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Historically Republicans are usually fighting Democrats. Lately they’ve been fighting each other. The “red wave” that failed to materialize during the midterms has made them turn them on each other. More and more members of the GOP have felt comfortable distancing themselves from the MAGA wing. Even the MAGA wing is duking it out, with former Marjorie Taylor Greene recently coming for onetime bestie Lauren Boebert. Now Marge is turning her sights on Mitch McConnell.

As Ukrainian president Voldymyr Zelensky arrived on U.S. soil, the Senate minority leader has urged fellow Republicans to helkp the Democrats pass a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, which includes, among other things, $45 billion earmarked for the embattled nation. He called the defeat of Russians in their nearly year-long invasion “the number one priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans.”

That sent Greene steaming.

In a Twitter thread, the Georgia representative accused McConnell of seeking to “override” the slim majority Republicans will soon have in the House so as to “help Biden & his retiring Senator friends.” She fumed about the Southern border, about migrants, about foreign aid to countries that aren’t Ukraine. She concluded that “the American people are raped everyday at the hands of their own elected leaders.”

She wrote, “We, Republicans, as a national party need to have a serious talk about supporting any member of our party that betrays us in this manner.”

Greene wasn’t the only MAGA Republican furious with the top Republican. “Mitch McConnell actually said yesterday that most Republicans #1 priority is … Ukraine,” tweeted Don Jr. “I have yet to meet a single Republican that thinks that, but I guess the disconnect between actual republicans and DC swamp rats shouldn’t surprise anyone.”

Both Greene and Jr. were also furious with Zelensky, with the former calling him “a shadow president” lording over America’s “51st state” and the latter going so far as to dub him an “ungrateful international welfare queen.”

Anyway, let them fight, as they say.

Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies have made an impressive statement in the first 30 games of the season, darting off to a 19-11 start that has them tied atop the West with Denver.

A year ago, Memphis took home the 2-seed in the West before a second-round defeat to the eventual champs in Golden State, but confidence is sky-high for the young (but increasingly seasoned) Grizzlies. No one on their team exudes that confidence more than Ja Morant, who sat down with ESPN’s Malika Andrews this week and explained that the team they expect to be the biggest hurdle in the playoffs is Boston. That, of course, would mean a trip to the Finals and when Andrews asked if that meant he wasn’t worried about challengers in the West, he affirmed.

I have little doubt Morant believes this, but considering the Grizzlies haven’t made it past the second round since 2013, it’s still quite a statement to make in December. Memphis is no stranger to stirring things up and they certainly have proven Morant right in that they don’t back down after his famous “we run up the chimney” quote, but you can rest assured an early exit in the West playoffs this year will cause this clip to resurface.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited the U.S. for the first time since the Russia invasion. For nearly a year, the nation has kept Russian forces from taking over. It’s gone terribly for Russia, but it’s far from over. Ukraine has been able to withstand invaders thanks in part to help from other nations, who’ve recognized the existential threat posed if Russian president Vladimir Putin achieves his goals. Not everyone sees Putin as a threat. As Zelensky arrived on U.S. shores, he received a chilly reception from one wing of the GOP (as well as, of course, from Putin).

MAGA Republicans were up in arms over Zelensky’s visit, which found him meeting with President Joe Biden and later addressing Congress. The usual suspects threw fits. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Zelensky a “shadow president” and his nation the “51st state.” She also blew up over foreign aid in general and singled out Mitch McConnell, who is for extending more support to Ukraine, for scorn, saying Americans were being “raped.” Greene’s former bestie Lauren Boebert was mad, too.

But arguably the most over-the-top response came from Don Jr., the son of the former president, who earned his first of two impeachments after trying to blackmail Zelensky into helping him dig up dirt on the GOP’s biggest bête noire, Hunter Biden. Sharing a story about how the U.S. was prepared to give Ukraine another $45 billion in aid, he called Zelensky “basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.”

There are arguments to be made about how much money the U.S. should give Ukraine for their fight. But Donald Trump Jr. is not someone who should be making those. (To say nothing of the loaded term “welfare queen,” with its racist and classist connotations.) Some pointed out that he really shouldn’t be making this charge the day after news broke that his father, whose tax returns are finally to be made public, didn’t even pay taxes for the last two years.

Some accused Don Jr. of projection.

Others were reminded that his father often used taxpayer dollars to do whatever he wanted.

Some argued Don Jr. was really just mad that Zelensky didn’t help his dad with his sleazy schemes.

Some challenged his use of the term “welfare queen.”

Maybe, some postulated, Jr.’s just mad that dad doesn’t love him.

Or perhaps he’s scared what Zelensky would do to him if he called him that to his face.

Henry Cavill’s about to hang up those swords and grunts and leather pants of Geralt of Rivia after The Witcher Season 3, which will arrive in mid 2023. Before that happens, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has suggested that there’s more to the story that we haven’t heard yet, she’s also promising that his exit will be as triumphant as possible.

