Category: News

Ever since the January 6 MAGA insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, many congressional Republicans (not Mitt Romney) appear absurdly eager to align themselves with an ex-president who (still) pushes the Big Lie. However, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WI), the daughter of former VP Dick Cheney and Lynne Cheney, showed that she was not willing to march to the same lemming beat as die-hard Trumpers. Instead, she’s urged her fellow party members to distance themselves from a president who placed his own ego ahead of the constitution and incited his voting base toward deadly violence. Cheney has refused to bend the knee to Trump and, instead, consistently called out his election falsehoods. Amid an inevitable buildup to oust her from House leadership, she stood firm while declaring, “Ignoring the lie emboldens the liar.”

Well, Cheney is now truly out of her leadership role. The House GOP made this decision on Wednesday morning by voice vote during a closed-door meeting. Yep, they didn’t even bother to put their votes on the record (they also booed Cheney), and in doing so, Republicans are showing that they’re rolling the dice on a Trump future and want him back in the White House. That’s amazing, truly, since one would think that they’d run far and fast from ex-president who managed to get himself banned from Twitter and Facebook, but nope.

“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Cheney told reporters (via CNBC) following her ouster. “The party is in a place that we’ve got to bring it back from. We cannot be dragged backward by the very dangerous lies of a former president.” She also cited Trump’s refusal to honor the U.S. Constitution and stressed that the party must pick a presidential candidate who doesn’t stomp all over the document.

Following this development, “Cowards” began trending hard on Twitter. “Cult of Cowards” was right up in there, too.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that 100 prominent GOP members want to branch off into a new party to distance themselves from the Trump taint. This ain’t over yet.

(Via NY Times & NBC News)

While weighing in on the tiger currently on the loose in Houston, Tiger King star Carole Baskin called out Ted Cruz for failing to sign on to the Big Cat Public Safety Act back in December, which she believes would’ve prevented this whole mess. Cruz not only didn’t push for a vote on the bill, but he publicly criticized Democrats for wanting to “prosecute Tiger King,” instead of focusing on the pandemic. According to Baskin, Cruz’s failure to get behind the bill is directly linked to the tiger roaming the streets of Houston.

Here’s what she told CNN via The Recount:

You know this is becoming kind of commonplace in Texas, and so I really hope that Senators Cruz and Cornyn sign on to the Big Cat Public Safety Act when they brought it up last year. Because if they had last year when the House passed the bill — the Senate didn’t bring it up — this wouldn’t have happened this time. And the reason for that is this cub’s only nine months old, which means it probably aged out of being used as a pay-to-play prop in December of last hear when this passed the House with a two-thirds vote.

As for the big cat, yes, it’s the same tiger from the viral video on Sunday. In the video, the Bengal tiger can be seen wandering a neighborhood as an off-duty officer does his best to keep people inside and contain the situation. (Warning: Audio is NSFW)

According to CNN, Victor Hugo Cuevas, the man who was illegally housing the tiger was arrested after trying to flee with the animal. Cuevas, who was out on bond for a murder charge, was eventually caught by authorities. The tiger, however, is still on the loose, which only bolstered Baskin’s further assessment that “the kind of people who own tigers are really dangerous, reckless people.”

Of course, there’s some strange irony in Baskin talking about a murder suspect and tigers, and naturally, social media is already on it:

(Via The Recount on Twitter)

Thor, the fourth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, came out 10 years ago. At that point, Chris Hemsworth was an unknown in America — outside of a brief cameo in Star Trek as Kirk’s dad, his most prominent role was a recurring part in the Australian soap opera, Home and Away. (Wikipedia tells me that the creator of the series “came up with the concept of the show during a trip to Kangaroo Point,” which is very Australian.) Meanwhile, Tom Hiddleston was an award-winning theater actor, but he was hardly the household, Taylor Swift-dating name he would become while playing Loki. To celebrate the anniversary, Hemsworth looked back to when they were both “no-names.”

