Category: News

After being relentlessly dragged on Sunday for telling attendees at the Young Women’s Leadership Summit that she never lied while serving as Donald Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany has responded to the mountain of social media reactions pointing out that she absolutely stretched the truth for Trump, and often.

“Haters will hate!” McEnany tweeted on Sunday evening in a very fitting and Trumpian response.

While speaking at the conservative conference sponsored by Turning Point USA on Sunday, McEnany recalled her first day as press secretary when she was asked by a reporter “Will you pledge to never lie to us from the podium?” Via Newsweek:

“And I said without hesitation, ‘No,’” McEnany described Sunday, relaying her May 2020 press conference response to the reporter. “And I never did. As a woman of faith, as a mother of baby Blake, as a person who meticulously prepared at some of the world’s hardest institutions, I never lied. I sourced my information.”

McEnany’s words earned her a round of applause from the conservative audience, but once social media caught wind of her claim, it was a whole different ball game. During her short time as Trump’s fourth press secretary, McEnany was routinely called out for spreading falsehoods. (CNN’s Jake Tapper routinely debunked McEnany’s lies.) Even Republicans got fed-up with her outlandish claims.

Following the 2020 election, McEnany has been a key player in pushing the “Big Lie” than Trump actually won, and she’s also been dabbling with QAnon conspiracy theories. In February 2020, she peddled a vile conspiracy theory that essentially accused President Joe Biden of being a pedophile. Those kind of claims don’t just go away because you’re a mom who goes to church.

(Via Kayleigh McEnany on Twitter)

SPOILERS for Fear the Walking Dead‘s Season 6 will be found below.

Welcome to the zombie apocalypse’s nuclear apocalypse!

A literal nuclear bomb exploded in Texas on this week’s Fear the Walking Dead sixth season finale. If you Google it, you’ll find a number of different answers about how far the radiation fallout extends from a blast radius, but I suspect that it doesn’t matter. The science in Fear the Walking Dead is clearly plot-dependent. How big is the blast radius? In the finale, it was big enough to decimate Dakota, but elsewhere, it sent a violent cloud of dust forceful enough to shake an 18-wheeler and leave a nearby zombie smoldering, yet it did not hurt the people underneath the 18-wheeler. It also caused a building to rumble violently, but it didn’t shatter the windows through which characters were gazing. It leveled a house, but four characters were apparently able to survive in the cellar beneath it. Meanwhile, it lit up the sky, but a helicopter was apparently capable of navigating through the blast radius.

Fear the Walking Dead has had a very fine season — a remarkable one in fact — until the last two episodes, when the series abandoned what made it so successful: small, intimate stories centered on a limited number of characters. The season’s final episode brought most of the characters back together, scattered them within 20-minutes of each other, told a huge story involving nuclear destruction, and threw logic out the window.

With that said, the story itself is very simple. It picks up where last week’s episode left off. A nuclear bomb with ten warheads has been launched into the atmosphere. It’s expected to fall back down to Earth in about 20 minutes, and so each of the characters has around one-third of an hour to figure out how they want to spend the remainder of their lives.

With a decision that recalled the ridiculous beer balloon from a few seasons ago, Dwight and Sherry decide they want to spend their final minutes before the bomb falls drinking beer and eating pretzels together. They break into a home they believe is abandoned and find two warm beers (no pretzels, alas), only to discover that it’s inhabited by a couple who were kicked out of their storm cellar by a couple of End-Is-the-Beginningers. Dwight and Sherry decide to do something good with their last moments and remove the bad guys from the cellar. They shoot one of the guys in the leg so that he has no choice to but lie there and watch the nuclear bomb fall. The couple, meanwhile, asks Sherry and Dwight to come into their cellar with them, where they will presumably ride out the radiation fallout.

