I am so sorry, friends. I didn't realize we were as close to finishing the last thread as we were Hopefully you can all find this one.

The bed was.... painful. I think my lower back may be too far gone for me to just have a few good night's sleeps and it to magically repair. I was in terrible pain all night. I tried every position and setting and I finally had to knock myself out to get even 4 hours sleep.

I brought it on myself, though. I had the hubris yesterday morning to tell my friend I was feeling good, and I'm being punished for it. This always happens to me. I should know better at this stage in my life. Just shut up.

The Apocalyptic world beacons and The View finds itself attached to the Mouse Propaganda machine as bad as Fox.

I wish I could come up with a better title, but I guess the comparatively hottest story right now is whether or not they're going to keep Maybe Happy Ending going. Mea culpa.

No further words needed.

Previous thread below.

in Hollywood:

First soap opera featuring African-American cast since "Generations" in 1989. 2:00PM ET following "The Bold and the Beautiful."

Included in the cast ..

“Marcus” a congressman who followed in his grandfather’s footsteps in politics. He doesn’t live in the prestigious Fairmont Estates but rather in a brownstone in Washington D.C. Marcus feels it’s important to live in the district he represents. Marcus is married to his husband, Daniel. Seven years ago, they adopted two biological siblings. The married duo met when Daniel was working as a reporter, covering the political beat in D.C. Daniel became a stay-at-home dad to raise their children. Marcus is ambitious; in fact, he has a burning ambition to be the first Black openly gay President.

John Levin had no idea what he’d stumbled upon at first. About 10 years ago, the collector paid about $100 for a box of wax cylinders at an auction in Pennsylvania coal country. Those cylinders - the oldest commercial medium of recorded music - sat in his house for years until Levin put one of the unlabeled, decaying brown tubes onto his custom player and heard an old country song. Like 133 years old.

Levin immediately knew what he had.

“A true unicorn,” he says now.

In the world of early recordings, unicorns are cylinders that are reputed to exist but that have never been found. A session with cornetist Buddy Bolden, say, or a monologue from Mark Twain. What Levin heard coming out of his player was another name on his undiscovered list, New Orleans performer Louis Vasnier. The unlabeled cylinder he’d bought contained Vasnier singing and braying his way through “Thompson’s Old Gray Mule,” a song later recorded by hillbilly masters Uncle Dave Macon and Riley Puckett.

This month, Archeophone, a specialty label devoted to restoring recordings dating back to the 19th century, released a 45-rpm record of the 1891 performance. Label co-founder Rich Martin’s research on Vasnier comes with a revelation: The oldest country recording in existence was recorded by a Black man.

“It might be the most important thing we’ve ever put out,” says Meagan Hennessey, his wife and co-producer.

That’s saying something. Archeophone, founded in 1998, is a tiny label known for its impressive discoveries. Six years ago, Martin and Hennessy released another Levin find, a song by Charles Asbury determined to be the oldest existing banjo recording. Like Vasnier, Asbury was Black.

Martin wants to revisit the complicated relationship country music has had with race. Credit and record deals have typically been hard to come by for Black musicians. It took until 2000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame to induct its first Black artist, Charley Pride, and only two others have joined him. (There are 155 members in total.)

“Black artists by and large, who were the ones who performed and recorded, get wiped out of the picture because they say, ‘Well, it’s not really country,’” Martin says. “So ours is partly a project of reclamation.”

Rhiannon Giddens, the musician and historian whose banjo playing opens Beyoncé’s No. 1 country-chart hit “Texas Hold ’Em,” says she wasn’t surprised by Martin’s discovery. But she’s also not a normal listener. Her research has shown that there’s often a difference between who created music and who is credited with that creation. Country music, she notes, is merely a marketing tool invented to help sell records.

Early in the 20th century, recording companies created the term “race records” to compartmentalize the sound and try to attract Black listeners to buy certain songs. (Vasnier himself was advertised as “The only Colored comedian who can do it.”) In reality, country, blues, folk and bluegrass are intertwined in American culture and the Black experience.

“We shouldn’t have to do this at all,” Giddens says. “Like, this should have been part of the story all along. But fine, we spend the energy doing it because you see what’s happening right now in the United States, the divisions and how even a discussion of whether Beyoncé is allowed to make country music becomes a political part of a political agenda.”

Vasnier’s story fits right in with the mission of Archeophone, which Martin and Hennessey run out of their home in Champaign, Illinois. They seek to uncover and share the real history of recorded sound.

Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly have reportedly split just weeks after she announced she is pregnant with their first child together.

According to a new report from TMZ, the couple — who have been in an on-and-off relationship since 2020 — spent Thanksgiving weekend in Vail, Colorado, which is where all of the alleged drama occurred. Per the outlet, the Jennifer's Body star, 38, "found material on MGK's phone that was upsetting," which sparked the 34-year-old rapper to leave the trip solo. The pair split and have reportedly not seen each other since.

For 20 years, Ulku Dogan, a wealth advisor in San Francisco, wore colored contact lenses because she longed to have blue eyes.

Seven weeks ago, her dream came true when she flew to New York and paid $12,000 for surgery to permanently change her eye color from brown to blue.

"I feel confident, very happy. It is the best investment I've ever done for myself," Dogan, 49, told Business Insider. "I wish I had done this 10 years ago."

To change her eye color, Dr. Kevin Niksarli, one of a handful of ophthalmic surgeons in the US to offer cosmetic keratopigmentation, used a laser to poke two holes in her corneas, the clear, outermost part of the eye. This creates a channel that sits atop the colored part of the eye, which is then filled with dye.

Niksarli has been performing corneal laser eye surgeries for 30 years and started offering the procedure to patients in 2023. At his clinic, Manhattan LASIK Center, patients can choose from 11 shades, including emerald green, lagoon, and honey.

First, he colored Dogan's left eye. He let her assess it and asked if she wanted to make any changes to the shade before moving on to the right eye.

"I'm like, 'Doctor, can you go a little brighter?' And then he went a little brighter, and I loved it," Dogan said.

Though keratopigmentation is not FDA-approved, interest in the procedure is growing. In a medical context, it's used to treat patients with iris loss, damage, or trauma. But TikTok videos showing before-and-after images of patients who've undergone the procedure for aesthetic reasons have racked up millions of views.

Dr. Alexander Movshovich, who in 2019 became the first doctor to offer the procedure cosmetically in the US, saw 15 patients in his first year, he told The Wall Street Journal. He's now performed the procedure over 750 times, he told Ophthalmology Times.

"This procedure is safe and that was proven in the peer review literature," Movshovich told BI in an email, noting that people with chronic eye diseases would need to have an individual consultation to assess whether they would be a good candidate.

The permanent procedure is painless and fast, said Dogan, who experienced no side effects other than discomfort on the first night and some light sensitivity for a few days.

Some doctors, however, argue that there isn't enough evidence that the benefits of cosmetic eye surgery outweigh the known and potential long-term risks.

In January, the American Academy of Ophthalmology warned that keratopigmentation could cause infections, light sensitivity, and damage to the cornea that could lead to cloudiness, warpage, fluid leakage, or vision loss.

"Patients contemplating these procedures for cosmetic reasons alone must weigh these serious risks against the potential gain," the AAO said.

In a 2021 study published in the Journal of Cornea and External Disease, 12 out of 40 keratopigmentation patients experienced light sensitivity in the first month. Five said the pigment faded or changed in color after 29 months, and one who had previously had Lasik, a type of vision-correction surgery, developed corneal ectasia, a condition that causes the cornea to thin and bulge outward. All of the participants said they were satisfied with the cosmetic results.

"Personally, if it were me, I would rather use colored contacts for a cosmetic benefit instead of putting myself at risk of long-term side effects that we don't even know because research hasn't even been able to go that far," Dr. Julian Prosia, a board-certified optometrist in Canada, said in a TikTok video.

I decided to go Christmas caroling in the small, Midwest town where I live last night. It was completely on a whim and I was not under the influence of any substance or off of my psych meds. It was 7 pm when I stood outside my neighbor’s front door while singing “The Holly and the Ivory”. I saw he and his wife peer at me through their blinds but they didn’t come to the door while I sang the timeless carol.

I then walked across the street and proceeded to stand at another neighbor’s front door. This neighbor is a middle aged to older woman who lives alone, I sang “O Holy Night”. She almost immediately turned her lights off. Once again, I was ignored. People are bitches.

Someone needs to get the attention back on himself!

ARE WE NOT OVERJOYED HER LADYSHIP IS WHERE SHE BELONGS?

Are they bigger, smugger cunts than Germans or is it vice versa?

They made a fucking mess of Indonesia.

For Trump administration to locate and persecute gay men who are anti-Trump? May not be worth the risk in these apocalyptic times but also difficult to leave this fascinating community. Are other’s concerned?

God I hope he did.

"Sources claim Trump shit himself in France leading to nobody wanting to sit next to him, unable to verify or debunk the claim. No official statement denying it from the incoming Trump regime, so far."

Former NFL player Larry Johnson recounted a disturbing memory of a party in the Colorado mountains with Jay-Z and Beyoncé, where young children mysteriously appeared late at night.

One moment that stood out was seeing a child sitting next to Beyoncé, who he claims was grooming the child while saying, "Doesn't this look sexy?"

There are reportedly hundreds of victims, including children, ready to come forward against Jay-Z.

Seems like we finally figured out the distance from Oakdale to Chicago.

From Bay City to Henderson, from Monticello to Springfield, and from Oakdale to Luther's Corners, may you all have the merriest of Christmases!

If you're very lucky, the Pendulous One may dangle something down the chimney for you.

And if you miss anything, just ask Aunt Liz. She'll know ALLLLL the dirt!

What is your x?

My current one is, if you send me a teams message followed immediately by an email of the same, I want you dead you needy fuck.

The Trump-iana purchase!

A prominent Fox News host has floated that President-elect Donald Trump could be looking to make a major land purchase during his second term. Her prediction comes as Trump continues to taunt Canada and its officials, and has reportedly suggested the northern neighbor should be America’s 51st state.

“I actually think that the United States might make some sort of purchase. I don’t know, not Canada, but there might be some sort of like big real estate purchase in the next four years,” Dana Perino said on Tuesday’s episode of The five on Fox.

Co-host Jessica Tarlov then suggested Greenland as a potential purchase.

In 2019, Trump suggested that the U.S. would be “interested” in acquiring Greenland from Denmark.

“Strategically, it’s interesting. And we’d be interested. We’ll talk to them a little bit. It’s not number one on the burner, I can tell you that,” he said during his first term.

Given Trump’s recent fascination - coupled with the previous Greenland comments - it’s not a surprise Perino suggested he might look to grow America through buying land, such as the country did with the Louisiana purchase.

Perino didn’t offer more explanation on which lands she believes the president-elect will target, and Trump has not talked recently about buying land.

He recently suggested to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada should become the 51st state if the northern neighbor is unhappy with the impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs.

The news of those comments led to constant trolling by Trump. He posted an AI-generated image of him with a Canadian flag on his social media site. Late Monday, Trump gave Trudeau a new title in one of his posts.

“It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in-depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!”

1500 days from now, Dump will be leaving the White House, if not sooner. If we can just get through the next 1500 days, we're good.

Bought some sneakers from Kohls, they came with a security tag, the store refunded me for the purchase, but I cannot return them without it costing money- beyond stupid policy, but has anyone here ever successfully removed one of these without it exploding ink all over the item?

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) says she was assaulted at a foster youth advocacy event earlier this week; witnesses say it was just a handshake.

Whatever the truth, the South Carolina Republican sure would be a lot happier if the media stopped reporting on it.

Mace told far-right influencer Benny Johnson Thursday she believes the reporting amounts to defamation, and warned that media outlets covering the story better watch their backs.

“I have a warning for any media outlet that says I wrongly, falsely accused this guy of physically accosting me, of assaulting me,” she told Johnson.

“That is defamation. And so I would be walking on eggshells if I were you,” she said with a giggle.

The congresswoman also accused anyone who disputes her characterization of the interaction of “victim-shaming.”

“This guy came in for what I thought was going to be a friendly handshake, and I know the difference between a passionate handshake and a violent one, and here I sit here today with an injury from it,” she said.

Mace also shared a photo of herself wearing an arm sling and a brace on social media Thursday. The photo was immediately ridiculed by Natalie Johnson, a former Mace staffer, who called it “a pathetic ploy for attention.”

“This is the same woman who told staff, myself included, during Jan. 6 that she wanted to get ‘punched in the face’ by a rioter so she could get on TV,” Johnson said on X, formerly Twitter.

While Mace says she was “physically accosted,” witnesses speculate it’s what James McIntyre, the man who shook her hand, said ― not how he acted ― that set Mace off.

McIntyre, the co-founder of a foster care advocacy group, reportedly told Mace, “trans youth are also foster youth, and they need your support.”

Elliott Hinkle, a foster youth advocate and consultant on foster issues who was at the event, told The Washington Post that McIntyre reached out with both hands to shake Mace’s hand while delivering his message. Mace has become increasingly fixated on anti-trans legislation.

Everyone's eating them. Are you?

I add a few blueberries and sometimes some coco power to mine. I don't add yogurt as I'm trying to lose a few pounds.

$72 a month is OUTRAGEOUS. I mean...do you get movies, TV shows, music AND porn? What the fuck?

Vanderpump Rules' James Kennedy has been arrested on a charge of misdemeanor domestic violence.

Cops were called to the Vanderpump Rules star’s Los Angeles home on Tuesday, Dec. 10, after reports that he and a woman were arguing, according to TMZ, citing a law enforcement source.

A witness reportedly saw Kennedy get physical with the unnamed woman, although authorities did not see any injuries when they arrived on the scene.

The outlet reported that Kennedy, 32, was later arrested on suspicion of domestic violence and released on $20,000 bail.

It is unclear if the woman in question was the DJ’s girlfriend Ally Lewber, but the pair had been together earlier that night at Kathy Hilton’s annual holiday party. A source tells PEOPLE the pair spent much of the night apart and didn’t show much affection toward each other.

Another insider told PEOPLE: "James was acting super aggressive all night long."

"He was acting so erratic, running back and forth to the bar and body-checking people along the way,” the insider claimed. “He appeared inebriated. Spent the evening mostly alone but when he did speak to people, he appeared irritated and rude."

PEOPLE has reached out to Kennedy and the Burbank Police Department for comment.

When the news broke, Kennedy’s ex-girlfriend and former VPR costar Kristen Doute took to Instagram to react, posting a screenshot of the TMZ article and writing, “Finally.”

Kennedy and Lewber, 28, began dating in January 2022, just over a month after Kennedy broke off his engagement to VPR costar Rachel (formerly Raquel) Leviss. They met at a concert for Tom Sandoval’s band, The Most Extras, and Lewber later admitted she had been a fan of the Bravo show.

"I had seen Vanderpump Rules. During COVID, I went down the Bravo rabbit hole," she explained to Andy Cohen during the show’s season 10 reunion, per BravoTV.com.

Despite Kennedy’s controversial behavior in the past, which was documented on VPR, Lewber said “meeting him [was] different.”

"I gave him a chance to really show me who he is," Lewber noted, adding that “he's lovely."

Kennedy has had a long struggle with alcohol, documenting his journey on VPR. In 2021, he celebrated two years of sobriety, announcing the accomplishment on Instagram.

"IM 2 YEARS SOBER TODAY💜," he captioned the post. "Thank you everyone that has supported me and my journey so far. Here's to many more years alcohol free #forlife (to anyone struggling trust me the light at the end is brighter then anything I could of imagined. and if I can do it you can too)."

That same year, he revealed he was “California sober,” meaning he still used certain substances like marijuana in moderation but did not drink alcohol. This garnered pushback from his then-costar Lala Kent (who is completely sober), but Kennedy defended his stance.

"It helped me quit the alcohol for good, you know what I mean?" he said. "I will quit weed also when the time comes. ... I don't feel like I should quit right now, you know? There's no point."

A new Carpenters Christmas album titled Christmas Once More has been released, featuring remixed tracks created by Richard Carpenter from the original multi-track tapes. This 2024 release showcases Karen Carpenter's iconic vocals in a new light, with updated mixes that bring her voice to the forefront in a way fans haven’t heard before. These mixes enhance the warmth and clarity of her voice, offering a fresh, intimate sound that complements the season, without the heavy reverb added in the 1980s. This release promises a refined, timeless listening experience that highlights Karen’s unparalleled talent.

It's available on YouTube, Spotify, vinyl, CD, and Apple Music. The Apple Music version even has Dolby Atmos surround sound mixes!

I will be posting links below to the songs for comparison.

With all the food, booze, cigarettes, and sex in my past (in reverse chronological order), there is no way I am living to 100. I would be lucky to hit 80.

If I am right, I would be a fool to plan for retirement under assumptions financial planners would want you to use.

Plus the world isn’t going to last much longer anyway.

Any of you planning for a financial future that ends at 80? 70?

I am 53. Figure I am planning towards death at 75. If I miraculously live longer, I can sell y California home and go live in Ohio. I will barely be sentient by then anyway.

Being held on $100,000 bond.

DL, what is your favorite movie from the 1940's? There were so many good ones:

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Casablanca (1942)

Gaslight (1944)

The Uninvited (1944)

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Brief Encounter (1945)

And Then There Were None (1945)

Rope (1948)

The Third Man (1949)

and many many more

Who- in Life- first caught your fancy?

This man was incredible in this film. I felt like I was watching the birth of a movie star. He was so ridiculously charming in this film. He doesn’t have any huge scenes or anything like that, his performance is very subtle and nuanced and poignant. His performance is absolutely wonderful. What a lovely performance, and he is so attractive in this film. I was actually shocked by how much I loved him. By the end of the film, I had a little crush on him lol.

His very first scene, I literally couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. Your eyes just stay attached to him in everything that he’s in.

As for the film, it is broken down into three chapters. Chapters one and two are great, but chapter 3 is a mess. Well, not necessarily a mess, but it is strange beyond belief. I am left with questions. It is a very sad and heartbreaking film of crippling loneliness.

What would you say to our criminal president-elect?

What would be your top choices?

If not, then who?

DAMASCUS, Syria — An American man who identified himself as Pete Travis Timmerman was found in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus by local residents on Thursday.

Timmerman was last seen in Budapest, Hungary, in early June. On Thursday, he told reporters in Damascus that he had been on a pilgrimage and was detained earlier this year after crossing into Syria on foot from Lebanon.

Locals in the town of al-Thiyabiyah found the 29-year-old man as he wandered barefoot on the streets in the early hours of the morning.

In an interview with Arabic TV news channel Al-Arabiya, Timmerman said that he had been held in isolation in a prison cell and that he was released when opposition forces stormed Damascus and overthrew President Bashar al-Assad. He said he hadn't been beaten but could hear other people being tortured.

To Elon Musk, the word “homeless” is a “lie” and “a propaganda word.”

“Homeless is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little bit behind on their mortgage, and if you just gave them a job, they’d be back on their feet,” he told former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson in October. “What you actually have are violent, drug zombies with dead eyes and needles and human feces on the street.”

The more money spent combating homelessness, “the worse it gets,” according to Musk.

Musk — who has funneled more than $250 million into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign — is now directing lawmakers and the White House to make drastic, potentially devastating cuts to federal agencies that support millions of vulnerable Americans, including thousands of people experiencing homelessness.

The world’s wealthiest person has repeatedly suggested that he believes the government he will be assisting is behind a global conspiracy to make more people homeless in order to enrich the organizations working to end homelessness.

“The ‘save the homeless’ NGOs are often paid according to how many homeless people are on the streets, thus creating a strong financial incentive for them to maximize the number of homeless people and never actually solve the problem!” he wrote on December 10.

“The more homeless there are, the more money these organizations get, so their incentive is to increase, not decrease, homelessness!” he said in September.

Trump, meanwhile, says people experiencing homelessness should be forced into treatment or mental institutions “or face arrest.”

His campaign has promised to “end the nightmare” of the “dangerously deranged” with a plan to “open large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists, and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified.”

He wants to “bring back mental institutions to house and rehabilitate those who are severely mentally ill or dangerously deranged with the goal of reintegrating them back into society.”

Musk and Trump are not alone.

Influential billionaires and right-wing think tanks have been advancing legislation that criminalizes homelessness in Congress and at the Supreme Court, “and they all share this backwards, incorrect view that if we punish people enough, they will choose not to be poor,” according to Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director with the National Homelessness Law Center.

“People are really struggling to afford basic needs in this country, like rent and food. But I don’t expect Musk or the other billionaires to know anything about that,” he told The Independent.

“Instead of focusing on solutions to homelessness, Musk and his billionaire friends think the solution is to arrest homeless folks and send them off to detention camps,” he said.

“He could single-handedly provide and pay for every houseless person in this country to get the housing and support they need to stay housed,” he added. “But he doesn’t care, and he and his billionaire friends are using homeless people as political footballs, and it’s wrong and it’s disgusting.”

Previous thread posted below.

This isn't an intended as an eldergay aging thread, although some things can certainly fall under that category. It's also not intended to be about life experiences and learning lessons from them. It can be about important or trivial stuff, general knowledge that everybody except you seemed to know.

Trivial. I just learned that darker roast coffees have less caffeine than lighter roasts. I've always bought French Roast thinking it has more, but it's opposite since the longer process removes more caffeine. I'm 60 and have been drinking coffee since college. All these years...

Host: Paul Mescal

Musical Guest: Shaboozey

Luigi Maggione is his name. He will be popular in prison.

United Health Care shooting suspect.

Too bad for the people who voted for him "because the prices are too high"

Good casting.

Will Lucky ever bathe or wash his hair?

Will Lulu find happiness snuggling up to Cody's dadbod?

Will the Celeste Talbert of Port Charles lose his marbles......or spit them out of his mouth?

The answers to these questions and more can be found or discussed inside.........

She hit it big in 1995 and took over country music, before becoming the biggest female pop act of all time with her crossover in 1997. She had 3 huge albums, then she disappeared and could barely get a single to chart. What happened?

Not too long ago, LGBTQ+ people who wanted to see themselves represented in holiday movies could either (a) pretend or (b) settle for a second-rate film with a queer character who had very few lines, ambition, or development.

Early in the contemporary queer holiday canon, 2005’s The Family Stone, which stars gay icon Sarah Jessica Parker as a (shocker) snobby New Yorker spending the holidays at her boyfriend’s family home, became a queer hit for its B-plot gay couple with ambitions to adopt a baby. And while the film is still worth an annual watch, so much more has happened in seasonal cinema since SJP’s iconic spilled-strata scene with matriarch Diane Keaton. That is, gay and lesbian Christmas movies actually center queer people now — same-sex holiday revelers crush and fall in love, break up, regain romance, and just live the same celebratory December existence every heterosexual (or closeted) character has gotten for, well, ever.

Now if we could just get a smart, well-written, celebrity-cast lesbian Hanukkah rom-com.

.

joe continues his rise in Hollywood with a major award nomination

Delivering the latest case of streaming sticker shock, YouTube TV is raising prices by $10 month in January, hitting $82.99 for its basic plan.

If you have YT TV what are you going to do now? Will you bail? Will you stay? Personally I am with Sling TV which is just fine except the too frequent stuttering. Any better alternative?

OMG! I found a full episode of Jules, hot of You'll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again, spilling the martinis on all of Hollywood. SHe is considerably more charming on the show than she comes off in her scathing book.

Now, how's this for trivia - her daughter is married to MEGA power player Modi Wicyk, head of MRC, which is responsible for some of Hollywood's hottest hits. Talk about an LA story!!

Any LA eldergays met Jools?

It seems designed to look like a museum. The twins he adopted are probably petrified of spilling anything. Maybe the live-in nanny handles that.

Meanwhile, part of the house is off-limits to everyone else, so that must be where he takes his hookups.

Songs like "Don't Turn Around", "Hash Brown Happy" and "Spikes In My Back, Bullets In Yours".

Kyle's getting the villain edit this season.

Erika continues her Ozempic journey.

They swapped out last season's token black cast member for another one that looks like a drag queen.

Dorit and Sutton continue to be boring.

Jennifer Tilly!

Discuss

Continue here...

I am a Larry Shipper, a Larry believer if you will/

He was in blockbusters like Jaws and The French Connection then disappeared from the screen. The last time I saw him was in an arc of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that included Rita Moreno.

Starts Sept. 18.

Link has cast members including: Jon Lovett: As a podcast host, I get to travel the country with Pod Save America and Lovett or Leave It,

Pick your top 3 and winner.

Kyle, Genevieve, Andy.

Winner: Andy

I wonder why they weren't reporting these facts months ago...

“Even after taking into account today’s larger U.S. population, the recent surge is the most rapid since at least 1850.”

“About 60% of immigrants who have entered the country since 2021 have done so without legal authorization.”

“high levels of immigration do have downsides, including the pressure on social services and increased competition for jobs.”

“The scale of recent immigration helps explain why the issue has played a central role in American politics over the past few years.”

I REALLY want him to win the Oscar for this.

I know that Hollywood is still homophobic and leery of gay themed films.

But it's time!!

Elton John criticized the legalization of marijuana, saying it’s “addictive” and impairs cognitive thinking.

“I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs,” John, who was named Icon of the Year by Time Magazine, told the outlet. “And when you’re stoned — and I’ve been stoned — you don’t think normally. Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”

John, 77, looked back on his own experiences with drugs, saying that cocaine was his drug of choice after being introduced to the narcotic by former manager and lover John Reid. Following the death of his friend Ryan White, who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, John checked into Chicago’s Parkside Lutheran Hospital on July 29, 1990 — and has remained sober ever since.

