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Zach Condon is back as Beirut, and he explained the reasoning behind the four-plus-year lag since his last Beirut album, 2019’s Gallipoli. He also announced his forthcoming album Hadsel with the release of “So Many Plans” on Wednesday, August 30.

“SO MANY PLANS. The song was written during the first lockdown in 2020, just when I came back from a two months long period of writing and recording in northern Norway,” Condon captioned an Instagram post on Beirut’s account. “A friend’s lament on their many plans that had to be put on ice became the initial inspiration for this song’s title. That phrase still stuck in my head, I sat down in my attic studio with my newly rediscovered baritone uke and started playing the first chords to the song.”

He continued, “I then added pump organ and some french horn to it, which became somewhat of a triptych for the record. I finished it off with bass and percussion from the modular synth, my big obsession at that time. During the writing process the simple sentence that had started the song came to mean much more than its original intent.”

As per Stereogum‘s Rachel Brodsky, the forthcoming Beirut album is name Hadsel “for the Northern Norwegian island where the performer spent time in 2020.” Condon also provided a statement about his process making the album, which can be read below:

“During my time in Hadsel, I worked hard on the music, lost in a trance and stumbling blindly through my own mental collapse that I had been pushing aside since I was a teenager. It came and rang me like a bell. I was left agonizing many things past and present while the beauty of the nature, the northern lights and fearsome storms played an awesome show around me.

The few hours of light would expose the unfathomable beauty of the mountains and the fjords, and the hours-long twilights would fill me with subdued excitement. I’d like to believe that scenery is somehow present in the music.”

Listen to “So Many Plans” above, and check out the Hadsel cover art below.

Hadsel is out 11/10 via Pompeii Records. Find more information here.

The David Zaslav era of Warner Bros. Discovery sure hasn’t been a good one. The richly paid exec has made one bizarre decision after another, including removing hundreds of classic Looney Tunes shorts and other movies/shows from HBO Max, revamping HBO Max as simply (and confusingly) Max, and cancelling mostly completed films for tax write-offs. (That’s to say nothing of him helping inspire two industry-stalling strikes.) How could his reign get any worse? Well, guess what?

Variety has a new piece about CNN Max, Warner Bros. Discovery’s latest attempt to adapt the flailing news network for the streaming era (after the first one didn’t go so hot). It’s still in the development stage, but it will initially focus on breaking news, aired live 24/7, just like regular CNN, but on a streamer. Zaslav and company have some other ideas, too, including this doozy:

Among the features the company will try out are ways of alerting Max viewers to breaking news while they are watching something else on the service, whether it be an HBO series, a Turner Classic Movies selection or an old episode of Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

Over on another online service now under questionable leadership — and with an even more abbreviated new name — people chimed in. Did they approve of having CNN alerts interrupt The Righteous Gemstones, Lethal Weapon 2, Seven Samurai or Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations? Absolutely not.

Some even made beta videos of what such a monstrosity would look like.

Alas, David Zaslav has never let public opinion stop him from doing unpopular things to the once-beloved brands he’s taken over. Perhaps you’ll learn about some upcoming Donald Trump verdict while deeply ensconsed in an episode of Otter Dynasty.

(Via Variety)

By the time Speedy Ortiz began rolling out music for their upcoming album Rabbit Rabbit, which is out Friday, it had been five years since the band had released music. But now, the band, composed of Sadie Dupuis alongside guitarist Andy Molholt, drummer Joey Doubek, and bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides, return to bring good fortune with their new LP.

Co-produced by Dupuis and Illuminati Hotties’ Sarah Tudzin, Rabbit Rabbit hopes to dismantle old conventions. The title nods to the “superstitious incantation” Dupuis repeated on the first of each month, a practice she adopted as a child coping with OCD and trauma. In true Speedy Ortiz fashion, the album packs together biting commentary masked by busy chords and power-pop melodies. It opens with “Kim Cattrall,” a noisy-yet-shimmering anthem that’s not really about the Sex And The City star, rather the unhealthy coping mechanisms Dupuis leaned on in her 20’s. “You S02,” takes aim at phonies in the music industry while other tracks like “Plus One” illuminate the toxic side of workaholic culture.