John Dorie, Sr., and June inexplicably use their final 20 minutes to track down Teddy and Dakota, not to kill Teddy, mind you, but to forgive Dakota and ask her to come with them (Where? That’s unclear). They find, however, that pervy, serial killer Teddy had planned to take Dakota down into a bunker and ride it out there until it was safe to resurface, at which point Teddy was going to launch the remaining nuclear missiles. Dakota isn’t keen on that plan and feels used by Teddy, so she shoots him dead (in anticlimactic fashion) and is incinerated in the nuclear blast (John Dorie, Sr. and June, however, manage to get into Teddy’s fallout shelter).

The show’s most expendable characters — Daniel, the Rabbi, Charlie, Sarah, Wes, and Luciana — allow Rollie to drive them to the fallout shelter where Alicia is being held, or so they believe. Riley gives them a fake location, and Rollie — in the episode’s most inexplicable twist — drives them out into the middle of nowhere because he had at some point somehow aligned with the End is the Beginning-ers. Daniel, however, sniffs it out and kills Rollie. Meanwhile, he directs them toward coordinates he overheard on the radio, where Althea (who we haven’t seen since episode 11) arrives with Isabelle and a CRM helicopter and flies them all away before the bomb kills them all. Where are they going? Ten years into the future and the second season of The World Beyond? (Possibly, but unlikely.)

Strand — the Loki of Fear the Walking Dead — has the most devilishly delightful subplot. He finds a building inhabited by a history professor, and sells himself as a good-guy hero, at least until the bomb goes off. When the bomb doesn’t kill them, however, Strand goes full Strand and confesses his true nature. “I’m a man who has thrown men to the wolves when necessary,” he says. “I’m a backroom dealer, a grifter, a shark … Why? Survival. I’ve done it all my life, and despite the critics, I’m still here.”

It’s not great writing, but Colman Domingo doesn’t need great writing. He can sell any line he is given. Whatever AMC is paying him, they should double it. Strand is also clearly positioning himself as next season’s primary villain, and I don’t hate it.

The most affecting (but also the most preposterous) subplot involves Morgan and Grace, who finally confess their love for one another. They remain inside of the submarine and decide to take their own lives rather than suffer the effects of radiation poisoning. However, seconds before Morgan pulls the trigger, he hears the sound of a baby crying outside the submarine. It’s Rachel’s baby, named after Morgan. In the cold open, a car falls on Rachel’s leg while she is trying to change a tire, so she decides to put her baby in her baby backpack, kill herself, and let her dog, Rutherford, lead them to people. The dog leads them to Morgan and Grace, who put down zombie Rachel and decide, on the spot, to start a family together with baby Morgan. They are outside the submarine when the bomb goes off, and they hide under the shell of an 18-wheeler.

If Grace is afraid of what radiation poisoning might do to them from inside the submarine, God knows what it will do to them in the open air. Maybe Grace plans on getting pregnant again so that the baby can absorb all the radiation. Otherwise, it’s completely nonsensical to think they will live long with that much exposure. I have no idea what Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg are thinking, except that they’ll punt and figure it out next season. There is no cure for radiation poisoning, but then again, Grace survived it once already.

If the plot demands it, then it shall be.

Meanwhile, despite the overstuffed cast and the use of an actual nuclear bomb, the only two major characters who die are the villains, Teddy and Dakota. The series passed up the perfect opportunity, unfortunately, to thin the ranks of Fear. The biggest question that remains, however, is this: Where the hell is Wendell?

The seventh season of Fear the Walking Dead is currently filming and will return this fall.

Electronic dance musician Kelly Lee Owens announced today that her European tour dates this fall are canceled, citing the coronavirus. “The main reason is of course the ongoing pandemic,” the Welsh singer/producer wrote on Twitter. “That plus the anxiety of dealing with individual countries in a post-Brexit touring world and the extra fees etc that come with that.”

She continued, “Both of these things combined have thrown up a huge amount of anxiety for me. I don’t cancel things lightly, but I have to look after myself […] This past year has been disappointing for me, as it means everything to play to you guys, and to never have played [2020 album] Inner Song even once yet is super painful.”