“It all came to a climax, really, at the Ryan White funeral in Indianapolis — a really sad and emotional week — and I came back to the hotel thinking I’m just so out of line,” John told Time. “It was a shock to see how far down the scale of humanity I’d fallen.”

“You make terrible decisions on drugs,” John explained. “I wanted love so badly, I’d just take hostages. I’d see someone I liked and spend three or four months together, and then they would resent me because they had nothing in their life apart from me. It really upsets me, thinking back on how many people I probably hurt.”

Now sober, John has helped others kick the habit. He reached out to support Boy George’s sobriety journey, and as he revealed in his 2019 memoir, Me, John is friend and collaborator Eminem’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor.

The outlet reports he also tried to help George Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016 of heart disease and fatty liver, which can be caused by alcohol abuse.

“It’s tough to tell someone that they’re being an a—hole, and it’s tough to hear,” he says, saying that when it came to getting sober, “Eventually I made the choice to admit that I’m being an a—hole.”

I've just discovered this on YouTube. It's so charming and funny.

About a middle-aged housewife who fantasizes about having an affair with a mysterious stranger. She has a priggish conservative husband and two cute teen sons who do little but smoke pot and get laid, so they spar about morals, goals and values.

It's more sophisticated about sex and relationships than most of what American network TV has managed 40 years later. Anybody else enjoy this show?

[quote] All swaths of Americans increasingly appear to find themselves in a nihilistic mood.

[quote] They’re disenchanted with the economy, and feeling pessimistic about climate change, the dating market, and their own loneliness. They’re losing faith in nearly every major US institution, from the public school system to police departments, the military, unions, organized religion, and, of course, the media.

Unworthy, I follow in the footsteps of the Great Ones of Datalounge Past:

Bea's annual New Year's Eve party will be here before we can get all those eggs deviled, and there are invitations to be sent and Bourbon to buy!

This year's resolution: no riff raff at the party. Keep it classy, ladies.

He kept the gun. Moron.

Huge, unidentified, drones are being reported flying over NJ for past few weeks at night. Focusing over infrastructure such as New Jersey water basins, military weapon installations, Trump frequented golf course. FBI are asking public for help reporting. FAA has issued no fly zone label over areas.

I'm the filming locations in New York City

Internet commentators have settled on the subculture most aligned with accused murderer Luigi Mangione: TPOT. While many initially suspected the shooter would be a Bernie Sanders-style leftist, Mangione’s social media feeds reveal an Ivy League-educated tech bro who disavows “wokeism” and venerates Elon Musk; a former fraternity member equally as dedicated to AI as he is to psychedelics and self-improvement.

And so began the quest to label Magione, to pin him down. Is he a tech accelerationist? A Dimes Square neo-trad fascist? A dirtbag anarchist? One subgroup seems to have come out on top: TPOT — an acronym for This Part of Twitter — a loosely defined internet subculture whose members most regularly define themselves as “ambitious nerds” obsessed with self-improvement and personal agency.

While members of the TPOT community struggle with whether to embrace Mangione as part of what they call “the ingroup,” other extremely online commentators insist he has to be a member of the scene. “Tried explaining that the shooter wasn’t a far left radical but actually a right wing tpot adjacent ted k reading lindyman following, rfk pilled upenn grad and got kicked out of the family group chat,” said one popular post on X.

I want him in balls deep and then INFITADA

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) plans to introduce a resolution Monday that would bar transgender women from using the women’s bathroom in the Capitol, according to her office. The move comes ahead of Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Delaware) being sworn in as the first transgender lawmaker in the United States on Jan. 3. The resolution is not under privilege, meaning the House does not have to immediately vote on it. Even if the resolution were to be adopted this year, it would have to be reintroduced and passed in 2025 to be in effect for the 119th Congress.

Continue discussion about everyone’s favorite insurance hating twunk, Luigi Mangione.

Is he winning the Oscar?

If you’re acquainted the neurodivergence, this is funny as hell. Halfway through the interview, Hammer decides he wants to suddenly smoke cigars.

Policies allowing out gay people to serve in the US military have been denounced as part of a “Marxist” agenda aimed at prioritising social justice above combat-readiness by Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled defence secretary pick.

The assertion was among many contentious “anti-woke” views expressed in Hegseth’s latest book, The War on Warriors, published this year, in which he lambasted a previous policy – known as don’t ask, don’t tell (DADT) – that tolerated gay service members as long as they did not disclose their sexual orientation, while also excoriating its repeal.

DADT was introduced as a compromise during Bill Clinton’s presidency in 1993 to allow lesbians and gay men to serve in the military in the face of opposition from senior commanders. The policy overturned a previous blanket ban that had been in place since the second world war.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It's the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

The commutations announced Thursday are for people who have served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released. Prisons were uniquely bad for spreading the virus and some inmates were released in part to stop the spread. At one point, 1 in 5 prisoners had COVID-19, according to a tally kept by The Associated Press.

Biden said he would be taking more steps in the weeks ahead and would continue to review clemency petitions. The second largest single-day act of clemency was by Barack Obama, with 330, shortly before leaving office in 2017.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a statement. “As president, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”

The clemency follows a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes. Biden is under pressure from advocacy groups to pardon broad swaths of people, including those on federal death row, before the Trump administration takes over in January. He’s also weighing whether to issue preemptive pardons to those who investigated Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and are facing possible retribution when he takes office.

Those pardoned Thursday had been convicted of nonviolent crimes such as drug offenses and turned their lives around, White House lawyers said. They include a woman who led emergency response teams during natural disasters; a church deacon who has worked as an addiction counselor and youth counselor; a doctoral student in molecular biosciences; and a decorated military veteran.

The president had previously issued 122 commutations and 21 other pardons. He's also broadly pardoned those convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia, and pardoned former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and 34 other lawmakers are urging the president to pardon environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, who was imprisoned or under house arrest for three years because of a contempt of court charge related to his work representing Indigenous farmers in a lawsuit against Chevron.

Others are advocating for Biden to commute the sentences of federal death row prisoners. His attorney general, Merrick Garland, paused federal executions. Biden had said on the campaign trail in 2020 that he wanted to end the death penalty but he never did, and now, with Trump coming back into office, it’s likely executions will resume. During his first term, Trump presided over an unprecedented number of federal executions, carried out during the height of the pandemic.

More pardons are coming before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20, but it's not clear whether he'll take action to guard against possible prosecution by Trump, an untested use of the power. The president has been taking the idea seriously and has been thinking about it for as much as six months — before the presidential election — but has been concerned about the precedent it would set, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.

That's what NJ's Jeff Van Drew is claiming.

Van Drew is not some crackpot. Since 2019 he serves as the U.S. representative for New Jersey's 2nd congressional district.

Can’t imagine his father or mother being a virgin at 18.

President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming press secretary has claimed that White House reporters are “excited” to see him return to the Oval Office.

“If you talk to reporters off the record, they will tell you they are excited that President Trump will be back in the Oval Office because they know how much access they had to him and his press secretaries during his first term,” Karoline Leavitt told Fox & Friends on Thursday.

Off the record is a term for something expressed in confidence and not meant to be reported, so Leavitt was likely suggesting the unnamed journalists she was referring to would never say as much in public.

Leavitt was responding to the Fox News morning chat show’s cohost Steve Doocy, who claimed the Trump administration, led by a well-documented serial liar, would be an honest contrast to that of President Joe Biden.

“This is gonna be such a change of pace from the last four years because when people in the briefing room ask actual questions they get something read out of a binder and it is not sometimes accurate and sometimes it’s just a flat out lie,” he said.

Doocy’s reference to the use of a binder during press briefings—something Biden secretaries Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre have done—is baffling because it’s common practice.

Photo evidence shows three of Trump’s four press secretaries during his first term used binders during media briefings.

The one who did not, Stephanie Grisham, only managed not to because of a technicality: she failed to hold a single press briefing during her 281-day tenure between July 2019 and April 2020.

However, photos show she nevertheless carried a binder with her while on the job.

As for whether reporters in the White House press room are excited to have Trump back because of how much apparent access they will have, history casts some doubt on Leavitt’s claim.

Biden has indeed been the least accessible president in the last four decades, in terms of media interviews and press conferences. His vice president, Kamala Harris, was criticized during the 2024 election for a lack of press accessibility before launching a media blitz closer to voting day.

But Trump has had his own clashes with the press, attacking the media more than 100 times in the lead-up to this year’s election.

He has called for journalists to be jailed and dubbed them the “enemy of the people.”

While he sometimes gave long press conferences during his first term in office, his White House took unprecedented steps to shut off access at times.

At one point between 2019 and 2020, the first Trump administration went over 300 days without holding a formal press briefing, for which it was slammed by a bipartisan group of former Republican and Democratic government press secretaries.

He's hot

A celebration and honoring of beautiful, perfect, inviting, delectable, asses

I will miss Monica but I know the rest of these bitches will bring the crazy. Let's go!

WASHINGTON — Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlined a plan Wednesday for President-elect Donald Trump to oversee a massive reduction in the federal workforce, arguing the employees won't be needed after Trump eliminates "thousands of regulations" in his next administration.

Musk and Ramaswamy, who Trump last week named co-heads of a new Department of Government Efficiency, singled out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed federal employees "who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections."

The duo pointed to recent Supreme Court decisions to argue the incoming president has the executive power to nullify many regulations unilaterally without Congress, pursue "large-scale firings" of federal workers and relocate some agencies outside of Washington. They said "a drastic reduction in federal regulations" would require vastly fewer federal employees.

"DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions," their op-ed reads.

Musk and Ramaswamy, two loyal Trump allies, were tapped to lead the effort to "dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies." Although dubbed a department, the Musk/Ramaswamy-led effort is effectively an outside advisory commission − not a formal agency − with no legal authority.

The incoming Trump administration is expected to revive a plan to convert some employees to "Schedule F," status which strips them of job protections, among other efforts to cut the workforce.

Musk and Ramaswamy said the number of federal employees to cut "should be at least proportionate" to the number of regulations that are eliminated. "Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited," they said.

They did not specify how many workers could be downsized, or which agencies would be targeted, if their plan is carried out. They said "employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector," without providing specifics on how such a transition would work.

Trump would be able to use existing laws to give targeted federal workers incentives for early retirement and provide voluntary severance payments "to facilitate a graceful exit," they added.

Musk and Ramaswamy acknowledged "conventional wisdom" might suggests civil-service protections prevent the president from firing federal workers. But they argued Trump has the broad power − under the Supreme Court's 2021 Collins v. Yellen decision − to pursue "reductions in force" that don't target specific employees.

They also floated the possibility of requiring these workers to return to in-person work five days a week, predicting it "would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome."

"If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home," they said.

"We are entrepreneurs, not politicians," they wrote in the op-ed. "We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs."

She of the Shakers. From the team behind The Brutalist.

[quote]The film, inspired by real events, is described to us as “an epic fable” about religious leader Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, who was proclaimed by her followers as the female Christ and went on to build one of the largest utopian societies in American history. Lee – one of the rare female religious heads at the time – and her followers worshipped through exuberant song and dance.

A "knockin shop" is a hotel where the rooms are used by prostitutes.who pay to use the rooms.

A brothel is a residence for prostitutes where the johns come for sex. It is overseen by a madame.

The Franklin fire is enormous, and most of Malibu has been evacuated.

Do you suppose Barbra and her clone dogs have retreated to her secret bunker far underneath her mall?

Lmao. Sorry Nicholas and Jacob and Drew.

Julie & her Salemites honor the dashing Doug Williams with a fond farewell.

Comatose Bo's hand began moving when grieving Hope came into his room.

Drama loving big mouth Joy told her secret to Alex who she barely even knows.

The Leo & Javi pairing is over as fast as they began their whirlwind romance.

Rafe gets to replace the now missing John Black at the Black/Patch company.

Mark, Clyde, Nancy, Vivian, Dr. Rolf & Sophia have all done recent disappearing acts.

Discuss.

Jay Z and Beyonce - her mother Tina liking a story about his lawsuit speaks volumes. Beyonce will go full riot grrl and release an angry rock album featuring Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Brittany Howard, Christina Aguilera and . She will also rebound by dating several woman. Maybe Kristen Stewart or Zoe Kravitz.

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively - he will have an affair with a co-star and file. Plus he will win the PR war because Blake will take the money and STFU.

Joan Crawford as Helen Lawson before there was "Valley of the Dolls!" Joan as a singing/dancing superstar who can neither sing nor dance! JC with a "kid" sister who's young enough to be her daughter. Michael Wilding as a blind pianist who recalls Joan as a sweet young thing! Best of all, when Joan's "Hel" rips her own wig off... in blackface! Enjoy my take on "Torch!"

Who's leaving? Where's everyone going? How did you decide where to go? What was the process you took or are taking to make it happen? All tales and practical suggestions are welcome. Thanks, everyone!

I was planning on Panama, but now I'm having some doubts, because the cost of things there is going up. I still haven't ruled it out, but now I'm thinking about Ecuador, even though there are problems with their government v. drug gangs. Hmmm.

Please share your stories and progress here.

Diddy or didn’t he?

Carry On!

I’m glad the Democrats are now seeing the world Joe Biden has created by refusing to step down in time.

He was warned this would happen. He did not care.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a month after a devastating election loss that exposed cracks in the very foundation of their party, Democrats remain deeply divided over the extent of their political problem — or even if they have one.

A number of Democratic leaders are downplaying the strength of Donald Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris as the inevitable result of an inflation-fueled anti-incumbent backlash that shaped elections worldwide. But others are convinced that the Democratic Party is facing an acute crisis that requires an urgent overhaul of its brand, message and economic policies.

Trump swept every battleground state on Nov. 5, becoming the first Republican candidate to win the national popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004. Yet nearly half the country voted against him. With the final votes still being counted in some places, Trump won the popular vote by just 1.6 percentage points. He carried the seven top swing states by about 760,000 votes combined out of more than 151 million cast nationwide.

“The glass is half full. It was close. If we get another 2% or 3% of American voters, it would have successfully led to victories from the presidency on down,” says Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is leading a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy.

But for Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Labor-Farmer Party and a candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee next year, the election represented “a damning indictment” for the Democratic Party.

“People do not believe that the Democratic Party is fighting for them or for their families or gives a damn about their lives,” Martin told The Associated Press. “We lost ground with almost every group except wealthy households and college-educated voters.”

The internal debate over the health of the party comes at a critical moment.

Trump will return to the White House on Jan. 20, claiming a mandate to enact a dramatic “Make America Great Again” agenda led by the mass deportation of millions of immigrants in the country illegally; an overhaul of the federal departments of health, education and justice, and major import tariffs that threaten to strain the U.S. economy and international alliances alike.

Democrats, even diminished and divided, stand as the only organized resistance to Trump and his emboldened MAGA allies. But for now, at least, the Democratic Party has no leader and no agreement on the political problems that need to be fixed or how to fix them.

Many Democratic groups and leaders are working through post-election analyses to better understand what went wrong on Nov. 5, but few are working together. And already, some fear that the disparate post mortems will produce competing recommendations likely to be lost in a rush to leave the pain of 2024 behind.

Priorities USA, one of the Democratic Party's leading super PACs, is set to unveil its post-election findings this week. The group will recommend, among other things, that Democrats do a better job listening to voters instead of pollsters, while offering a more forward-looking positive alternative to Trump's MAGA movement.

If they do not make significant changes, according to a preview of that briefing, Priorities believes there is no guarantee that key elements of the Democratic base — especially young people and voters of color — will return to the party in future elections.

Some of the loudest voices calling for dramatic changes represent the party's far-left wing, which is often ignored by establishment Democrats who control the party's messaging, strategy and policy platform. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders irked some party leaders the day after the election with a scathing critique: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

“While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” Sanders continued. “And they’re right.”

It's happened to all of us. We think, sometimes for years, that the lyrics of a song are one thing, but it turns out to be something totally different.

For me: I used to think Billy Idol was saying, "How's about a date" instead of "Eyes without a face".

How about you?

DISCLAIMER: Is there at least one related thread on this topic? Probably. Am I going to bother to try and search for it? Absolutely not. So there!

Much better -

In 1996, I misspelled DobyGillis and trapped myself on several sites with this miss-spelling. Then - Once I was mocked viciously - removed my profile from some sites and reinstated myself as my favorite antagonist twerp JoeyBrill..

I’ll never hold any public office (didn’t aspire), but the shithead then and the dipshit now have many posts for which they should be rightfully ashamed.

If these two crazy kids can’t make it ….

This is terrible news. Is everyone just going to cave in like this?

A Hawaii woman's father who flew to Los Angeles looking for her after she was reported missing has been found dead near Los Angeles International Airport.

The body of Ryan Kobayashi, 58, was found in a parking lot on Sunday, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner. Los Angeles Police Department officials said they responded to reports of a body in the 6100 block of Century Boulevard about 4 a.m. Sunday and discovered someone dead of an apparent suicide.

Kobayashi was in Los Angeles looking for his daughter, Hannah Kobayashi, 30, who was last seen at LAX on Nov. 8 and last contacted her family by phone Nov. 9, according to an LAPD news release.

Relatives confirmed Ryan Kobayashi's death in a Sunday statement, saying they had "endured a devastating tragedy."

"After tirelessly searching throughout Los Angeles for 13 days, Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, tragically took his own life," according to the statement. "This loss has compounded the family's suffering immeasurably."

The family has urged the public to "maintain focus on the search for her. Hannah IS still actively missing and is believed to be in imminent danger. It is crucial for everyone to remain vigilant in their efforts to locate Hannah."

Kobayashi boarded a flight in Maui on Nov. 8 headed to New York City with a stop at LAX but never made it to New York, her family told USA Today.

She landed at LAX but missed her next flight, appearing instead to visit the Grove shopping center, where she went to a Nike event Nov. 10, her family told USA Today. The next day, Kobayashi apparently went back to LAX but didn’t board a flight. Later that day, she sent what her family called “strange” text messages.

LAPD spokesperson Charles Miller confirmed that the department is investigating Kobayashi's disappearance as an "active missing person case" but declined to specify details about the investigation. No updates were available Monday morning.

Kobayashi's sister, Sydni, told The Times that her sister's friend has reached out to the family about "strange" text messages Kobayashi reportedly sent.

Kobayashi texted her friend about her ID being stolen and expressed concern that someone she thought she loved was trying to take her money.

"She seemed like it was someone else or she was just totally out of it," Sydni said. "It just didn’t seem right because it’s not how she normally texts."

Kobayashi was supposed to meet up with her aunt and spend time with family in upstate New York, according to her sister.

And why does this guy have so much power? I'd never even heard of him until Trump's first term. I don't know why he's even a thing.

I see complaints everyday on SM and discussion boards bitching about their comments getting censored and screaming about their rights. It's a private company and you agree to their TOS when you sign up. Yes, most are magaty shit stirrers and trolls.

If so, what have you manifested (money, jobs, relationships etc.) and which techniques did you use?

What are your favorite LOA books?

I'm a Neville Goddard fan and I've also used some techniques from Florence Scovell Shinn, Joseph Murphy and Geneviève Behrand.

God I love her. She’s a national treasure.

When I was a kid I loved December Bride mostly because I thought Spring Byington was the funniest name I ever heard. Then I saw Florida Friebus.

Noah Wyle VOWS to never move on from ER. Also starring Fiona Dourif and a bunch of cute guys.

[quote]‘The Pitt’ is a realistic examination of the challenges facing healthcare workers in today’s America as seen through the lens of the frontline heroes working in a hospital in Pittsburgh. Each episode follows an hour of Dr. Michael Rabinavitch's 15-hour shift as the chief attendant in Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s emergency room.

Fifteen episodes, starts January 9th.

Beginning with a hot guy with stupid hair

It's been a few years since I started my Hot Topic In-Store Cleaning Supplies blog on 12/31/2015, and the DL has been very instrumental in helping me achieve my goals of recreating all of the wonderful cleaning supplies of this beloved, unique and fantastic shopping emporium.

I've recovered dozens bottles, boxes and packages of cleaning liquids and powders thanks to former Hot Topic employees who also stole and saved the original products, like I did, and most of them found out about my quest because of the DL. Every whiff brings back treasured memories. And they are cutting edge products, very effective to this day. Timeless cleaning supplies, indeed.

If you worked at Hot Topic from 1992 to 2006 and saved the cleaning products, would you please share them with me? Contact me at the email address in my blog.

Is Sheila really dead?

When will Steffy and Liam get back together?

When will Hope tell Douglas to hit the road?

Are Ridge and Brooke ever going to be an interesting couple again?

Continue your discussion of the show here.

Will Gladiator 2 be his breakout role?

KNOTS LANDING is coming to streaming Aug 13 on the new Primetime Soaps by WB channel.

The 24/7 ad-supported channel is live now on @Plex w/ FALCON CREST. Eps stream in order, not on-demand.

Watch on streaming devices w/ the Plex app or online: watch.plex.tv/live-tv/channe… #SoapOpera

The sun has set on “The Golden Bachelor’s” Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist’s marriage.

Just three months after marrying in a live televised ceremony, the two announced their plans to divorce on “Good Morning America” Friday.

“Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations,” Turner said, "We’ve looked closely at our situation, our living situation, so forth and we’ve come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage.”

People’s hero, Luigi “Justice Adonis” Mangione, is a Mega Chad who every want to be or fuck.

The public reaction to his execution of the United Healthcare CEO will inspire copy cats of every desperate incel or grieving loved one to steal some of Luigi’s glory.

Could this assassination be akin to the slaying of the Arch Duke Ferdinand?

Free at last! He’s not ready to believe it, but he’s free at last.

The year is almost over, so we're taking stock of the movies that have made a lasting impression on us, from "The Substance" to "Conclave" and "Challengers."

And like Persephone, we descend into Hades as winter approaches.

Check it out if you're a Bruce Campbell fan. Set in the 80s during the Satanic Panic and heavy metal witchhunt.

Anyone else excited for this? Could get Demi Moore her first Oscar nomination. She seems really grounded and normal in this interview with the guardian. I’m rooting for her!

The New York Times continues to sink into mediocrity, particularly on the gay sports pages -- the Arts & Leisure section. Here's a sample of the Seventeen Magazine, press agent inspired crap they print now:

Outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) voted for the first time in weeks on Wednesday to oppose the nomination of Lauren McFerran to continue serving on the National Labor Relations Board. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), another outgoing senator and former Democrat, also voted against the nomination.

The NLRB is a vital agency that oversees U.S. labor laws and rules on labor disputes, collective bargaining, and unfair labor practices. Its five members serve five-year terms. Currently, the board has three Democrats, one Republican, and one vacancy. McFerran, a Democrat, is the chair of the board, but her term expires next week.

I’ve always had colored lights, ever since I was a child. My snottiest friends say that colored lights are tacky and they should be white.

Food and the holidays are forever intertwined. Beyond the bountiful table, it is often the little treats and traditions that are integral parts of holiday memories. Like many people, Lacey Chabert recalls how that box of Russell Stover Chocolates was part of her traditions. Through a recent partnership, she hopes that more people can make some happy, sweet holiday memories.

While the holiday season might sparkle brightly, many people welcome Lacey Chabert and her numerous Hallmark channel movies into their homes all year round. Those movies tug at the heart strings and delight with the promise of happily ever after. From the girls night in to the new version of family movie night, the reality is that any and all ages enjoy those whimsical movies.

Lacey Chabert is ready to spread some holiday cheer off the screen with her partnership with Russell Stover Chocolates. Currently, the candy brand is encouraging people to share their own happy holiday memory as part of its Make Happy promotion. From a special gift to a little treat that was the first bite on Christmas morning, there are plenty of traditions involving those classic chocolates.

As part of this partnership, Lacey Chabert graciously took some time to speak with FoodSided. Like many other people, Chabert shared how food has flavored many of her holiday traditions and memories.

She shared, "Russell Stover Chocolates was a huge part of our family traditions growing up. I remember walking into my grandparent’s kitchen and there would be a box in the middle of the dining room table. I was always so excited to break open that box. I’ve carried that holiday tradition into my own family. From stocking stuffers to having a box on my own dining room table, it is always part of our holiday celebrations.”

I'm tempted to say so!

“Get Pete Hegseth on the phone!”

It was March 2018, and then-President Donald Trump was meeting with his Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary, Dr. David Shulkin, about how to reform veteran health care. But it was Hegseth, then a Fox News personality, whose opinion Trump really wanted.

Hegseth, now Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of defense, had been a vocal and persistent advocate for veterans having unfettered access to private health care, rather than having to go through the VA to keep their benefits. He’s also lobbied for policies that would restrict VA care and believes veterans should ask for fewer government benefits.

“We want to have full choice where veterans can go wherever they want for care,” Hegseth told Trump on speakerphone as Shulkin listened, according to Shulkin’s 2019 memoir.

Trump’s pick to serve as the next VA secretary, Doug Collins, has also expressed support for greater privatization of veteran health care, which advocates characterize as giving veterans greater choice over their doctors. If veterans “want to go back to their own doctors, then so be it,” he told Fox News last month.

For Shulkin, a rare “holdover” from President Barack Obama’s administration to Trump’s, this was “the worst-case scenario” for veteran health care, and one he had repeatedly warned Hegseth against.

“Your version of choice would cost billions more per year, bankrupting the system,” Shulkin recalls telling Hegseth in his memoir. “How can we responsibly pursue this? Unfortunately, he didn’t want to engage at the level of budget and other aspects of day-to-day reality. He seemed to prefer his sound bites on television.”