“This year marks the 10th anniversary of THOR when two unknown lads were given the keys to the kingdom. It’s been a hell of a ride and we clearly haven’t aged a day,” Hemsworth wrote on Instagram, along with a Vulture article from 2009 with the headline, “Marvel Rolls Dice, Casts No-names for Thor.” An excerpt: “Despite rumors that had everyone from Shia LaBeouf to Josh Hartnett being cast in Kenneth Branagh’s version of Thor, two virtual unknowns will instead be handed the keys to the Marvel franchise.”

Two things:

1. As someone who has written many regrettable headlines over the years, I will not disparage another writer for accurately referring to Hemsworth and Hiddleston as “unknowns.”

2. Marvel really dodged a bullet by not casting Shia. Yikes.

Hemsworth also shared a photo of himself and Hiddleston from 10 years ago. It looks like it was taken 30 years ago.

The official class of 2021 inductees for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was announced today, and as the honorees have become aware of the news, they have offered reactions to their latest historic achievement.

Foo Fighters went funny with their reaction, referencing one of Pat Smear’s previous bands and writing, “Holy sh*t! The guitar player from The Germs is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!!!”

Jay-Z has yet to give a public reaction, but his Roc Nation shared a photo of him and captioned it, “Hall Of Fame Hov.”

LL Cool J shared the list of of nominees and wrote, “You can do anything you put your mind to. Thank you.”

Carole King also wrote, “I wanted to be a songwriter so I could meet all the great artists and they would know who I was. I thought being inducted into the @rockhall as a songwriter with Gerry Goffin was the pinnacle. Until now. Thank you for ALSO inducting me as an artist. And [thanks] to my fans always.”

The Go-Go’s are thrilled to be included in this induction class, as they tweeted, “We are so EXCITED to announce that we will be … inducted into the 2021 Rock Hall of Fame!! Women have always been a vital part of the ever changing music business and we are so proud to have our success story honored and recognized by the @rockhall and our wonderful fans!”

The induction ceremony is set to take place on October 30 at 8 p.m., from Cleveland, Ohio’s Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. The show will be broadcast on HBO and later stream on HBO Max.

Mike “MyPillow Guy” Lindell held a rally at the beautiful-sounding Corn Palace in South Dakota on Monday. He spoke for 90 minutes about his social media website, cancel culture, and how former-president Donald Trump will soon be current-president Donald Trump. “He said his evidence shows that China corrupted election machines and changed the voting results in the election, denying Donald Trump from winning by 14 million votes. Lindell’s goal, he said, is for regular citizens to put significant pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the evidence. He said if that happens, Trump will be back in office as president by August,” according to the Mitchell Republic.

Lindell expected 30,000 people to hear him rant about stopping the steal, or whatever, but as Jimmy Kimmel noted during Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, “only 1,500 [showed up]. It was quite the event. Mike treated the semi-crowd to 90 minutes of paranoid rantings about election fraud. And the music act was none other than former-Saturday Night Live cast member, Joe Piscopo.” I guess Victoria Jackson was busy.

Lindell also “reached deep into the Trump time machine to pull another great entertainer out of meatballs,” Kimmel said before cutting to a sleepy clip of Ben Carson speaking to the minuscule crowd over Zoom. “Ben Carson on Zoom is like the South Dakota equivalent of the Tupac hologram,” he added.

The Lindell jokes begin around the 5:30 mark in the monologue above.

A couple weeks ago, Grimes revealed she thought she blew her chance at ever getting to perform on Saturday Night Live. And yet, she was on the show just last week, not as a musical performer, but instead making a cameo as Princess Peach in a Mario-themed sketch. Now, she has reflected on the experience and offered praise for the episode’s guests, Elon Musk and Miley Cyrus.

