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Which of Donald Trump’s many current scandals may actually destroy him? Will it be the shocking findings of the Jan. 6 committee? His absconding with highly classified documents? Spewing racist nonsense? Or will it be the lawsuit filed against his company and some of his children by the New York State Attorney General’s office? According to one of his former cronies, it’s the latter he should really be worried about.

Michael Cohen, the former president’s longtime lawyer and fixer — who is none-too-pleased that he did jail time for him — spoke with Salon about his new book, Revenge: How Donald Trump Weaponized the US Department of Justice Against His Critics. Cohen was asked if he imagines his old boss will ever be charged with a crime, maybe even forced to do an old-fashioned perp walk.

“I do,” was Cohen’s blunt, optimistic reply. “Right now, that case will financially destroy him.”

It’s already known that, should the lawsuit prove successful, Trump and his family will be barred from doing business in New York, which means he may have to sell some of the only things that actually comprise his wealth: his beloved New York City skyscrapers. But Cohen pointed out that New York AG Letitia James may demand a higher penalty than people realize.

“Now, a lot of people make the mistake and they say that she’s seeking $250 million,” Cohen told Salon. “That’s not accurate. What she said was, “There is a baseline of $250 million.” That’s because they don’t have the full amount. They just don’t.”

Since James’ lawsuit is a civil case, it won’t end with Trump in jail. However, Cohen points out, she’s already referred her findings to the Department of Justice. While Cohen’s says he’s “not thrilled” with current DoJ head Merrick Garland — he’s “operating so slowly, the exact opposite of Bill Barr,” he adds — she’s also referred it to the IRS.

“And Donald Trump has committed tax evasion, bank fraud, wire fraud, misrepresentation,” Cohen says. “He will not be able to get past that, and that is criminal.”

But at least he still has his supporters, even if these days they might be too terrified to show up at the Capitol.

(Via Salon)

Following his ban from TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, internet personality Andrew Tate made an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored this past week.

He revealed that he specifically chose Morgan to interview him, as the host has also had his share of controversies over the years.

“You’ve certainly been the subject of your own divided opinions in the world,” Tate said. “There are people who’d say some of the things you say are dangerous or toxic, so I thought you’d be a good person to speak to about this.”

During his interview, he doubled down on his takes on what he describes as “traditional masculinity” and decried being labeled as a bad influence. He slammed rapper and pop artist Lil Nas X in the process.

“You have Lil Nas X twerking on the devil in music videos which our children are digesting,” Tate said referring to the music video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”, “you have drill artists rapping about stabbing people to death in the middle of a knife crime epidemic. You have all these insanities in the world…but I’m not the devil. There are certainly worse people than me.”

Lil Nas X caught wind of the comments, and shut Tate in a tweet, saying, “andrew tate please stop mentioning me! i am never gonna let u smash loser!”

Lil Nas X is set to perform his new song, “Star Walkin’” at the League Of Legends Worlds 22 Finals on November 5 at Chase Center in San Francisco.

For the second year in a row, Texas A+M had the opportunity to pull off a gigantic upset of Alabama. While the Aggies were able to get the job done last year, they were unable to make it happen on Saturday night, as the Bryce Young-less Crimson Tide picked up a 24-20 win.

Much has been made about how the game ended. A+M marched down the field on its final drive of the game and found itself two yards out of the end zone with three seconds left, and a touchdown would win the game. The call in that situation has come under a ton of scrutiny, as Hayes King dropped back and threw this pass.

Now, Alabama’s defense had found ways to pressure King all drive — having Will Anderson on your football team tends to make you pretty good at this — but putting the QB in a situation where he has one read, that dude is covered well, and his only chance of completing this pass is to throw it short of the end zone is not good. And in the aftermath, the most famous player in Aggies history took to Twitter and tore into the decision.

Manziel continued to be frustrated when he got an all-22 view and saw that Bama decided not to blitz on the play.

Johnny Manziel is right.

Alan Moore is one of the great geniuses of comic books, having done his best to make them mature and brainy and deep. He’s also one of the medium’s loudest critics. He’s no fan of the movies made from his comics, even refusing a credit on films like Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. And he’s no fan of the superhero wing of comics, which he’s frequently deconstructed and satirized in his own work. In the past, he’s slammed caped crusaders as “tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying.” Now he’s going even further.

In a new interview with The Guardian, Moore talks about moving from comics to prose, releasing Illuminations, a new collection of short stories. He also reiterated what he’s said before, that he’s “definitely done” with the medium with which he made his name. He also got in another, even more furious dig at the most popular and prevalent form of comics.

“I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies,” Moore told The Guardian. “Because that kind of infantilisation – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.”

