Oklahoma City sports radio host and former Major League Baseball player Jim Traber issued an apology for nearly blurting out the N-word on-air.

Traber’s mistake came as he addressed the harassment Carmelo Anthony received last week from Philadelphia fans during the Lakers game against the 76ers. Thursday night, Anthony confronted Philly fans who were taunting him with the racially charged word “boy.”

Friday afternoon on 98.1 The Sports Animal, Traber went on a rant to defend Anthony and condemn the Philly fans, but as he discussed things people shouldn’t say, the radio host allegedly almost let the N-word slip. After listeners pointed out the shocking mistake on Twitter, Traber posted a video to say sorry “if I offended anybody.”

“If you were listening, I was talking about what happened with Carmelo Anthony in Philadelphia about how they were making offensive words towards him,” Traber said. “I was talking about how disgusting it is when people do that. And I was basically talking about a couple of things that you just can’t say.”

We hear you. We sympathize and apologize. Here’s an official statement from Jim Traber regarding the on air segment earlier today. pic.twitter.com/ddUoO45HFN

— The Sports Animal (@sportsanimal) January 29, 2022

“While I was doing it with the passion that I normally have, one of the words almost came out of my mouth. And I would love to tell everybody out there that I am very sorry from the bottom of my heart if I offended you…I think everyone that listens to me knows where my heart is and I just feel terrible if I offended anybody.”

The Sports Animal is owned by Cumulus Media. Late last year, Sam Mayes of rival Oklahoma City sports radio station 107.7 The Franchise was terminated by Tyler Media after a 2016 conversation racist to Native Americans was leaked.

Based on Traber’s apology and the critical tweets from listeners, the incident did appear to be an accident, albeit a head-scratching one.

Whoopi Golberg clashed with The View co-hosts after she claimed that “the Holocaust isn’t about race,” while discussing book censorship in schools.

The hosts pointed Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, noting that a Tennessee school district removed it from their curriculum.

“This was the plan with these anti-history laws that started being passed. These CRT — alleged CRT laws — started being passed,” Sunny Hostin said of the progression of censorship in schools. “I don’t think people saw far enough into the future. You start banning discussions about race, and then you start banning discussions about the Holocaust, then you start banning discussions about the LGBTQ community. That’s where it started, and this was all very planned in my view.”

Hostin went on to condemn parents who have taken issue with discussions of race because it makes their children “uncomfortable,” arguing that discomfort can help students learn how to empathize with others.

“If you teach a white kid what happened to his friend who happens to be black, he might feel terrible about what happened. That doesn’t mean he feels bad that he did something,” Joy Behar added. “This is the confusion they’re creating I believe.”

Sara Haines went on to highlight colleges and universities, pointing to a conversation The View hosts had with Van Jones, in which he argued that students should be prepared for pushback on their beliefs.

“If you’re going to do this, then let’s be truthful about it, because the Holocaust isn’t about race,” Goldberg added, prompting some confusion from her fellow hosts. “No. It’s not about race.”

When Behar noted that Nazis “considered Jews a different race,” Goldberg continued to insist that the Holocaust was not about race and instead about “man’s inhumanity to man.”

“But it’s about White supremacy,” Navarro pushed back, also noting that Nazis targeted Romas and other demographics.

Goldberg went on to say that the Holocaust was about “two White groups of people,” prompting Haines to emphasize that World War II Nazis did not see Jewish people as White.

“But you’re missing the point. You’re missing the point. The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other. That’s the problem. It doesn’t matter if you are Black or White, because Black, White, Jews, Italians, everybody eats each other,” Goldberg continued.

“So is it — if you are uncomfortable if you hear about Maus, should you be worried — should your child say, oh my God, I wonder if that’s me? No. That’s not what they’re going to say. They’re going to say, I don’t want to be like that.”

Watch above, via ABC.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) received a less than friendly welcome at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Conroe, Texas over the weekend.