The day after the show, Cyrus took to Twitter and shared some photos of herself and Grimes backstage, with Grimes in her Peach costume, and wrote, “She’s not a princess. She’s a queen.” The next day, Grimes tweeted the same photos and wrote, “Gotta say @MileyCyrus is extremely siqué at music and as a human.” Then, last night, Grimes posted the photos on Instagram with a longer caption.

She started by explaining the delay behind the pictures making it to Instagram, writing, “Forgot to post these cuz I somehow caused myself to have a panic attack and went to the hospital yesterday which tbh was quite scary and I suppose it’s a good time to start therapy.” She continued, “but nonetheless – wowwwww @mileycyrus is good live and so chill! So grateful to the SNL team for being so kind and letting me sneak in as princess peach.” She concluded with praise for Musk, writing, “so proud of my beautiful E (which I know will upset the grimes fans so I apologize in advance) but he killed it.”

Cyrus also shared an old photo of herself dressed as an alien and wrote, “Hangs with @Grimezsz & @elonmusk once,” which got a laugh out of them both.

Check out all the posts below.

The cast of Knives Out 2 is shaping up to be just as impressive as that of its predecessor. Three-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton is the latest marquee name to sign on to star in the film—the first of two sequels—which will premiere on Netflix, presumably some time in 2022.

Norton’s casting bodes well for the film, which will again be written and directed by Rian Johnson. After rising to fame in the late 1990s with movies like Primal Fear (1996) and American History X (1998)—both of which earned him Oscar nominations—Norton has become increasingly picky when it comes to his choice of projects. Of the ten credited roles he has taken on over the past decade, three have been voice acting gigs and four have been for Wes Anderson, including his upcoming The French Dispatch alongside Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, and Adrien Brody (who was just cast in the much-anticipated upcoming season of Succession). The former Hulk actor was last seen in the critically acclaimed Motherless Brooklyn, based on Jonathan Lethem’s award-winning novel of the same name, which Norton wrote, produced, directed, and starred in.

As for his role in Knives Out 2: No one’s really talking. We know that Johnson will again be at the helm and that Daniel Craig will reprise his role as Benoit Blanc, a Southern(ish) accented detective who’s a bit like Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot—except with suspenders instead of a mustache.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista would also be joining the cast. But much like Norton, there are really no details beyond “he will be in this movie.”

According to Deadline:

Plot details for the sequel are unknown at this time, other than Craig’s Blanc returning to solve another mystery revolving around a large cast of suspects. It is also unknown who Norton will be playing in the pic. Production is set to start this summer in Greece.

Also unknown at this time: Whether Knives Out 2 will cause a run on off-white, cable-knit fisherman’s sweaters.

(Via Deadline)

Stephen Colbert isn’t a doctor, nor does he play one on TV. But he does possess an important reasoning device known as “logic,” which he believes could be the key to fighting off the scourge of a recently identified (but certainly not new) condition that is currently afflicting millions of Americans: Foxitis.

Also known as “Foxmania,” Foxitis is a new—and very much made-up—“condition” that was recently invented by Joseph Hawley, a lawyer for Anthony Antonio, a Capitol rioter who has been charged with five federal crimes, including disorderly conduct and destruction of government property.

While appearing in front of a Washington, D.C. magistrate during a Zoom hearing, Hawley told the judge that his client was under the influence of Fox News when he decided to storm the Capitol. But Colbert believes he has found a cure—and it’s just one simple click away: The “Off” button.

That’s right, folks. If you believe you’re being unduly influenced by a manipulative cable network that has a very specific (and often dangerous) political agenda, as Antonio now does, you can simply—get this!—turn off your television. Alternative methods include changing the channel or simply hitting the Mute button.

Not sure if what you have it considered Foxitis? Colbert listed some of the painful-sounding symptoms, including Ingraham Toenail, Blood in your Doocy, Kayleigh Mcanalcyst, Jeanine Pirrohoids, Tucker Carcinoma, and Seanital Warts. Ouch!