Owens’ newly announced North American tour dates have not been affected. Check out the full list of those tour dates here.

While the rate of coronavirus infections throughout Europe has continued to drop dramatically, per The Guardian, the World Health Organization (WHO) projected that the continent could see another wave of the disease in the autumn due to the highly transmissible Delta variant. According to WHO’s Europe director, the Delta variant has shown some resistance to the coronavirus vaccines.

Countries such as France and Germany are easing travel restrictions for those who are fully vaccinated this summer, but WHO warns that such easing could be reversed if infection rates show signs of rebounding.

For this reason, musicians like Owens are cautiously returning to live music on a short-term, month-by-month basis. Read Owens’ full statement above.

The first time I saw one of Greg Kelly’s tweets, I thought the account was a convincing parody of the conservative Newsmax anchor. Here’s a recent example: “For a Tough Guy Cop, DIRTY HARRY dressed a bit like a ‘Dweeb’ — the Tie under the Sweater thing NEVER WORKS. (Ned Flanders is the only other actor besides Clint Eastwood to do it).” But Kelly’s tweets are the real deal, even if he’s likely to claim there’s an ironic detachment to them (how else to explain “no MCFISH on the menu”?) in the name owning the libs. Here’s another one: “SMOKING WEED (aka GRASS) is NOT a good idea. I’ve tried it (back in the day) and it was WORSE than anything that happened to HUNTER BIDEN. I ‘toked up’ with some buddies in Kentucky and woke up 4 days later in Nairobi, Kenya. With no idea what happened. DON’T DO DRUGS.” Sure, Greg.

Over the weekend, Kelly took some time off from tweeting about Sex and the City to praise former-president Bill Clinton for being white.

“So that’s the USS America aircraft carrier that I’m ‘fixin’ to land on. Just knowing that President Clinton, who was in office at the time, was a Caucasian male made it ‘all worthwhile’ — ask any white male officer who served under him. So appreciative of his Race were we,” the far-right host tweeted. He also wrote that having a white secretary of defense (William Cohen) made a “big difference” in “morale.” Both tweets have since been delated and Kelly is under review by the far-right “news” network. Via Mediaite:

Savvy followers of Kelly’s performance art style Twitter feed know that it was almost certainly an attempt at ironically detached humor, albeit a failed one. In a statement to Mediaite, Newsmax confirms that the original tweets were an effort to call out racism. “We understand a series of tweets were posted by Mr. Kelly today that, in their totality, indicated his opposition to racism,” the conservative network stated. “We at Newsmax never countenance the posting of racist views or views that appeal to racists. We are currently reviewing the matter.”

He followed the now-deleted tweets with this one, which is still up:

The tweets may be gone, but Twitters users haven’t forgotten them:

Has Kelly learned anything from this mess? Of course not.

(Via Mediaite)

Since Juice WRLD’s tragic passing in late 2019, there hasn’t been a shortage of new music from the late rapper. His first posthumous album, Legends Never Die, was released last summer, and now it looks like another new project is on the way.

In a recent interview, the rapper’s team declared that a new EP titled The Party Never Ends is on the way and that it will feature Lil Uzi Vert as well as “a few other big people.” Beyond that, they didn’t offer any additional info like a release date, approximate length, or song titles.

Even aside from Legends Never Die, there has been a bunch of new Juice WRLD material over the past year-plus since his passing. Just a few days ago, he popped up on new albums from Migos and Maroon 5. Other recent collaborators include Post Malone, Clever, The Kid Laroi, and Young Thug.

He never got in the studio with Kid Cudi, though, which Cudi recently lamented on Twitter, saying of Juice and DMX, “Im really am pissed and heartbroken I never got to link w these guys. X and Juice were real ones. Loved what they brought to the game. It was beautiful to witness.”