If confirmed, Hegseth and Collins will have the opportunity to push for a dramatic overhaul of the military and veteran health care system, one that could significantly cut government health benefits for service members and veterans – many of which Hegseth says veterans should not be asking for at all.

Veterans groups “encourage veterans to apply for every government benefit they can ever get after they leave the service,” he told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” in 2019. “To me, the ethos of service is, I served my country because I love my country and I’m gonna come home and start the next chapter of my life. If I’ve got a chronic condition – mental, physical, otherwise – the government better be there for me, but otherwise I don’t want to be dependent on that.”

CNN has reached out to Hegseth and the Trump transition for comment on this story.

Lost in the woods

I’m going to bet on eating lots of pussy.

Get it, girl!

Unbelievably rude, unless you can further her career. She’s a nasty woman. She deserves none of the acclaim she is receiving.

We need a general thread for figure skating news and discussion so I thought I'd start one.

Gracie Gold has a new memoir coming out called, wait for it, “Outofshapeworthlessloser” and in it she writes that she was raped at 21 by a fellow skater in a hotel suite where she and her sister held an event after-party. Five years after her alleged assault was reported to the U.S. Center for Safesport, she has no idea about the status of her complaint. She hasn't heard from the center in three years. (Via @WSJSports)

I’ve outgrown my days of post-gym protein drinks for “gains”. I also wake up without an appetite for a proper breakfast. Is there any benefit to drinking old-people shakes like Ensure for breakfast relative to having some coffee with toast and fruit?

I was a Carnation Breakfast devotee for a couple years, but I’m an itinerant and I travel a lot from city to city. I can’t always find it at local supermarkets.

What are your favorites? Are they worth their weight, or would one be worse for wear?

A Thoughtful Piece from Caftan Chronicles: “ He was pushed out of TV news in his forties. Then his lover died. Then he entered the field he'd always fantasized about—porn—and started thriving.”

Unfortunately, I do not have a link behind the paywall

No word yet if she plans to ask Trump for a recount.

For Your Consideration is now streaming on Amazon Prime! The zany comedy follows the actors and production crew of a small independent film as they anticipate awards season.

For Your Consideration is one of the funniest movies ever made, and has a powerhouse of a cast- Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Christopher Moynihan, Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Balaban, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, Ed Begley Jr., John Michael Higgins, Jim Piddock, Rachael Harris, Michael Hitchcock, Don Lake, Ricky Gervais, Larry Miller, Richard Kind, Sandra Oh, Paul Dooley, John Krasinski, and, of course, Fred Willard.

Will they start gathering us up and putting us into concentration camps?

Donald Trump Jr. was spotted in Palm Beach with a new girlfriend on Saturday, the Daily Mail revealed with new photos.

Trump Jr., 46, was pictured with Bettina Anderson, 38, a Palm Beach socialite, on Monday night. Trump Jr. is still engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle, 55, but his romance with Anderson is reportedly an “open secret” in the Florida town.

Anderson also shared a birthday message from the future first son on her Instagram stories. “Many Have Said You’re Aging Out But I Think You’re Perfect… Happy Birthday!” a flower delivery card read. Anderson discreetly tagged Trump Jr. in the upper left corner.

“Tough but fair,” she captioned the post.

Trump Jr. and Anderson dined together at a restaurant in Palm Beach a few miles away from Anderson’s townhouse, where they have been spending time together, the Daily Mail reported.

News of their romance first broke in September, when they were photographed at another Palm Beach restaurant together and seen kissing. Guilfoyle reportedly didn’t know about Anderson until the news broke.

“He’s pretty bold and, as smart as she is, Kimberly looked the other way,” a source told the Daily Mail.

Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host, has been in Donald Trump’s orbit since 2018, when she first started dating Trump Jr. A friend added that it was unclear whether the couple would stay together, but “it would look bad to humiliate her” because of her proximity to the president-elect.

Anderson is the daughter of a bank president and the co-founder of The Paradise Fund, a nonprofit focusing on disaster relief.

The company is dividing its structure into studio & streaming, and linear television divisions. HBO is going with studio & streaming because that is what is going to be sold/acquired.

Badee-badee-badee…

I'm that damn Vikki Carr record.

Samantha Greenstone and Jacob Hoff officially tied the knot.

Greenstone, 37, and Hoff, 31, took their relationship to the next level as they married on Nov. 25 in Boca Raton, Fla. during an intimate wedding ceremony. The pair spoke about their "pure love story" with the New York Times in a feature published on Dec. 6, giving backstory on their unconventional romance which they have documented with their followers on social media through the years.

“I am gay, and as a gay person, you can keep your identity as that even if your relationship doesn’t match that,” Hoff explained. “We have a monogamous relationship. It’s beyond a visual lustful connection. It’s a soulful connection.”

Both Greenstone and Hoff work as actors and first met at callbacks for Fiddler on the Roof in Escondido, Calif. in November 2015, where he first heard Greenstone's performance.

“From the lobby, I heard Samantha’s cackle at the end of the song and instantly thought whoever just made that sound is an immaculate human,” he recalled to the publication.

They both landed roles in the show and quickly developed a close friendship, which eventually blossomed into deeper feelings for one another. Greenstone noted she was "living in utter confusion" over her feelings for Hoff and went to an energy healer for advice, who claimed they "share a spiritual umbilical cord."

“There was a spark and It felt like this magnetism that was so powerful," Greenstone explained. ‘’It was like someone had found the words to explain our connection and package it in a way that made me finally understand what we had between us.”

Greenstone texted Hoff later that day and eventually confirmed that they both had deeper feelings for one another. They made their relationship official in July 2017 and got engaged in December 2023.

Since their engagement, the pair have been open about their relationship on social media and questions people have about their romance. One of the major misconceptions they have addressed is that they're in a "lavender marriage."

"A lavender marriage is when one partner is heterosexual and one partner is homosexual and the homosexual partner enters the relationship to cover up the fact that they are gay," Greenstone explained in a TikTok posted on Nov. 22.

Hoff clarified, "That's not what's going on here," noting "there's no covering up" the fact that he's gay. Instead, they explained that they're in a "mixed-orientation relationship."

In another video posted to Instagram on Aug. 27, Hoff spoke about why he decided to marry a woman despite identifying as gay, explaining, "Samantha is the person I'm connected to spiritually [and] she's my soul partner."

"I want to spend the rest of my life with her and that oftentimes transcends just plain old sexuality," he continued. "We are attracted to each other, we're intimate but it's just on a different level. It's a soulmate connection."

And why don't they want to? You just squeeze your dick in a hole and move back and forth. But it's like asking them to crawl naked across hot coals.

Do you think there are some latent transgender issues in them?

I always said the increasing apathy towards Christianity would make society more depraved. We need to bring it back. The low iq masses need it. And I am not talking about oppressive Christo-fascism. I just mean Christianity being the default, the norm, building our social mores. It’s the only way the masses will ACK RITE.

Box Lunch is going to get sued

Only posting because he was cute, obvi.

[quote]In June, de la Torre revealed he was diagnosed with what he described as a “serious illness” and had stepped away from acting to receive treatment the same month.

[quote]De la Torre was part of Netflix’s “Toy Boy” since its debut in 2019. The show ran for 21 episodes across three seasons until 2021. The series followed a stripper who “sets out to prove his innocence for a crime he didn’t commit and was unjustly incarcerated for seven years earlier”.

List them.

Here's one: Many actors and actresses like to present themselves as progressive and authentic - yet constantly push/revel in consumerism/materialism/corporate culture.

Dayum

Doing Yard work or working out.

Well?

“To me, it’s like working with Martin Scorsese” Tilly told Vulture. “My boyfriend always says if he got $40 million, he wants to go into space and experience zero gravity. To me, being on Housewives is experiencing zero gravity. I was more excited to meet Kyle Richards and Erika Jayne and the other ladies than I was when I met Elizabeth Taylor.”

America is generally more stupid and more religious than it was a few decades ago.*

Did those two qualities increase simultaneously or did one attribute feed into another one, i.e. did America become more religious because it’s stupider or is America more stupid because it’s become more religious?

* A fact I made up.

The year's top television included a shrewd grandma, a post-apocalyptic patriot, warring samurai, and the best show you're (probably) not watching.

I give no fucks.

Another year of theater is coming to a close, so let's take a look at the Broadway shows that we think deserve a standing ovation… and some that don't.

The information has got to come out at some point. All I can gather from various news stories is they’re “elderly,” and female. Some say she way an employee, but others claim she was a customer.

I find this really great. I love the way Aretha takes such a fantastic, unique song and makes it her own.

Cissy Houston is distracting, but whatever, the other backup singers are amazing. They go into Ain’t No Mountain and are so into it. So is the band.

Have you seen this performance? What did you think?

I noticed they are for sale everywhere this Christmas season, either more so than usual or I'm just noticing. Does anyone actually roast them, on an open fire or otherwise? I do miss the smell of them on midtown Manhattan streets but never made them.

Continuing our discussion originally started by Voice of the Night.

Prior thread:

For a while, MAD TV was better than SNL or any of its copycats. They said it was cancelled because of low ratings (couldn't prove it by me) and the fact it was an expensive show to produce. Too bad. They really had some brilliant characters and memorable moments. Post your faves here.

In a rare moment of candor, stand-up comic Anthony Jeselnik spoke about his sexuality in a new interview, which has us wondering if he just came out as bisexual.

During a long interview with Vulture to promote his upcoming Netflix special Bones and All, the 45-year-old comedian opened up about the reason he quit a project about bisexuality and gave an honest, if vague, window into his own sexuality.

In the past, Jeselnik — who at one point dated fellow comedian, Amy Schumer — has tried to keep his private life out of the spotlight but has spoken about women he’s dated in past interviews and even in his stand-up routines, Queerty reports.

Back in 2014, Jeselnik was developing a show for FX, which he described in the Vulture profile as being like a “bisexual Louie.” But he had second thoughts about his involvement and ultimately decided to walk away — and gave back the money — even after the network told him he could write the scripts without having to star in the show.

“I said, ‘You know what? I don’t even want to work on this anymore. I don’t want to do a narrative, I don’t want to talk about sexuality. It doesn’t really benefit my comedy.’ Writing the story, writing all the characters, it was like, This is too much,” Jeselnik explained.

When interviewer Kathryn VanArendonk asked if the character in the show was based on his own life or someone he created, he replied, “A little of both. It would’ve been someone figuring out their sexuality later.”

Jeselnik didn’t seem ready to elaborate, but when pushed about whether this was an experience he was familiar with, he said, “Sure. Yeah.”

VanArendonk then asks if the reason he left the project was because he didn’t want his sexuality to be part of his identity as a comedian. “I didn’t really have a comedic angle on it,” Jeselnik answered. “It was like, Oh, maybe I’m gonna try this out. Then I was like, No, I don’t really have anything to say about it, so maybe it’s someone else’s story to tell. Or just … Yeah, it never really came together, and no one really gave a sh—t.”

Jeselnik posted a link to the profile on his Instagram stories, so he clearly approves of the article, but it looks like we may have to keep waiting for him to be more frank about his sexuality.

Bones and All premieres on Netflix on November 26, 2024.

Connections drives me batty. Ranging from the comically basic (body parts mentioned in the song Heads, Shoulders, Knees And Toes? Really?) to the ridiculously esoteric.

A Nevada commissioner ruled resoundingly against Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to change his family’s trust to consolidate his eldest son Lachlan’s control of his media empire and lock in Fox News’s right-wing editorial slant, according to a sealed court document obtained by The New York Times.

The commissioner, Edmund J. Gorman Jr., concluded in a decision filed on Saturday that the father and son, who is the head of Fox News and News Corp., had acted in “bad faith” in their effort to amend the irrevocable trust, which divides control of the company equally among Mr. Murdoch’s four oldest children — Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence — after his death.

The ruling was at times scathing. At one point in his 96-page opinion, Mr. Gorman characterizes the plan to change the trust as a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles” inside the empire “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of the family trust.

I'm the grating laugh track.

What was that nonsense about? I can't remember what brought about that lunacy.

Not interested in Trump or his pufferfish Pokemon sidekick.

Better nominations than the GG

“Paul is actually stacked up, doing the Beatles next. So I may have to let him go," Scott told director Christopher Nolan

What's with these bitches and Utah? Also, the complete lack of irony.

Rest in power.

Why are we tolerating this?

perhaps even cuter... italians😍

A Republican state representative in Missouri has proposed legislation that would allow a person who pleaded guilty to or was convicted of a felony to serve in public office – and has named it after the president-elect, who has a felony record.

The “Donald J. Trump Election Qualification Act,” introduced by state Representative Michael Davis, would repeal a 2015 Missouri law that prevents a person with a felony from becoming a candidate in a local or statewide election.

It would allow a person with a felony record to run for office “if otherwise qualified.”

The legislation takes an obvious page from Trump’s book. He was convicted of multiple felonies, yet is now America’s president-elect.

“A lot of people don’t don’t think about the fact that Donald Trump, if he met all the other requirements, if he was a Missouri resident, could not run for state representative or state Senate,” Davis told the Missouri Independent.

“He would be precluded from running for these offices but was able to be re-elected president of the United States. So I think that at least causes people to start thinking about the issue a little more than they might otherwise,” Davis added.

Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York in May for falsifying business records for misrepresenting hush-money payments that were made to an adult film star before the 2016 presidential election.

“I believe that we should punish those who do wrong, but once they’ve completed the terms of their sentence, we should allow individuals to reintegrate into society,” Davis told Fox2Now.

“They are citizens. They have the ability to work and pay taxes, and one of the aspects of being a citizen is being represented by your government and deciding who should represent you,” he added.

He's on Truth Social now?! Just made his first post.

What in the actual fuck?

Is he teasing us at this point?

“Generation X delivered the White House to Trump.”

That was the post-election analysis of political writer Philip Klein, who noted this week that people between the ages of 45 and 64 voted for President-elect Donald Trump 53% to 45%. Other generations, both older and younger, went for Vice President Kamala Harris. This result follows several recent articles calling Generation X, my generation, the “Trumpiest” generation.

For those of us in that demographic, born between the mid-1960s and 1980, it’s easy to understand why we went for Trump. For one, we aren’t easily offended — even by Trump, the king of the politically incorrect put-down. Bret Easton Ellis, a popular novelist of Gen X, once noted in an interview that those of us who were teenagers in the 1980s “loved to be offended.”

It’s true. We were born in the 1960s, were children in the ’70s, and were teens in the ’80s. We liked gritty and sexy novels like Tropic of Cancer that were not socially acceptable, as well as loud punk rock and challenging movies. Yet we also love J.R.R. Tolkien, Beethoven, C.S. Lewis, jazz, and Flannery O’Connor — and patriotic movies such as Top Gun.

We were children in 1976 during the bicentennial celebrations of the founding of America, and like the children under communism, we had in our hearts a desire for God and an awareness of the value of freedom. We love America and know Marxism is a lie.

It seemed like our time had come with the collapse of communism in 1989. All of the things Gen X loves — the freedom to read, watch, and say what you want, the acceptance of gay people, including their protection from bullies, the ability to tell jokes and let stuff roll off our backs, and self-reliance — were becoming mainstream around the world.

But that was short-lived. Communism stayed alive in the universities and then spread into the wider culture. If somebody had told us back in 1990 that in 2024 we would have censorship, speech codes, sensitivity readers for novels, and Christian bakers charged with crimes for following their conscience, we would not have believed them.

I never knew Drusilla was Martin Landau and Barbara Bains daughter! The episode with Jack Ritter playing an abusive potential stepfather is one of the best filler episodes. Wentworth appears in the swim team episode where Xander bares almost it all in a speedo. The writers like to use the word orgy. It's been used by the teen characters 4 times so far and I'm near the end of season 2. The monolith from Agents of Shield is also in Buffy. The universes connect somewhere.

Why do daytime soaps tend to have so many gay male actors (most closeted unfortunately). And also ironically many right wing/republican actors??

They cannot expand any further into Central Park, so they are now cannibalizing themselves to keep building. This seems to me to be a sign of poor long-term planning

The Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, which opened in 1987, will be replaced by the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing,. I wonder how the Wallace family feels about that?

They are on his side. Everyone loves him. He’s being treated like an A-Lister in there

KTEH Classic Clips offers these timely and memorable video clips from our vault. In this clip from 1995, Julia Child discusses her experience in the O.S.S. during WWII.

She was very discreet about her governmental work.

... but can you guess who she is?

The "new" New York ladies are back. And this time they're not fighting about cheese.

Carol does Cher, while Cher does Carol...

Omg, all this time I thought she killed that girl. Netflix finally set the record straight.

That poor woman went to her grave with people thinking she murdered her own daughter. May she Rest In Peace.

Prince William and Prince Harry’s family feud has lasted so long that even the royal experts are exasperated. The brothers were last seen in public together at the statue unveiling for Princess Diana in July 2021 and the royalists are telling the Prince of Wales that it’s time to stop the nonsense.

At the Diana Awards on Thursday, Dec. 5, the rift was on full display and it is William who is being called out for his behavior, not Harry. The Duke of Sussex appeared in an “interactive video” for the online awards, per The Daily Beast, but William reportedly decided that he couldn’t appear at the same event as his younger brother and wrote a letter to the recipients instead. Now, the criticism is blistering.

“It’s extraordinary how what was essentially a family argument has got completely out of proportion and is now causing immense damage not just to Harry’s reputation, but also to the king, who looks weak for not being able to crack his sons’ heads together, and the future king, William, who looks petty and ridiculous,” a palace insider told the media outlet. “Whether or not it is the case, it looks very much like William refused to attend the awards after hearing Harry was making a video appearance. Is this how he is going to rule the country?”

This isn’t the first time William has been criticized for his lack of leadership in the matter. Royal expert Duncan Larcombe told The Daily Beast in June 2022, “If William wants to be a future king, a great leader giving inspiring addresses about the environment to two billion people, then the public are within their rights to expect him to be able to sort out a frankly pretty minor dispute with his brother.”

Even though the siblings both bear responsibility for the ongoing fight, Harry has less at stake since he’s not going to be the King of England. Still, William is facing a crisis about his future ability to lead even beyond the feud. The BBC called on him to “find his own voice” amid the health crises that Kate Middleton and King Charles III were faced with earlier this year, and that criticism hasn’t waned.

A big part of William’s royal legacy could be to extend the olive branch to Harry and end the feud once and for all, but too many are questioning whether he is up to that challenge.

When I was growing up, I knew a schoolyard bully who was also a jock. I had thoughts of him for years. Just fantasies going on in my head. Decades and 5 kids later, I finally got to mess with him. Mr. Postman's still hot. I prepared for- what I thought- was going to be a whirlwind escapade. I got the best blow-job ever (3 hours), the best ass ever (virgin), and a hot hard Afroamerican hood daddy swag... but, he would not fuck me. All those years of thinking the mailman was going to send me air mail and there I was... wanting. I love being with him though I would not MARRY him. It's just a drag to feel like he won't assert all that hood swag that he shows EVERY one in the street. Why do so many men with children like to run to us for dick?

Or just a good filter?

Knowing damn well that I have neither the talent nor patience to ever attempt any of the designs, still I watch.

And then I have the gall to think to myself, "Ooh, that's a lovely idea." Some of them overdo it with the frosting, and look more like frosting pottery sculptures, but they're still gorgeous.

Anyone have and other DIY creation videos for guilty pleasures? I need a new one. Hopefully, I can find one that I can realistically attempt with success.

Anyone remember Australia’s greatest export?

Anyone watching it these days?

They were young lawyers, rising political stars and social acquaintances in the most exclusive quarters of San Francisco civic life.

But around 2000, Kamala Harris placed a phone call to Kimberly Guilfoyle that would echo, semi-surreally, in the sufficiently semi-surreal presidential campaign of 2024.

Ms. Harris was an assistant district attorney in the city. Ms. Guilfoyle was in discussions to join the office. Ms. Harris was calling, according to Ms. Guilfoyle, to suggest there was no job for her there.

“She pretended to be a member of the hiring committee, which didn’t exist,” Ms. Guilfoyle said in a recent phone interview.

Ms. Harris’s boss at the time hired Ms. Guilfoyle anyway, broadly corroborating her version of events years later as he recalled Ms. Harris’s fierce opposition to the move.

Ms. Harris has repeatedly denied snubbing Ms. Guilfoyle since the matter was first raised publicly more than 20 years ago, saying the phone call was merely about offering “help.”

And if that was something of an artful dodge, Ms. Harris’s friends say now, she was prescient to be skeptical of Ms. Guilfoyle from the beginning.

“If she ever did do that,” said Stanlee Gatti, a close friend of Ms. Harris’s and the best man at now-Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wedding to Ms. Guilfoyle in 2001, “she was smart.”

More than two decades later, Ms. Harris is the Democratic nominee for president and Ms. Guilfoyle is a ubiquitous surrogate for her opponent — a memorably zealous speaker at consecutive Republican National Conventions and a de facto Trump relative since her engagement several years ago to Donald Trump Jr.

Her present campaign task: persuading voters that she knows Ms. Harris better than most and imploring them to block her from power.

“I know her for 25 years, and let me tell you something,” Ms. Guilfoyle said recently at a Republican dinner in Florida. “Do whatever it takes to keep her out of the White House.”

The buzzy, hazy tale of Ms. Harris and Ms. Guilfoyle ascending in parallel in San Francisco demands two firm caveats:

Ms. Harris’s supporters say, credibly enough, that this is now something of a one-sided dialogue. The vice president does not seem to have uttered a public word about Ms. Guilfoyle in years.

And modern political history is overstuffed with reductive and often sexist accounts of rivalries between professional women — the province of passing gossip and unfortunate allusions to “cat fights” — as if men were wholly incapable of ambition, conflict and petty grievance.

Yet as Ms. Harris and Ms. Guilfoyle find themselves, a quarter-century later, as political adversaries on the grandest scale, their intersecting early-career arcs reveal something more enduring about these onetime counterparts, their divergent paths and the political parties in which they ultimately rose.

This was the period, in the perpetual tinderbox of San Francisco politics, when Ms. Harris and Ms. Guilfoyle formed the outlines of the public figures they would become.

“Superstar women,” said Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor, who once dated Ms. Harris. “They represented the city.”

Relentlessly foresighted and instinctively reserved, Ms. Harris was a respected prosecutor who cast an eye for years toward the office’s top job as she entrenched herself among the city’s elite — an outsider becoming an insider in real time.

And Ms. Guilfoyle, the indefatigable daughter of a Bay Area political fixture, mused about leading the same district attorney’s office one day, friends recalled. (Ms. Guilfoyle said she never seriously considered a run.)

“Everybody was gearing up,” said Phil Matier, who was a longtime political scribe for The San Francisco Chronicle. “We were waiting to see if there was going to be a matchup between Kimberly and Kamala.”

Around San Francisco, where Ms. Guilfoyle has lingered as a distant memory since her divorce from Mr. Newsom, those close to Ms. Harris are generally disinclined to revisit this chapter.

I wanna know….

I can't go to Reddit without readying at least one late bloomer story, a day. And the amount of celebs, they are popping out like shrooms after the rain. Valorie Curry a few days ago, Julia Fox today, Sophia Bush few months ago. It's like an epidemic. How come there's not nearly as much late bloomers gay men? And gay man apparently outnumber lesbians 2-1, 3-1. So there should be a lot more later in life gay men than lesbians. It feels like there's at least one married woman ending her marriage cause she found out she is gay, daily, in the US

Should someone who killed another person, really be celebrating?

Such bad taste.

Prince Harry took on a question head-on about his relationship with his wife, Meghan Markle, at The New York Times' 2024 DealBook Summit, responding to recent reports about their separate endeavors.

On Dec. 4, the Duke of Sussex, 40, hit the stage in New York City to join NYT columnist and Dealbook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin for a wide-ranging conversation about the mainstream media, misinformation and efforts to make the digital world a safer place.

Towards the end of the interview, Sorkin, 47, asked Prince Harry about how he grapples with the public fascination surrounding every aspect of his life — a scrutiny that not only highlights the positive causes he advocates for but also casts a harsh spotlight on his personal relationships.

"I was looking, even as we were in the race coming up to this day, I Google Newsed you, and there were people fascinated by everything you're doing, all the time. They're fascinated by Meghan is in California right now, and you're here," Sorkin said, seemingly referencing the Duchess of Sussex's planned solo outing at the Paley Honors gala in Beverly Hills on Dec. 4. "And there's articles left and right about, you know, 'Why are you making, doing independent events? Why aren't you doing them together?' "

"Because you invited me, you should have known!" Prince Harry interjected, which made the audience laugh.

Sorkin then replied, "Is that normal for you? The second there's an article — she's in California, you're in New York — they say, 'Well, what is happening with these two, right?' Is that a good thing for you, in a way, that there's so much interest in you?"

The Duke of Sussex, who grew up in the royal spotlight as the son of the future King Charles and the late Princess Diana, emphasized that the attention was "definitely not a good thing."

"No, that's definitely not a good thing. Apparently we've bought or moved house 10, 12 times. We've apparently divorced maybe 10, 12 times as well. So it's just like, what?' " Prince Harry said with a laugh.

"It's hard to keep up with, but that's why you just sort of ignore it. The people I feel most sorry about are the trolls," he continued. "Their hopes are just built and built, and it's like, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,' and then it doesn't happen. So I feel sorry for them. Genuinely, I do."

Acknowledging the attention on him, Prince Harry added that he had "no doubt" his conversation with Sorkin "will be spun or twisted somehow against me, and maybe you yourself will be trolled relentlessly."

