Category: Viral

It’s been a bad time for far right politicians. The Republicans’ promised/threatened “red wave” failed to coalesce. Trump’s third presidential campaign got off to an inauspicious, boring start. There was a warning sign for the GOP downfall, and they came from Brazil: The week before America’s midterms, Jair Bolsonaro — the nation’s stereoidal version of Trump — lost re-election. Unlike Trump (or sore loser Kari Lake), he hasn’t really contested the results. He’s hasn’t even been seen. And there’s a good, strange reason for that.

As per Insider, Bolsonaro has been holed up in his official residence because, as Vice President Hamilton Mourao rcently told the newspaper O Globo, he “can’t wear pants.”

Why can’t Bolsonaro wear pants? Because he’s suffering from erysipelas, a skin infection, which has glommed onto his leg. As per Medical News Today, the disease is caused by bacteria that seeps into one’s body through poorly healed wounds. (What happened there remains to be made public.) Some symptoms of erysipelas include skin. Made swollen, shiny, and red, as well as sensitive to the touch.

But couldn’t Bolsonaro simply wear something else, something more revealing? Apparently not. “It is a health issue. He has a leg injury, a skin infection,” Mourao said .”He cannot wear pants. You want him to come here wearing shorts?”

Bolsonaro lost to Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, who was Brazil’s president from 2003 through 2010. It was a tight race, and though there were fears Bolsonaro would pull a Trump and pull a Jan. 6, he has not (yet). Perhaps he realizes it’s hard to foment an insurgency in shorts.

During his reign, Bolsonaro was a wild card terror, even threatening the planet by opening up the Amazon Basin to deforestation. He was praised by Tucker Carlson and got into fights with Leonardo DiCaprio. And now he can’t wear pants.

(Via Insider)

Donald Trump used to have the most powerful job in the country, if not the world, and yet his four years in office didn’t exactly educate him about how American law works. The former president is currently in lots of trouble. His most recent problem is the Justice Department, which on Friday announced a special counsel to handle two separate cases of alleged wrongdoing. But Trump thinks he can weasel out of it thanks to a loophole popularized by a movie — a very stupid movie that actually got the loophole wrong.

On Friday, Trump spoke at an America First Policy Institute gala held at the resort in which he now lives. Clad in a tuxedo, he treated the crowd to one of his endless, self-pitying, fact-challenged rants. At one point he touched on the Justice Department stepping up their investigations into him, throwing out a bonkers theory about how he could evade legal woes: He can’t be indicted because he’s already been impeached. Twice!

“They tried it, and we went through the whole process, and we won,” he told the crowd. “We went through the whole process. So wouldn’t this sort of be, a – then you take a look at the other. We went through two of them. Isn’t this sort of like double jeopardy? In the old days we used to call it ‘double jeopardy.’”

Did Trump have a case? Nope, as Intelligencer’s Jonathan Chait pointed out, calling him “comically mistaken”:

There is some popular misunderstanding of the double jeopardy principle. The 1999 movie “Double Jeopardy” starred Ashley Judd as a woman whose husband faked his own death and framed her for the murder. In prison, a fellow inmate advises her that once she gets out, she can find and kill her husband and avoid prosecution because she can’t be charged for the same crime twice. (Hence the title of the film.) This advice is wrong — killing her husband years later would be a different crime, for which she could absolutely be charged — and in general you should not commit felonies on the basis of free legal advice you heard from a fellow inmate.

It’s even actually worse than that. In Double Jeopardy, Judd’s character thinks she can’t be prosecuted for murder twice. (She can.) But Trump seems to think that, having been twice impeached for the same crime, he is now free to commit any crime without prosecution. As Chait point out, were that true, it would be a “gigantic loophole in the legal system.”

Where did Trump get such an idea? As The Daily Beast pointed out, perhaps from Geraldo Rivera. On Fox News earlier that day, the sometimes quisling conservative argued that Trump had “already been impeached for exactly these charges concerning the insurrection of January 6th, that is what impeachment is for.” He then speculated, “To now have a special prosecutor go over the same ground, to me, I submit, is double jeopardy.”

Rivera wasn’t right and neither is Trump. The same goes for the movie Double Jeopardy.

Citing dubious, half-remembered legal advice from Geraldo wasn’t Trump’s only boneheaded legal take on Friday. After Garland announced the latest investigations, Trump told Fox News, “I am not going to partake in it. I’m not going to partake in this.” But that’s like a suspected murderer saying they weren’t going to collaborate with police. Maybe if Trump indeed becomes president a second time, he’ll have another four years to learn about how the law really works.