Abbott, who has Trump’s endorsement for reelection this year, was booed by many in the crowd as he was announced to take the stage on Saturday night.

“Abbott sucks” and “You’re a RINO” could be heard in video clips that circulated on social media after the rally. “RINO” is a derogatory term in conservative circles meaning, “Republican in name only.”

Katrina Pierson, a former spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 campaign responded on Twitter, writing, “It was very awkward.”

While Abbott managed to snatch a coveted endorsement last June from Trump, with the former president praising him as a “fighter and a great governor for the incredible people of Texas,” his primary challengers this cycle have apparently eroded his support from the right.

It was very awkward. https://t.co/tflMhTjCvV

— Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) January 30, 2022

Former state Senator Don Huffines, who is challenging Abbott in 2022, slammed the governor at CPAC in July, calling him a “RINO.”

“We don’t have a Donald Trump as governor. We don’t have a Ron DeSantis as governor. We don’t have a William B. Travis as governor. Unfortunately, we’ve got a career politician that’s a political windsock, a RINO,” Huffines told the conservative political group.

Huffines has been attacking Abbot as weak on immigration, while former Florida congressman and chair of the Texas Republican Party Allen West has been critical of the governor’s handling of the southern border and Covid-19.

Politico noted in July 2022, that Texas “grassroots conservatives are still fuming over his [Abbott’s] initial decisions to lock down the state during the coronavirus pandemic,” which has given both West and Huffines an opening to challenge the governor from the right.

West, who topped Abbot in one January 2022 Republican primary poll, is trailing with a mere 6 percent in the most recent Dallas Morning News poll – while Abbott leads with 59 percent of the vote. Huffine received 4 percent of the vote.

A North Carolina man is refusing to get vaccinated for Covid, even to make himself eligible for a life-saving kidney transplant.

Chad Carswell, a double amputee who has undergone major heart surgeries in the past, has kidneys that are only functioning at 4 percent, and he is currently undergoing dialysis three times a week while he seeks out a transplant. Carswell was undergoing scans and tests at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in hopes of receiving a new transplant, but the hospital refuses to conduct the surgery unless he and his kidney donor are both vaccinated, and Carswell refuses to get the shot.

“I was born free. I will die free,” Carswell told WSOC. “I’m not changing my mind. I’ve had conversations with my family and everybody that’s close to me. They know where I stand, and it’ll not be a situation that occurs that I will choose to change my mind on this topic.”

Carswell told reporters friends and local businesses raised money for the transplant, and that more than 100 people have offered to donate a kidney to him. He said his vaccination status came up during conversations with the hospital, and when informed of their policy requiring vaccines for transplants, Carswell said he still wouldn’t get it.

“‘You know you’ll die, if you don’t get it’” Carswell recalled from the hospital staff. “And I said, ‘I’m willing to die.’”

A spokesperson for the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital gave a statement to the Washington Post explaining their policy is in accordance with health standards around the country. It also emphasizes transplant patients face a high risk of severe illness from Covid if they aren’t vaccinated beforehand.

“[Our] policy follows the current standard of care in the United States, which is to vaccinate all patients on waiting lists or being evaluated for transplant,” the statement said. “We understand that some patients may not wish to be vaccinated. In this case, patients can opt to be evaluated at another transplant center.”

Carswell’s case comes after D.J. Ferguson, an unvaccinated father of two in Massachusetts, was denied a heart transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital because he refuses to be vaccinated. Ferguson’s family recently appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show to talk about his ordeal, which the Fox News host decried as a “moral tragedy” instead of suggesting that Ferguson get vaccinated.

Like Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital has acknowledged in their guidelines that transplant patients have a higher risk of dying from Covid without getting vaccinated before the surgery. Furthermore, the hospital and other medical ethicists have noted the supply and demand for organs, making the point that transplants are scarce and should be used on patients with the greatest possible chance of post-surgery survival.

Watch above, via WSOCTV9.