As Schmidt Hissrich further reveals, she wanted this final season to “honor” Henry for everything that he’s brought to the franchise, which already launched a spinoff prequel movie about Geralt’s mentor, Vesemir, as well as the Blood Origin prequel that arrives on Christmas. And here’s the showrunner’s necessarily vague description of Season 3, which will be “the most heroic sendoff” (albeit an unintended sendoff) that the show could whip up before Cavill leaves the building. Via Entertainment Weekly:

“Henry has given so much to the show and so we want to honor that appropriately,” Hissrich tells EW. She points to Time of Contempt, the fourth book in author Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series that the writers’ room partly adapted for the season 3 story.

“What is so interesting is that season 3, to me, is the closest thing that we’ve done as a one-to-one adaptation of the books,” she says. “Obviously, we can’t do every page, but Time of Contempt gave us so many big action events, plot points, defining character moments, huge reveals of a big bad. There’s so much to do that we were able to stick really, really closely with the books.”

Cavill, as discussed before, was speculated to have departed the franchise due to picking up his previous Superman role, but James Gunn has confirmed that the DCU/DCEU will soon dive into the younger Clark Kent’s story, meaning that Cavill will be onto different pastures. The Enola Holmes actor later detailed that he’s got a gig already and will soon dive into adapting the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop RPG universe for Amazon. In the meantime, we can look forward (?) to Liam Hemsworth’s version of Geralt as well as the return of Jaskier as storyteller in Netflix’s The Witcher: Blood Origin, which arrives on December 25.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

For Russian soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine, the biggest threat might be the person fighting alongside you. The Daily Beast wrote about a disturbing report published on iStories, an independent media outlet, which claims there’s a rising trend of Russian soldiers being killed by their fellow servicemen — because at least one party is inebriated, soldiers are ill-equipped to properly handle their weapons, and/or the unit commanders simply aren’t paying attention.

According to The Daily Beast’s Allison Quinn, Ukrainian intelligence officials released audio that has been captured of Russian soldiers speaking with their family and loved ones back at home:

In audio released by Ukrainian intelligence on Tuesday and said to capture a Russian soldier’s phone conversation, a man identified only as Aleksei tells his mother the military just sent reinforcements. He explains that the reinforcements came because “20 people are gone.”

“Our tank hit hard: It fired twice and 20 guys, f**k. I’m telling you, what the f**k kind of command is this, scumbags. They’re f**king killing their own,” Aleksei, who described himself as a commander, said.

“I’m telling you, there are more losses from our own [guys],” than the Ukrainians, he said.

In another phone call, a soldier told his friend “It’s not a war, it’s a sh*t show. It’s complete bullsh*t. That’s it, the entire response from leadership: There are 300,000 of you, basically, we don’t give a f**k.”

IStories spoke with one soldier, Dmitry Panov, who said that he volunteered for military duty in the summer but refused to continue fighting after commanders kept killing their own men. “We are just meat,” Panov said. “They don’t want to know us, they present us as some kind of animals that are being led to the slaughter.”

Back in Russia, Putin has copped to the situation in Ukraine being “extremely complicated.” Though he’s pointing fingers at “saboteurs” and “spies.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

With the exception of maybe Elon Musk and a handful of other megalomaniacs, it’s hard to imagine that there could be a worse boss to have than Donald Trump — but, oh, just think of the stories. And if you happen to be Desiree Thompson Sayle, a White House aide who served at the pleasure of the 45th president, you’d have a whopper of a memory and possibly a mountain of chiropractor bills.

As Raw Story reports, based on a feature that ran in The Washington Post, the final days of Trump’s presidency were an absolute sh*t show. As the White House was being readied for its shiny new occupants, the outgoing president — who still has not conceded the 2020 election — was learning that there are limits to what the U.S. government will pay for. And footing the bill to move a 300-pound portrait of said president (nope, that’s not it above) from Washington, D.C. to Palm Beach, Florida was not one of them. A few months after Joe Biden was sworn in, Sayle was asked to assist.

The Washington Post obtained documents that traced Sayle’s attempts to get this obnoxiously oversized monstrosity moved with other Trump belongings with the help of the General Services Administration. In April 2021, Sayle sent an email to the GSA asking for their help in transporting an “enormous” portrait of the former president, which was six-foot-eight-inches tall and weighed almost as much as Trump himself.

“I’m sorry to ask,” Sayle wrote. “This is a weird one!”

As the art had been gifted to Trump following his presidency, it was considered a personal belonging and therefore not something the GSA handles.

Several months later, Sayle sent another email in which she shared that she planned to move the painting using her personal vehicle. “We are loading the large portrait received after the 21st on a Penske truck to transport to my house so I can put it on my moving van,” she wrote.

Though there’s no email confirming its safe delivery, we’ll assume no art thieves had the audacity — or upper body strength — to make off with the piece while it made the 1,000-mile trek south.