"For that, I can only apologize, but you did invite me, so it's not my fault," Prince Harry joked, and the audience laughed.

The Duke of Sussex reflected on painful aspects of the past and his focus on the future at the 2024 DealBook Summit, from the Parents Network initiative from the charitable Archewell Foundation he helms with Meghan to his "main goal" — "being the best husband and dad that I can be." The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are parents to son Prince Archie, 5 and daughter Princess Lilibet, 3, who they are raising in Montecito, California.

Of his life in the U.S., he said, "I very much enjoy living here and bringing up my kids here," adding that there are activities he can do here with his children that he “undoubtedly wouldn’t be able to do in the U.K."

Two of DL faves - Donna Mills and Dionne Warwick - have 84th Birthdays today and tomorrow. Happy Birthday ladies !

Are you horny?

I’m a rude, thoughtless, little pig.

Roger Goodell is responding to recent allegations against Jay-Z.

The NFL commissioner shared an update on the organization's partnership with the rapper for the forthcoming Super Bowl three days after it was revealed that Jay-Z—whose real name is Shawn Carter—was accused in a civil lawsuit of raping a 13-year-old girl alongside Sean "Diddy" Combs.

"We’re aware of the civil allegation, and Jay-Z’s really strong response to that," Goodell said during a Dec. 11 press conference. "And we know that obviously litigation is happening now. But from our standpoint, our relationship is not changing with them, including our preparation for the next Super Bowl."

And the 65-year-old provided insight into why the NFL plans to continue evolving its collaboration with Carter's Roc Nation company, which was brought into the organization to executive produce the Super Bowl Halftime Show and help with the league’s social justice program Inspire Change.

"They’re getting incredibly comfortable with not just the Super Bowl but other events that they’ve helped us on and helped us with," Goodell continued. "They’ve been helpful in the social justice area to us on many occasions."

He added, "They’ve been great partners that have provided a lot of value for us."

Three days before Goodell's update, an accuser—identified anonymously as "Jane Doe"—refiled a sexual assault civil lawsuit that she originally filed against Combs in October, this time adding Carter as an additional defendant in the case. In the document, she alleged that the two music moguls raped her at a house party in 2000 following the MTV Video Music Awards in New York.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Sam Taylor-Johnson have been married since 2012.

The pair met back in 2008 on the set of Sam’s directorial debut, Nowhere Boy. She was 42 at the time, while Aaron was 18.

They swiftly got engaged just a year after meeting and welcomed two daughters before their wedding: Wylda, 14, and Romy, 12.

Sam also has two daughters from her previous marriage to art dealer Jay Jopling: Angelica, who is just six years younger than Aaron, and Jessie, who recently turned 18.

A couple of months ago, Aaron shared a rare photo with Jessie in honor of her 18th birthday. “18 now ..still my babygirl,” he wrote over the picture.

This week, Aaron — who publicly refers to Angelica and Jessie as his daughters — was supported by them and Sam at the New York City premiere of his new movie, Kraven the Hunter.

The four stepped out at the Dec. 10 event and posed for several photos, marking the first time that Angelica and Jessie have appeared at a premiere with both their mom and stepdad.

Of course, Sam and Aaron also posed for a bunch of photos together at the premiere.

The rare group red carpet appearance comes months after Sam and Aaron separately defended their 23-year age gap amid long-running scrutiny.

Back in May, Sam said she finds conversations centered around age gaps “strange.”

“When people make films or talk about it or question it or dissect it, it is so strange to me,” she said of age gaps. “When people fall in love, they fall in love.”

Speaking more directly of her and Aaron’s marriage, Sam recalled, “Everyone at the beginning said, ‘It’s a terrible idea, it’s not gonna work,’ and then you’re, like, 15 years down the road and have raised four kids and you’re like, ‘Really?’”

A couple of months prior, Aaron seemingly defended getting married to Sam so young.

When asked about being “judged about doing things at certain ages,” Aaron told Rolling Stone UK, “What you gotta realize is that what most people were doing in their 20s, I was doing when I was 13.”

In his efforts to cut government costs, Elon Musk has thrown his support behind slashing a federal office created in the wake of the Great Recession to regulate financial services used by Americans.

"Delete CFPB," Musk wrote on X early Wednesday of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies."

Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked with heading up the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and finding ways to reduce spending and streamline bureaucracy within the federal government. The unofficial advisors have floated "deleting" entire agencies, laying off staff, and enforcing return-to-office mandates.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Trump's transition team said she had nothing to add to Musk's statement.

While it's unclear how DOGE and the incoming Trump Administration would abolish agencies, if it does, the CFPB could be on the chopping block. Here's a look at its purpose, employee makeup, and political controversies.

The CFPB was created by Congress as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The law aimed to strengthen oversight of Wall Street after its risky mortgage lending practices caused the global financial crisis. The CFPB has a broad mandate to protect Americans from deceptive or abusive practices by US financial firms. The agency investigates consumer complaints related to credit cards, loans, bank accounts, and debt collection and enforces consumer protection laws.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School, originally proposed the agency in 2007. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Warren to head the CFPB's steering committee to help establish it.

"The time for hiding tricks and traps in the fine print is over," Warren said during a White House ceremony that year. "This new bureau is based on the simple idea that if the playing field is level and families can see what's going on, they will have better tools to make better choices."

As of March 2024, the CFPB employed just under 1,700 people, earning an average of about $184,000 a year, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The Bureau's 2024 financial report broke that workforce into six groups; about 43% of CFPB's employees work in the supervision and enforcement of financial institutions, 18% in operations supporting the Bureau's other initiatives, and 14% in research, monitoring, and regulations.

Since its founding, the CFPB has recouped $19.6 billion for consumers through direct compensation, canceled debt, and reduced loan principals.

The agency has also issued $5 billion in civil penalties against banks, credit unions, debt collectors, payday lenders, for-profit colleges, and other financial services companies. That money is deposited into a victims' relief fund, with nearly 200 million people eligible for relief.

It's on Madison Kopie's TikTok account. I don't know how to link there, so here's a screenshot (click to enlarge).

Elon Musk warned lawmakers Thursday at the Capitol that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force would be keeping a “naughty or nice” list of members who do and don’t support his federal budget-cutting efforts.

DOGE, heading by both Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, is expected to work with the White House Office of Management and Budget—headed by incoming director Russ Vought, who held the same role during Donald Trump’s first term.

The majority of attendees of Thursday’s question-and-answer session were Republicans. Florida Rep. Aaron Bean told ABC News that Musk and Ramaswamy “said everything has to be looked at” regarding cuts.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters afterwards that the event was “just what I’d hoped for.”

And as for Musk’s Christmas-themed effort to keep track of—and presumably whip—support, she said: “I think that would be fantastic.”

“There’s a massive amount of waste, fraud and abuse that we have to tackle, and I will be doing that with my subcommittee,” said Greene, who will chair an oversight committee on DOGE’s agenda when the next Congress begins. “I am looking forward to exposing every single unelected bureaucrat, every single agency that is wasting the American people’s money.”

Rupert Murdoch’s three adult children will retain control over their father’s media empire upon his death, a Nevada court has ruled after Murdoch launched a campaign to wrest away their power and give it all to his oldest son. The New York Times reported on Murdoch’s loss, citing a sealed court decision that was filed on Saturday. The family battle took place outside of the public’s eye, despite attempts from the media to gain access to the trial.

Murdoch took three of his adult children, James, Elisabeth and Prudence, to court as he tried to completely remove their voting power over the trust Murdoch set up. The current trust structure gives all four adult children equal voting power over Murdoch’s empire, which includes Fox News and News Corp, but Murdoch wanted to give Lachlan, his oldest son and most likeminded child, complete control over the media companies. The change would have affected only the voting power of the siblings, not their financial inheritance.

After reviewing the case, the Nevada commissioner Edmund Gorman concluded that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch had acted in “bad faith” in their attempts to change the terms of an irrevocable trust that divides control of the company between Murdoch’s four oldest children.

In a statement, James, Elisabeth and Prudence told the Times: “We welcome Commissioner Gorman’s decision and hope that we can move beyond this litigation to focus on strengthening and rebuilding relationships among all family members.”

I'm sure someone will turn this into a Momma's Mussy thread, but I just want us to all have a collective laugh at this decent-looking bigot's ridiculous name.

Though Luigi Mangione comes from a wealthy and prominent family, anonymous online donors have chipped in thousands of dollars to fund his legal defense against charges connected to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

One fundraiser on the Christian-based free speech fundraising platform GiveSendGo had raised more than $31,000 as of Wednesday afternoon on the way to a $200,000 goal. The New Jersey-based fund was created by a newly-formed "December 4th Legal Committee," possibly referencing the date of the shooting.

Representatives from GiveSendGo told USA TODAY multiple campaigns have been created for Mangione, including a smaller fundraiser that was unpublished Wednesday.

Mangione's attorney, Thomas Dickey, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY, but told CNN Tuesday his client appreciates the support but he "probably wouldn't" accept funds to cover Mangione's legal costs.

Organizers on GiveSendGo said on the fundraiser they've written directly to Mangione in jail to determine how he would like to use the funds. If he rejects them, the money would be donated to "legal funds for other U.S. political prisoners."

Other social media pages have linked to Mangione's jail commissary account soliciting donations for "snacks, sodas, an iPad, etc."

But the group behind the December 4th Legal Committee fundraiser has virtually no online presence and it's not clear how the platform itself, which has been hacked in the past, ensures the money will go where donors think it will, according to Megan Spire, deputy director for data analytics and the OSINT Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"You don't really know who you're even giving money to," Spire said. "It's just, it's all very potentially shady."

The organizer of the December 4th Legal Committee wrote to USA TODAY late Wednesday that the group is "composed of veteran legal aid volunteers with decades of experience in prison and court support," working to ensure Mangione gets "top-tier legal representation."

“We are dedicated to ensuring that he gets a fair trial with competent legal counsel," wrote Carol Sherman, an organizer with the December 4th Legal Committee.

The more mainstream fundraising site GoFundMe has removed fundraisers supporting Mangione and refunded donations, a spokesperson for GoFundMe told USA TODAY Wednesday, noting the company's terms of service prohibits fundraisers for the legal defense of violent crimes.

But those rules don't apply on GiveSendGo.

"While other platforms deny individuals the chance to raise funds for a quality legal defense based on their agendas, we believe people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law," Heather Wilson, co-founder of GiveSendGo said in a statement after the Penny verdict. "Regardless of media portrayals or public pressure, it’s our responsibility to uphold that right, even for causes we may not personally support. Justice isn’t served when resources are limited to those who fit certain narratives."

Wilson told USA TODAY crowdfunding helps level the playing field in the criminal justice system by allowing people to secure quality representation and cover court related expenses. "The presumption of innocence and the right to legal representation should not be reserved for the wealthy," she said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Based on John Grisham's "Skipping Christmas", this film adaptation was released twenty years ago as of this November, and was derided by critics at the time of its release. I never really understood why. It is pure Christmas comedy fluff, harmless and extremely entertaining, with heaps of Christmas ambiance. Jamie Lee Curtis plays such a dizzy bitch in it. I honestly think it's one of her funniest performances.

Following Daniel Penny’s not guilty verdict, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) issued a pointed critique of what that could mean for public safety in New York City subways. Penny, a former Marine, was acquitted on Friday in the high-profile case stemming from the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who died in May after a controversial altercation with Penny on the subway.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez expressed apprehension about Penny’s lack of remorse, calling it a troubling signal for the safety of subway riders. “If we do not want violence on the subways, and the point of our justice system is a level of accountability to prevent a person who does not have remorse about taking another person’s life, then we have failed,” she said.

Neely, who was unarmed, died after being placed in a chokehold by Penny during an incident that sparked nationwide debates about mental health, homelessness, and self-defense. Penny maintained he acted to protect other passengers, claiming Neely was acting aggressively.

Ocasio-Cortez highlighted what she perceives as the dangers posed by the verdict, stating, “Even people who have engaged in manslaughter or have taken a life accidentally express remorse. The fact that a person has expressed no remorse indicates a risk that it may happen again.”

She argued that Penny’s acquittal undermines the deterrent function of the justice system, allowing those who engage in potentially deadly actions without contrition to escape accountability.

“If we do not want to unleash that level of violence,” she continued, “then we should exert a level of accountability to prevent it from happening.”

The verdict has sparked polarized reactions across the political spectrum. Supporters of Penny view him as a Good Samaritan who acted in a difficult situation, while critics, like Ocasio-Cortez, see the outcome as emblematic of broader systemic injustices and a failure to prioritize the safety of vulnerable populations.

They KNEW how to fix this. They had a commission investigate this after the 2016 loss. They issued a report. The DNC chose not to follow it. This video is eight years old, and it still applies, and it talks where all that donation money was spent and where.

It's not about left vs. right anymore. This is about up vs. down.

Thousands of British military personnel who were dismissed from service because of their homosexuality will be able to apply for payments worth up to £70,000 each from today, to recognise the distress caused by a ban that applied between 1967 and 2000.

Gasp!

I just ordered everything for dinner from Honey Baked Ham. Ham, Turkey and all the sides. No messy kitchen this year.

Has Ryan Seacrest presented her hole to him?

It's also revealed what a backwater country it is.

Hope this is final Cooper/Cohen New Year. Seacrest may be in the closet but puts on a good show.

This is on the MGM+ series Earth Abides

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reportedly said that President-elect Donald Trump’s victory puts Americans in “a very, very dangerous world,” stressing that he plans to spend his final two years in the Senate pushing back against the growing Trump-fueled isolationism within the GOP.

The 82-year-old Kentucky Republican, who last month stepped down from his role as the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, has a complicated record with the incoming president. While McConnell has worked to significantly move the country to the right — much of it under the first Trump administration — he is no fan of Trump and his isolationist worldview that’s spreading throughout the Republican Party.

“We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II,” McConnell told the Financial Times on Wednesday. “Even the slogan is the same, ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.”

He made similar comments before the election, telling Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in April that the world is “more dangerous” than before World War II due to the increase in and evolution of terrorism. The interventionist senator highlighted how Trump and the current GOP are regressing to pre-World War II isolationism — a foreign policy position that opposes American military intervention in other countries’ political affairs, including war.

Trump and his allies have called for the U.S. to stop sending money to Ukraine, a country that’s been battling Russia now for more than two years. The former and incoming president has also argued that enemies within the U.S. are more dangerous than Russia and China, a claim McConnell said he vehemently disagrees with.

“The cost of deterrence is considerably less than the cost of war,” the senator said to the Times. “To most American voters, I think the simple answer is, ‘Let’s stay out of it.’ That was the argument made in the ’30s and that just won’t work. Thanks to [former President Ronald] Reagan, we know what does work — not just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.”

In one of many examples of putting the GOP first, McConnell told Welker in April that even though he does not personally like Trump, he would support him as the Republican presidential nominee. The senator told the Times that he voted for him in November but characterized the decision as supporting “the ticket” rather than the candidate.

“The election’s over and we’re moving on,” he told the publication when asked if he regrets not doing more to stop Trump from taking office again. “He has an enormous audience, and he just won a national election, so there’s no question he’s the most influential Republican out there.”

Trump is no fan of McConnell either, recently calling him a “disgrace” for endorsing him.

What celebrities will die in 2025? Do you think Jimmy Carter will be able to hang on that long?

Make your predictions here!

He deserves to be pardoned much more than the worthless coke head.

Luigi Magione

Share your Christmas stories.

Favorite memories, foods, traditions. Crazy relatives, great gifts, awful gifts, sad stuff, regrets, etc.

Reminds me of Mr Hill from Clueless. He is playing him in a dramatic version. The Holdovers is one of the greatest films of all time.

What are your most random and obscure Christmas songs? All I have this one from tow Danish sisters, one of whom lives in Andorra.

Former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz will join One America News Network (OAN) as an anchor in January, the network announced Tuesday.

“Matt Gaetz has earned a reputation as a relentless champion of conservative values, taking on entrenched Washington bureaucrats and exposing government overreach,” the network said in a news release. CNN reported Monday that Gaetz was expected to announce he is joining OAN as an anchor.

News of Gaetz’s move to the network comes less than a month after he withdrew his name from consideration to serve as attorney general, after President-elect Donald Trump told him he didn’t have the votes in the Senate.

Gaetz, who will host a one-hour political talk show in the primetime slot of 9 p.m. ET on weekday nights, said in a statement that he “couldn’t be more thrilled to join OAN’s forward-thinking team and be part of this revolutionary expansion.”

The Republican firebrand previously announced he is not returning to Congress next year.

“I’m still going to be in the fight, but it’s going to be from a new perch. I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” he told conservative activist Charlie Kirk in an interview last month.

OAN President Charles Herring celebrated the addition of Gaetz to the network in a statement, calling the former congressman “a remarkable talent and a principled leader.”

“His insider access to America’s top policymakers and unwavering dedication to America-first values will bring unparalleled insight and exclusive content to OAN viewers. We’re thrilled to welcome him to the OAN family,” Herring added.

The addition of Gaetz as an OAN anchor is a big gain for the far-right network, given that most of the channel’s personalities are not well known.

The network was dealt a significant blow when it was dropped by DirecTV in 2022. Other big distributors have been reluctant to carry its programming, and OAN has urged people to stream the network online instead.

OAN has established itself as perhaps the most extreme of the pro-Trump news outlets.

The little-watched network regularly gives airtime to baseless conspiracy theories that support Trump. The channel even worked closely with Russian operatives on a propaganda-style documentary during Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 over allegations he pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

Jersey's best-loved mentalist joins Miss Cleo in the Third Dimension after predicting his own death date! (Not really.)

If money is no object, what brand of sheets, bedspreads, or comforters are you buying? Or, do you still buy that stuff at Target and Kohls?

Will it finally be the year for Oliver Jackson Cohen?

Or someone else?

Make your guesses here!

Is the original sin behind our present situation. I sensed this intuitively as a child, but no one ever believed my counterfactuals. Them running shit would have resulted in the same amount of wealth but none of the drama, what's not to love? Having to wear clogs would be a small price to pay, plus they make such delightful sounds.

This makes me feel old.

Sophie Rain isn’t ashamed to be an OnlyFans model — and she sees no conflict between her line of work and her devout Christianity.

Rain, 20, grew up attending church every Sunday and her faith remains a significant part of her life.

"The Lord's very forgiving, and he put me on here. He put me on Earth for a reason and I'm just living every day," she told People in an interview published Wednesday, December 11. "If this wasn't meant for me, I wouldn't be here right now."

Rain first began posting on OnlyFans in May 2023 while working a minimum-wage job at a restaurant. She saw the success her sister was having on the platform and decided to follow suit. Her boss eventually found out about her page and fired her, but by then, she was already on the rise.

Now, Rain says she makes $43 million a year.

That number may sound outrageous, but a lot of it comes from tips from her fans. She explained that one of her fans, Charles, sent her nearly $5 million between November 2023 and November 2024.

With her sister also using the platform, as well as her “friends and cousins,” Rain’s family has been “very supportive” of her career.

"I didn't tell them when I started it. At first, I kind of kept it a secret, and then they found out and they were upset," she said. "I was kind of nervous at first because I wasn't sure what they were going to think of me as, if that makes sense."

She added, "I just told them straight up that, 'I post content online, this is what I do. If you can support me or you don't support me, and I'm sorry, but I can't help you guys.’ But regardless of the situation, they didn't care. I'm their child and they love me."

And yes, she’s seen the criticism from others. She’s read the names she’s been called and doesn’t care if people even consider her a model.

"You can call me whatever you want," she wrote via X above a post calling her a prostitute. "I will be laughing my way to the bank."

She said she views the hate as motivation, even if she doesn’t understand where the hate comes from.

"Honestly, all the people online that hate me — and they post the mean comments and everything — that's what motivates me to just keep growing and to keep booming and keep doing my own thing," she said. "It just makes them mad for no reason. They don't know me."

Another superstar friendship may be on the horizon for Taylor Swift.

Caitlin Clark was named Time’s “Athlete of the Year” on Tuesday and in an accompanying profile, the 22-year-old WNBA star opened up about her recent interactions with Swift, 34, during a pair of recent Eras Tour concerts.

The Indiana Fever star attended “back-to-back” Eras Tour performances during Swift’s Nov. 1-3 run at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind., last month, according to Time, and even met with Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce and his mom Donna Kelce during one of the shows.

Clark told Time she was blown away by Swift fans’ reactions to her being at the concert, explaining that Swifties were “just going crazy that I’m there,” asking her to take photos and throwing her Swift’s trademark friendship bracelets.

“I thought people would be so in their own world, ready to see Taylor. And it was just completely the opposite,” Clark told the outlet.

But it wasn’t just Swift’s fans who noticed her attendance.

The “Shake It Off” singer ended up sending the WNBA Rookie of the Year “four bags” of Eras Tour merchandise, according to Time, which also reported that the bags came with a note saying Swift has been inspired to watch Clark’s rise in recent years.

Swift even invited Clark to attend an upcoming Kansas City Chiefs game with her and wrote in her note that “Trav and I” are hoping to attend an Indiana Fever game to watch her play, as well.

The superstar co-sign is the latest feather in Clark’s cap, after a whirlwind 2024 that saw her become the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer (in men’s or women’s basketball), lead her former Iowa Hawkeyes to a second-straight national championship game, get drafted No. 1 overall by the Fever, break the WNBA’s single-season assist record and win Rookie of the Year while leading the once-last place Indiana Fever back to the WNBA Playoffs.

In the meantime, she was named the AP Player of the Year for a second-straight season and became a WNBA All Star, all while helping revitalize the sport — which will likely see record-breaking contracts by 2026 as WNBA players renegotiate their pay with the league on the heels of its rising popularity and record-breaking viewership numbers.

Usually, the grapes growing in Garret Schaefer's California vineyard are destined to become fine wines — but not this year. Fifty acres or 400 tons of the grapes have been left to rot on the vineyard due to too much supply and not enough demand.

"They're turning to raisins. They'll just end up falling off," Schaefer said.

Global wine consumption was down an equivalent of 3.5 billion bottles in 2023, according to the International Organization of Wine and Vine.

Schaefer blames the decline on inflation. The price of a liter of wine rose more than 13% in just the last five years, according to the Federal Reserve Board of St. Louis. Sales also took a hit this year after the World Health Organization declared no level of alcohol consumption is safe for people's health. And there's a generation of young people who just aren't drinking alcohol as much as baby boomers.

Brianda Gonzalez is one young consumer shying away from traditional wine, saying she realized that drinking it regularly wasn't good for her.

"My dad's a bartender by trade, but a few years ago, he got sick. So that meant alcohol had to be cut out. So I went down this whole rabbit hole of non-alcoholic drinks and became fascinated by the category," Gonzalez said.

Her preference now is non-alcoholic beverages, which sells at her shops in California. Sarah Chacon and her sister Helen are among their steady stream of customers.

"I do not drink wine. I've actually never been a big fan of wine, but I do like an alternative," Helen Chacon said.

Sarah Chacon said she's been cutting back for "health reasons."

In California, where 80% of the country's wine grapes are grown, the effects have been dramatic.

For more than 50 years, Don Worley built his business around weeding out diseased vines. These days, growers hire him to clear out their fields. Heavy machines rip out row upon row of vines from the ground. One tractor can clear out about 30 acres in a day, Worley said.

"What did it cost this man? $20,000 an acre, perhaps? Now he's throwing it away," Worley said.

All together, Schaefer says he's ripped out 60 acres — one third of all the vineyards his family has farmed since 1894. Gone, too, are the people who worked the land.

"We used to have six to eight full time employees through the year. We're down to two of us," Schaefer said.

The problem may only get worse. Experts recommend ripping out 50,000 more acres, or 8% of all the vineyards left in California. It's a new reality here — far more painful than simple sour grapes.

Was she having fun?

The Academy loves biopics and would probably like to avoid giving Adrien Brody two Oscars and make him the new Hilary Swank: talented but unmarketable.

I thought they would veer toward Daniel Craig as the alternative to Brody but Chalamet's film isn't gay as fuck so the dinosaurs at the Academy won't get offended at being forced to watch it.

Did Laura need some relief?

Fuck

He apparently couldn’t make eye contacts for too long.

If so why are people saying fuck your feelings, but not mate your feelings?

I fucked

I’m me

This should replace the Western Electric 1925 Christmas Party. What is weird- 1973 is 51 years ago. In 1973 1925 was only 48 years ago.

From the old thread re: Simon Winder, I liked Germania and Danuba, but found Lotharingia a weak afterthought.

Finished [italic]Sub Rosa[/italic], which I can recommend if you're a fan of Roman-era fiction such as the Falco series. I know ... a woman writing MM, ugh! Here, I think she did okay, although a bit awkward at times. Audio narrator has very pronounced "gay voice" which I think is his own, not for effect.

Finishing up a second book by Vendela Vita. Didn't like it any more than the other one, reads like a self-published un-edited work. I'm left wondering if she's published because she's married to successful Dave Eggers?

I mean the DLers.

No sweets 🍭 and frozen pizza 🍕 or anything unhealthy. Unfortunately every time I go to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods I buy snick snaX and cookies/ cakes etc- I’m hoarding them but not eating them-

YET

Fuck joy.

What's a nice, niche brand of sweater I could get my boyfriend for Christmas? In the $100-$200 range.

I thought I should, seeing as how I've always heard of it and how it's considered one of Madonna's few good acting roles.