To celebrate the release of Rabbit Rabbit, Speedy Ortiz sit down with Uproxx to talk Sylvia Plath, juggling, and rescue foxes in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Joey: Effervescent, Abbr., Dogmatic, Switchfooted.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

Audrey: My favorite experience in music is being completely caught off-guard and going, “Oh my god why and how did they do that?” — just being reminded that music can be anything. Sometimes this even happens to me with our songs and catching a little production trick or detail I forgot about. So I hope if people remember us, they also can still have that experience years down the line, hear a weird synth guitar or tape echo machine or something in the mix and go, “Huh, why is that there?”

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

Sadie: I go through phases of influence and frequently compound a lot of small nods to different inspirations within songs. But Sylvia Plath’s poetry was one of the first major influences on my writing, and the biography Red Comet by Heather Clark wound up directly inspiring a couple songs’ lyrics on this record. I like being able to chart how an author’s work has affected me differently over the course of a few decades — whether that’s my poetry as a teenager, or how reading about Plath’s life as an artist gave me some context on my own.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?

Sadie: Every time I eat at Pietramala in Philly, I hit some new goal post of “best meal ever.” The chef, Ian Graye, moved to Philly in the pandemic to open a vegan food truck called Moto Foto. Pietramala is an extension of that, with more of a focus on Italian cooking, and it has some of the most interesting vegetable presentations I’ve ever tried—like homemade pasta with aged tofu sauce, or chicken-fried mushrooms prepared with different varieties of pepper jellies, or brined cabbage presented like turkey. His emphasis on local farms and seasonal produce means the menu is always changing and every single thing is unreal and adventurous. I’ve been vegan since 2006 and this is by far my favorite place — Philly is really lucky to have it!

Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.

Joey: As a 12 year old in 2000 I went to HFStival to see Rage Against The Machine which has remained the best live performance I’ve ever seen.

What song never fails to make you emotional?

Audrey: “Skin” by All Dogs. All Dogs was a really special band that I’ve missed a lot since they stopped playing together, but I had a chance to see them a couple months ago for a one-off reunion, and hearing this song live again after years was such a powerful experience. It perfectly captures that feeling of wanting to be close to someone but being really unsure of how to fight your own instincts and fears and self-doubt. Depending on when I listen to it, I might get more choked up about the line “I will remind you of my mother,” or the line “I will find a way to justify my pain.”

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Joey: “Zwack.”

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

Andy: Perhaps the weirdest but coolest crash spot I can remember was a collective in New Orleans around the time of 2010 that had a giant treehouse out back that was built partially using salvaged McDonald’s playpen parts. Several of us actually slept out inside the treehouse for the night. I also remember there being a moat. The structure must’ve been like 60 feet tall. I texted a friend, Brookes, from the band we were on tour with at the time (Dangerous Ponies), and was reminded that it was aptly called the “Treehouse Collective.” If you are reading this, thanks again for having us stay over!

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?

Andy: Favorite city in the world to perform in is honestly Philadelphia. It may seem obvious, as this is the city that Speedy Ortiz has chosen to call home, but Philadelphia is truly my favorite city in the world! The city I most hope to perform in for the first time is Tokyo.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Audrey: This is one of those things I would always be very scared to actually do, because as messy and difficult as my adult life has been in a lot of ways, I also think I wouldn’t have had many of the most fulfilling experiences if I had made “smarter” choices. I guess it would just be like, “Hey, therapy and medication are pretty cool and don’t just have undiagnosed mental illnesses for years because you have a lot to figure out and work through either way.”

What’s one of your hidden talents?