The View kicked off its Monday program with a discussion of the recent controversy surrounding podcaster Joe Rogan and his 10-minute video apology on Sunday in which he promised to “balance things out” in the future amid accusations of spreading Covid-19 misinformation.

Rogan’s apology came in the wake of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell boycotting Spotify – the streaming service which pays Rogan hundreds of millions of dollars to host his podcast. Spotify announced on Sunday it would update its platform rules and slap a content advisory onto content that deals with Covid-19.

“I am so used to seeing these people who lie and misinform and spread conspiracy theories double down instead of apologizing,” said cohost Ana Navarro. “Even though he is not my cup of tea, I don’t listen to him, I don’t agree with him, I found it refreshing to hear the words I’m sorry come out of his mouth.”

Sonny Hostin was a bit tougher on Rogan, saying, “He still, I think, wrote the line. I think he wrote the line on his pedaling misinformation.

“There is a lot of things that he said. I don’t endorse Joe Rogan. I don’t listen to Joe Rogan. It’s a three-hour podcast. I don’t know who has that time anyway. In regards to this specific thing, I thought his apology was refreshing because he said, ‘I can do better,’” added Sara Haines, agreeing with Navarro’s take that Rogan’s apology was “refreshing.”

Rogan said on Sunday: “I pledge to balance out the more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspective so many we can find a better point of view, I don’t want to just show the contrary opinion to what the narrative it, I want to show all kinds of opinions. My point was to create interesting conversations, and ones people enjoy.”

Rogan added, “If I’ve pissed you off, I’m sorry. And if you enjoy the podcast, thank you.”

“He told us about the Spotify disclaimers. He is going to do better to have opposing views right after another. I guess he does his own scheduling and he said, I can do better at that,” Haines continued.

“I can do better at preparing. He wings it because he is one of the first podcasts that came on and just was a bunch of friends talking and that was enough to make a good podcast. I appreciated that he said I was wrong, I see the concern, I appreciate the pushback and I am going to do this. We don’t see that enough.”

Cohost Joy Behar added, “let’s see if they put their money where their mouth is” before nothing she wished more artists had joined the boycott to pressure Spotify into addressing misinformation on its platform.

Whoopi Goldberg concluded the segment noting that the digital media landscape has made filtering content for actual news difficult as these are “these are not news programs, these are ‘this is what I think, programs” and added, “hopefully they are moving in the right direction.”

Watch the full clip above via ABC

Spotify is the leading music streaming service, but its Premium membership might not be for everyone. Maybe you have a better deal with Apple Music or Amazon Prime Music. Maybe you don’t want to support Spotify because of the Joe Rogan fiasco. No matter your reason is, if you’re looking to break up with Spotify, the…

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Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pushed back on his fellow Republicans attacking President Joe Biden’s commitment to nominate an African American woman to replace Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

CBS’ Margaret Brennan interviewed Graham on Sunday for Face The Nation, and asked the senator about Biden’s reaffirmed promise to nominate a Black woman as Breyer’s successor. Brennan also noted the White House’s confirmation that South Carolina U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs is among the potential nominees for Biden’s consideration.

Asked for his thoughts on Childs’ possible appointment, Graham said “I can’t think of a better person for President Biden to consider to the Supreme Court.” He added that Childs “has wide support in our state,” praising her as “fair-minded,” “highly qualified,” and “one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.”

As Graham continued with his admiration for Childs, Brennan interjected to note that Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and other conservatives are demeaning Biden’s pledge by arguing it boils down to affirmative action. This prompted Brennan to ask why is Biden’s pledge different from when former President Ronald Reagan promised to nominate a woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, to the bench.

“Well it’s not different to me,” Graham answered before saying Childs’ nomination would not be an affirmative action choice if Biden goes ahead with it.