Good acting? Well, yes, I can see what people mean - she is just playing herself. And she seems quite fun in it. There were a few moments where I definitely felt like I could read her mind while acting as being: "walk here, pick up bag, turn around, walk back the other way", but I also thought she seemed fun in the dancing sequence or the diary sequence. She looked nice with a bit of fat on her too.

The movie, ehhh. It was just ok. It wasn't really a new idea (bored housewife yearns for adventure). You know, I think in the hands of a director better skilled in comedy it would've been fine though. It seemed kinda flat, there wasn't a lot of energy in it. The comedic parts were fine as written, just as directed they didn't always come off. As I said, the dance sequence was pretty good, but it needed to highlight the comedic nature of it more.

I loved Aiden Quinn's skinny, hairy body. Oh and we got side bum, mmm. I wish more leading men in today's films had that skinny/toned and hairy look, instead of everyone looking the same, hyper-muscular. I also thought the guy playing Jim was really cute too. I'll probably jerk off over them tonight. Much prefer the more real looking guys.

So yeah, that's done and dusted. I probably won't watch it again, but I didn't hate it. I thought Madonna got better as the movie progressed, and it kept my interest enough to not turn it off. God, the incidental music was very typically "latin"-inspired mid-80s huh? And who was that woman that was singing on TV when the security guard went to look for the guy following Roberta?

And yes, a magic show isn't really the best scenario for a finale, I don't think. I dunno, I felt like all the ideas were there but just executed wrong.

I didn't recognise Laurie Metcalf until almost the end.

Do others agree this is Madonna's best performance?

are you even trying??

This is the golden thread that never ends.

This is what Krystine Batcho, PhD has to say:

It’s likely that in the future we’ll feel nostalgic for aspects of right now, even if it seems unthinkable. Nostalgia isn’t always logical. It’s more about how time softens the rough edges of memory. What we gripe about today, like the ubiquity of smartphones or relentless streaming content, might someday feel charmingly quaint compared to whatever dystopian terrors technology cooks up next.

We’ll romanticize the simplicity of “vintage” memes, the early days of AI before it completely took over, and even the weird, awkward vibe of Zoom calls. The cultural noise of now - TikToks, Instagram trends, and a million podcasts - might seem delightfully analog compared to future sensory overload.

Of course, nostalgia often ignores the bad, so while we might miss the feeling of “right now,” we’ll conveniently forget the existential dread, climate anxiety, and general chaos that made it all so exhausting. Give it twenty years, and you’ll see someone pining for 2024 as “the last good year.”

MyPillow owner Mike Lindell said his company was duped into borrowing $1.6 million at a 409% annual interest rate, the latest sign of financial distress for the far-right pillow salesman.

Lindell, MyPillow, and 18 other corporate entities claim Cobalt Funding Solutions and another company involved in the loan, Streamline Advance, engaged in racketeering by extending a high-interest merchant cash advance — essentially a payday loan for businesses.

Cobalt, Streamline, and two men named as defendants "took advantage" of MyPillow, "a cash-strapped business that needed funds quickly," the lawsuit said. The lawsuit claims that the September agreement to borrow nearly $1.6 million was stacked against MyPillow and risked ruining the company.

The lawsuit was first reported by Law dot com on December 10.

It's at least the third case filed in recent months involving MyPillow and merchant cash advances. In October, a company called Lifetime Funding said Lindell and his companies defaulted on a $600,000 advance barely a month after borrowing it. About a week later, another company, Shine Capital Group, filed a suit saying they defaulted on a $2 million deal signed in July.

Both cases are pending in New York. MyPillow has sought dismissal of the Lifetime case by arguing that the deal's interest rate was so high that it violated state law.

MyPillow and Lindell have been struggling for years. They borrowed $10 million in 2022 and were dumped by lawyers after they couldn't pay their legal bills. Earlier this year, Lindell told NBC News that he didn't have any money and was down to his house and his truck.

The use of merchant cash advances, typically used by struggling businesses with no other options, is a sign that the situation has worsened.

Lindell has also been sued several times related to his political claims. He has insisted for years that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and owes more than $5 million to a man who won his "Prove Mike Wrong" contest by showing that his supposed evidence that the election was stolen didn't actually prove anything.

Lindell, Streamline, and Cobalt didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

What are you bitches going to do with him? He can’t get the horn up anymore but he does a lot of music production still. That’s the genesis of this whole ordeal: chuck stopped laying down tunes turned into and old music producer and went bananas. Just another forgotten star of yesteryear

Nate is pissed lately

Trouble exploding at the worlds largest Gay News media organisation.

The Aryan subway strangler vs. the Italian-American Anarchist who thinks he's the new Unabomber?

Great job everybody. *bangs head against desk*

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a defense spending bill that includes a provision denying insurance coverage for gender-affirming care for transgender children of service members.

The National Defense Authorization Act, providing for $884 billion in military spending for fiscal year 2025, passed Wednesday on a vote of 281 to 140, with 124 Democrats and 16 Republicans voting against it.

The controversial provision in the act would prohibit coverage under the TriCare insurance plan of any medical intervention for “gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization” for anyone under age 18. That would mean an end to care for any military families using TriCare as their health insurance. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Republican, had backed this section of the bill.

The bill now goes to the Senate, which has a narrow Democratic majority. However, it is still expected to pass there, Breaking Defense reports. President Joe Biden has pledged to veto any anti-trans legislation.

Civil rights groups and Democratic politicians quickly condemned the House's action.

Military servicemembers and their families wake up every day and sacrifice more than most of us will ever understand," said a statement from Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. "Those families protect our right to live freely and with dignity — they deserve that same right, and the freedom to access the care their children need. Today, politicians in the House betrayed our nation’s promise to those who serve. Not since the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ passed almost 30 years ago has an anti-LGBTQ+ policy been enshrined into federal law. For the thousands of families impacted, this isn’t about politics. It’s about young people who deserve our support. Those who have courageously stepped up to serve this country should never have their families used as bargaining chips. Now, the Senate has the opportunity to reject this and any bill that includes these dangerous anti-trans, anti-military family provisions, and remember the fundamental promise of our democracy: that everyone deserves dignity, respect, and the right to healthcare.”

Were you scared shitless in CA?

Say he'll resign before Trump takes oaffice.

Bye bye

Daniel or Luigi? I say Daniel.

What unpopular holiday song does everybody else hate that you secretly like?

Looking to retire early next year. Medicare doesn’t start until September, so was checking out plans/options through the ACA.

Holy shit, it’s expensive. Like for a decent plan that actually covers costs, its running over $1800 a month

It’s cheaper and the plan is way better through COBRA

Superhero cum gutters for days

This position really concerns me...there have been countless attempts to harm the USA that have been avoided. We need competent leadership with no exception.

I understand Trump won the election but this position and the leadership of the agency is HUGE.

For whatever reason the "celebration in our Marvelous Midwestern Town!" thread won't let me post and I'm too big an Another World fan to be left out of the discussion...so here's a new thread, for all Another World fans, all the time!

(Plus, with "Another World" in the title, this thread will also be easier to search for in the future, so that helps.)

I'd love to hear more from the person who worked in the Another World production offices and was speaking about how wonderful Charles Keating was...only my question is this: supposedly Vicky Wyndham was cool with the Justine storyline when it began and then grew to hate it later on. Is that true? Was there any sense of that around the studio? Did people feel it went off the rails?

I mean, I get it - she went from being an unhinged Victorian Countess to a wacko in a nun's habit with a hook hand, LOL, but still, I'm curious about how that evolved. I think you said you worked on the show during that time....

And given the Anne He he snub at the Oscars last week, I've been rewatching some of her Vicky/Marley scene and DAMN, her work is even better than I'd remembered it. Here's a montage from before she left the show:

More than two dozen House Republicans are asking President-elect Donald Trump to terminate the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) free direct tax filing system as soon as day one of his presidency.

Republican Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina sent a letter to the president-elect on Tuesday urging him to end the program via executive order, saying that the program poses a "threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach."

The letter was signed by 27 other Republicans and is also addressed to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-leads of DOGE.

The program came about as the result of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $15 million in funding to study the creation of a website allowing Americans to directly file their taxes to the IRS for free. That led to the rollout of a pilot program that was available in 12 states last year, and is set to expand to 24 states in 2025.

A spokesperson for the IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many Americans rely on tax-prep companies like TurboTax and H&R Block to do their taxes each year. The new program is designed to compete with those programs and make filing easier and less costly for Americans.

Smith and Edwards argued in their letter that the program represents a conflict of interest for the IRS — that the agency should not be in charge of both assessing taxes and enforcing tax crimes. The duo wrote that the agency "has little incentive to ensure hardworking Americans do not pay more than they owe in taxes."

They also cast the free direct-file program as an example of the "weaponization of government against Americans," a long-standing focus of Trump and MAGA-aligned right.

It is unclear whether Trump will take the lawmakers up on their request, and the Trump-Vance transition did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Republicans have broadly sought to roll back the $80 billion in additional funding for the IRS that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, saying it will be used to enable the agency to target conservatives and ordinary taxpayers.

That's a wrap on the Vanderpump Rules we used to know, and the series new arch villain Tom Sandoval along with it.

Last week, Bravo announced that the hit reality series and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills spinoff will do a complete cast swap-out, a la Real Housewives of New York, following the earth-shaking drama of season 11. Tom Sandoval, the hunky SUR bartender who'd been a series regular since season 1, was at the epicenter of the drama, and has finally addressed the show moving forward without him, or any of his former castmates.

"Where do I begin… I’m overwhelmed with so many emotions right now," he wrote on a Nov. 30 Instagram post. "The unbelievable series of events that brought this group together still blows my mind to this day. From a random meeting with [Jax Taylor] while modeling in Miami, to responding to a Craigslist ad for another Tom looking for a roommate. Who would’ve thought that a stop along the way while chasing our dreams would turn into the cultural phenomenon that is Vanderpump Rules."

Sandoval continued, "We were unaware as to the effect this show would have on our lives. The foundation of Vanderpump Rules was built on pure honest raw emotions… triumphs, struggles, and love that happen between a group of real friends and our relationships. As soon as we started filming s--- got real and never turned back. It’s been a roller coaster ride and you’ve been with us though every step of the way."

The reality star thanked the network; Lisa Vanderpump, the former RHOBH cast member around whose West Hollywood restaurant the spinoff revolves; and the crew "who busted their asses with us in the trenches." Most of all, Sandoval expressed thanks "to each and every fan, THANK YOU ALL for believing us and being part of this 12 year journey.... Despite the difficulties, I’m filled with gratitude for the learning experience and forever grateful for all of the memories."

Happy to see this finally get on a streaming service.

Which movies did actors take just to collect a check? Barbra definitely did Meet the Fockers to get some cash to remodel the mall.

Bitch, please

to discuss all things Howard and Bababooey

Question: Why isn't Jon Hein on the wrap up show anymore?

Oh, no!

Oh, Montel, what *were* you thinking???

Proving the party attracts a significant number of masochists.

A Sexually Transmitted Ringworm Fungus Is Spreading in New York City

Dermatologists have discovered five cases of sexually transmitted ringworm in New York City caused by the fungus TMVII this year, the first ever detected in the United States.

"The leader of DHHS should continue to nurture and improve — not threaten — these important and highly respected institutions."

Jay-Z, the star rapper and entrepreneur whose real name is Shawn Carter, was accused in a civil lawsuit on Sunday of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000 allegedly along with Sean “Diddy” Combs.

The anonymous accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” said the assault happened after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty.

Let's talk about this goddess!

Continue your discussion of each day's game here.

Are they deliberately running as democrats when in reality they're republicans hiding?

Assuming Gus Van Sant is the victor, it will be pistols at dawn between Jeremy Allen White’s and Timothee Chalamet’s agents.

Lord John Grey (David Berry) and Claire Fraser (Caitriona Balfe) are now officially husband and wife.

But if audiences thought their marriage would remain in name only, the latest episode of Outlander had even more surprises up its sleeve. As Claire and Lord John continue to mourn Jamie's (Sam Heughan) death, absolutely wracked with grief, they find a raw comfort in an unexpected place — each other.

Drunk and disturbed by Claire's own screams, John storms into her bedroom, going full Rhett Butler, and informs her, "I will not mourn him alone tonight."

"He was not yours to mourn," Claire hisses back, before the two claw at each other, clothing shredding in the process. We see flashes of skin and passion before it fades to black, and then, the sun rises the next morning with Claire and John waking up beside each other, having officially consummated their marriage.

It's an improbable and surprising moment, one that Berry says he is still trying to wrap his head around. "The essence of their conflict in that moment is the selfishness of Claire saying that Lord John has no right to his profound feelings of grief, and Lord John really needing someone in that moment," he notes. "He's so alone. No one's there for him, and he's shouldering all this grief and also trying to shoulder it for her. He reaches a breaking point where he is like, 'I just need someone to hold me and to get me through this.'"

Still, the scene relies more on implication than most Outlander sex scenes, leaving much of this intimate moment to viewers' imaginations (in the novels, the love-making is described with far more detail). "There were a lot of really difficult conversations," Berry admits, as to the choices they made in filming and editing the scene.

"On the page, it was written a lot more. I was really interested to explore that a bit further, and I would've been happy to push it a little further. We ended up in a negotiated position where we didn't do that, and I do feel a sense of curiosity and even regret that we didn't challenge ourselves to do that a bit more."

For Berry, he's still not sure the scene really fully explains or allows the space to understand why this moment occurs between Lord John and Claire. Though he understands why they chose to limit what was depicted. "It was always going to be a weird sex scene," he adds. "I was excited by it because it was something that I'd never seen on TV before. The things that really excite me about Outlander are these moments of, 'What the hell? How do you inject a humanity into this?'"

"This was going to be my first Outlander sex scene," Berry continues. "For this to be my first Outlander sex scene was a massive challenge because there is consent, but what is the passion? What was written on the page is that there's an animalistic passion, and unfortunately, I don't really think that is translated to screen.

There was definitely a passion component that I'm not sure that we quite captured in that moment. There is something that will forever haunt me — how do these two end up in a moment of intimate passion and union? It still confuses me, and I don't know that we completely solved it. "

Much of that is dealt with in the post-coital heart-to-heart that Claire and John share the next morning. They admit that neither of them were making love to each other, but instead to Jamie. Lord John also confesses that it's been 15 years since he last slept with a woman, while also revealing that Jamie once offered his body to him — an offer that Lord John refused because it mattered more to him to preserve their friendship.

Berry is far from finished pondering the scene and its motivations. "I'll forever be thinking about it as an acting challenge," he says. "The challenge that was set up in the episode is so cool and curious and a cool thing for the series to contend with. It is a real pivot moment for these characters. It will have massive ripple effects moving forward."

Friday Night Lights reboot heads to Peacock.

The couple who run PinkNews, the world's largest LGBT news website, have been accused by staff of multiple incidents of sexual misconduct. I wouldn't have an issue if they were ruggedly handsome but these two....FUGs.

18 year old student Nicholas Pettenello takes you on a tour of his city.

Your Persnickety, Picky Porn Preferences 🧐

What are some super-niche, super picky, ridiculously particular preferences that really bother you? I don't mean something most people will agree on like (I don't like it when the guys aren't into it or when one of them doesn't cum etc.)

I have what I think is an odd one: I don't quite know why, but I find it kind of a turn-off when I see a scene with two unmistakably white guys and one of them has their natural skin tone (whether that's pale as a ghost or bordering on olive) and one of them is tanned within an inch of his life -- you know what I mean, you can practically smell the bronzer coming off the screen, or, he's definitely spent the past two weeks just lying in the sun in Mexico.

And, NO, I am not talking about interracial scenes. Interracial scenes are hot, guys with melanin are hot. Latino, Asian, Black, Arab, Indian, Australasian, Mediterranean guys are all hot. I'm just talking about obviously white guys who are overly tanned.

Although I don't have a preference for it, I don't even mind it if both of the white guys are similarly tanned, but if one of them looks like it's the middle of winter in Minnesota and the other looks like he's been bronzing on a balcony in Cabo in June my brain gets scrambled. The paler guy ends up looking sickly (even though he isn't) and the tanned guy looks unnatural.

I told you this was persnickety! Okay, let's hear 'em.

The best movies are commercials now

These cantilevers are getting obscene.

They are out there, I have seen censored versions. Does anyone have insight into where we could find the full monty?

I’m cooking split pea soup tonight, and handling ham hock for the first time. Some recipes say just throw it in the soup and cook, and some say brown and boil it a little before adding it. I’d like to just throw it in, but would the soup be too greasy and fatty?

President Joe Biden during a Tuesday speech said that it was "stupid" of him to have not signed COVID-19 stimulus checks that went out as part of the American Rescue Plan, contrasting himself with President-elect Donald Trump.

While speaking at the Brookings Institute, Biden touted the effects of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which Congress passed in 2021, as a major economic accomplishment of his administration. But the president also reflected on the actions of Trump, his predecessor and soon-to-be successor.

"I also learned something from Donald Trump — he signed checks for people … and I didn't," he said. "Stupid."

In March 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion bill signed into law by Trump at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic that provided $1,200 relief checks to millions of Americans. Trump's name, controversially, was added to the relief checks by his administration.

This year, many Americans, who yearned for the pre-Covid economic conditions earlier in Trump's first term, chose Trump at the ballot box over Vice President Kamala Harris.

Biden from the earliest days of his administration sought to tackle some of the biggest pandemic-era economic issues.

The American Rescue Plan provided $1,400 checks to most Americans.

But inflation dogged the Biden administration's economic message, and the president was unable to articulate a convincing defense of his policies ahead of the 2024 election. His standing, coupled with concerns over his advanced age, led him to step aside as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in July.

A place where we ponder everything about The Young & the Restless (Y&R) and wonder why we're still watching America's No. 1 daytime soap opera!

So which reason is it? - Hoping to see Conner Floyd in his underwear? - Imagining JaBottom's unseen Grindr hookups? - Praying for gay Fen to show up for the holidays?

Or maybe you tune in for the Sharon Case Daily Face Update? - Or just enjoy hate-watching The Stafford and her tiresome shtick? - Or simply love seeing the always-perturbed Aunt Jack just being Aunt Jack?

And of course, everyone is surely tuning-in for the greatly-anticipated Traci & Alan sex scene, as well as hoping to see seventy-somethings Aunt Jordan & Ian Ward fuck like rabbits as well. And let's not forget the always-lovable Messa!

So what stories are currently on your must-see list and what do you see in your Winter forecast for the residents of Genoa City?

All leave you with Phillip 'Chance' Chancellor rubs one out.

He's a 22 year old photographer/videographer.

I'm surprised that he's actually quite talented.

And I like his loft. It's very cute.

As we all know, the concept of "fit fat" originated here at the datalounge. This popular body type is a perennial favorite being both accessible, homey yet hot.

The clue is FIT fat. Not fat fat.

Not unfit fat.

No unfit fatties allowed on this thread.

Pulled straight from the Internet. I'll start.

"Don't Be Racist. I Am A Building.

A Manhattan jury has cleared Daniel Penny of criminal wrongdoing in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a crowded subway — a caught-on-video killing that sparked fierce debate over the city’s mental health system and crime underground.

The panelists acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide — which could have put him behind bars for up to four years — in Neely’s chokehold death aboard a crowded uptown F train in May 2023.

Manslaughter, the top charge against Penny, was tossed on Friday after jurors twice said they couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict.

Matt Barr revealed that his massive manhood was responsible for nearly knocking out one of his past lovers.

On to the end of the season and the short off season.

Coco wins the WTA year-end championship.

Shapo won in Belgrade.

Will you be tuning in to each movie?

Six hour replay of today's session on C-Span2. The Republicans and Democrats alike tore into him regarding the deterioration of USPS services during his tenure.

Arrogant, nasty, argumentative little man actually covered his ears at one point in response to questioning.

Only the best people.

But they want to be friends when it's all over. Are they fighting like 4 wars now? Where does all the money come from?

In case you missed it, on Tuesday night, Matty became embroiled in a brutal X fight with Azealia Banks, which culminated with him threatening to “slap” her “so hard” that he will get a Guinness World Record after she insulted his fiancée Gabbriette.

For reference, the tweets came from the now-deactivated X account, which appeared to be Matty’s personal account as it went by his alias Truman Black.

And it all started when Azealia tweeted an old clip of Charli and insulted her appearance, with Matty quote-tweeting her and writing: “Azealia you seem to have a blind spot when it comes to your ‘reads’. All the women you attack seem to be culturally relevant, attractive, and NICE people. I think this makes you jealous cos you’re so talented but everything else about you is a failure. Just rap bro.”

He then referenced Gabbriette, who he got engaged to earlier this year, writing: “And on that point if I see one little shit bag twitter barista say ONE thing about my Gabi, EVER, I will use my mental illness to full affect and I will dox and fuck you up I’m so over pretending to have different standards online cos it’s ’not real’. Well, a fuckin slap is.”

But when Azealia retaliated by saying: "The bitch look like Frankenstein to me. You both look like you share needles," Matty tweeted: “I know you think your life is some episode of the library is open but I am not the one. Talk to me like that I’m not gonna side eye you at an awards do I’ll fucking slap you so hard I’ll get a Guinness world record for the highest a rat some bitch calls a wig has ever flown.”

Almost immediately afterward, the singer started to backtrack. He tweeted: “Nah I can’t be saying I’m gonna hit a girl that’s insane I’m sorry. You just can’t keep being so mean about my mates and my mrs it’s really hurtful gets me well defensive.”

“I was just trying to match your vibe im scared now im sorry bro, i was just sticking up for my mates. Im not tough lol.”

The whole thing left social media users totally stunned, and one of Matty’s fans reposted his first tweet defending Charli as they called him out for always taking things too far.

They wrote: “this is literally what I was talking about when I said how annoying it is that matty Healy is often correct about things. Like he really gets on my nerves as a person but every so often he comes out and says something that I just… completely agree with. and it PISSES ME OFF.”

Matty then surprised this follower by asking them for some constructive criticism. He replied: “I see this a lot and I’m genuinely curious if you would mind expanding on what you mean. Like obvs yes I made a tasteless porn joke on my mates podcast and I have done some things I would take back, like we all have. I’m just trying to keep learning. Could you give example?”

“Please just be yourself. I get that it was all for performance art but it went too far that it was genuinely confusing for alot of us & pissed off alot of us black 1975 fans that have been here since the beginning we love you & just wanna see u win.”

“Yeah I understand that,” Matty replied. “I was really inspired by the essay ‘Dirtbag’ at the time and found NY very interesting. I’m not gonna say Adam and Nick aren’t my friends tho cos they are and I love them a lot. No excuses. I can’t just stop taking my meds when I choose. I’ve learned that.”

And as Azealia tweeted that she plans to sue Matty for his violent threat against her, Matty opted to deactivate his X account, writing: “Guys I don’t have the right kind of intelligence / emotional maturity etc for social media I literally just end up saying stuff that immediately regret etc. I’m actually just gonna stick to music cos I’m good at that. Having manic episodes on twitter at 35 is kinda pathetic.”

He then reflected on the entire situation in a post to his fans on the official Reddit forum for his band, The 1975. A message from Matty's verified account reads: “What a bad day, I really let myself down. I have worked so hard to move past these impulsive self destructive and honestly quite volatile outbursts I have."

Well, kind of.

Actor Steve Tracy, best known as Nellie Oleson's milquetoast-ish husband Percy in the early 1980s, made his film debut in 1977 in the gay porn movie "Heavy Equipment," starring legend Jack Wrangler.

Tracy is the main character in the movie, playing, as usual, a nerd who comes across a magic spell that transforms him into a hot gay stud who has lots of sex with other guys.

The movie is surprisingly heavy on dialogue and plot and features decent acting, back when X-rated movies were actually "movies." In fact, it's a good 20-25 minutes before the movie's first sex scene.

It's interesting that Tracy managed to transition to the mainstream after this one. Poor guy was one of AIDS' early casualties, though, passing away in 1986 at just 34 years of age.

Discuss

Discuss your favorite mellow/easy-listening music.

The Alan Parsons Project had some gems.

Looks nice.

I wouldn't mind visiting there.

The people seem very laid back.

This woman is 23 but looks more like 38.

Claims family gave millions to healthcare industry. This case and trial is about to be the new OJ. I want to fuck this dude so bad.

Is a COCKGOBBLER!

Continue your foolishness, DL sleuths.

Chandelier by Mark MacKiIIop is the best cover I’ve ever heard, maybe the best song I’ve ever heard. The voice of an angel.

Datalounge please say some juicy and or funny things about Lisha and Lorna ( I was molested) Luft.

Are your favorites mentioned?

61 years ago Indian businessman Ismail Merchant went into partnership with the American director James Ivory. Today that partnership and their legacy still prosper and flourish.

More than that, a Merchant Ivory film has come to represent quality and style, rare commodities in today's increasing tawdry marketplace. The films they've made include Shakespeare Wallah, The Bostonians, Maurice, and the splendid A Room with a View.

On this Saturday afternoon, let's discuss your favorite Merchant Ivory (and similar) films, performances, costumes, and more.

Talk about laid back!

He just strolls on by while a popcorn maker at farm supply store Rural King, catches on fire.

Jamie's adorable. He just wants his popcorn.

Looks stupid and Travis Kelce is not attractive. He doesn’t have the face for TV. Sorry.

He seems to have disappeared after Wakanda Forever.

Did he go back down to Talokan?

Time to take the pants to the tailor to let out the seams.

Blond and beautiful.

Past or present.