John Oliver loves to take a break from the super serious subjects — as was the case with his killer response while trolling Cheerios a few weeks ago — but this week, he got deadly serious. His main Last Week Tonight segment arrives as the U.S. begins to feel the summer heat in earnest (and it ain’t even technically summer yet) while prisoners in multiple states are feeling even worse than those of us who are simply dealing with a broken air conditioning unit. The reason for this is rather cruel yet simple: as Oliver explains, 75% of Texas prisons (and many in other notoriously warm states including Louisiana, Mississippi, Kansas, and Alabama) don’t have air-conditioning for prisoners at all, and the result is that people are literally being roasted.

The issue (which was recently detailed by The Texas Tribune) keeps growing worse, as Oliver explains, while summers grow progressively warmer, and he’s not even bothering with subtlety or nuance while discussing the problem:

“While this is clearly just one small part of a much larger discussion about whether and how prisons should exist in this country, until such time as we have that discussion, there’s actually an easy solution to this one problem, and that is, prisons need air conditioning, so put air conditioning in. I know this show has trained you to anticipate nuance, but this one is really pretty straightforward. We shouldn’t be cooking prisoners to death, the end.”

To further compound the issue, many prisoners have complicating health conditions that make them susceptible to heat stroke. That, or they stop taking psychiatric medications that make their bodies less able to process increased temperatures, which creates other problems. Although some people would argue that prisoners don’t deserve comfort, Oliver feels differently, and that it’s a matter of humanity. The host expressed disgust after witnessing State Sen. John Whitmore admit that Texas lawmakers just “don’t want to” put AC into prisons, although Oliver noted that both prison staff and, sometimes, even pig farms on prison grounds are enjoying freon-treated air.

Oliver, of course, finds this ridiculous. And while he’s got nothing against pigs, he does “question prioritizing their comfort over humans.” He added that the situation in Texas prisons is so abhorrent that “the U.N. Committee Against Torture has expressed particular concern about deaths from extreme heat exposure in prison facilities in Texas.” And that’s saying far too much for comfort.

Early on in the episode, Oliver also took on the ridiculous conspiracy theory involving the COVID vaccine and (false) claims that “people are becom[ing] magnetic after getting vaccinated.” For real, more than one person appeared before Ohio lawmakers to claim that they were magnetic and do things like try to stick a key and a bobby pin to their bodies. To Oliver, this ludicrousness is down to “a vacuum of trust in legitimate research” due to waning scientific literacy, which leads people to “try to seek out the minimum amount of information that lets them keep believing what they already believe, in your case, that you’re privy to secret knowledge about a government conspiracy to magnetize the people of Ohio.” He added, “That is probably why you felt confident enough to trust some bullsh*t that you read online so much that you’re willing to look like a complete a**hole in front of all those people.” Also, “people are sometimes sticky. We’re all kind of moist and gross, and keys stick to us sometimes.” Boom.

When the average person approaches an event like E3, they might be surprised at what they see this year. No, not at the swords, blood, guns, zombies, and typical video game affair. All that is normal for an event meant to show what video games are about. No, they’ll be surprised at the sheer number of wholesome games that are being shown. This year had a number of cute and cuddly games that are designed to accomplish nothing besides making us smile, or to feel emotions through storytelling that doesn’t involve violence.

These non-violent games are everywhere throughout Summer Game Fest and E3 2021 and they’re a welcome shift from the normal video game storytelling mechanics that we’re so used to. This is not to say there is something wrong with the idea of a game being about a hero overcoming monsters, defeating enemies, and achieving a goal. It’s just an overdone style of game that usually relies on violence being the catalyst for fun. As video games have evolved over the years they’ve also grown the ability to tell stories in ways that can be different. This is great for the video game industry as a whole because it allows it to become more accessible. It also allows for more creativity. It allows for games to be dramatic, or wholesome, without the single use of a weapon.