Andy: I can juggle three clementines while doing a reportedly convincing impression of Beetlejuice.

If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?

Audrey: All of us believe in harm reduction efforts for drug users, and recently in Philadelphia’s Democratic primary we were pretty sad to see a mayoral candidate who opposes safe injection sites win over one who supported them. A million dollars for harm reduction efforts in our city is as needed as it’s ever been, after political setbacks that would prioritize property values and policing over people’s lives.

What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?

Sadie: There’s too much baggage surrounding AI for me to view it as a viable creative tool right now. So much of the generative technology that’s been rebranded as AI is tied up in companies like Microsoft and Google, who have sold and continue to sell gathered information for military use and predictive policing. Creative possibilities of AI are grossly overstated to generate VC hype and inflate funding. There are racial and gender and other biases built into these algorithms, and they are trained with copyrighted creative output that’s been lifted without consent. Under these conditions I don’t see a reality in which AI is an integrated part of a creative life. I recommend Safiya Noble and Meredith Whittaker’s writing on this!

You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.

Andy: As this festival is unburdened by the bounds of space or time, it will proceed as follows:

1. One player piano as programmed by Conlon Nancarrow
2. An aggressive, upsetting performance of Andy Kaufman wrestling Tony Clifton on the set of Taxi
3. Sly & the Family Stone circa 1971
4. Four real life Pikachus singing the entirety of “Tubular Bells”
5. The headliner is a supergroup of Wendy Carlos on synth, Prince on guitar and vocals, Ryuichi Sakomoto also on synth, Björk also on vocals, Greg Saunier on drums.

It takes place inside a perfect floating sphere of water from the Atlantic Ocean, with dolphins jumping around on all sides of the audience while they float calmly in the center.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

Sadie: @juniperfoxx is my reliable favorite. It documents a household of rescue foxes (and occasional opossums and sugar gliders) hanging out and playing with toys and being silly and pampered alongside their dog siblings. Jessika is the foxes’ parent (pack leader?) and her stories about wild animal care and rehabilitation are pretty fascinating. But mostly I’m there for the foxes’ cute smiles and incessant screams.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

Joey: It says “mom” in Morse code.

What is your pre-show ritual?

Joey: I find the darkest corner of the green room to sit cross-legged and quietly recite “Edge Of Night,” as performed by Pippin in LOTR: The Return of the King.

Who was your first celebrity crush?

Sadie: A lot of animated anthropomorphized dogs come to mind but Roxanne from A Goofy Movie sticks out.

You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?

Audrey: My partner’s family has history in China and Guatemala, so I’d love to spend time with them in both those places. We could split the month in half and see how much we could see.

What is your biggest fear?

Andy: Being pushed into an oncoming subway car. I can’t really explain why, but I sometimes visualize what it would look like from a third-person perspective as the train approaches. It feels like a weird dream that hasn’t happened and will probably not happen, but I suppose that’s the way fear works!

Rabbit Rabbit is out 9/1 via Wax Nine. Find more information here.

A gritty, blood-pumping trailer set to the tunes of Halluci Nation’s “Stadium Pow Wow,” and a critically-raved about debut at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival have made Martin Scorsese’s latest crime epic the most-buzzed-about movie this fall.

Killers of the Flower Moon sees the Oscar-winning director partnering with his longtime muse, Leonardo DiCaprio, to tell a captivating story that has roots in a real-life blood feud that devastated the Osage Nation in the 1920s. Scorsese’s brought history to the big screen before, most recently with The Irishman and The Wolf of Wall Street, but this adaptation of journalist David Grann’s nonfiction work, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, is some of the heaviest, most complicated material he’s faced yet.

Here’s what we know about the story.