(Via Raw Story)

Florida has been a bad boy to the dominatrix community.

A dominatrix, known only as Mistress, attended a City Commission meeting in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, asking the councilpeople to spend $250,000 “to support doms and subs in Broward County [by building] a dungeon, created for us, by us, the taxpayers and voting citizens.” Mistress, flanked by two accomplices who looked like extras in a Lady Gaga music video, hijacked the meeting following a no-doubt riveting discussion about a “solid waste management” contract.

One of the regular items on the commission’s agenda Tuesday included debate about a $906,500 contract for solid waste management. She explained that she was “neutral” regarding the waste management contract, but “found it interesting” that the commission was willing to spend almost $1 million “to hide your secrets down the drain, hiding that condom I know you used to cheat on your spouse with.”

Mistress concluded her brief, well-reasoned statement, “Do not let this glamorous look distract you from doing your duty to take my demand. I look forward to spanking each and every one of you at the new esteemed dungeon. You are dismissed.”

The spectators seemed pretty chill about the whole thing, while one of the commissioners wished Mistress and her friends a happy holiday, which is nice. Here’s an idea: why not combine the two? A waste processing plant that’s also a sex cauldron (I thought they closed that place down). There are probably a few subs who would enjoy that.

Here’s video from the meeting:

Good luck, Mistress! We’re rooting for you.

(Via Mediaite)

After teasing the featured guest stars for her Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party NBC Special while appearing on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon earlier this month, the full lineup for Miley Cyrus’ second annual NYE bash has now been officially announced.

For starters, Cyrus has ditched Pete Davidson as a co-host, and instead, her godmother Dolly Parton will be co-hosting the bash alongside her. The star-studded lineup of musical acts has been confirmed to feature pop singers Sia and Fletcher, rappers Latto and Rae Sremmurd, as well as LA rock band Liily. It will be recorded live from Miami and broadcast on NBC.

Executive produced by Cyrus and Lorne Michaels, Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party will also feature appearances from Saturday Night Live cast members Chloe Fineman and Sarah Sherman, as well as the comedy trio known as Please Don’t Destroy of comedians Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy.

This official announcement comes after a series of mysterious “New Year, New Miley” posters popped up in Los Angeles and Copenhagen last week “The lineup is very me,” Cyrus told Fallon. “It is curated in a way that makes no sense but makes total sense.”

Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party will air live on Saturday, December 31 on NBC from 10:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. ET. The special will also stream live on Peacock.

Taylor Swift has received a lot of praise for All Too Well: The Short Film. It was one of 2021’s biggest pop culture moments and it’s won MTV Video Music Awards, an American Music Award, and we’ll learn next year if it gets the Grammy for Best Music Video. While that latter award is still up in the air, there’s one thing we know for sure: the Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien video won’t win an Oscar.

Today (December 21), the shortlists for the 2023 Academy Awards was announced, and missing from the Best Live Action Short Film category is All Too Well, despite the video previously receiving some Oscar buzz. Swift hasn’t been completely shut out from consideration, though, as her Where The Crawdads Sing song “Carolina” is on the Best Original Song shortlist.

When it comes to All Too Well, however, Swifties were quick to hop on Twitter and cry “snub.” One fan, for example, wrote, “You can snub her all you want. I know when Taylor sets her mind on getting something, there’s no stopping her. She will win that oscar sooner or later. Mark my words.” Another tweeted, “not getting nominated is not a snub but i just know taylor is disappointed and that makes me sad 🙁 she’s so proud of this project.”

Check out some other reactions to Swift not getting the nomination below.

If country music icon, entrepreneur, and humanitarian Dolly Parton decided to step away from the public eye today, her impact would still be felt. But, Parton took extra precautions to ensure her legacy would be remembered for generations to come. During her appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, the legendary songwriter spoke about her plan for Dolly lovers.

To commemorate the groundbreaking of her retreat, Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa, back in 2015, the “9 To 5” singer gathered a few pieces of technology from the time to place into a time capsule. As a musician at heart, Parton couldn’t help but write a special song for the occasion to go into the capsule as well.

Though it has only been seven years since the capsule has been buried Parton admitted to host Clarkson that the decision has “driven her crazy.”

“You have no idea how that has bothered me. I wanna go dig that up so bad. It’s a really good song,” proclaimed Parton.

The capsule and the song aren’t supposed to be revealed again until 2045, to mark the spa’s 30th anniversary.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee no longer wants the public to want that long saying, “They weren’t expecting me to be there at all, and I probably won’t be. I might be there, who knows? I figure it’ll probably disintegrate, and nobody will ever hear it, that’s what bothers me, to think that it’s going to be a song that nobody’s ever gonna hear if it rots in there before they open it.”

Looks Dolly Parton fans looking for new music from the singer will just need to wait until her rock album drops or hold out for the rumored musical about her life.

Watch the full interview above.