Affirmative action is picking somebody not as well qualified for past wrongs. Michelle Childs is incredibly qualified. There’s no affirmative action component if you pick her. She is highly qualified. And President Reagan said running for office that he wanted to put the first female on the court. Whether you like it or not, Joe Biden said, I’m going to pick an African-American woman to serve on the Supreme Court. I believe there are plenty of qualified African-American women, conservative and liberal, that could go onto the court. I don’t see Michelle Childs as an act of affirmative action. I do see putting a black woman on the court, making the court more like America…

Watch above, via CBS

After any winter storm comes the time when you have to get out from under the blanket, and head outside to take care of your sidewalks and/or driveway. Clearing the snow away is one part of the job, but once the rest of the snow starts to melt when the sun comes out during the day—and then freezes again when…

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Comic and pundit Bill Maher cheered this week’s cryptocurrency market losses and called its very existence “f**king stupid!”

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the host began his monologue by cheering all the bad news for cryptocurrency this week.

“I think I know why you’re happy,” Maher told the cheering crowd. “I think because you did not invest in crypto, that was a very wise thing!”

He went on to rip crypto some more and praise the “actual economy,” citing recently-released GDP figures:

Yes, crypto. I was hoping for this. It’s horrible for the environment. You know it. It’s just fucking stupid. And it has crashed like a rock. They’ve lost almost a trillion dollars. I mean, people in the metaverse are jumping off virtual buildings. It’s rough.

And you know who got it, the millennials, because they thought it was cool. And now they’re like, wait, you mean it was a bad idea to put all my savings into an imaginary currency with a dog on it?

But you know what’s doing good? The actual economy. You know, where people buy shit. Makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah, as the economy grew 5.7 percent, the most since 1984.

Of course, we still have problems. Inflation, supply.

But you know, workers, they can’t get enough workers and listen to in this country that’s still paranoid about the virus. They’re pressuring workers, because they don’t have enough, to go to work when they’re sick. I think I saw it the other day at the supermarket. The guy who bagged my groceries asked me if I could help him get to the car.

He went on to address inflation, the months-ago price increase at the Dollar Tree, and inclusive m&ms.

Watch above via HBO.

L: Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images R: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Belief in former President Donald Trump’s insurrection-fueling “Big Lie” has become a de facto requirement for Republican candidates, according to a jaw-dropping new poll.

More than a year after Trump’s rally to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election culminated in a violent and deadly attack on the Capitol — which did not prevent President Joe Biden from taking his rightful office — adherence to the false article of faith that fueled it has only grown among Republicans.

Poll after poll shows overwhelming numbers of Republicans who falsely believe that the election was “stolen” from Trump, but a new Yahoo! News/ YouGov poll puts a disturbingly fine point on that.

According to Yahoo!, only 17 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they “would consider voting for a candidate who accurately characterizes Biden’s victory as legitimate.”

And a whopping 59 percent said they definitely would not vote for any candidate who admits that Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square.”

The pollsters say this is already having an effect:

These numbers underscore the degree to which Trump’s “big lie” claiming Biden cheated his way into the White House — a falsehood that three-quarters of Trump voters (74 percent) now believe — has become a litmus test for the entire GOP, crowding out other issues and strengthening Trump’s grip on the party ahead of the 2022 midterms.

For his part, Trump has made it clear that supporting his election fabrications is key to his own personal endorsement. Indeed, the former president is backing primary candidates against state officials who bucked his attempts to overturn the election.

The poll data also helps explain why Republican presidential hopefuls such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now want to spend millions of dollars on special “election crimes” police units tasked with finding fraud where they previously insisted there was none.

Another YouGov poll released this week found only 25 percent of Republicans believe “Biden legitimately won the election,” versus 62 percent of all Americans who said the same.

Part of the appeal of Fridays is looking forward to what you’re going to do over the weekend (at least for those who typically have Saturdays and Sundays off). Maybe you start off thinking that you’ll take some time to relax, but after an hour or two on the couch or in bed (or wherever you go to unwind), a feeling of…

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Your heart beats faster when you’re working hard, so it’s a good way to tell if you’re exercising hard enough...right? Well, not exactly. Your heart rate is only a good gauge of effort in certain types of exercise. And it can even steer you wrong if the numbers are miscalibrated.