The Osage Murders

Displaced by the US Government at the beginning of the 19th century, the Osage Nation settled in Oklahoma in what was known as “Indian territory.” They legally purchased land for their reservation from the US Government and negotiated a deal giving each tribe member a share in the land’s mineral trust. When rich oil fields were discovered under the land a few years later, Osage Nation members became the richest people in the country — something that attracted criminals and conmen to the territory, all hoping to take advantage of the country’s “guardianship” system which allowed white men to exercise control over the wealth of Indigenous people through marriage, murder, or theft.

The murders of Osage members Anna Brown and Charles Whitehorn in 1921 marked the beginning of an attack against their people that would claim the lives of 22 more. As Osage Nation members began dying of mysterious illnesses and being murdered in drive-by shootings and home explosions, one tribe member, Mollie Burkhart, appealed to the Department of Justice to investigate the killings. Her story — and how her husband, his brother, and their wealthy uncle played a role in the murders — is what Scorsese seems to be focusing on with his film.

The FBI Investigation and Trial

While Lily Gladstone is set to play Mollie, DiCaprio will be portraying her husband Ernest, who was somehow roped into his uncle’s scheme to steal land (and wealth) from the Osage Nation through violent means. Ernest’s contentious relationship with the elder William Hale (played in the film by Robert De Niro), and the assassination attempts he carried out in his name, will likely be the crux of the film — as will the investigation into the murders led by FBI agent Tom White (Jesse Plemmons). Ernest not only conspired to kill his wife’s family, but he also planned her death — though she escaped that fate through sheer coincidence. He would later be arrested for the murders along with his uncle and the two would stand trial.

Scorsese worked with Osage Nation historians to develop the film, eventually changing the story from focusing solely on the creation of the FBI — which the murders helped spark — to spotlighting the terrible injustice and generational trauma these killings caused.

(Via EW)

Every parent knows that young children will believe just about anything you tell them, within reason. Part of being a parent is becoming a master of the white lie to distract your kids from things they aren’t quite ready to hear or to have some innocent fun.

But when 6-year-old Abby, a popular TikTok personality, heard her dad telling whopper after whopper on a fake job interview, she wouldn’t stand for it. Abby, now 7, is the star of the Along Came Abby TikTok channel with over 3.9 million followers.

Abby’s dad, Andrew Terry, set up a fake job interview with a potential employer where he told lie after lie with his daughter sitting beside him. The point of the prank was to get a reaction out of her. The good news for the Terry family is that she’s obviously a girl with a solid moral compass because she couldn’t stand hearing her dad’s constant lies.

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Andrew indicated that the potential employer wanted to see one of his children, so he had Abby sit next to him in the interview.

@alongcameabby

Fake interview #fyp #fake #interview #funny #honest

“I dress like this every day,” Andrew says, sitting properly in his tan suit with a blue tie. “I get up at 4 a.m. Every morning, I go for a run—and I run for about 12 miles.” At the onset, Abby looks beside herself, but she keeps her composure until her dad notes that he washes the dishes every morning before his wife, Abby’s mom, Lissa, even gets up.

Abby can’t stand it, so she jumps up and yells, “Cut!”

“Shhh… Abby, Please,” Andrew tells his daughter under his breath. “That’s not true!” Abby retorts.

Andrew regains his composure and then goes on a jag about how after he does the dishes, he bathes the dog so that when his wife gets up, “everything is done.” This is too much for Abby. “Bye!” Abby says before storming off.

But Andrew is able to coax her back for more of his whimsy by noting that his potential employer “is going to hear this.” He then reveals that he only eats vegetables and never any pizza.

“Come on! You eat sugar all day,” Abby tells her dad.

Abby can no longer stand the charade after Andrew admits that when he met her mother, he played centerfield for the New York Yankees. At that point, Abby walks off camera, never to return.

Since being released in November 2022, the video has had over 9.3 million views and has received over 22,000 comments.

“Her moral compass is STRONG,” CylynG2020 wrote.

“I hope you told her how awesome it is that she didn’t want to stand for the lies. She is awesome,” j friend:) added.