Lard Channel are taking a long break so Junkie Niko can go to rehab. Greasy Niall is still rotund and has just finished a 90 date world tour. Poor Lewis Fataldi was forced to take a career break because of his Tourettes, so he's inactive as well. Nevertheless, we'll still find plenty to talk about!

That upbeat theme - Cyndi Greco singing "Making Our Dreams Come True" - ends with L&S in a factory, Shirley having nicked a beer, Laverne sending a glove down the line, and both of them looking dreamless.

I have a Farberware one that came out in 2020 but have been wanting to get a new one. This one doesn’t have any settings like preheat or anything. It’s basic (and cost $120 in 2020). The newer ones all have settings etc.

I don’t know which to get though. I saw a Toshiba that has amazing reviews and is beautiful looking. There was also a Phillips one that has good reviews. I was thinking about Ninja but meh.

There is the Drew Barrymore line at Walmart and they’re gorgeous but I feel they will break down fast. They’re cheap. But pretty. I love the new Paris Hilton one too.

I posted a pic of the Drew Barrymore Rose colored one. It’s sooooo nice. But $69 for a 6QT makes me think something is off. I remember the 3Qt was $20 for Black Friday.

So sayeth the New York Times: "Beyond its numbers, the Eras Tour has been a mega-event that elevated the already-super-famous Swift to a new level, making her an epochal symbol of cultural saturation on the level of the Beatles in the 1960s or Michael Jackson in his ’80s prime."

And Madonna doesn't even enter the conversation, apparently. I did like "Cruel Summer" though.

President-elect Trump's announcement of Kash Patel being nominated as the new FBI director continued to elicit strong opinions from experts and lawmakers on the Sunday shows.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump announced his intent to replace current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump hired during his first term. Since then, media outlets have labeled Patel an "extremely controversial pick" because of his opposition to the "deep state."

Left-wing commentators showed concern over the politicization of the FBI and whether Patel would be a Trump "enforcer" who’d "dismantle" the agency.

Former Obama administration official Juliette Kayyem claimed Patel was chosen only to go after Trump’s political enemies.

"Patel has no other agenda but revenge. I mean, it‘s not like he has a theory of law enforcement, a theory of reducing crime or financial crimes. He exists for one reason, and he‘s close to Trump for one reason, which is he will be the enforcer of what might be called sort of the revenge tour of this second term. So it‘s not really a matter of, what do I think or what should people think. He is appointed for this purpose," Kayyem said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., accused Trump of being resentful of Wray showing too much "independence" and "objectivity" in his job and denied any politicization by the current administration.

"I haven‘t seen what the proof is that the FBI has been weaponized against a political party or the Department of Justice. Of course, this Department of Justice has brought charges against a Democratic U.S. senator in New Jersey, a Democratic congressman in Texas. And so some people just seem to think that it should go only in one direction. And if it doesn‘t, then somehow it‘s politicized. And I think that‘s what they mean when they talk about politicization in the deep state. I mean, the deep state? Nobody‘s ever defined it. Apparently, it just means anybody who doesn‘t do the will of Donald Trump," Raskin said on CNN’s "State of the Union" Sunday.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also denied any politicization within the FBI and criticized Trump for wanting to replace Wray before he finished his term.

"The current FBI director, Chris Wray, was actually appointed by Donald Trump. Joe Biden didn’t fire him," Sullivan said to Kristen Welker on NBC’s "Meet the Press. "He relied upon him to execute his responsibilities as the director of the FBI, and allowed him to serve out the fullness of his term over the course of the Biden administration. That’s how we approach things, and we would like to ensure that the FBI remains an independent institution insulated from politics."

Republicans, however, had a more positive response to Patel’s nomination.

On Saturday night, Andrew McCabe, who briefly served as acting FBI director under Trump in 2017 and was deputy director, went viral after he called Patel's nomination "a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI."

"It's a terrible development for the men and women of the FBI and also for the nation that depends on a highly functioning, professional, independent Federal Bureau of Investigation," McCabe said on CNN. "The fact that Kash Patel is profoundly unqualified for this job is not even, like, a matter for debate."

Wray is currently serving a 10-year appointment as FBI director that is set to end in 2027. Wray will either need to resign or be fired for Patel to take his place. In a statement to Fox News Digital, the FBI gave no indication Wray is planning on resigning.

"Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats," read the statement. "Director Wray's focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for."

Review, please.

When they go low, we take out our checkbooks.

Some Michigan Democrats, smarting after significant setbacks in November, are hoping Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will enter the 2026 gubernatorial race when his White House role ends next month.

Go, PETE!

Look at his blond curly locks, like a Greek statue.

Danny Penny is the hero that we want, but don’t deserve.

Saturday Night Live tonight imagined a world where, influenced by the success of Wicked and Moana 2, Gladiator II decides to add 50 minutes of musical content to become an even bigger hit.

That was the plot of a skit featuring host Paul Mescal “reprising” his Gladiator II role as Lucius, except this version croons about his feeling misunderstood as a killing machine when “they don’t know that far below I’m so much more.”

It all kicked off with Kenan Thompson singing how there’s “No Place Like Rome” with Mescal agreeing that “I’m gonna like it here.” From there, the skit went on to explain how an extra 50 minutes of songs were added to the sequel that still promised to be the “same violent epic.”

Several SNL players joined in on the mini-musical, with Mikey Day as Rome’s emperor rapping a ditty that supposedly came courtesy of Lin-Manuel Miranda. “I don’t mean to be a hater, but I don’t like this gladiator,” he sang.

He and Mescal then flossed.

Reviews, the skit admitted, were mixed. One slide came up with a quote from the film’s director Ridley Scott saying, “I was not told about this.” Another read, “Movies are in such a weird place right now.”

The spot ends with Mescal leaving the Colosseum on a broom, belting out a version of the famous battle cry from Wicked‘s “Defying Gravity.”

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said early Sunday that President Bashar Assad left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus after a stunning advance across the country.

The events suggested that the end of Assad's regime could be imminent after his bloody 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented.

Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told The Associated Press that Assad took a flight Sunday from Damascus.

State television in Iran, Assad’s main backer in the years of war in Syria, reported that Assad had left the capital. It cited Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network for the information and did not elaborate.

There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government.

An Associated Press journalist in Damascus reported seeing groups of armed residents along the road in the outskirts of the capital and hearing sounds of gunshots. The city’s main police headquarters appeared to be abandoned, its door left ajar with no officers outside. Another AP journalist shot footage of an abandoned army checkpoint where uniforms were discarded on the ground under a poster of Assad’s face.

Residents of the capital reported hearing gunfire and explosions. Footage broadcast on opposition-linked media showed a tank in one of the capital's central squares while a small group of people gathered in celebration. Calls of “God is great” rang out from mosques.

It was the first time opposition forces had reached Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured areas on the outskirts of the capital following a yearslong siege.

The pro-government Sham FM radio reported that the Damascus airport had been evacuated and all flights halted.

The insurgents also announced they had entered the notorious Saydnaya military prison north of the capital and “liberated" their prisoners there.

The night before, opposition forces took the central city of Homs, Syria's third largest, as government forces abandoned it. The city stands at an important intersection between Damascus, the capital, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus — the Syrian leader’s base of support and home to a Russian strategic naval base.

The government denied rumors that Assad had fled the country.

Sham FM reported that government forces took positions outside Homs without elaborating. Rami Abdurrahman who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Syrian troops and members of different security agencies withdrew from the city, adding that rebels entered parts of it.

The insurgency announced later Saturday that it had taken over Homs. The rebels had already seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in a lightning offensive that began Nov. 27. Analysts said rebel control of Homs would be a game-changer.

The rebels' moves into Damascus came after the Syrian army withdrew from much of southern part of the country, leaving more areas, including several provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters.

The fall of Damascus would leave government forces in control of only two of 14 provincial capitals: Latakia and Tartus.

I dont think there is anybody else in the world who has become a parent to more children via surrogacy than Mr Musk and she has been adamant in legislating in Italy about what she considers to be the evils of surrogacy.

Are the lovers in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love really half-siblings?

Get me off this world already.

Carry on...

Need to upgrade to a new laptop, but since you can't trust reviews on the Amazon and other sites anymore, I'll put it to the DL. I've had both Dell and Lenovo but you can't always count on newer models to have the same quality.

Looking for a 15.5 - 16" screen, 16GB of RAM, and 1T hard drive. Not looking for an Apple or a super-thin Surface-type device. Advice?

Yes, really. Is this the multidimensional chess I keep hearing about or is it the dementia talking? How are staff going to oblige and restrain him? Maybe a cellphone blockers in the White House...

[QUOTE]The Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections. They want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!

How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them

Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said.

Video tour link follows

She dated the entire football team when in college. Rick Upchurch, John Dubenetzky, Wayne Bullock and Gene Washington, etc. Why are people always implying she’s a lesbian, alluding to the Bean and Rice relationship? She’s at least bisexual. And what was going on between her and Bush btw?

Since the most recent comment on the summer thread is about the gays in Detroit, they get the place of honor as the thread photo.

(Until Mike Holmes Jr shares a photo in a jockstrap....)

Anybody watched it yet?

“My life feels whole and complete between the words ‘action’ and ‘cut.’ I live for those moments,” he said. “I think that is the purpose of my entire existence. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

I thought I would share a great recording of Mahler's 8th Symphony, the "Symphony of a Thousand."

What are your thoughts on this symphony?

Tippi Hedren, 93

I love Clingman's Dome (which I think we're supposed to call Kuwohi now) - the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. It has great views of everything from its observation tower, a piece of modern brutalist architecture dropped right in the middle of the Smokies. I like the tower, though opinions may differ. And sunrises on Clingman's Dome are amazing and wind-blowingly spectacular. We went to Clingman's Dome in November once to see the sunrise and small children were weeping because it was so bitterly cold in the wind. But it was the most stunning sunrise I'd ever seen with the sun coming up over the eastern Smokies.

Why is a 60 year old candidate considered "fresh, young, and full of new perspective" in your nation?

Discuss.

… and it is literally the most perfect townhouse I have ever seen.

This actually makes me kind of hate them.

What have these two done to deserve a life so fucking perfect?

The Food Institute talks about the exploding trend of Mexican cuisine in America.

It's becoming an integral part of the American dining experience.

This is enjoyable and kind of stylish.

Julie Bowen, 54, plays the mother of a HS teen, a bit of a stretch for the 1980s. But she appears to have had a total surgical glow up and looks good, although her eyes are different. Also cast is Anna Camp - remember her as Sarah Newlin on Trueblood? Among other series, since. She looks great, too, ageless.

The young actors are fine.

I'm the one bumping all the British Royal Family threads, thinking they have a wide audience.

In his first appearance in court for corruption charges, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid bare his stark disagreements with former President Barack Obama over Iran and a Palestinian state.

"Obama made it clear to me that U.S. policy was going to take a sharp turn against the ideas I believed in," Netanyahu recounted of his interactions with the U.S. in the early days of the Obama administration.

"He saw Iran not as a threat but as an opportunity and saw a vital need for us to return to the '67 lines and establish a Palestinian state here."

Netanyahu took the stand for about four hours Tuesday morning in Tel Aviv District Court. The trial was moved from Jerusalem for undisclosed security reasons and convened in an underground courtroom, according to Reuters. He recalled his rocky relationship with Obama – how they failed to see eye to eye on an appropriate course of action for Palestinians.

"I had to face great pressure to create a Palestinian state," Netanyahu said. "[Obama] demanded it during the first meeting, he said: 'Not even one brick will you build over the Green Line.' I responded: 'Half of Jerusalem is over the Green Line; for instance, the Gilo neighborhood.' Obama said: 'Gilo too.' He demanded a total construction freeze, massive pressure. I had to deal with this, I had to deflect it, and it was no small matter."

Netanyahu called to mind a disagreement with then-Secretary of State John Kerry, who was urging Israeli forces to withdraw from Judea and Samaria.

"Kerry explained to me that my fear of placing security in Judea and Samaria in Palestinian forces' hands was unfounded because the Americans were training Palestinian forces and we could withdraw."

He also said Obama had recommended Israel take notes from the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, and Netanyahu predicted it would not age well.

"Obama suggested I make a secret visit to Afghanistan to see how American forces were training local forces. I told him the moment you leave Afghanistan, these forces will collapse under Islamist forces, and that's exactly what happened."

The corruption trial, which stems from a 2019 indictment for alleged breach of trust, accepting bribes and fraud, takes place against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas. Netanyahu must attend court three times a week while it is ongoing.

The charges include: accepting gifts from Israeli Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan in exchange for advancing his interests, failing to report a bribery attempt from newspaper "Yediot Aharonot" publisher Arnon Mozes, who wanted Netanyahu to allow a bill outlawing free newspapers to pass and offered him favorable coverage in exchange, and accepting an offer in which Shaul Elovitch, the owner of Israeli telecom conglomerate Bezeq, would grant Netanyahu favorable media coverage in exchange for favorable regulatory changes.

Test

Arranged by Biden. The economic lifeline ensures that Ukraine will have economic support after Trump takes office.

I've seen them pop up a few times over the last few months. Are they back?

After a few drinks they started going at it. We were all in shock! I guess the alcohol made all those urges come to light 😂

What is your sexuality?

Oh he’s deep in the fashion world, huh?

Just because it’s done behind a corporate shroud doesn’t make it any different. They actually commit mass murder, when you introduce software to automatically deny medical claims with a known high error rate then you are denying life saving care to people.

I’ll start with Out on a Limb, the 1992 Matthew Broderick BO bomb ($1M gross). It’s a truly horrific movie, bad acting, bad script, bad everything.

But you self-indulgent bitches insist on posting their shit here. When are you going to get they use their celeb and royal coverage to funnel people to their hateful right wing crap?

What’s up with all the dark symbolism in entertainment? Covering one eye, the Baphomet goat devil horns, covered in blood, apocalyptic bullshit etc. Are all these people worshipping the devil? It’s kind of weird how much you see it once you start to pay attention and notice.

Some have inconsistent filmographies, some completely go off the rails, while others never make a bad movie.

I think the ones who are truly talented never completely lose it.

Directors like Rob Reiner, Martin Brest, John Landis, Robert Zemeckis, M. Night Shyamalan and Barry Levinson totally dropped the ball.

Oh hi luigi

And just like that, she’s literary

Kennedy Johnson was 15 years old when she gave birth to a baby girl in a Detroit foster home for teen moms, in February 1996. Twenty-five years later, when Johnson found herself in northern Ghana being made a queen, she couldn’t quite believe where life had led her.

It was conferred on her by the Dakpema, Fuseini Bawa, a local spiritual leader, with Zosimli Naa roughly translating as “Friendship Queen” — effectively making her the Dakpema’s head of development in the area.

Thousands of miles from home, riding on a horse and dressed in traditional royal attire, Johnson would have been forgiven for thinking she was in a dream.

“I’m still pinching myself,” Johnson told CNN. “It feels very surreal.”

Johnson’s journey began as a young mother in 1990s Detroit, a time she remembers as “a bit of a challenge.” It’s an understatement. She recalled a relative dropping her off, a pregnant 15-year-old, at the foster home, and promising to pick her up when the child was born. They never returned.

“I had to abandon a lot of my childhood goals,” she said. “I just had to dig deep and find some sort of strength.”

When her daughter D’Kiya was 11, Johnson started taking her on trips abroad — first to the Bahamas, then Hong Kong, then South America. The pair fell in love with seeing the world, and Johnson began documenting her trips online “to show people that minorities can travel.”

“I would meet other people in my age group, but not my demographic,” she said. “I was going places and people would stop me and be like: ‘Beyoncé!’ They would automatically assume I was in the entertainment industry and not taking a holiday, because people of color weren’t really traveling like that.”

Years later, once D’Kiya had left home, Johnson took a DNA test that determined that she had Nigerian and Ghanaian heritage. For the first time, her travels took her to West Africa. Her arrival there — which she describes as a “return” — “felt like a huge sigh of relief,” she said.

Soon after her first journey, Johnson founded Green Book Travel in 2018, a company that organizes trips to West Africa for members of the diaspora. Named after the annual travel guide that provided Black people with information to keep them safe in Jim Crow America, Green Book Travel takes people to historically significant locations including sites of deportation in the transatlantic slave trade.

The trips immediately attracted hundreds of people, Johnson said, and her travels to West Africa became more frequent. On one trip, she found herself physically compelled — her “body was on fire” — to visit northern Ghana.

On her second day in the region, she was asked to pay a customary visit to the Dakpema and his elders in Tamale. She quickly realized that this was no ordinary meeting.

“They started consulting amongst each other,” she said, “and then they said ‘we want you to go to prepare to be the Queen.’”

Initially, Johnson did not understand the significance of the offer. But when she recounted the meeting to a village elder, he nearly crashed his car.

Four months later, with her daughter and best friend alongside her, Johnson was “enskinned” in Tamale — officially recognized as Friendship Queen — before being introduced to the community in a parade at the annual Damba festival, in which she rode on a horse to cheers from the crowd.

“It was overwhelming because the crowd was so big,” said Kendall Jones, Johnson’s best friend who was by her side at the event. “It was my first time ever experiencing having people chase your car down as you’re driving away.”

The role of Friendship Queen comes with an elevated status and practical responsibilities to the community. Johnson works together with elders of the Dagbon Kingdom, which dates back to the 14th century and comprises around five million people, to run positive initiatives in Tamale, where she now lives. So far, together with her charitable foundation Kith and Kin, she has worked to provide clean water, sanitary products, and shoes to the community, and is working on a scheme to support orphans.

You know, instead of endless threads on Trump & Co...

It's a great book, beautifully drawn, and full of of gay wisdom, by my favorer gay artist,

I'll start:

"I can't find my phone."

Last year, Lucinda was appalled at the grease that covered every surface in the kitchen.

WASHINGTON — Foreign leaders have lined up to speak with him. He has rattled Mexico and Canada with threats of steep tariffs and warned there would be “hell to pay” for militants in Gaza unless they release the hostages by the time he’s sworn in.

That won't happen for another 45 days, but Donald Trump, the president-in-waiting, isn't shying away from acting like the president-in-reality.

Trump can't sign a bill or issue an executive order yet, but he is crowding out Joe Biden as the sitting president winds down his term and steadily recedes from public view. In two foreign trips since the election, Biden has answered all of two questions from reporters.

He has been left to kibitz about Trump’s pronouncements — “I hope he rethinks it,” he said of Trump’s plan to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico — rather than drive an agenda of his own.

As for Trump, “his view is that he’s not going to follow rules that he thinks are stupid rules,” said a former senior White House official in Trump’s first term. “His view is these are hostages and if he can help bring them home, then why would he follow protocol if it’s going to impact peoples’ lives?”

At this point, Trump is “already basically running things, and he’s not even president yet,” the person added.

Trump’s penchant for plunging into current affairs is testing the one-at-a-time dictum that presidents are supposed to honor but, for reasons of political expediency or practical necessity, usually don’t.

“He would probably argue, ‘I’m more than a private citizen at this point; I’m president-elect, and I’m going to have all the powers of the presidency in a couple of months.’ But that doesn’t mean you get to start before you’re inaugurated,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif.

This weekend, Trump will join French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral five years after it was devastated by fire. Biden was invited but opted not to attend, a White House official said.

Trump’s return to the world stage after a four-year hiatus, coupled with news about his hires, has overshadowed Biden’s trip to sub-Saharan Africa this week, in which he faced fallout from the sweeping pardon he gave his son Hunter.

“Given the weakness of the current president and the speed at which things develop in the modern world, Trump is, in effect, a presumptive president,” said Newt Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker and a Trump ally. “Certainly, foreign governments are treating him that way.”

If Biden is unhappy about being upstaged, he hasn’t offered any hints. In fact, Trump’s interventions may prove helpful to the degree they complement Biden’s larger goals.

A senior Biden administration official cited Trump’s social media post warning of “hell to pay” unless the hostages are freed from Gaza by Inauguration Day. That message doesn’t hurt the Biden administration’s efforts to secure the hostages’ release in exchange for a ceasefire, the official said.

I think his hole sucked all the unhappiness out of my body. I might be experiencing perfect contentment.

(Reuters) -A U.S. judge blocked the pending $25-billion merger of U.S. grocery chains Kroger and Albertsons on Tuesday, in a win for the Federal Trade Commission that Kroger has said would likely scuttle the deal.

The FTC argued at a three-week trial in Portland, Oregon, that the merger would eliminate head-to-head competition between the top two traditional grocery chains, leading to higher prices for shoppers and reduced bargaining leverage for unionized workers.

The ruling, which could be appealed, is a big victory for FTC Chair Lina Khan and President Joe Biden's administration in their bid to counter inflation at the checkout. Americans' discontent over a lingering rise in grocery prices since the pandemic was a key theme in the run-up to President-elect Donald Trump's win in November.

U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson agreed the merger was likely to remove direct competition between the two grocers, making it unlawful.

Separately on Tuesday, a Washington state court judge in Seattle also ruled to block the merger in a case brought by Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who had estimated half of all supermarkets there are owned by one of the two chains.

Albertsons shares closed down 2.3%. Kroger shares closed up 5.1%.

The White House said after the ruling they were "proud to stand up against big corporate mergers that increase prices, undermine workers, and hurt small businesses."

FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said the win "makes it clear that strong, reality-based antitrust enforcement delivers real results for consumers, workers, and small businesses."

Spokespeople for Kroger and Albertsons said the companies are disappointed in the rulings and considering their options.

"We believe we clearly outlined during the proceedings how the proposed merger would expand competition, lower prices, increase associate wages, protect union jobs, and enhance customers' shopping experience," the Albertsons spokesperson said.

The deal became a symbol of surging grocery costs. U.S. food prices have risen by 25% over the last four years, and while food inflation is showing signs of cooling in 2024, grocery bills remain a growing concern for shoppers.

The FTC sued along with attorneys general from eight states and the District of Columbia. Colorado, like Washington, sued on its own to block the deal.

Kroger defended the deal, saying it would bring prices down at Albertsons stores, where it said prices are 10-12% higher than its own. The merged company would fund price cuts through cost savings it expects from a larger operation, and a larger customer base to drive revenue for Kroger's data consulting business.

Nelson, who Biden appointed to the federal bench in 2023, rejected those arguments, saying the efficiencies were not verifiable or specific to the deal. Kroger's promises to invest in lower prices and better benefits for employees would not be enforceable, she wrote.

"Despite defendants' best intentions to follow through on their promises at this moment, the business realities on the ground after the merger may change what defendants are able to invest or what is in their best interest to invest," she said.

The FTC had also sought to block the deal on the theory that it would decrease competition for unionized grocery labor and cut bargaining power for workers.

The agency did not present enough evidence to prove the theory, the judge said, but added that the FTC had presented a "compelling and logical case."

Had the deal proceeded, Kroger would own approximately 5,000 stores across the U.S. The companies argued at trial that they needed to merge to compete with global companies such as Walmart and Amazon.com.

Kroger and Albertsons had said that selling 579 of the stores, particularly in western U.S. states where Kroger and Albertsons are located near each other, would preserve competition.

Nelson disagreed, raising doubts the proposed buyer, C&S Wholesale Grocers, could become a successful competitor.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday that any person or company investing at least $1 billion into the U.S. "will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals."

The statement, posted on his social media platform Truth Social, did not offer further details.

Trump's transition team is working on a package to roll out within days of his taking office on Jan. 20 to approve export permits for liquefied natural gas projects and to increase oil drilling on federal lands and off the U.S.coast, sources familiar have said.

It was not immediately clear how Trump could work around independent commissions such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has recently required additional environmental reviews for LNG projects.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump, a Republican, also plans to repeal some aspects of Democratic President Joe Biden's regulations and top climate legislation, such as tax credits for electric vehicles and new clean power plant standards that aim to phase out coal and natural gas.

Omg I think he will actually do a good job with a show like that.

There’s something that happened specifically in the pronoun conversation too. I use he/him pronouns at this point. You [his wife Bethany C. Meyers] use she/her pronouns. Not to say that we’re opposed to they/them pronouns. I just really don’t care about it in the same ways that I did back in the day. Call me whatever you want, just make sure you call me a type of thing. I don’t mind it [they/them pronouns]. I truly don’t care.

I feel like a man more than I ever have in my entire life right now you know and I f***ing stand by that. It’s such a great feeling. It’s not to say that I won’t feel more fluid in the future, right? I can still f***ing sass out from time to time, but I’m in my truth right now and it’s real.

But there’s something that happened in our infertility where we were just experiencing roadblock after roadblock after roadblock and the pronoun conversation was this unnecessary roadblock that we were continuing to just face head on and I just had to let it go. I just had to move on. There was too much coming at us at once and that was part of just the release. There’s so much release that needs to happen to create life.

We are different people since having our first daughter Kilmer Dove … but shift happens and it’s real.

Actor Nico Tortorella, who previously came out as gender fluid and used they/them pronouns, speaking on his new podcast ‘Full of Shift’ how parenthood changed how he identifies.

So what do we all think of the latest Star Trek development? Michelle Yeoh is camping it up in her Section 31 movie. Mary Wiseman is only a guest on the Academy but Tig Notaro and Robert Picardo will be regulars.

Drama

THE BRUTALIST

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

CONCLAVE

DUNE: PART TWO

NICKEL BOYS

SEPTEMBER 5

Comedy/Musical

ANORA

CHALLENGERS

EMILIA PEREZ

A REAL PAIN

THE SUBSTANCE

WICKED

Come for me bitches.

What "low rent" food do you like?

The family of a teenage boy who died after falling from a theme park ride have been awarded a $310 million ( payout.