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President Joe Biden and Justice Stephen Breyer confirmed the latter’s upcoming retirement from the Supreme Court on Thursday, and the president recommitted to his promise of who he will look for to be his successor.

Biden and Breyer made the news official with a joint event at the White House, where the president began by honoring Breyer’s legacy on the bench. After that, Biden turned his attention to his duty to nominate Breyer’s successor, saying “our process is gonna be rigorous” to determine who that shall be.

While Biden said he has not decided on a nominee yet, he announced that he will fulfill his 2020 campaign promise by searching for an African American woman to take Breyer’s place.

The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity, and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue in my view. I made that commitment during my campaign for president and I will keep that commitment.

Biden went on to say he would consult with Vice President Kamala Harris, bipartisan members of the Senate, and other legal scholars to decide on the nominee. He said that his intention is to decide on a nominee by the end of February.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

I recently saw a TikTok featuring a young woman who didn’t know how to use a toaster oven, claiming something to the effect of, “My parents just always made my toast and I didn’t know there were different settings. Mine came out cold—and untoasted.” Needless to say, I was shook.

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Jason Kempin, Getty Images

The past several years have featured multiple tragic headlines about people killed in police custody, but if you’re Tomi Lahren, every single one of those cases was because people weren’t complying with police and were resisting arrest — and that’s sadly not even the worst message your taxpayer dollars are paying for police officers to hear.

In an eye-opening investigative report for the Washington Post, Robert Klemko covered the controversial content and rhetoric present at police training conferences across the country that stands in sharp contrast with the public’s support for reforms and training in de-escalation techniques and avoiding excessive force.

There is “little guidance or oversight for what officers should be taught,” wrote Klemko, who researched the article by interviewing conference speakers and police training experts and attending (either in person or online) various police training conferences around the country.

He found multiple speakers who “tell officers that pushback against conventional policing is a media invention,” who “demonize civilian protesters and reformers,” and who tell police officers they “should maintain a ‘warrior mentality’ to weather the rigors of what they describe as the most dangerous job outside of military service.”

The reality, as Klemko noted, is that law enforcement is the 22nd most dangerous occupation in the U.S., “safer than roofing and collecting garbage.”

Lahren fits right into this aggressive mindset. Klemko reported on her speech at the Street Cop Training Conference in Atlantic City last October, describing her as the “most anticipated presenter” there.

“If I’m wrong, please point it out,” Lahren declared. “But all these major headline incidents that we’ve had in this country involving law enforcement in the last at least five years could have all been prevented if people would just comply with police, would follow orders and not resist arrest.”

Bless your heart, Ms. Lahren. Since you asked, yes, I will be more than happy to point out how you are wrong. So very, very wrong. 

The murder — and it was legally a murder, a jury said so — of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is unquestionably the most prominent “major headline incident” from the past few years of a police officer killing a suspect in their custody, with the international protests and front page stories the case generated.

Lahren may try to point to Floyd’s initial resistance as justification, and in a factual sense, it is reasonable to argue that George Floyd’s name would not have become a hashtag had he immediately complied with the police when they arrested him that fateful day in Minneapolis.

But that’s not how we morally or legally judge these situations. As Minneapolis Chief of Police Medaria Arradondo testified in Chauvin’s trial, while there may have been “an initial reasonableness in trying to get [Floyd] under control in the first few seconds,” his actions restraining Floyd  “absolutely” violated department policy and “should have stopped…once there was no longer any resistance and clearly when Mr. Floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless.”

Whatever justification Chauvin might have had to use force at the beginning of the encounter was not a permanent blanket excuse for everything that followed. And again, Floyd did not die because he resisted. The testimony of pulmonary specialist Dr. Martin Tobin and other experts made it clear that Floyd died from a continued low level of oxygen to his brain and heart, occurring after he was no longer physically resisting or even able to do so.