(Via Intelligencer and The Daily Beast)

Long snappers have one of the trickiest jobs in all of college football. Yes, they have to do one primary thing — get the football to either the holder or the punter — but if they mess that up, it will almost always lead to disaster. They have jobs after the ball gets snapped, but if they mess up that first thing, none of it matters and they end up making a potentially game-changing mistake.

On Saturday, we got the rare moment where something extremely good happened involving a long snapper. Vanderbilt is in The Swamp to take on the Florida Gators, and on a fourth-and-3 from their side of the field with fewer than four minutes remaining in the first half, the Commodores decided to send out the punt team. Everything went off without a hitch, as Matt Hayball booted the ball down the field.

Florida return man Jason Marshall Jr. took a poor angle to try and fair catch the ball on his own 8-yard line, which is a curious decision in and of itself. But he ended up muffing it and the ball rolled gently into the end zone, which led to a scrum. By the time things were sorted out, Vanderbilt long snapper Wesley Schelling had the ball in his hands for six.

This gave the ‘Dores a 14-6 lead they took into the locker room for halftime.

Dwight Howard made clear that he wanted to continue his basketball career, even though he struggled to find an NBA team that would want to bring him on board. As such, the soon-to-be 37-year-old Howard had to head overseas and sign a contract with Taoyuan Leopards of the T1 League in Taiwan.

Well, Howard made his debut with the Leopards on Saturday against New Taipei CTBC DEA, and he immediately took the league by storm. The 8-time All-NBA selection went for 38 points, 25 rebounds, nine assists, and four blocks in a 120-115 win. He also took 10(!!!) threes, and knocked down two of them.

The crowd is losing its collective mind as Dwight Howard is basically allowed to do whatever he wants is awesome, while you can tell that Howard is having a blast being on the floor.

Some of the ways this is fun: Howard’s previous career-high in attempts from three was three. This was the second time he made more than one triple in a game in his entire basketball career. The nine assists is a career-high, he hasn’t blocked four or more shots in a game since 2020, his 25 rebounds is the most he’s had in a game since he had 30 in 2018 as a member of the Charlotte Hornets, and this is the most points he’s scored in a game in nearly a decade, as he scored 39 points in March of 2013 during his disastrous first stint with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The last time Quentin Tarantino made a film, it was one of his highest grossing and best received. Even he think it’s his best. And yet he continues to hold by a threat he’s been making for ages: that he’ll quit after his 10th film. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was his ninth, and he shows no signs of relenting from his plan. People have even tried to talk him out of it, but now he’s making a passionate argument for why he should pack it in.

“It’s time to wrap up the show,” Tarantino told CNN’s Chris Wallace in a wide-ranging interview. “I don’t want to work to diminishing returns.” Alluding to his recent comments about Marvel films and the current era of filmmaking, he also stated that “I don’t want to become this old man who’s out of touch…when already, I’m feeling a bit like an old man who’s out of touch with the current movies that are out right now. And that’s what happens, that’s exactly what happens.”

Tarantino, a celluloid and movie theater purist, said he’s not even sure “what a movie is” nowadays: “Is that something that plays on Netflix? Is that something that plays on Amazon, and people watch it on their couch?”

So what will Tarantino do with his free time? Well, he’s released two books in the last two years: a novelization/expansion/alternate version of Hollywood as well as the new Celluloid Speculation, which features essays on ‘70s Hollywood cinema (and plenty of eccentric opinions).

Still, he has at least one film left in him, and though he’s vowed to make — and then failed to deliver on — any number of sequels, such as a third Kill Bill, he swears his purported swan song will be an original work. Or it might be another Elmore Leonard adaptation.

(Via CNN)

Bill Barr has been on Donald Trump’s epic enemies list for almost two years now, and it looks like he won’t be off it any time soon. The former attorney general hasn’t been afraid to call him out on his bull. He’s even been predicting for months that the Justice Department, under Merrick Garland, will finally come for him. Now that they are, Barr thinks they have a case. But just because he thinks he’s a criminal doesn’t mean he won’t support him in 2024.

Barr went on PBS’s Firing Line, where he discussed one of the former president’s many legal problems: his absconding with government documents after he left the White House.

“If the Department of Justice can show that these were indeed very sensitive documents, which I think they probably were, and also show that the president consciously was involved in misleading the department, deceiving the government, and playing games after he had received the subpoena for the documents, those are serious charges,” he said.