The cure seems to have worked for Antonio. On Monday night, he spoke with Chris Cuomo on Prime Time and explained that he has since seen the error of his ways, telling the CNN host:

“As of right now, I acknowledge, I know that Joe Biden is our President. That’s not a mystery; that’s a fact. But, I felt like, maybe I believed that America was being robbed of a president. And I now know that that was a lie.”

A giant Kayleigh Mcanalcyst will do that to you.

You can watch the full clip above.

Bizarre run-ins with noted eccentrics are part of life in Hollywood. Fortunately for the rest of us, Seth Rogen finds them equally hilarious and is happy to share his stories. Like the time he had to explain internet porn to Tom Cruise, or the time Cruise tried to sell Rogen on Scientology. But those tales pale in comparison to one extremely awkward dinner that began with Nicolas Cage delivering a monologue in a Jamaican accent.

While appearing on The Howard Stern Show, Rogen and Stern got to talking about The Green Hornet, the 2011 superhero movie Rogen wrote and produced with Evan Goldberg, and also starred in. While the film was in development, Sony was pushing the idea of Cage as the villain. While Rogen is a “huge fan” of the actor, he admitted to having some trepidation because, “There are a lot of Nicolas Cages… And you don’t know what Nicolas Cage you’re going to get.”

It didn’t take long for Rogen to get a glimpse at which version of Cage he might see in The Green Hornet:

“We got a phone call that he wants to play a white Bahamian man—it was pitched as a white Jamaican guy basically, which set off a lot of alarms. Not that a white Jamaican man is bad, but doing the accent and all this stuff just seemed like it was a world of trouble.”

Eventually, then-Sony head Amy Pascal suggested they all get together at her house to discuss the project. What happened next was not wholly unexpected, but it was uncomfortable:

“Literally we showed up and within 60 seconds we were all seated in the living room as he stands in front of us reciting a monologue in a Jamaican accent… A monologue, I should add, that is not in the script. Nor did it have anything to do with the script… There was no indication that he had any idea what film we were trying to make in any way, really. Other than that it was called The Green Hornet and there was a villain.

So he does his whole thing… and then it ends and it’s a though he just landed a backflip and he’s waiting for the applause. And everyone looks to me to express the group reaction to this and I was so uncomfortable… I didn’t know what to say. I was like, ‘It was ok. Cool, thanks. We should talk about it. That’s not how we pictured the character.’ And I clearly didn’t give him the reaction he wanted because he instantly was just sullen.”

Pascal attempted to quell the awkwardness by suggesting they sit down for dinner, Cage clearly wasn’t over the fact that he hadn’t blown them all away with his performance. Just as they all sat down, Rogen said Cage got up and told them he had to go. And then just left.

The story didn’t end there though. You can watch the full clip above—including the post-script, in which Cage requested another meeting a couple of years later and subtly accused Rogen of telling James Franco about his “performance,” as Cage believed Franco’s Spring Breakers character was based on him.

Hollywood!

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Summer is approaching and for many, that means some of us will see more activity outside our homes. This includes an increased presence of cyclists riding by or the neighborhood kids making their return to play in the street. However, for Rick Ross, his home was the endpoint of a police chase.

According to TMZ, on Tuesday, the rapper’s Georgia estate was swarmed with police officers who spent an unknown amount of time pursuing a man who they claimed had a gun on him. The chase began when a call about a man with the weapon was made to Clayton County Sheriff’s office.

After embarking on the chase for the suspect, the pursuit came to an end in front of Ross’ home after the suspect crashed his truck in front of it. The man then tried to flee on foot, but he was apprehended by police officers a short time later. Despite the belief that the individual was armed, a firearm was not found in his possession, and as a result, officers were left to search around Ross’ property in hopes of finding the weapon.

The suspect has yet to be identified and it’s unclear if anyone was hurt before the police chase. It’s also unknown whether or not Ross was at the Georgia estate at the time of the pursuit for the suspect.