The video is fun because it shows how even young children pay attention to their parents and know their daily habits. It’s a good reminder for parents everywhere that their kids have an eye on them and to beware of the subconscious examples they’re setting for them on a daily basis.

When people think about kids who are at-risk, the image of an upper-middle-class child doesn’t typically come to mind. In fact, even writing that upper middle-class children as a group are considered at-risk feels awkward. There are children who are food insecure, or are at risk of losing housing or have little to no stability at all, but the risk facing children in upper-middle-class kids, specifically, is different.

Kids in families that make around $130K or more are at high risk for “toxic achievement culture,” which can lead to increased instances of mental health conditions.

“So these kids are at-risk, meaning they are two to six times more likely than the average American teen to suffer from clinical levels of anxiety, depression and substance abuse disorder,” Jennifer Breheny Wallace, author of “Never Enough,” told CBS Mornings.

Surprisingly, the likelihood increases further among upper-middle-class children of color when compared to their inner-city minority kids with fewer privileges.

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Wallace explains that minority children have the excess pressure to achieve with the added layer of discrimination, which leads to their higher likelihood of having those mental illnesses. It seems backward since most parents work really hard to be able to afford their children a better lifestyle than what they themselves may have grown up with. But it seems once you’re in a certain tax bracket, the pressure is on and it’s crushing children in its wake.

Parents don’t have to sit by and cross their fingers, though. Wallace mentions several things parents can do to keep their children from falling into this toxic achievement trap. The first thing experts interviewed for her book told her was that parents need to have an adjustable bar when it comes to what their expectations are of their children.

“Teach them good, healthy work habits. Teach them how to build a life of play and downtime and family time, that they don’t need substances to escape from,” Wallace says. “That’s really the job of a parent.”

One of the things most helpful for children who were “healthy achieving,” is that they felt like they mattered in their home for who they are at their core. So it turns out, there isn’t a super secret magic formula that’s difficult to replicate—it seems to be showing your kids that they themselves are valuable outside of how well they do in school, sports or other extra-curricular activities.

The entire interview can be viewed below:

If you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time with twins, you know that no other relationship compares.

My husband has twin brothers, and one of those brothers had twin daughters (busting the twins-skip-a-generation myth), so our family is quite familiar with the twin bond. Over and over, we’ve watched with amusement as one adult twin will move across the country for one reason or another, with the other twin eventually, but inevitably, following them. Twins redefine the word “inseparable,” which makes sense since they’ve literally been together since before they were even born.

Nowhere is that bond more apparent than in a video of twin babies at the end of their first day of separation ever.

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In a TikTok video shared by @thattwinmama, we see black-and-white footage from a baby monitor showing baby twin sisters standing in adjacent cribs.

“Our twins were separated for a day for the first time in their entire lives…” the video text reads. “That night we put them down leaving them alone for the first time in over 24 hours. And pretty sure it’s safe to say they definitely missed each other.”

Watch how the baby girls cuddle and love on one another with the sweetest tenderness.

@thattwinmama_

Will forever make me😭… cant think of anything stronger than the #twinbond ❤️ #twinsoftiktok #twins #twinsisters #babylife #twinlove #sisterlove #feelgood #babiesoftiktok #sharethelove #newmom #4u #sistersforever

The head kiss? The back pat? Come on. It doesn’t get any cuter than that.

There truly is nothing like the bond between twins. There have even been documented cases of twins who were separated at birth and who ended up having the same traits and making similar life choices later in life. It’s a relationship only twins themselves get to experience, but anyone who is a friend or family member of twins has to try to understand it if they truly want to know them because it’s such a unique—and inseparable—part of their identity.

After bringing Denver their first NBA championship, the Nuggets are rightfully enjoying their offseason headlined by Nikola Jokic who is back home in Serbia living his best life watching his horses.