What’s always been odd about video games is that it’s taken this long for the idea of non-violent games to become a popular concept. Every year we see movies, books, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment appeal to the masses through non-violent storytelling. Dramas are frequent winners of Oscars, and the TV shows that garner the most attention on platforms like Netflix are usually pieces of interest and not action shows. However, go on Twitch right now and look at the most viewed games currently. It’s likely going to feature a mix of Grand Theft Auto, Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Call of Duty. All shooters meant to appeal to the simple nature of gunning down your opponent so you can achieve your goal or survival, or getting the most kills, or causing the most amount of mayhem in the case of GTA. Video game’s desire to appeal to the ID inside us is a large part of what this industry is built on. That doesn’t mean other entertainments don’t feature this as well, I myself am a huge fan of the John Wick and Fast & Furious movies, but 9/10 of games fall into that category. The majority of AAA titles are built on violence and action as the sole reason to play the game.

E3 2021 however has been full of the opposite. Video games everywhere full of non-violent fun. Games like Puparazzi, where the player’s sole goal is to take pictures of dogs. There was Game Director Story, a satirical game about game development, which looks good and something that the industry has been needing to do forever. Having non-violent options allows video games as an industry to not only continue to grow but is an opportunity to bring in different kinds of gamers. Some people don’t want to play games about a superhuman blasting their way through hordes of aliens. They just want to go manage a farm or make friends with a town full of Animals, and we know this is true already. Why? Because Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing are two of the most popular games ever made and there are 59,000-plus people that follow the Wholesome Games Twitter account so they can keep up with the non-violent games being made.

Unfortunately, in the world of the AAA, the non-violent game is difficult to come by. They do exist. Animal Crossing, Pokemon Snap, etc. Games like Abzu and Journey have already proven that the industry can tell a dramatic story without a need for violence, but these are still rare amongst the sea of shooters and action games. Luckily, for the last decade, AAA games haven’t been the ones pushing the industry forward. It’s been the wave of indie games that are making up the majority of what people play these days, and they don’t have a need to fit what is perceived to be popular by the massive studios. There is no executive telling indie developers to make a shooter because that’s what people want to play. No, they’re making games and telling stories that they find interesting. It’s going to be up to indies to push the way forward in telling stories about non-violent games, and so far they’re succeeding.

The Wholesome Direct, which happened on Saturday, was all about games that make us feel good. Games with the sole intention of being fun or making us smile, and they’re a welcome change in an industry full of violence. They had 75 games to show and pretty much all of them left everyone watching with a giant smile on their face. Yes, we all want to be the hero saving the princess from a magical turtle dragon, or saving the world from extinction in an alien invasion, or fighting off a horde of zombies, but sometimes we just want to go rescue some people dressed up as a firefighter, or clean up the ocean with colorful tadpoles at our side. There’s already plenty of video games about the former, and it’s wholesome to see more about the latter.

After the Jazz took both games in Utah, the Clippers found themselves in a familiar spot down 2-0 in a playoff series, and as they did against the Mavericks in Game 3 of the first round, they dominated Game 3 against the Jazz to get themselves into the series down 2-1 with another home game coming up on Monday night.

The L.A. offense came alive in Game 3, going 19-for-36 from three-point range and shooting 56.2 percent from the field overall as a team. Paul George and Kawhi Leonard were unstoppable, combining for 65 points and they got big shooting nights from Nic Batum and Reggie Jackson as they did to the Jazz what Utah has done to so many opponents this season, simply overwhelming them on both ends of the floor. Utah shot it well from deep but couldn’t get much of anything going to the basket, which was an indicator of their issues offensively on the night. The Clippers tightened up defensively, particularly in keeping Donovan Mitchell from getting to the rim and the free throw line, as he was just 6-of-15 from two-point range and shot just five free throws.

Game 4 will once again see a waiting game to find out if Mike Conley can return from his hamstring issue, as he’s listed as questionable currently and will be a close to game time decision. Either way, the Jazz have to figure out how to better disrupt the Clippers’ two stars and get their own some more opportunities going downhill.

From a betting perspective, the Clippers covered easily in Game 3 as 4.5-point favorites and the game went well over the total of 224.5.