Let’s remember the broader point: do we want our police officers trained by people who tell them that if someone resists arrest at all, then any and all abusive acts of force and violence inflicted by the police afterward are completely justified? Of course not.

How exactly Floyd was “resisting arrest” when he was unconscious, when his heartbeat was getting slower and weaker with each passing moment? What else could he have done to “just comply with police” when an officer knelt on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, continuing long after a detectable pulse could be found? Those questions are ridiculous to even ask, and illustrate how Lahren’s comments are an absolutely wrong lesson to be teaching police officers.

Mediaite spoke to Jason Pye, the Director of Rule of Law Initiatives at the Due Process Institute, about paying a commentator like Lahren for police “training.”

Pye, whose father was a police officer, was scathing in his reaction to Lahren’s presence at that conference, saying “it’s beyond me” why she would even be invited.

“It’s frustrating because Tomi Lahren has a platform and people listen to her,” he continued, “and this is the narrative I’m hearing more and more from conservative commentators.”

“Come on, this is not a substitute for reasoned political thought or even basic human decency,” Pye urged, noting how easy it was to find an overwhelming number of cases of someone who was innocent and killed by the police, or a situation where there was a clear case of abuse of power, like Chauvin’s conviction for killing Floyd.

“Breonna Taylor was asleep,” Pye pointed out, clearly exasperated with Lahren’s claim that “all these major headline incidents” were preventable by their victims. He pointed out other older cases, like Katherine Johnson and Cory Maye, both of whom were innocent targets of no-knock raids, or Philando Castile, who was shot during a traffic stop while reaching for his driver’s license.

There’s also the matter of Lahren’s total lack of expertise on the issues of criminal justice and policing.

The 29-year-old political commentator has constructed a lucrative brand for herself with her brash and rapid-fire opinions on conservative media outlets including One American News Network, The Blaze, and multiple Fox Nation and Fox News programs.

She majored in broadcast journalism and political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. All of her work experience is in politics or media. She is not, and never has been, an attorney. She is not, and never has been, a police officer.

Lahren may have a lot of loud opinions about all sorts of things, but there are several million loudmouths on Twitter right now arguing about Joe Rogan and M&M’s and proper representation in Disney movies and all those tweets don’t make them experts.

“She has no experience” on these topics, Pye emphasized, calling her “clearly a grifter who is wanting to continue the divisions in this country, particularly on this specific issue.”

She simply does not have the experience, knowledge, or research to be qualified to train police officers. But she obviously wasn’t there for training. She was there to rally the crowd and give her hot take that everything is fine, fellas, keep doing what you’re doing.

Except everything most certainly is not fine. The hashtagged names of dead Americans are not fine.

As repulsive as Lahren’s rhetoric may be, she is far from the worst person scooping up taxpayer dollars to cheer on abusive and violent cops. As criminal justice opinion columnist Radley Balko pointed out, these conferences have also featured speakers that include police officers who were fired for misconduct and “killology” police trainer Dave Grossman.

Police departments are spending public funds to send cops to a “training” conference featuring Tomi Lahren, Dave “Cops have the best sex of their lives after they kill people” Grossman, some UFC guy, and some other cops fired for misconduct. https://t.co/sUOJ9uMNzn

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) January 26, 2022

Reached for comment by Mediaite, Balko replied that it seemed like Lahren was just there for “a keynote pep talk,” and while she was “offensive,” he found Grossman’s involvement “far more disturbing.”

“Grossman gives more tactical training,” Balko added. “He literally tells cops they should be killing more people. My tweet about him wasn’t an exaggeration — he tells cops in his seminars that after you kill someone, you’ll have the best sex of your life.”

Yes, that is a real thing that Grossman says in his training sessions.

“This is the guy who has trained more U.S. police officers than anyone else,” wrote Balko in an article about Grossman’s seminars. “The guy who, more than anyone else, has instructed cops on what mind-set they should bring to their jobs.”

And this is the guy who is raking in piles of taxpayer dollars, so he and Lahren can cheer on cops who kill.