For the front office, there had to be a quick turnaround on basking in the glow of a championship, because two weeks later they had to be ready for the start of free agency. With the majority of their team under contract long-term, including Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and Aaron Gordon, there weren’t a lot of big decisions for Denver to make this summer, but they did know they were likely to see some key rotational pieces depart and would need to come up with ways to replace them without having much money to spend. That indeed was the case, with the biggest departure being Bruce Brown signing with the Pacers, but provided health of their top stars, the Nuggets will still be a strong contender to repeat in 2023-24. There are going to be a few questions lingering deeper down the rotation, but a fairly quiet offseason isn’t a bad things when you’re the champs.

Here we’ll grade the Nuggets offseason moves in the Draft, free agency and contract extensions, and on the trade market.

Draft: B-

After some wheeling and dealing (including a rare mid-Finals trade), the Nuggets were able to move up to the 29th pick in the first round, via the Indiana Pacers. With that pick they took Julian Strawther out of Gonzaga, adding more shooting on the wing as they hope he can potentially step into the regular season rotation next season. On Draft night, our Brad Rowland gave the Nuggets a B- for the selection, noting his shooting is the headlining skill for him in the NBA, but if he’s going to stick on the champs roster the defense will need to improve.

This might be a bit early for Strawther in a vacuum, but Denver can be trusted to maximize his skill set. He is a fantastic shooter and has the size that Denver seems to covet. Defensively, it’s an adventure right now, but there is room to grow with his tools.

Denver also added Jalen Pickett out of Penn State and Hunter Tyson out of Clemson in the early part of the second round, further adding some youth and shooting to their bench unit. While unlikely they get another late round steal who cracks the playoff rotation the way Christian Braun did a year ago, the Nuggets were rather desperate to add some rookie contracts to their cap sheet and add some youth to their bench.

Free Agency/Contract Extensions: C+

It’s not a surprise they lost Brown given they could only offer him $7.8 million for next season and he got two years, $45 million from the Pacers. The same can be said for Jeff Green getting $6 million in Houston for next year. The issue for the Nuggets is they weren’t in a great place to replace either, and the result was they got a bit squeezed on the vet market and there’s real questions about their seventh and eighth spots in the playoff rotation. Adding Justin Holiday is a solid Jeff Green replacement, but the hole left by Brown has gone unfilled. Braun will almost assuredly be asked to take a larger role in his stead while Peyton Watson and Strawther figure to get cracks at the Braun role, but their only other signing was Reggie Jackson for $5 million. Jackson wasn’t really part of the playoff rotation a year ago and brings a very different skillset to the backcourt than Brown.

All of this is a bit nitpicky, but then again that’s the margins you are dealing with when you’re trying to win a title. I also understand why Denver ended up making the moves they did because they just didn’t have the kind of role to offer the top vets on the market that a team like Phoenix did. Denver is offering a chance to be the seventh or eighth man in the rotation (at best), which isn’t all that appealing, even for the defending champs. They are still going to be terrific and can absolutely win a title with this roster, but given one of their strengths was that they did not have the same kind of holes in their rotation as other top teams, they have seemingly taken a step back in that area barring some big leaps from young players.

Trades: INC

All of the Nuggets trades were involving draft picks this summer, and with those deals they did well to cash in on some future assets right now when they needed a way to fill out their roster with young players under team control long-term. Denver did not want to end up as a team rotating out five different veteran minimum guys every year, which makes a lot of sense given their team-building strategy has always been about creating cohesion and relying on the trust built internally. It’s hard to keep that going when you have significant roster turnover every year, even if the starting lineup stays the same, and Denver is banking on their development system being able to bring at least a couple of their youngsters along to being useful in the regular season, at the least.

