve as a spot starter if Rudy Gobert misses any time.

A former undrafted free agent out of LSU who has spent his entire NBA career with the franchise, Reid put up career-best numbers almost across the board last year. Reid averaged 11.5 points and 4.9 rebounds in 18.4 minutes per game while connecting on 34.6 percent of his attempts from behind the three-point line. He appeared in 68 games for Minnesota, with 11 of them coming as a member of the starting lineup.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is no stranger to wackadoodle conspiracy theories. She even floated one about the aborted military rebellion that happened in Russia over the weekend. But she was just getting started. On Sunday, she claimed someone was trying to hack into her TV. Or something.

“Last night in my DC residence, the television turned on by itself and the screen showed someone’s laptop trying to connect to the TV,” Greene wrote on Twitter.

The Georgia lawmaker then tried to assure people she’s not nuts. “Just for the record: “I’m very happy. I’m also very healthy and eat well and exercise a lot. I don’t smoke and never have. I don’t take any medications. I am not vaccinated. So I’m not concerned about blood clots, heart conditions, strokes, or anything else.

“Nor do I have anything to hide,” she added.

Greene concluded by writing, “I just love my country and the people and know how much they’ve been screwed over by the corrupt people in our government and I’m not willing to be quiet about it, or willing to go along with it.”

In her post, Greene didn’t go so far as to make any direct accusations. Maybe it was a neighbor who accidentally accessed her smart TV. That can happen! But by going so far out of her way to persuade people she’s not loco — and by tweeting about it all — it sure felt like she was intimating something more nefarious.

Maybe Lauren Boebert did it as revenge for being called a “little b*tch” on the House floor last week.

(Via Raw Story)

The most emphatic win in Major League Baseball this season occurred on Saturday night, and after it was all over, the team that won went out and got some reinforcements from the team is beat. The Los Angeles Angels and the Colorado Rockies played in Coors Field on Saturday, and while you can’t predict baseball, the game was essentially over after four innings, as the Angels found themselves up, 23-0.

Unfortunately for the Rockies, they were unable to rally and put 30 runs on the board, and the Angels would go on to win, 25-1. In a funny twist, MLB had a trade last night between, you guessed it, the Rockies and the Angels. In the aftermath of the game, Los Angeles was able to acquire veteran infielder Mike Moustakas from Colorado in exchange for a minor league pitcher, according to Robert Murray of FanSided.

After spending the first 7.5 years of his career with the Kansas City Royals, Moustakas has bounced around recently, as he’s had stints with the Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, and the Rockies. Injuries have been a problem in recent years, but this season, he’s hitting .270 with a .795 OPS and four home runs. He did not get on the field for Colorado in Saturday night’s game, which is probably for the best.

The 10 players who will take the floor to start the 2023 WNBA All-Star Game were announced on Sunday afternoon. In all, four guards and six frontcourt players will make up the two teams, which will be captained by Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson and New York Liberty standout Breanna Stewart.

The guards will consist of a pair of Wilson’s teammates in Las Vegas, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray. Additionally, Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm and Arike Ogunbowale of the Dallas Wings will be part of the festivities. We were incredibly close to having a third member of the Aces among the guards, as Kelsey Plum was the top guard among those who did not get a starting nod.

In the frontcourt, Stewart and Wilson will serve as All-Star captains for the second and third times, respectively, in their careers. This is the second year in a row where the two will captain the All-Star teams, and last year, Team Wilson beat Team Stewart, 134-112. They’ll be joined by Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury, Satou Sabally of the Wings, Nneka Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks, and Aliyah Boston of the Indiana Fever, with Boston becoming the sixth rookie in league history to earn a starting spot in the All-Star Game. Here is how the voting for the starters broke down:

The All-Star Game will take place in Las Vegas on July 15. Before that, 12 reserves will be selected by the WNBA’s head coaches and announced on July 1, and one week later, Wilson and Stewart will select their squads on the WNBA All-Star Team Selection Special on ESPN.

Donald Trump may still hold sway over the Republican party, but not every conservative is afraid of him. When he announced his own presidential campaign, Chris Christie came out swinging against his old pal, making his mission to de-MAGA the GOP. Trump predictably responded with fat jokes. But Christie isn’t fazed.

On Sunday, the former New Jersey governor went on Fox News’ MediaBuzz, where host Howard Kurtz asked him about Trump cracking wise about his weight. Christie just scoffed.

“What? Like he’s some Adonis? Please,” Christie replied, hinting at Trump’s own unchiseled figure. “I don’t know what his point is. You know what it is? It’s like a child. It’s a bully on the schoolyard who teases you and makes fun of you. But here’s my message to him: I don’t care what he says about me. I don’t care what he thinks about me.”