Game 4 TV Info

Tip Time: Monday, June 14; 10:00 p.m. ET
TV Network: TNT

Game 4 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Series Prices: Jazz (-715), Clippers (+475)
Spread: Clippers -5 (-112), Jazz +5 (-110)
Total: Over (-112), Under (-109)
Money Line: Clippers (-205), Jazz (+165)

Since the second half of Game 1, the Philadelphia 76ers have dominated the Atlanta Hawks, falling just short of a massive second half comeback in the opener and having won the last two games by 16 points each. Part of that has been better shot-making from their perimeter players, most notably Tobias Harris and Seth Curry, who have each had a quality efforts to bolster what Joel Embiid has done dominating on the inside in Games 2 and 3.

It has also been a massive turnaround on the defensive end, where they’ve put Ben Simmons and Matisse Thybulle’s length on Trae Young, after starting Game 1 with Danny Green trying his hand at guarding Young — Green is now out for the series with a calf strain. That shift has significantly impacted the Hawks’ ability to produce offensively, as they are a team that goes as far as Young goes on that end even with the talent around him. Going into Game 4, Atlanta is going to have to figure out how to become a bit less dependent on Young’s creation, needing Bogdan Bogdanovic and others to be able to step up when the Sixers close off Young’s driving lanes and are forcing Atlanta to create in secondary action.

Game 3 saw Philly simply run away late as their constant onslaught of size on both ends has seemingly worn down the Hawks, with the Sixers covering easily as slight road favorites and taking the game well over the total of 224.5.

Game 4 TV Info

Tip Time: Monday, June 14; 7:30 p.m. ET
TV Network: TNT

Game 4 Betting Lines (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Series Prices: Sixers (-715), Hawks (+475)
Spread: Sixers -3.5 (-112), Hawks +3.5 (-109)
Total: Over 225.5 (-112), Under 225.5 (-109)
Money Line: Sixers (-155), Hawks (+130)

For years, the right elbow has been Chris Paul’s favorite spot from the floor. When it’s crunch time, his favorite play is to work his way off of the pick-and-roll and pull-up for that 15-foot jumper, particularly against drop coverage, taking advantage of the sinking big and shooting before his man can get back to fully contest.

It’s not something new — take a look at this shot chart from the 2014-15 season — but it still befuddles defenses.

Part of that is because that is the shot that defenses are alright with conceding, because for most players it’s a low efficiency shot. For Paul — and, increasingly, Devin Booker — it is a high efficiency shot and he routinely kills teams with it in the fourth quarter. Because of how easily he can seemingly get a decent look from there and how good he is at shooting it, many have wondered why he doesn’t go to it more often. The answer is partly that he doesn’t want defenses to adjust and take that away before crunch time when he knows he can get there and get a bucket, but as he’s gotten older it’s also a matter of preserving his energy.

In Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, however, Paul smelled blood in the water with a 3-0 lead and recognized an opportunity to get possibly a full week of rest with a win. Knowing a win put the Suns in the conference finals with the Jazz and Clippers seemingly locked in a tight series, Paul did what many have hoped he would do more often and went to his pet play earlier in the game, torching the Nuggets for 37 points on a flat out ridiculous 14-of-19 shooting. Just watch this supercut of Paul getting to almost the same spot — his last one he drew Jokic deeper and went to a baseline shot just to get a little added flavor — over and over, absolutely cooking Denver en route to a win and a sweep.

It doesn’t matter what Denver does or how the Suns constructed the pick-and-roll, Paul was going to get to that spot to rise and fire. He got there off of screens to the right, screens to the left, and double drags. He faced drop and blitzes, guys going over and under, and it simply didn’t matter. It was a virtuoso performance from one of basketball’s all-time great maestros. Paul, at 36 years old, is seemingly at the peak of his powers when it comes to controlling a game and in Game 4, that meant taking over as a scorer to get his team to the conference finals, spamming the same play over and over to get what he wanted every time.