But maybe that’s already happened. Moore points out that when Trump was elected and the many part of the world “took a bit of a strange detour in our politics,” the global movie box office was dominated by superhero movies. He went on:

“Hundreds of thousands of adults [are] lining up to see characters and situations that had been created to entertain the 12-year-old boys – and it was always boys – of 50 years ago. I didn’t really think that superheroes were adult fare. I think that this was a misunderstanding born of what happened in the 1980s – to which I must put my hand up to a considerable share of the blame, though it was not intentional – when things like Watchmen were first appearing. There were an awful lot of headlines saying ‘Comics Have Grown Up’. I tend to think that, no, comics hadn’t grown up. There were a few titles that were more adult than people were used to. But the majority of comics titles were pretty much the same as they’d ever been. It wasn’t comics growing up. I think it was more comics meeting the emotional age of the audience coming the other way.”

And with that, the man who revitalized Swamp Thing, who gave Batman one of his greatest episodes, who wrote From Hell and V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has reminded people that he agrees with the likes of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

Moore does see some silver lining. For example, those fighting for social change — for good or ill — have adopted the Guy Fawkes mask worn by the dandy revolutionary of Moore’s V for Vendetta.

“I can’t endorse everything that people who take that mask as an icon might do in the future, of course,” Moore said. “But I’m heartened to see that it has been adopted by protest movements so widely across the world. Because we do need protest movements now, probably more than we’ve ever done before.”

(Via The Guardian)

Ahead of their upcoming album, Cracker Island, Gorillaz performed in Toronto at the Raptors Arena. The band went through several of their hits, deep cuts, and fan favorites, including, their spoken word track. “Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head.”

“Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head” comes from the band’s 2005 album, Demon Days, and the spoken word portion is performed by late actor Dennis Hopper. During this past week’s Toronto performance, the band was joined by actor and comedian Matt Berry.

“I didn’t think we’d ever play this song again,” said Gorillaz lead vocalist Damon Albarn, before a man wearing a cloak arrived to the stage.

The man was revealed to be Berry, who then performed the song’s spoken passages.

Known for his work on FX’s hit comedy series What We Do In The Shadows, Berry first performed “Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head” with the band during the band’s Song Machine Live series in 2020. Though in the States, Berry is mostly known for his comedy, he is also a musician in his own right, though he doesn’t believe that Shadows has brought awareness to his music. Though, in an interview with Brooklyn Vegan, he admitted that he’s glad he is able to both act and make music.

“I don’t notice,” he said. “I’m not on social media, so I wouldn’t be aware of this kind of thing firsthand. So I don’t really notice anything like that. I’m only really interested in being able to continue to do it, that’s only ever been my main concern with it. I’m very lucky to be able to do both.”

Check out a clip of the performance above.

Gorillaz’s new album, Cracker Island, arrives 2/24/2023 via Parlophone. Pre-save it here.

It was a big week for chaotic MAGA Senate campaigns. A report revealed that experiments launched by Dr. Mehmet Oz, running in Pennsylvania, led to the deaths of hundreds of dogs. After that news broke, Herschel Walker, running in Georgia, said, “Hold my beer”: A woman told The Daily Beast that the former footballer had once paid for her abortion. There was no way both bombshells wouldn’t make the cut on this week’s SNL‘s Weekend Update.

“Is it just me or are some candidates trying to lose?” co-host Colin Jost cracked at the segment’s opening, before tackling the former TV quack first. “Scientific studies published by Dr. Oz revealed that his experiments killed over 300 dogs. But eventually he got the recipe right,” he joked aside an image of a fake cookbook with the title, “Dr. Oz’s Organic Meatballs.”

But Jost wasn’t done. After a wood chipper joke, he got in one more, saying, “But don’t worry: Dr. Oz won everybody back last night when he gave a speech in front of Hitler’s car,” alluding to an event that seriously happened. “Worse, he then got into the car and backed over a dog.”

Then it was Walker’s turn. “After news broke that Walker paid for his ex-girlfriend’s abortion, he raised more than $500,000,” Che said, adding, “because dollars are the only thing Walker is willing to raise.”

Jost later returned to Walker when discussing the news that Planned Parenthood was launching mobile clinics in the wake of encroaching draconian abortion laws across the country, saying they “will make it easier to provide care to patients anywhere in the country that Herschel Walker has visited.”

The twosome also tackled Ron DeSantis, who became a social media laughing stock after images of him wearing high white boots circulated. Jost, after referring to him as a “Dallas Cowboys cheerleader,” discussed how the Florida governor explained away the number of residents who didn’t evacuate before Hurricane Ian, joking, “Some people just don’t want to leave their homes, which is why sometimes you have to trick them onto a plane to Martha’s Vineyard.’”

Che and Jost also tackled Joe Biden’s most recent gaffe, Kanye going on Tucker Carlson, Scooby Doo’s Velma coming out as a lesbian, and National Coffee with a Cop Day on Wednesday, with Che saying, “Something tells me cops like their coffee black with a couple of shots in them.”

You can watch the segments in the videos above and below.

On Feb. 4, 2018, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, and while many moments stick out from the game, one stands taller than the rest. Facing a fourth-and-goal just before halftime and the team holding onto a 3-point lead, the Eagles called a trick play known as “Philly Philly,” which was a double reverse that ended with quarterback Nick Foles catching a touchdown.