He added, “And he should take a look in the mirror every once in a while. Maybe he’d drop the weight thing off of his list of criticisms.”

Kurtz also asked Christie about how he supported him, at least publicly, through the majority of his presidency, finally turning after his post-2020 election antics. Did Christie wait too long to snap, Kurtz asked?

“I don’t think I waited too long, Howie,” Christie replied. “I think that the right thing to do is to try to make the person who is in the White House the very best president he can be for the whole country. That’s what I tried to do. Turned out that I failed at doing that. So if you want to criticize me for not changing Donald Trump despite my best efforts, I’ll plead guilty to that.”

Christie hasn’t been afraid to talk smack about the guy currently crushing it in the polls. Last week he even welcomed jeers from a revved-up MAGA crowd, telling them, “You can boo all you want.”

(Via Mediaite)

The Phoenix Suns made a gigantic trade earlier this offseason by bringing in Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards. With Beal joining Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, a major question that popped up in the aftermath revolved around the future of No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton, as the big man had been at the center of trade rumors for the last year and was viewed as a logical candidate for Phoenix to trade in the event it wanted to build out its roster a bit.

As it turns out, the team is changing course on his future. According to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report, the Suns want to keep Ayton around and see how he looks alongside the Beal, Booker, and Durant trio.

Despite the fact that Ayton wasn’t quite as efficient last year as he was in the past, it makes sense to keep him around, as Phoenix doesn’t have any centers under contract right now — both Bismack Biyombo and Jock Landale are unrestricted free agents this summer. Earlier in the offseason, new Suns coach Frank Vogel expressed his excitement over getting to coach Ayton, going as far as to say he believed Ayton could be one of the NBA’s best big men.

Ayton averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds in 30.4 minutes per game during the 2022-23 season.

Last week Spotify parted ways with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Initial reports painted it as an amicable split. Then Bill Simmons, the streamer’s podcast honcho, went and called them “f*cking grifters.” But Spotify doesn’t appear to be the only media company frustrated with the semi-ex-royals.

As per The Sun (as caught by The Daily Beast), Netflix is really pushing on the pair to come up with more quality shows as part of their massive $103 million deal. So far they’ve only done one: the hit documentary Harry and Meghan.

As such, the streamer has only paid them half of the money they’re owed. A source says they’ll get the rest when they make more arresting programs. If they don’t, they’ll get nothing.

“Netflix was pleased to sign Harry and Meghan and is looking for some great ideas going forward,” the source told The Sun. “But the remainder of the deal relies on them producing those good ideas. The deal’s continually under review which is normal for ones of this magnitude.”

Harry does have an upcoming series slated for August: Heart of Invictus, about the Olympic-style games he started for wounded ex-service competitors. But Meghan’s proposed animated show Pearl, about a girl inspired by historical figures, was dropped after being picked up.

Last week, a source told The Sun that things aren’t great between Harry and Meghan and Netflix. Meghan, they said, “lives in her own bubble,” and doesn’t appear to have “grasped the economic reality”. The source added, “There is a less friendly attitude from some at the top. The feeling is that the lemon has been fully squeezed. The big bucks Harry and Meghan signed on for do not exist today.”

(Via The Sun and The Daily Beast)

James Mangold is no stranger to franchise pictures. He’s directed two Wolverine movies, including the autumnal, R-rated send-off Logan. He also helmed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, subbing in for no less than Steven Spielberg. But in a new interview with Variety, he seems wearily resigned to the franchise mindset that’s taken over Hollywood. He doesn’t even seem thrilled that Hugh Jackman’s X-Men character is coming back for Deadpool 3.

“I can’t say that there’s a part of me that doesn’t wish that we’d let it be,” Mangold confesses, in a bit caught by The AV Club. He then suggested his return was always an inevitability, even though Mangold gave him a moving farewell:

“But there was always going to be another Wolverine. There could be a baby Wolverine and a cartoon Wolverine. As much liquid as they can squeeze out of that rag, they’re going to try to. I don’t measure my success on a movie like Logan with whether we ended the conversation. I ended my conversation.”

Mangold doesn’t even want to do the threatened (but far from officialized) Indy spin-off starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s conspirator Helena Shaw.

“I’m not interested,” Mangold said, smiling and waving his hand dismissively. “I refuse. I just can’t do it.” He then explained the burden of making such a series. “The amount of lore and Easter eggs and fan service starts to become antithetical to any of this stuff at a certain point. It isn’t storytelling anymore. It’s large-scale advertising.”

Over his long career, Mangold has made plenty of non-franchise one-offs. There’s not going to be a sequel to his 2019 hit Ford v Ferrari, but there is already another Ferrari movie en route from an even more acclaimed filmmaker.

(Via Variety and The AV Club)