Tyre Sampson fell from the FreeFall amusement ride at ICON Park in Orlando in March 2022.

He was rushed to hospital but tragically died of his injuries.

Tyre was more than 100 pounds over the ride's weight limit when he slipped out of the safety harness and fell around 100ft. It is believed the teenager's size meant that the fastening on the ride did not secure correctly. A report from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) explained that Tyre appeared to have slipped as the ride descended.

The report claims that a harness sensor in the seat was 'manually loosened, adjusted, and tightened' which resulted in a gap of nearly seven inches.

The ride - which has since been demolished - featured 30 seats attached to a tower in which riders were secured with a shoulder harness before being dropped 430ft.

Discuss.

Which family will produce the more explosive tell all?

Hollywood Reporter and Deadline liked it a lot; Variety says it’s fan service

Warms my heart a little

A former staffer who accused ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment has withdrawn her federal lawsuit against him, according to court records.

A voluntary notice of dismissal without prejudice was filed on Monday, Dec. 9 by attorneys for Charlotte Bennett, who filed suit against her onetime boss in 2022.

Bennett dropped her lawsuit on the eve of her deposition, Bennett's attorney, Debra Katz of Katz Banks Kumin wrote in a release.

Richard Azzopardi, a rep for Cuomo, praised Bennett's decision, saying that her claims "falsely smeared" the former governor "for years."

"Ms. Bennett's decision to drop her baseless lawsuit should be viewed as a complete capitulation and a desperate attempt to avoid being confronted with the mountains of exculpatory discovery – including contemporaneous texts and videos that the AG’s office never obtained – that completely refute her claims against Governor Cuomo," he said, in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"After falsely smearing Governor Cuomo for years, Ms. Bennett suddenly withdrew her federal lawsuit on the eve of her deposition to avoid having to admit under oath that her allegations were false, and her claims had no merit," he said. "If New York State does give in to her public pressure campaign and settles, it will not be on the merits and should require the public release of all the evidence so that New Yorkers finally know the truth: Governor Cuomo never sexually harassed anyone."

In a statement posted on their website, Bennett’s attorneys said they opted to dismiss the case to end Cuomo’s continued harassment of their client.

"Mr. Cuomo has used these legal proceedings to punish Ms. Bennett and others who reported his sexual harassment, and to cause more harm to her, all at the expense of New York taxpayers," Katz wrote. "In dismissing the federal case we thus hope that our client will be able to resolve this dispute and finally be made whole for all the damage Mr. Cuomo and his agents caused her."

Her attorneys said that Bennett will continue "seeking justice" with a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit against New York State.

A Jan 2022 opinion report from The Washington Post pointed to Bennett's alleged history of falsifying sexual harassment reports.

A 2017 federal lawsuit was dropped against a fellow student at New York's Hamilton College. Bennett was later identified as a student.

According to the complaint in John Doe v. Hamilton College, "Sally Smith" — Bennett’s pseudonym — filed the claim against the plaintiff "knowing it was false, and knowing there was evidence of its falsity."

The suit also alleged that there was a recording in which "Smith" stated that "Doe" "did not sexually assault her."

The first teaser trailer is out for 28 Years Later, the third installment in Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland's 28 Days Later franchise. And it just might show the outcome of Cillian Murphy's character Jim.

Asking the question "What will humanity become?," the post-apocalyptic horror film picks up nearly three decades after the onslaught of an rage-inducing virus that led to the breakdown of society following its escape from a biological weapons laboratory.

Audiences first saw the chaos in 2002's 28 Days Later, which starred Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma amid the outbreak. Juan Carlos Fersnadillo’s 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later captured the efforts of NATO military forces as they attempted to salvage a safe zone in London from the virus.

Murphy's Jim was missing from the sequel, but has been reported to appear in 28 Years Later despite his name not appearing on the official cast release. The Oscar winner is even serving as an executive producer on the film.

But viewers won't see Murphy in the trailer — except, perhaps, in a quick shot of a zombie that bares a striking resemblance to the Irish star.

Could that be Jim? Fans will have to wait until the film's June 2025 release to see for sure, though online chatter seems to be abuzz with speculation.

That buzz has also included praise for the suspenseful trailer itself, which does a great job of setting the tone for the film without giving away too much plot. All is set to a haunting recording of Rudyard Kipling’s war poem "Boots" by former silent film star Taylor Holmes, a choice that no doubt ups the ante when it comes to fear factor.

Franchise newcomers Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes star in 28 Years Later, the trio fighting their way through the fright to ensure their future. The trailer opens on the outbreak as it "began 10,228 days ago," and shows, subsequently, that no matter how long has gone by, the threat of the rage virus remains.

In fact, the tagline for 28 Years Later warns: "Time didn't heal anything."

28 Years Later is the first part in a new trilogy of films in the franchise. 28 Years Later II: The Bone Temple, a direct sequel, has already been shot, with director Nia DaCosta at the helm. No release date has been announced.

As for who Comer, Taylor-Johnson and Fiennes will be playing in the first film, their roles still remain a bit of a mystery.

An official synopsis for the films reads: “It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.”

Last surviving member of The Mod Squad was 84.

Gorgeous grisly unsettling rendition of the classic story

Visually sublime. An endless parade of brilliantly conceived shots lit and executed to perfection with stunning production design.

Lily Rose Depp does things I’ve never seen an actress do. It’s definitely the definitive female performance in Dracula tale and will surely launch her as a major star.

Nicholas Hoult Willem Dafoe and Emma Corrin also superb. Hoults work in the castle scenes and Corrin’s sickbed scene are great.

I was disappointed not to have the brides and for some reason the vampires victims do not turn into vampires they just die. That felt like a missed opportunity.

Aaron Taylor Johnson gets the Keanu award for being the weak link acting wise.

Yes you see Nosferatu peen.

4.5/5 stars. Loses half a star for lacking vampire brides and Lucy in a crazy lace headpiece

I know this is a very niche thread.

Mama likey!

There's a chance the 29-year-old controversial comic has popped up on your FYP in the last year or so, and you've asked yourself, who is this polarizing guy with a well-defined jawline?

While his comedy has gone viral, it hasn't been without backlash. Rife has faced scrutiny for his considerably offensive jokes in his stand-up routines and comedy specials, which include mocking women and people's appearances.

In his memoir "Your Mom's Gonna Love Me," Rife discussed rumors that he's had plastic surgery, some accusations that have surprisingly come from actual doctors.

Rife said, "Over a few months, I went from looking like a 13-year-old to looking like, you know, my actual age. Like an actual grown-ish man," per a book excerpt obtained by People.

"My face got wider, my features became more prominent, I grew a few inches taller."

According to the memoir excerpts, Rife explained that his "bizarrely stunted journey through puberty" led to a "million-and-one internet conspiracies about all this elaborate plastic surgery I somehow had the time and money to undergo."

"Even actual doctors and surgeons have made alleged claims about Rife's appearance. When plastic surgeon TikToker @manyfacesofchicago, Dr. Benjamin Caughlin MD, FACS, posted a video suggesting he created the "greatest jawline ever seen" for a "canceled" celebrity, the internet assumed he was talking about Rife — including Rife.

In the memoir, Rife revisited this moment, writing, "Straight up — if you are an actual doctor actually going on Tik-Tok to proclaim a guaranteed diagnosis about a dude you've never even met before, much less treated, how the hell do you not lose your license?"

Rife challenged the "lack of common sense" from the doctors in his memoir. "Can the medical board please just issue an official certificate telling you to get a life? Something to help these people get their priorities straight, because they desperately need it," he continued.

The comedian has credited criticism of his appearance because he's self-proclaimed "good-looking," which he stated in the book, "If anything, as a comedian, it actually made shit harder."

"It turns out that pretty people are fucked-up, too. Who knew? I'm in therapy. I've had multiple anxiety attacks," Rife continued. "I struggle with clinical depression, and I have complicated feelings about life, about my mom, about loneliness."

Rife's conversation surrounding the plastic surgery rumors is interesting, considering his brand of comedy has been rooted in controversial takes on people's appearances. While the negativity Rife faces isn't justified, it begs the question of whether his viral jokes foster an online environment that even the comic has fallen victim to.

It's been 43 years since Natalie Wood died under mysterious circumstances. What do you think happened to her?

Hunter Biden’s pardon looks a lot like Richard Nixon’s.

President Joe Biden’s grant of clemency on Sunday night — an extraordinary political act with extraordinary legal breadth — insulates his son from ever facing federal charges over any crimes he possibly could have committed over the past decade.

Experts on pardons said they could think of only one other person who has received a presidential pardon so sweeping in generations: Nixon, who was given a blanket pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974.

“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” said Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, a Justice Department position devoted to assisting the president on clemency issues.

“Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned,” Love added.

Joe Biden’s “full and unconditional pardon” of his son is deliberately vague. Donald Trump and his allies have long fixated on the president’s son, and Trump has repeatedly pledged to use his second term to investigate and prosecute members of the Biden family. Conservative commentators have engaged in parlor-game speculation that Hunter Biden could be charged with bribery, illegal lobbying or other crimes stemming from his foreign business activities and drug addiction.

So rather than merely pardoning his son for the gun crimes for which he was convicted and the tax crimes for which he pleaded guilty, the president’s pardon covers all “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in” from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. That language mirrors the language in Ford’s pardon of Nixon, which did not merely cover the Watergate scandal but extended to “all offenses against the United States” that Nixon “has committed or may have committed” between Jan. 20, 1969, and Aug. 9, 1974 — the exact span of Nixon’s presidency.

The starting date of Jan. 1, 2014, in the Biden pardon was surely not chosen randomly: Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company, in April 2014, while his father was vice president. Republicans have accused the younger Biden of illegally profiting off his position on that board.

AD is welcomed by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos to tour their sophisticated New York home. When the ‘Live with Kelly and Mark’ hosts moved into their Upper East Side townhouse over a decade ago, the couple had a vision of 1920s and ‘30s French glamor adapted for modern family living.

With the help of AD100 designer William Sofield, the couple turned their home into an Art Deco masterpiece, full of treasures found on a trip to the antique markets in Paris.

After twelve fabulous years of raising their family in this home, the couple has no plans of leaving and are ready for a new chapter in their home, just them. “I don’t want to sound morbid,” says Ripa, “but they’ll have to carry me out of here feetfirst because I have gotten good and comfortable in this house.”

She is going to be 6ft 2 or 3 when she's fully grown.

Longtime Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell fell after a gathering on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Dec. 10, according to several reports.

The senior Kentucky senator, 82, fell while leaving a Senate GOP luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., per reports from Axios, The Hill and ABC News.

The Hill reports that McConnell had spoken during the lunch, which was hosted by Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso from Wyoming. Barrasso reportedly escorted McConnell back to his office after the incident, where he was followed by a medical team barring a wheelchair.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who was recently elected to succeed McConnell as the Republican Senate leader, said in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon that McConnell is “fine” and “in his office” following the incident, per The Hill.

Barrasso told reporters that McConnell fell in an area outside the Senate chamber and has a scratch on his face, according to Axios.

PEOPLE reached out to McConnell’s team for comment about his condition but did not immediately hear back.

McConnell’s health has been a subject of concern over the past year. In August 2023, the politician suddenly stopped speaking during a press conference with reporters after being asked about his reelection plans in 2026.

An aide responded to the politician during the incident and repeated the question. When McConnell continued to remain unresponsive, a second aide approached him. The senator recovered moments later and moved on to the next question.

A spokesperson said at the time, "Leader McConnell felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today." An aide additionally shared, "While he feels fine, as a prudential measure, the Leader will be consulting a physician prior to his next event."

A similar incident happened during a press conference in July. However, that time, when McConnell froze, his colleagues asked him if he wanted to go back to his office. The politician was seen turning away from the podium before returning to continue addressing the reporters.

One reporter asked if the incident was related to the concussion he suffered in March 2023 after a fall at a dinner event, to which McConnell said, “I’m fine.”

The Republican addressed the concerns for his health in an October 2023 appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation, saying, "I'm fine. I'm completely recovered, and I'm just fine."

He told moderator Margaret Brennan during the interview, "I'm in good shape, completely recovered and back on the job," before adding, "I think we ought to be talking about what we were talking about earlier, rather than my health."

Earlier this year, McConnell announced that he was going to vacate his Republican Senate Leader position in November after having been at the helm of the conference since 2007.

"One of life’s most under-appreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” he said during his remarks. “So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate."

McConnell revealed that he plans to remain in Congress through the remainder of his term, which expires in January 2027.

His role to lose.

He’s so miserable why did he bother to come.

We learned yesterday she had moved to Dumpsville, and today we learn she's also moving to Athens

Testing testing testing

In recent weeks, Weiner has been dangling the possibility of an attempted return to public life in front of media outlets, including his own The Middle radio show on WABC. In a recent broadcast, he told his listeners that he still craved public service, addressing his sexual misdeeds, which culminated in him serving 18 months in prison for sexually messaging an underaged girl.

He said on the show that “the things in my past, the things about my addiction, the things about my acting out, the things about my background – it’s a lot, it’s a lot. But we’re at a moment that we Democrats, we seem like we come into knife fights carrying library books all the time.”

"Chief among the Christian right’s values is “biblical marriage,” the idea that any union other than that between a heterosexual biological male and female is against God’s will. Charismatic Christian leaders repeat these ideas often, and they’ve made it into the political mainstream. Christian broadcaster Mario Murillo, who partnered with fundamentalist Christian superstar Lance Wallnau in hosting a series of pro-MAGA religious rallies, said at a Colorado conference of Christian leaders in 2022, “We should never have permitted gay marriage to be legalized in the United States of America.”

In the coming months, watch for an intensification of the campaign by leading right-wing Christian groups to reverse the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage. The powerful think tank Family Research Council says on its website, “Properly understood, ‘families’ are formed only by ties of blood, marriage, or adoption, and ‘marriage’ is a union of one man and one woman.” Perhaps most significantly, Project 2025—the blueprint for Trump’s second term that Trump supporters finally admit really “is the agenda”—calls for the US government to “proudly state that men and women are biological realities” and that “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.” Naturally, another priority for these groups will be a continued attack on transgender rights. "

- From Mother Jones

A big jackpot too, a couple hundred million.

It only happened to me once, standing on line to pay for gas. Later I realized the guy behind me was standing too close, but I never felt a thing.

It's a despicable act, but I find the dexterity required to be fascinating.

Of course it will cost a lot more money upfront. But it will save untold amounts of money every time a firestorm or hurricane hits their area.

Access to the neighborhood runway included! Dolls will cost you extra.

The socialite tragically fell to her death while smoking. Ms. Featherston was known for being the life of the party. She had no husband.

O face is perhaps to mild a description, it’s somewhere in between “double penetration” and “werewolf transformation”

My God his hair is nice

Blue Ivy’s looks is A LOT for a 12 year old…did she get a new nose anc this is the met schnozz debut?

Fuck

“I am gay, and as a gay person, you can keep your identity as that even if your relationship doesn’t match that,” said Mr. Hoff, describing the relationship as mixed orientation. “We have a monogamous relationship. It’s beyond a visual lustful connection. It’s a soulful connection.”

Oh Datalounge, thoughts?

People are super sick for 1-2 weeks. Massive congestion and fatigue with the thickest mucus I’ve ever seen. Stay safe out there.

The video is almost 8 years old, but I just came across it and thought I'd share the joy.

Southeast Pennsylvania is already in that awful season where it's too cold, too dark, and too BLAH. I feel like I would DIE in a Canadian winter, even though I want to spend a week in Quebec City at some point at the height of winter, flouncing around in scarves and chunky sweaters and demanding hot toddies at chic Quebec hotels.

My gay fantasy notwithstanding: how are non-Pacific Canadian winters and what's GOOD about them?

inspired by another thread.

Those poor flowers

At least it wasn’t…

A FLOOD OF DARK BROWN FECES!

Back to fighting the Power Rangers, I guess.

Universal Pictures is in early talks with the main cast of “Meet the Parents” — Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Teri Polo and Blythe Danner — to return for a fourth installment in the 2000s romantic comedy film series, TheWrap has learned.

John Hamburg, who wrote the screenplays for the three previous films, will also return in the same role. Jane Rosenthal and De Niro will produce through Tribeca Productions, while Stiller and John Lesher will produce through Red Hour Films and “Meet the Parents” director Jay Roach will produce through Delirious Media.

EVP of Production Development Matt Reilly and director of Production Development Jacqueline Garrell will oversee the project for Universal.

Released in 2000, “Meet the Parents” starred Stiller as Greg Focker, a nurse looking to propose to his longtime girlfriend Pam (Polo). But first, he hopes to gain the approval of Pam’s parents, played by De Niro and Danner, with Pam’s father Jack being particularly hard to please. Greg’s comically bad luck doesn’t help things either, as a series of disasters occur during his visit with his would-be in-laws.

“Meet the Parents” was a breakthrough hit for Stiller, establishing him as a leading man in comedy films as it grossed $330 million at the global box office. The film spawned two sequels: “Meet the Fockers” in 2004, which added Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Greg’s parents, and “Little Fockers” in 2010. Combined, the three films grossed $1.13 billion worldwide.

De Niro is represented by CAA and Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks. Stiller is represented by WME, ID and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern. Polo is represented by Gersh, McGowan Rodriguez Management, and Kraditor & Haber. Danner is represented by Anonymous Content. Hamburg is represented by WME and Sloss Eckhouse Dasti Haynes LawCo.

Deadline was first to report the news.

Whoo, hoo! Any guesses as to what the skeletons in her closet might be? Every other nominee seems to have at least one. Hiring undocumented labor on the cheap? Well, Trump’s done that at his various clubs, so...

Laura Loomer is not a happy camper right about now.

I owe over $500 in parking tickets. I’m killing the next meter maid I see, I’ll be praised as a hero!

Continuing our discussion of the stars, storylines, and Sapphic sisters of the Lawrence family of Pasadena.

More Log Cabins in high places ?

He wants to investigate companies that pull advertisements from social media sites

5 years ago next month, people around the globe started to hear about a little thing called "Covid-19." It's wasn't anything to worry about, just a couple of cases of flu-like symptoms around the town of Wuhan. Then, 3 months later, the world changed. I'm curious...how has your own personal world changed since then? What do you find you are doing now, or not doing now, that was directly a result of the pandemic, which basically reared its head 5 years ago? And, of course, condolences to those who lost loved ones.

A return to his small scale films after the epics Mr. Turner and Peterloo, this film is getting Oscar buzz for Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a mouthy malcontent DL would love.

The big Italian granny must have found him tasty. They could make a cute mafia couple. The sugar granny will make sure he stays out of jail.

Every one get the job. I am seek of job with adventure and glamor. Tell to me good Job for Best architect lady such as Myself? I speak Eight language flooently and have Fresh hygene.

Starring Albert Finney as Scrooge

Alec Guinness as the ghost of Jacob Marley

and Anton Rodgers who sings "THank you very much"

No Christmas is complete without it

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Who do you think it will be?

Roseanne Barr? Candace Cameron Buhre? Brittney Aldean? Stacey Dash? Princess Meghan of Arizona?

If you see me in your room I might be in your city. I bottom also where there is mutual interest.

Martha hates it already

Are you part of the 60% of Americans who own an Air Fryer ? According to a survey released by CNBC, air fryer sales increased 51% in sales during the pandemic over 2019. In 2022, consumers spent just under $1 billion in air fryers.

At first, it was thought to be a 'fad' like many other appliances sitting on consumer's kitchen counters. But food industry experts have noticed this is no fad at all - air fryers (like microwave ovens in the 1970s, thought to be a fad) are here to stay. “It’s the biggest trend that we’re seeing right now in modern cooking,” said Adam Graves, president of Nestle U.S.’s pizza and snacking division, who owns two air fryers himself.

The Campbell Soup Company, which owns many famous brands including Kettle Chips, is betting on the popularity of the air fryer is here to stay. They've recently introduced what they call “the future of the potato chip category”: air-fried chips.

Kraft-Heinz, Tyson, Gorton Seafoods and Nestle have also seen a surge in sales for their frozen food products which can be thrown into the air fryer in the past few years. All their frozen food packaging will now come with conventional over, microwave oven and air fryer cooking directions.

I have one - bought one in early 2022 and I don't know what I'd do without it.

It debuted on November 4th, 2024.

---- Hungry Howie's, the originator of Flavored Crust® pizza, announced today the debut of its latest offering, the Chicken and Waffles Pizza. This limited time pizza is available starting today through December.

The Chicken and Waffles Pizza features a Maple Sugar Flavored Crust, topped with 100 percent mozzarella cheese, crispy chicken bites, fluffy waffle pieces, real bacon and a drizzle of rich Maple syrup.

"We're excited to introduce our Chicken and Waffles Pizza, an innovative combination of sweet and savory that brings together two favorite comfort foods," said Jeff Rinke, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development. "This pizza features a brand-new Maple Sugar Flavored Crust that perfectly complements its breakfast-inspired toppings. We can't wait for everyone to experience this delicious creation while it's available."

The limited-time offering is available at participating Hungry Howie's locations nationwide. Guests can place orders for the new items online, in the app, or in-store while supplies last.

If you’re desperate and thirsty

Cute dancing gay twins. I think they work on Disney Cruises.

It was trying to be a modern take of the Golden Girls with Betty White as Sophia but it just didn't work. Betty was way too old and her timing is always off or too slow. Sophia was quick in portraying an oldster. I watched about ten laugh-free episodes then I gave up. The storylines were unbelievable and annoying. I had to fast forward through half the episodes trying to find something funny but I failed. This series sucked worse than someone with a tiny mouth. The only good thing about this horribly unfunny series is at least it gave some coin to all these washed up, gross actors/actresses from the past. Like Carl Reiner or Mary Tyler Moore.

The accuse should also be Doe until found guilty.

#NewRule

[QUOTE]The 42 year old described his dark, secret life of cheating and struggles with alcoholism and porn addiction in a book from 2022. Canales also calls himself a “recovering narcissist.”

I'll post the after version first. A boring ranch style in equally boring Camarillo, CA (at least since the state mental hospital closed). Some of our Tasteful Friends are probably wondering WTF I posted this non-descrpit on the inside and outside "home." Or is it?

Overlook the some of the generic furnishings and the gray and take a look at the small hints. Any guesses what the owners were up to in the house? If you have a guess post it before reading the next part.

Hot!

1 JCPenney

The tabletop role playing game is very dark.

Dir. Danny Boyle

Aaron Taylor-Johnson | Ralph Fiennes | Jodie Comer | Cillian Murphy | Jack O’Connell

And why?

1. Warm All Over

2. The Boys In the Backroom

3. They're Either Too Young or Too Old

4. I Believe in You

5. Adelaide's Lament

6. Once In Love With Amy

7. On A Slow Boat To China

8. Inchworm- I was a kid once too.

Neely the poor and dirty raving lunatic from the gutter, and local public menace in NYC.

And Thompson, the bland, bloated, pig-faced former Iowan farm boy, who rose to executive power in the cruel insurance shakedown racket, abusing Americans nationwide in our post-industrial Dillinger capitalism.

Quite expendable. Deserving of it.

Killed by celebrated and hot killers, who are built and look like superheroes.

Discuss

Dec 9 (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch has lost a bid to change his family trust to consolidate control of his media empire in the hands of his son Lachlan, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing a sealed court document.

Nevada commissioner Edmund Gorman concluded in a decision filed on Saturday that Rupert Murdoch and his eldest son, Lachlan, who is the head of Fox News parent Fox Corp (FOXA.O), opens new tab and News Corp (NWSA.O), opens new tab, had acted in "bad faith" in their effort to amend the irrevocable trust, the Times reported.

The court docket indicates Gorman issued a recommendation or order Saturday, but the document is not publicly available.

The trust currently would divide control of the company equally among Rupert Murdoch’s four oldest children - Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence - after his death.

Rupert Murdoch proposed amending the family trust to solidify Lachlan's leadership of the family's media empire after the his death, and block any interference by three of Lachlan’s siblings, who are politically moderate, the Times reported.

What are your thoughts on the band. Mick Hucknall was considered sexy back in the day.

He reminds me of Susan Sarandon in this video...

We know that Biden stands firmly with corporate interests, so he will not do it.

Sad and dark, and the role of a lifetime for Miss Pam.

Jamie Lee is barely recognizable.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

1. From the Charlie’s Angels episode “Angels on the Street”

Georgia: Boy, you two really trash up the neighborhood.

Tiffany: Eat my pussy!

Kelly: Yeah! Suck our cunts for $1,000! Lol!

Georgia: Where are you whores from?

Kelly: B.F.E.

Georgia: B.F.E.?

Tiffany: Bum Fuck Egypt, you greasy thing!

Georgia: Two smart ass whores with camel toe issues.

Tiffany: You’ll think camel toe when I pull your beef curtains down half past your knees.

Kelly: Yeah, half past a monkey’s ass! Lol

Later on…

Tiffany: I can’t wait to show Freddy the $1,000 we made from not having sex with anybody!

Kelly: I know, right?! He’s so fucking stupid! Lol!!

Judy Harkins singing the poignant “If I Could See” 🎶 If I could take 2 cocks inside of me what would the total of it be if I took 3 in me?

I don’t blame him. Child molestation charges is something you never really recover from. Just because rich ass celebs were at the same party in which you were victimized, does not give your the right to maliciously lie to seek millions of dollars.

That is a pretty rough 65- Am I crazy?

He had nice skin and the type that would normally age well-

He must have gotten a lot of sun and never used sunblock-

Happy 66th!