Fast forward to Sunday morning and another NFC East team decided to bring that across the pond. The New York Giants are in London taking on the Green Bay Packers, and found themselves just inside the 2-yard line with less than 90 seconds to go before the half. With the chance for their first touchdown of the game right in front of them, the Giants took a page out of the Eagles’ playbook and hoped for a London Special.

While it did not work out as the team intended — the Packers seemed to realize what was going on pretty quickly and made sure Daniel Jones was covered in the end zone — it gave us a wonderful moment in which Giants tight end Daniel Bellinger rumbled, bumbled, and stumbled his way in for six.

This was the second touchdown in the career of the rookie from San Diego State, and it was a pretty good one.

Last week, as it has been for, well, years now, the news was creatively awful. Herschel Walker, a hardline anti-abortion candidate, was accused of once paying for one. Elon Musk may be buying Twitter after all (unless he’s not). Kanye West teamed with far right wacko Candace Owens and wore shirts that read “White Lives Matter.” And our president, though he’s finally been getting a lot of good stuff done, is incredibly old. SNL tried to get it all in this week’s cold open sketch.

SNL doesn’t always have a great track record when it comes to hitting multiple topics in one sketch. But for the second episode of their 48th season, they found an elegant way to do just that. Bowen Yang played the host of a game show called So You Think You Won’t Snap, in which purportedly chill contestants see if they won’t lose their stuff over hearing various news bites.

For instance, Heidi Gardner played a Vermont-based music teacher and “white yoga teacher” who hasn’t touched hooch in 15 years. Yang’s host dared her to guzzle a “Today Show-sized glass of wine” by reciting various factoids about Joe Biden. “Did you know that when Joe Biden was born, we didn’t have highways?” he asked her, adding, “Joe Biden was 53 years old when he got his first home computer.” But it’s a clip of Biden rambling when asked how about his “focus” that sends Gardner over the edge.

Elsewhere, Chloe Fineman played a mom undone by the Herschel Walker news, especially upon learning that the footballer-turned-chaotic Georgia candidate had his best fundraising day ever after it was revealed he may have paid for an abortion with a woman who later had his baby (that he may have asked to have aborted). Kenan Thompson lost it over Elon Musk, while poor newbie Devon Walker struggled to stay cool when hit with multiple terrible Kanye tidbits. And they probably didn’t have time to get to his latest awful news.

You can watch the sketch in the video above.

In her second performance of the night, Willow took the Saturday Night Live stage for a performance of “Ur A Stranger” from her latest album, COPINGMECHANISM

While on stage, Willow sang the angsty, heartbreak anthem, showing off her screamo chops on the bridge and closing verse.

“She used to be mine / Now she’s yours and that’s fine / Guess I ran out of time to please / I never thought I’d be angry / You’re so f*ckin’ shady,” she sang with pure emotion. It’s worth noting that NBC censors didn’t catch the f-bomb she dropped during the set.

At the end of the performance, Willow pulled a classic rockstar move and smashed a TV with her guitar.

“Ur A Stranger” is one of the more raw tracks on the album. In a recent interview with The Guardian, she said she feels expressing negative emotions is equally as important as expressing positive emotions.

“I can’t stay up in that ethereal, celestial, high-vibration good-vibes place all the time,” she said. “That’s the place we all want to be, and sometimes you’ve just got to white-knuckle through. But at other times you need to listen to your emotions, to learn from going into your shadow. Negative emotions can be cathartic. We don’t always have the answers, and that’s OK.”

Check out the performance of “Ur A Stranger” above.

COPINGMECHANISM is out now via MSFTS and Roc Nation. Stream it here.

On the heels of her new album, COPINGMECHANISM, Willow gave a powerful performance of “Curious/Furious” on Saturday Night Live.

During the performance, Willow was joined by a drummer and electric guitarists, and showed off her vocal chops, as she demonstrated the extent of her vast vocal range

On COPINGMECHANISM, Willow continues evolving her sound as a rock artist, an era she began on her last album, 2021’s Lately I Feel Everything. In a recent interview with Glamour, Willow revealed that when she had first brought up the idea of making a rock album, some people in the industry weren’t entirely on board.

“When I wanted to do a rock album, there were a lot of executives that were like, ‘Hmm…’” she said “If I had been white, it would’ve been completely fine; but because I’m Black it’s, ‘Well… maybe let’s just not’ – and making it harder than it needs to be. If I go through that, every single other Black artist is getting the pushback [too].”

Over the years, Willow has also dabbled in R&B and pop, however, always maintained an affinity for rock music. Elsewhere in the interview, Willow said she plans to continue to dabble in new sounds, even if it comes at a cost.

“The most beautiful changes on earth don’t happen by being comfortable and expecting other people to change,” she said. “You have to put yourself on the line sometimes. It’s not fair, but that’s how it is.”

Check out the performance of “Curious/Furious” above.

COPINGMECHANISM is out now via MSFTS and Roc Nation. Stream it here.