When asked if he thinks Garland and team will actually indict Trump, Barr responded that it’s “increasingly more likely.”

Then again, when asked if he would have prosecuted Trump as AG, Barr wearily sighed, responding, “I’m not going to get into that.”

Barr was also asked about Trump’s newly launched third presidential run, which comes after the disastrous (for the GOP, anyway) midterms, which many blame on him. He said it “would be a tragedy” if he was once again the Republican nominee. But when pressed if he would vote for someone he admits violated the Constitution over a progressive Democrat, he danced around the issue, but ultimately concluded that he wouldn’t rule out supporting him again.

In other words, Barr has principles…up to a point.

(Via Vanity Fair)

The Detroit Pistons have been without the services of Cade Cunningham for the last five games due to a shin injury. According to a new report, it looks like Cunningham, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, is going to be out for much longer after the severity of the injury was determined.

Marc Stein reported on Saturday that the Cunningham and the Pistons were trying to figure out what the best path forward was going to be for his injured shin, with surgery being an option on the table.

Not long after that, James L. Edwards III and Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that Cunningham has suffered a stress fracture, and that the former Oklahoma State standout will be out indefinitely as all of his options are weighed.

Via The Athletic:

There is still hope that this past week of rest subdued inflammation and pain enough to return to the floor sooner rather than later, but that still can only be decided with more time. In the worst-case scenario, the chronic pain continues to linger and Cunningham takes a route that forces him to miss an extended period. However, per league sources, Cunningham is trying to turn over every stone before deciding to get surgery.

Prior to suffering the injury, Cunningham, a first-team All-Rookie selection last season, averaged 19.9 points, 6.2 rebounds, and six assists in 33.3 minutes per game for Detroit this year.

The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night, 110-102. After the game, Giannis Antetokounmpo drew the ire of Sixers fans for an incident with an arena worker at Wells Fargo Center. Antetokounmpo was filmed trying to get up some free throws while a staff member tried to do something with a ladder, and after a back-and-forth, the former NBA MVP shoved the ladder out of the way.

It was a strange moment, largely because Antetokounmpo has never really been known for having this kind of temper. As it turns out, Antetokounmpo was in a bit of a bad mood before this happened due to a run-in he had with Sixers reserve big man Montrezl Harrell in which Harrell snatched a ball that Antetokounmpo was using while he tried to shoot and walked away.

According to Joe Vardon of The Athletic, a Sixers assistant coach who was with Harrell told Antetokounmpo he could not have his ball back and that he was not allowed to shoot. This led to Antetokounmpo going to get another ball, but by that time, the aforementioned arena worker had a ladder out to, per The Athletic, “remove video equipment from the tops of both backboards,” which happens every game. As he grew frustrated with the situation, Antetokounmpo threw the ladder aside.

“I never try to disrespect anyone, in any way shape or form,” Antetokounmpo said after things had simmered down. “I feel like today was just unfortunate event that took place. I think people did not respect the fact that sometimes players want to get some extra work in. I think it’s unprofessional to kick somebody off the court or take the ball or whatever the case might be. Or put the ladder in front of somebody while he’s trying to do his job. We get paid to do this. They didn’t just pick us. We get paid.”

Harrell, meanwhile, took to Twitter and posted the following.

Despite all of this, the two continued to work out on opposite ends of the floor, which led to more banter between the two and Thanasis Antetokounmpo getting involved.

“Yeah I took the ball, get the f— outta here,” Harrell said, as Giannis shouted from his end: “I’m doing my f—— job.”

After Antetokounmpo left the court for good, his brother, Milwaukee teammate Thanasis Antetokounmpo, walked to midcourt to speak to Harrell. The Sixers’ reserve center threatened Thanasis, saying at separate times “I’ll beat your a–” and “you better send that s— back to the locker room.” Thanasis walked away without incident.

The next game between the Bucks and the Sixers will take place on March 4 in Milwaukee.

Twitter may not be long for this world, but while it’s still here, it will continue to serve one valuable function: Everyday folks can still relentlessly drag the powerful and awful. Take Jim Cramer. His CNBC show Mad Money has been on the air since 2005, despite the frequency with which he’s been wrong about financial matters. He was at it again on Friday, opining, on Twitter, that Twitter isn’t going away because he believes its new founder — unpredictable rich lunatic Elon Musk — will save it from himself. Since Twitter hasn’t yet faded into the ether, plenty of people had a platform to give him what-fer.