Que pensez-vous de ce film ? L'a vu ?

Alright, girls, spill. For those of you who’ve gone under the knife (or even just dipped into the botox/filler fountain), was it worth it? Did it change your life, or are you still side eyeing your reflection wondering where it all went wrong?

And for the holdouts, would you ever do it? What’s stopping you? Money? Fear of looking like a Real Housewife after a bender? Or are you just naturally blessed and don’t need it (don’t lie)?

Let’s hear the good, the bad, and the botched.

No condiments (sweeteners), stir sticks, milks etc. out anymore. The stores look like barren corporate fallout shelters. The price is sky high. The drinks taste like shit. Only basic bitch troglodytes go there anymore. Find a local coffee shop.

GURL!

Look at this world: hyper-consumption culture, endless scrolling, social media dopamine hits, overprescription of SSRIs and painkillers, junk food addiction, dead-end jobs, grind culture haze, corporate overlords dictating life, algorithm-controlled thoughts, screen-glued faces, AI-replaced creativity, numbed emotions, empty conversations, stoned on edibles, no communication skills, meaningless self-help mantras, constant Amazon delivery dependence, clickbait-fueled outrage, fast fashion landfill mountains, Uber Eats diets, virtual reality escapism, TikTok trends as religion, and a collective detachment from purpose, nature, and each other. Sad state of affairs.

Golden Globes 2025 Nominations: ‘Emilia Perez’ Dominates Films With 10 Nods; ‘The Bear’ Leads TV With Five

I swear the breaks between shows are so long now it's easy to forget them.

I don’t touch any of them when people are around. But after hours, I basically devour everything that is still sitting out.

Her wit is hilarious. Love this chica.

Any fans of the 1981 cartoon series "Blackstar" on the DL?

The entire show has been up on YouTube for several years now.

Some say he was the first Native American cartoon hero but his ancestry is never focused on in any episode. He rode a fire breathing green dragon named Warlock & also had a white blond haired astronaut girlfriend (named Katana who resembled & predated She-Ra) that he is seen kissing in 1 episode.

His sorceress friend Mara reminds me of Princess Ariel from Thundarr & gives off lesbian vibes. In the debut episode, she is revealed to have had a long "friendship" with a sorceress named Amber who she must rescue from the show's villain The Overlord.

His other humanoid ally Klone is an awkward shapeshifter than reminds me of Star Trek's Data. No romances for him in the entire series.

The other 7 recurring characters are the "Trobbits" (name taken from tree hobbits) who are based on Disney's "Snow White & the 7 Dwarves" characters with one having large ears which he can use to fly like Dumbo (for some reason).

I watched the entire 13 episodes recently as I must've watched something else when this show was on Sat. mornings back in the early 80s.

Discuss.

are just pathetic. 🙄

A rockin' anthem for 2025 by a Miss. left wing atheist.

The Glam version of this tune will be posted inside this thread.

Enjoy!

92% on RT and it seems clear that Ariana and Cynthia will both be nominated for Oscars. The critics LOVE them.

It was bound to happen.

After it was revealed she was the lead cunt on Buffy (Not Geller), as well as being said to be a demanding bitch on the set of How I Met Your Mother, did she just give up and move on?

It's a first in the US.

Politics over health.

"A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.

Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.

While policymakers in Texas banned health departments from promoting COVID vaccinesopens in a new tab or window and Florida's surgeon generalopens in a new tab or window bucked medical consensus to recommend against the vaccine, governmental bodies across the country haven't blocked the vaccinesopens in a new tab or window outright.

"I'm not aware of anything else like this," said Adriane Casalotti, MPH, chief of government and public affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. She said health departments have stopped offering the vaccine because of cost or low demand, but not based on "a judgment of the medical product itself."

The six-county district along the Idaho-Oregon border includes three counties in the Boise metropolitan area. Demand for COVID vaccinesopens in a new tab or window in the health district has declined -- with 1,601 given in 2021 to 64 so far in 2024. The same is true for other vaccines: Idaho has the highest childhood vaccination exemption rate in the nationopens in a new tab or window, and last year, the Southwest District Health Department rushed to contain a rare measles outbreak that sickened 10."

Someone told me he does.

A continuation thread for our nattering about Britain's favourite soap.

Until very recently, American culture has operated on the flawed notion that teenage dating and sex required little encouragement. Teenage romance was once seen as a natural part of American adolescence. This, it turns out, is completely wrong. Teenage dating is not inevitable and it’s a rapidly disappearing part of the American teenage experience. These relationships often served as inspiration for Hollywood’s tragedies and comedies, but in real life they are frequently formative and incredibly valuable for young people. Moreover, the decline of teen dating may be having an especially pernicious impact on the development of young men.

In the late 1990s, Monroe County, NY, where I grew up, launched the “Not Me, Not Now” campaign to encourage teens to abstain from sex. Sex education classes in my high school offered little information, and conversations about healthy relationships and dynamics were absent. Much of the public and political attention was focused on reducing unfortunate outcomes of teenage sex. The local campaign in my community was part of a national movement to reduce teen pregnancy. The Clinton administration made addressing teenage pregnancy a priority in their first term, proposing a “national mobilization” to combat it. In 1996, the Department of Health and Human Services launched “A National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.”

It worked. Teen pregnancy fell steadily during the 1990s and continued to fall over the next two decades, mostly because more teens avoided sex altogether. Governmental surveys have recorded double-digit declines in teenage sexual experiences since the late 1980s.

For most Americans, the decline of teen pregnancies is a reason to celebrate; and for many, falling rates of teen sex represent an equally positive development.

But it’s not just sex that’s declined among teens; it’s romantic relationships overall. Teens are dating less. A survey conducted by the Survey Center on American Life found that only 56 percent of Gen Z adults—and 54 percent of Gen Z men—said they were involved in a romantic relationship at any point during their teenage years. This represents a remarkable change from previous generations, where teenage dating was much more common. More than three-quarters of Baby Boomers (78 percent) and Generation Xers (76 percent) report having had a boyfriend or girlfriend as teenagers.

Forty-four percent of Gen Z men today report having no relationship experience at all during their teen years, double the rate for older men.

Film at 11.

It was a “plandemic.”

Donald?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

... everywhere!

All the time. As twinks do.

Carl Spurlin Dekel, who spent his special day on June 29 with friends and family, broke down in tears as he told Fox13 in an interview shared the day after that his fellow soldiers did not die in the war for what America has now purportedly become.

“People don’t realize what they have… the things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it, it’s all gone down the drain. Our country is going to hell in a handbasket,” Dekel said.

According to the Silver Star recipient, he has lived a good life, attributing his longevity, happiness and good health to his appreciation for the small things.

“I sincerely believe in this whole world, that everything is beautiful,” he shared. “If I wake up in the morning and see these plants out here… and all those flowers that are in there, and the green grass on the ground, that’s beautiful.”

While the native of Lakeland, Florida, takes pride in all the awards and recognition he has received, his memories of his friends in the Marines who he lost in the war bring him to tears.

“We haven’t got the country we had when I was raised, not at all,” Dekel claimed. “Nobody will have the fun I had. Nobody will have the opportunity I had. It’s just not the same. And that’s not what our boys, that’s not what they died for.”

While Dekel did not go into details, his dissatisfaction with the country’s current state reflects the views of the majority of the population based on a survey by Pew Research Center published in January.

The study reveals that 21 percent of Americans are satisfied with “the way things are going in the country today,” while 78 percent feel dissatisfied. The study also noted that the majority of the public view the country’s current economic situation in a negative light.

In addition to accelerating inflation, the U.S. also faces rises in mass shootings, hate incidents and other violent crimes.

“I want the young kids to realize that freedom comes with a heavy price,” Dekle said in an interview with Plant City Courier & Tribune in 2009. “It isn’t given to people out of the goodness of others. It’s something you have to fight and sometimes die for.”

Gorgeous!

They are really leaning into the American Psycho vibe

That last thread filled up, continue on.

Musk is running the show now.

This kid from Anora, "the Russian Chalamet", is now the male LEAD in Mr. & Mrs. Smith season 2.

Gurl, how? No homegrown talent left, Britain and Canada and Australia mined to death, so we're importing twink actors from Russia now?

The wealthy family owns a radio station that airs right-wing programming.

It seems Luigi went cray cray about six months ago and the family just dropped him instead of trying to get him help.

They are going to face one hell of a civil suit and this makes my heart smile.

I'd say yes, but there's nuances. "Selling out" exists on a scale, imo.

These days, a lot of people have a "get that bag!" reaction when they see artists doing paycheck gigs. I'm somewhere in the middle.

What was she going to tell him?

A true gem nestled in Gramercy Park. It’s unique, dramatic, and packed with character, no boring white box.

And as if the house weren’t enough, wait until you see the agent – talk about curb appeal! Woof.

The feeble President-elect sits down with "Meet The Press" and does what he does best: exaggerates, lies, promises, retracts, feels sorry for himself and hints at revenge.

Former thread.

I love and admire Harry Hamlin for starring in this movie.

It took real courage for a male actor in 1980/1981 to take on a gay role like this.

Kudos to both him and Michael Ontkean.

The Top 10:

1. Beyonce 2. Taylor Swift 3. Rihanna 4. Drake 5. Lady Gaga 6. Britney Spears 7. Kanye West 8. Justin Bieber 9. Ariana Grande 10. Adele

James Carville, the legendary Democratic strategist, called Joe Biden “the most tragic figure in American politics” Friday, suggesting that had the president bowed out earlier, a Democrat would have won.

During the latest episode of his podcast Politics War Room, Carville said that Biden “knows he f---ed up” by deciding to keeping running, before letting Kamala Harris step late in the cycle in the wake of his disastrous debate with Donald Trump.

“The most tragic figure in American politics in my lifetime is President Biden,” Carville said.

“The different scenario would be, if he would have in September of 2023 or August said that he wasn’t going to run, godd--n, we would have won this election,” Carville added. “And it wouldn’t have been that close because we would have had so many frickin’ talented people that were running.”

Had that happened and a Democrat won, Biden would be leaving office on a “high note” right now, according to Carville, who spearheaded the strategy for Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign.

“He would be the toast of Washington,” Carville said. “It would be a Democratic inauguration coming up, and a new Democratic president could have gotten away with commuting any sentence that Hunter Biden got. And it would have been minimal—there would have been some pushback, but, you know: ‘In the interest of the Biden family and President Biden’s long and distinguished service to the community, I’m going to commute the sentence.’”

Where can i get one of these?

St. Jude's, Shriner's, and Easter Seals has launched their 'giving' campaign on us as they parade and exploit their sick patients on every cable channel. Every other commercial on MSNBC is from one of these charities, asking us to 'give' to these exploited children / families on our screen (though cheery Marlo Thomas is missing this season - must know it's not a good look since Phil died a month ago).

So before you go apple picking with your grandkids, before you go for a family hayride, before you plan your Thanksgiving dinner, and before you tag your Christmas tree...won't you remember the less fortunate and write out a hefty check in this robust economy ? Pwease ? For the sake of Caleb and profit margins ?

I can't wait for the middle of October when the Medicare commercials start with Mad Martha...

Donald Trump’s pick for US Surgeon General was involved in a tragic gun accident that killed her father when she was only 13 years old.

Dr Janette Nesheiwat was a teenager when she accidentally knocked a loaded gun over, which fired upon impact and fatally shot her father in the head.

The incident occurred in February 1990 at her family's home in Umatilla, Florida, according to a report by the New York Times.

A police report reviewed by the newspaper states that Nesheiwat was reaching for a pair of scissors in a tackle box on a shelf above her father's bed when the container tipped over and spilled its contents, including a handgun.

The gun discharged, and the bullet hit her father in the head. He died in a hospital the next day.

Though she does not frequently speak about the incident, Nesheiwat said it inspired her to become a doctor. She worked for 15 years as an urgent care doctor for the New York City-based CityMD clinic chain.

She gained some prominence among Republicans when she began appearing on Fox News as a medical contributor during the Covid-19 pandemic.

If she is confirmed, Nesheiwat will replace sitting US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy. He served as the Surgeon General during the start of Trump's first presidential administration but was dismissed in 2017. Joe Biden appointed him to the spot again in 2021.

Murthy has been a proponent for treating gun violence — including accidental gun deaths like the one Nesheiwat experienced — as a public health issue. That stance has left him unpopular with Republican lawmakers, who have gone so far as to ban the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence as a public health issue.

Despite her tragic experience with gun violence, there is no indication that Nesheiwat will break with fellow Republicans on the issue.

In an upcoming memoir she's writing, Nesheiwat mentions her father's death in the opening lines of the book, according to the New York Times.

“When I was 13 years old, I helplessly watched my dear father dying from an accident as blood was spurting everywhere,” she writes. “I couldn’t save his life."

The book, titled “Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine,” does not mention that he died as a result of being shot accidentally by a loaded family firearm, according to the Times.

They are not letting a cash grabbing, mentally ill victim stop their stride.

I posted the video of her hot/slim/good looking passive husband. She's very chatty.

Currently screening on UK TV. Usual paint-by-numbers gay romcom series with levered-in diversity. I fear I didn't laff once. Suspect also it's too Brit to translate to the US.

DL catnip!!

Katha Pollitt hits it out of the park once again.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Just about every charity on television these days - whether for children or animals - asks the viewer to subscribe for just $19 a month which is 63 cents a day.

What is so magical about $19 a month for these charities ? Is know it's less than $20 a month, so are they thinking asking $20 /mo would be 'too much' for viewers to contribute ?

The dreadful antics were carried out at an office party.

'They weren’t capable of consenting'

Five former members of staff told the BBC they had witnessed Dr James groping and kissing a junior member of staff, who they said was "too drunk to stand or talk" and "unable to consent".

For a population whom everybody loves and fetishizes, especially straight men, I just can't make heads or tails over how much they don't struggling and don't exist?

Meanwhile, gay men whom everybody else hates, have thriving businesses, bars, apps, neighborhoods.

What gives?

They had to let her go and replace her with cheaper actors.

Meh:

We need more Medicare Advantage Plan Adverts. Martha, Martha, why have you abandoned us???

And I have a Sir.

He has me in chastity.

This was the pair stolen twenty years ago from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and then returned much later.

If you've ever seen these or the ones at the Smithsonian, they're very disappointing, IMO. but how could they ever possibly equal the fabulousness they have when lit by MGM's best designers in the movie?

When did he turn into Jesus

Just because I love this picture...

I’m watching House Hunters and a single woman needed a “get ready” room as part of her house hunt.

I thought it was a made up thing. But maybe not.

"Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome," Ramaswamy and Musk write in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Part of the job cuts sought by DOGE and Trump could come by way of a strict in-person work requirement.

Ramaswamy told Carlson the 8am-6pm, five-day workweek could produce a "25% thinning out of the federal bureaucracy." Trump has said that "as many as 100,000 government positions can be moved out — and I mean immediately — of Washington."

She looks like Salome dancing for Herod, very uncharacteristic.

Well, he’s one of the stars who cover it for the 2024 Men of the Year issue, where he was awarded as one of the men of the year.

Brad Pitt’s daughter Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is making moves in court to have a judge quickly sign off on her request to drop his famous last name, In Touch can exclusively reveal.

According to court documents obtained by In Touch, Shiloh, 18, recently took out a spot in The Los Angeles Time announcing the petition she filed.

Angelina Jolie's daughter required to place the notice in the local paper before her petition can be approved by the court.

The newspaper notice explains Shiloh filed a petition for a decree changing names from Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt to simply Shiloh Nouvel Jolie.

The notice told all persons interested in this matter or anyone who believes the petition should not be granted should show up to court later this month.

As In Touch previously reported, Shiloh submitted her petition in Los Angeles on her 18th birthday, May 27.

She told the court the reason for dropping her last name was “personal” but she did not expand on the answer.

A source close to Angelina, 49, told Entertainment Tonight that Shiloh hired her own attorney and paid for everything herself. The insider told the outlet, “Angie doesn’t know and can’t speak for it.”

Insiders told In Touch that Brad, 60, was "blindsided" by the decision, but he "wasn't surprised."

“He feels that Angie has slowly but surely turned their kids against him. She absolutely influenced their decisions to distance themselves from their dad,” the source said.

Now, he shares his experience of being incarcerated for one year, and on house arrest (with ankle monitor) for two years.

He's hot and well spoken.

I wonder if he's single, and ready to mingle?

A girl matched him on Tinder. However, his Tinder profile said he is bi

Found this on YouTube,

That's what the reaction to the CEO shooter is telling us. It wasn't based on party. Most of America agrees on the issue of greedy health insurers and soaring healthcare costs. Watch the sketch and you'll see.

Avengers Doomsday budget is probably close to $150 million already just paying four people (Evans, Downey Jr. and the Russos.)

How is this sustainable? This is going to end up being a $600 million budgeted film. (The most expensive movie budget ever is The Force Awakens at $447 million, a decade ago, about $600 million today).

Sells bad paintings of Capri Suns on Etsy these days.

Pump.Fun is what the kids do now, they make a memecoin crypto for news events, random shit etc. I would bet this crypto hits a billion market cap soon.

Not one catchy or hummable tune.

I saw a reference to British actress Kathy Burke in a recent thread. I wondered if the British version of Will and Grace, Gimme,Gimme,Gimme in which she starred with Tom Dreyfus had made it across the pond?

Holy shit, this guy is the real life Vincent from Collateral. He completed the job and has already fled the country.

This compromise is acceptable.

And how was it?

Let’s share interesting, little-known facts about entertainment productions.

I’ll start — SoongeBob SquarePants was originally named “SoongeBoy.” The creator of the show was a marine biologist who wanted kids to be aware of tidal animals, so he named his sponge protagonist “SpongeBoy.” The entire first episode was recorded.

Then Legal at Nickelodeon discovered the name “SpongeBoy” was copyrighted.

So they either had to go back and redo the audio for the entire episode, or figure out some way to patch over it. Boy became Bob, an easy fix in editing. It’s a very strange name but was created out of need, not quirk.

More from Walford here.

Conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) on Monday pointed to what he called the “anti-capitalist” views of the 26-year-old man named as a person of interest in the investigation of the shooting death of a UnitedHealthcare executive to argue “leftism is a mental disease.”

Cruz linked to a New York Post story about the arrest of a person of interest in the shooting while condemning “leftists” who have voiced sympathy with the masked shooter or expressed satisfaction over the executive’s brutal killing in midtown Manhattan.

“Leftism is a mental disease,” Cruz wrote in a post on social platform X, saying the person arrested by police “subscribed to anti-capitalist and climate-change causes, according to law-enforcement,” quoting the New York Post story.

In his post, Cruz also wrote that the person who killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO “has been widely celebrated by leftists online. Tragic & sick.”

The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has fueled a broader political debate after many people expressed sympathy with the suspect and frustrations with the health insurance industry on social media. Thompson was shot by an assailant outside a New York City hotel where UnitedHealthcare was to hold a conference.

Police on Monday announced the arrest of Luigi Mangione as a person of interest. He was arrested in Altoona, Pa., Monday morning and reportedly had a manifesto criticizing health care companies.

The health care executive’s killer left a message on some of the shell casings at the scene. The spent brass had the words “deny,” “delay” and “depose” inscribed on it, echoing the title of a 2010 book that’s critical of the health care industry.

Mangione was taken into custody but has not yet been charged in the killing.

Otherwise she just keeps talking and talking and talking about how she's been cancelled.....or hasn't been cancelled....or whatever other nonsense comes to her cock-laden mind and gets belched out of her dick breath mouth.

Jay-Z better get this mess together quickly before he ruins the Queen’s reputation. And yes I believe he is innocent.

I lost my wallet yesterday. I'm thinking about going completely walletless. It feels weird, like walking out the door naked. It seems everything, including my state driver license, when the replacement arrives, can be stored/used in an app like Google Wallet. If you go walletless, have you encountered any problems or issues?

It's a new year, so time for a new thread! Let's start from where we left off in 2023...

Look at all those 80s fashions! Malls were the center of everything back then. When was the last time you were in a mall?

Barron Trump prefers to stay out of the limelight compared to his father, Donald Trump, so we are not sure how he feels about being the hottest trend on TikTok right now. CNN recently resurfaced a clip of young Barron talking to his mom, Melania Trump, about his suitcase.

Barron has the Daily Mail to thank for putting the clip on TikTok because it was his preschooler baby voice that had everyone jumping on the trend. “I like my suitcase,” he said in the video while holding his father’s briefcase. He then asked Melania, “I have to go to school now?” It’s rare to hear the now-18-year-old speak, but as a young child, he had a Slovenian accent similar to his mother.

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak with former first lady Melania Trump and Barron Trump during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on November 06, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Americans cast their ballots today in the presidential race between Republican nominee former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as multiple state elections that will determine the balance of power in Congress. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

In true internet form, there is also a remix version of “I like my suitcase,” (or “sootcase” on TikTok) which came at the perfect time for the Thanksgiving holiday. As travelers headed out for the long weekend at the airport, they’ve been using the audio sound for themselves, and yes, their cats as they get into their pet carriers.

The video originally aired in 2010 on Larry King Live when Barron was only four years old. He was dressed just like his dad in a blue sports coat and white shirt. Melania was heard sweetly interacting with her son after he asked, “I have to go to school now?”

You have lunch, and then you go to school,” she responded.

He asked again, “Now I’m gonna go?”

“First you will have lunch, then you will go to school,” she reassured him while he clutched his briefcase.

During the interview, King noted Barron’s accent to his parents. Melania revealed, “He spends most of the time with me.”

King asked Donald Trump, “What do you think of that?”

“I think it’s great,” Donald Trump said “Anything he does is OK with me.”

“He speaks three languages, actually,” said his proud mom.

“Smart one,” concluded Donald Trump.

From r207 of "The United Healthcare Killer Could Be a FOREIGN ASSASSIN" thread.

[quote] I want a DL poll to find out how many hope he gets away clean, how many want him caught

Take my poll please.

This better be a next-level stunt for her upcoming album. He is MAGA trash.

[bold]The more attractive they are, the higher the price.[/bold]

Wendy Chen decided to challenge herself by climbing Mount Tai, a well-known mountain in eastern China.

But there was one obstacle in her way: she couldn’t find a friend to join her for the five-hour trek.

Rather than forgo her plans, the 25-year-old hired a “climbing buddy,” a young man with extensive outdoor experience, to accompany and support her to the 5,000-foot peak.

Known in Chinese as “pei pa” (meaning “accompany to climb”), these are young Chinese men who join strangers on their journeys up popular mountains for a price. The trend has gained momentum this year, as hashtags related to “climbing buddy” have had over 100 million views on Chinese social media.

Young, athletic individuals, often university students or even military veterans, advertise themselves on social media platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin, with profiles featuring their height, fitness level and hiking experience. They usually charge between 200 to 600 yuan ($30 to $85) per trip.

During the climb, these “buddies” will do anything to distract their clients from feeling exhausted and push them to keep going: from singing, telling jokes, playing music, verbal encouragement, going so far as carrying their bags, holding their hands, and pulling them.

Chen and her climbing buddy’s adventure began at around 8:00 pm so she could arrive at the peak in time for the famous sunrise. After assessing her fitness level, her climbing buddy planned a moderate route and carried her backpack the whole way.

When they faced chilling winds at the peak, Chen’s climbing buddy rented a thick coat for her while directing her to a walled shelter.

At the moment the sun rose, Chen’s climbing buddy was already prepared with a national flag and other props so that she could take a memorable photo. Though she felt his photography skills still had room to improve, she rated her climbing buddy as “satisfactory.” The service cost her 350 yuan ($49).

Though Chen paid a typical price for a climbing buddy, she acknowledges that more good-looking buddies can command higher rates.

“Attractiveness is also part of their strength,” she says.

Climbing buddies’ main customers tend to be single young women, but that’s slowly changing.

A video of a strong male university student carrying a three-year-old effortlessly up a steep mountain — while the toddler’s mother trailed far behind — went viral this summer.

Chris Zhang, a 20-year-old university student, seized on the opportunity this summer. While some of his classmates opted for traditional internships, Zhang had a go advertising himself online as a climbing buddy.

With national holidays driving up demand, Zhang has already earned over 20,000 yuan ($2,800) in the past three months. In the same period, some of his classmates were on a mere 2,000 yuan ($280) monthly wage doing a customer service internship.

Zhang says being a climbing buddy gives him not just a higher salary but also more freedom to be outside instead of sitting in front of a computer all day.

Other buddies, like Chen Wudi, have taken it as a serious job.

After quitting a stressful sales role in April, the 27-year-old embraced his love for hiking and became a full-time climbing buddy.

Currently, Chen is taking nearly 40 bookings and earning around 20,000 yuan ($2,800) per month. That’s more than double the average monthly salary in China, according to recent government data. Business is so good that he has moved to Tai’an City, right by the foot of Mount Tai.

“Basically, I’m climbing mountains every day. Sometimes twice a day or even three times a day,” says Chen.

Popular climbing buddies like him get orders for mountains all over the country, and he will go climb any mountain if the transportation is covered by clients.

Despite the attractive income, Chen admits the work may not be sustainable because it is physically taxing.

“It hurts my knees very much, so I may only be able to keep doing this for a few months or half a year.”

He’s not handsome. He’s not as good looking as Charlie Puth or Justin Bieber or Shawn Mendes or Benson Boone.

He can’t sing. He doesn’t play any musical instruments.

He can’t pronounce proper English.

His music sucks and sounds terrible.

Why is he debuting at No. 1? I don’t understand.