The Nuggets never were going to have a huge offseason, as somehow talking Brown into returning was the only chance at a spectacular summer. Operating within their reality, they did perfectly fine but will have some interesting questions to answer once the playoffs roll around next year regarding who comes off of the bench and whether they can prop up the starting lineup the way the bench did this past postseason. All told, the Nuggets are one of the NBA’s best teams and it’s a very good place to be when your only concern (beyond health, which is everyone’s concern) is the 6-8 spots in the rotation. Having the best player in the world on top of that isn’t bad either, and despite a quiet summer, Denver fans are rightfully dreaming of going back-to-back.

Dunking on presidential kids is fine — long as they’re adults. People can rag on Don Jr., Ivanka, and, sure, even Hunter Biden as much as they like. Someone like the teenaged Barron, however, is off-limits. (Although that hasn’t stopped his own father from using him to rail on Democrats.) Thirty years ago, SNL found out what happens when they don’t obey this rule.

On the Jan. 16, 1993 episode hosted by Harvey Keitel, musical guest Madonna played herself in a cold open sketch. It featured her serenading then-president Bill Clinton (Phil Hartman) for his birthday à la Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy, all while Hillary (Jan Hooks) glowers. Sitting next to them is their 12-year-old daughter Chelsea, played by Julia Sweeney. At the end, Madonna signals that it’s not the president she wants but Chelsea. (The sketch is not one that SNL allows on YouTube.)

The sketch got big laughs from the studio audience, but not everyone was amused. On a recent episode of Fly on the Wall, the podcast hosted by SNL alums Dana Carvey and David Spade, Sweeney revealed that Hillary “wrote a letter” to the show’s honcho Lorne Michaels, expressing her displeasure with how her young daughter was portrayed.

“People were saying how unattractively I was playing Chelsea and all I did was not wear makeup and put braces on,” Sweeney recalled. “If you say that, you’re saying I’m unattractive!” Sweeney swore she “wasn’t trying to play her unattractive,” adding that she “just didn’t wear makeup and put on braces.” She also had a wig.

Still, Sweeney wound up taking Chelsea’s mom’s side. “I understood what Hillary was saying, especially now that I’m a parent. It’s like, yeah f*ck off,” she said. “I mean, don’t play kids. That was wrong. She was right, that was wrong.”

Believe it or not, it wasn’t the last time SNL sent up Chelsea Clinton. In a Wayne’s World sketch, Wayne and Garth (Mike Myers and Carvey) joked that suggested Chelsea wasn’t as attractive as Al Gore’s daughters. Not only did Michaels issue an apology but so did Myers himself.

But again, it’s fine to drag middle-aged Trump son Don Jr. for, say, straight-up telling people to stop buying MAGA merch from people who aren’t him.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

A lot of Donald Trump cronies have it bad right now, but no one’s worse off than Rudy Giuliani. Not only is the former “America’s Mayor” one of the Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case, but he has a separate lawsuit pertaining to it: A defamation lawsuit brought on by two election workers he spent weeks falsely smearing. On Wednesday, in a brutal ruling, a judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. And it might be this — even before the broader Georgia case and the Smartmatic lawsuit — that brings Rudy down.

As per Salon, Judge Beryl Howell, presiding over the case, granted a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs after Giuliani only provided about 193 documents, which were “blobs of indecipherable data,” and only a “sliver of the financial documents required to be produced.” A trial will be set to determine how much Giuliani owes the two election workers, though he already has to pay for their legal fees to the tune of nearly $90,000 in legal fees.

CNN has reported that Giuliani could wind up being on the hook for “thousands, if not millions, of dollars.”

Looking over the case, legal expert Andrew Weissman speculated about what could be worth hiding to willingly lose the defamation case. Whatever it is, he pondered, it must be “criminally damning” — bad enough to risk a ruling he calls “financially ruinous.”

Mind you, Giuliani did all this for Trump, a guy who infamously refused to help him out financially beyond a vague — and so far unfulfilled — vow to slip the poor guy at least a couple bucks. But Giuliani did this to himself, partly while reportedly tanked.

(Via Salon)