“I am not as worried as others that Twitter will suddenly not work,” he wrote. “Call me bullish on @elonmusk and his desire to make it better.”

Thing is, people did call him bullish, and many other adjectives besides.

Many, though, interpreted a Jim Cramer endorsement as what it often is: the kiss of death.

Praising Elon Musk as he tanks his own expensive new toy wasn’t Cramer’s only bold pronouncement on Friday. He also came for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who was sentenced to 11.5 years for fraud.

“Let me be clear,” he wrote, also on Twitter, “i think Holmes deserved every bit of that sentence and more.. She was one of the worst examples i have seen of a financial criminal who put thousands of lives in jeopardy just for the $$$$$”

Funny thing about that, though: Back in 2015, he declared her the next Steve Jobs, which even she found a bit much.

On a related note, disgraced FTX maybe-grifter Sam Bankman-Fried? He once praised him, too.

And who could forget the time he praised Bear Stearns and other firms, soon before the 2008 economic crisis?

That led Cramer to an epic on-air evisceration by then-Daily Show host Jon Stewart, which you can watch here, here, and here. At the time, Mad Money was only three years old. Somehow it went on for another 14 years and counting.

In the meantime, we can continue eulogizing Twitter before it’s finally gone, including remembering some classic Ted Cruz moments, out of many.

When primetime soap opera king Darren Star launched Emily In Paris in October 2020, this didn’t happen without controversy. The show, while relatively innocuous, still ruffled some feathers due to the very Carrie Bradshaw way that the protagonist took on a country where she didn’t even speak the language. And the show, which is largely devoid of substance, landed Golden Globe nominations while the more deserving I May Destroy You got left out in the cold.

As it turns out, this criticism was a fair one, but Emily (Lily Collins) has at least been attempting to learn some French. She’s now in the thick of her career, and her second season ended on a cliffhanger note, both on the personal and professional fronts. Granted, this stakes are not huge here, but the show us nonetheless engaging and a sugar-cookie confection of an escapist delight. Apparently Peyton Manning digs it, too, and it’s best not to think about that too much. As such, this show ended up with swift Netflix renewals, and we’re now heading into Season 3, which will arrive on December 21 with a whole lot of returning cast members.

Let’s do a brief rundown of where the main players stand.

– Emily’s love life: Our protagonist’s love life is surprisingly complicated. She ditched that Chicago boyfriend long ago and fell in lust with Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) and his skillet. They danced around their obvious mutual attraction, and Gabriel’s long-suffering, almost willfully blind girlfriend, Camille (Camille Rabat), freaked out over that massive skillet discovery. Those two ended up on the rocks, and then Emily landed in a casual thing with ^^ Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) ^^ that turned out to be slightly more than casual. However, Emily and Gabriel previously fell into bed together, but then that cad got back together with Camille, which is how the second season ended. However, there’s plenty of Alfie in Season 3, so maybe the love quartet will continue. Drama!

– Gabriel remained both a chef and hot: It’s impossible to understand why Gabriel is so poorly written, but the man can cook, so there’s that. He saved Emily’s butt on a professional level, and it’s clear that the show aims to put these two together eventually, but Camille remains a pushover, so they’re keeping her around. Meanwhile, Gabriel’s ambition is leading him towards needing a real marketing machine on his side to make his dreams come true. So, expect him to be in Emily’s life while still smoldering and pretending that this is all for work, which is about 15% true. We know better.

– Office turmoil abounds: At the end of Season 2, it seemed that Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu as the Miranda Priestly/Anna Winter-style boss) was leaving Savoir, and there’s a real question of whether Emily will stick around the company and/or also stay in Paris or go back to the United States. We can guess that she stays in Europe because no one wants to watch Emily in Chicago. Luc (Bruno Gouery) and Julien (Samuel Arnold) continue to be a hoot, and no one knows whether they’ll be with Sylvie or (for whatever reason) stick with Savoir. Meanwhile, expect a return from Madeline Wheeler (Kate Walsh), who was actually going to be Madeline in Paris before she got pregnant.

Meanwhile, Mindy (Ashley Park, shown left in the photo at the top of this post) continues to do the lounge singer thing, and she’s more entertaining and talented than this show will ever allow her to be. Expect this next season to be as light and airy as its predecessors, and there will be a fourth season coming, too. In other words, Emily will be giving ridiculous fashion vibes to the world while earning a billion Instagram likes without any effort at all. Bring on berets and baguettes, but don’t take this show seriously, ever.