This isn’t a problem that is easily solved at the national level (even though a lot of the funding for police training comes from the federal government, and we should lobby Congress to refuse to fund programs that promote dangerous and excessive uses of force) because the local criminal justice issues in your community are mostly handled by your local city and county police agencies — including deciding what training programs their officers should attend.

You have the right to know how your taxpayer dollars are being spent, and to object to it being spent to pay people like Lahren and Grossman to encourage the worst, not the best, of police behavior.

Good cops exist; they’re protecting our communities in a million daily ways that never make the headlines. Proven de-escalation tactics exist. Training programs that emphasize the safety of both the officers and the suspects being arrested exist. But trainers who claim cops have done nothing wrong when people are killed or worse, cheer them on, are not an acceptable option.

Demand better from the people who are taking your money to protect your community, and maybe Lahren can concentrate on doing what she does best: yelling about politics. And maybe no more names will become memorialized in hashtags.

If you have leftover boards from a previous home-improvement project—or you’re just looking for a simple carpentry project to tackle—there are several things you can make that will add budget-friendly storage and function to your home. Try these DIY projects, each of which only requires three or four tools and…

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Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren appeared to say the quiet part out loud when she ridiculed the idea of a Black woman filling the soon to be empty Supreme Court Justice seat — now that Justice Stephen Breyer has announced his plans to step down.

NBC’s Pete Williams broke the news on Wednesday morning that Breyer would soon retire from the highest court in the land, setting off a flurry of punditry, some of which, like this instance, seemed to be ill-prepared.

Appearing on Fox News’ Outnumbered, Lahren’s comments followed Guy Benson’s recollection of President Joe Biden’s pledge to fill an empty spot with a Black Female judge, which would be historic as no woman who identifies as Black has ever served on the Supreme Court.

Host Harris Faulkner tossed to Lahren by reiterating some of the political analyses previously stated, noting, “It does give president Biden a win politically, but it doesn’t change some of the decisions potentially that might have a conservative majority on the court.”

“We know what Joe Biden does best is placate to the radical element and radical aggressive base of his party that he believes is the majority,” Lahren replied. “I believe he’s incorrect and I believe that they are the minority.

“But I’m wondering the kind of justice that he would nominate,” she continued. “Now again I’m sure it would be, as Guy said, a Black woman, he’s got a dedication to that. We saw how well that worked out with Kamala Harris. But here’s to hoping he had a better choice in mind for this position.”

The charitable interpretation of Lahren’s comments is that she meant to say that nominating someone strictly because of their race can end up with the wrong person for the job, and many on the right feel that Vice President Harris has been underwhelming.

But a reasonable interpretation would also see Lahren’s comments as unnecessarily racial in nature, if not just flat out racist, suggesting that a Black woman named to the highest court would simply not be up for the task.

Watch above via Fox News.

So you’re a Wordle master. You know all the strategies: which words to guess first, which letters are a waste of space. All of your devoted Twitter followers are well-acquainted with your perfect green squares. However, everyone’s main gripe with Wordle is that there’s only one puzzle per day. After you’ve gotten your…

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If you’re in the job market (or you might be soon) it’s worth taking a fine-tooth comb to the verb choices on your resume. And while humility is a valuable soft skill that conveys emotional intelligence in the workplace, it has no place on a document highlighting your career accomplishments. Your resume is your one…

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Dan Kitwood, Angela Weiss/Getty Images

Gorillaz and Blur frontman Damon Albarn has apologized to Taylor Swift after she called him out for trying to “discredit” her writing.

Interviewing Albarn for the Los Angeles Times, Mikael Wood asked the artist if he believes “modern musicians are relying on sound and attitude” as opposed to their talent.

“Name me someone who’s not,” Albarn challenged, prompting Wood to say, “She may not be to your taste, but Taylor Swift is an excellent songwriter.”

“She doesn’t write her own songs,” Albarn added, later concluding that co-writing “doesn’t count.”

The LA Times Twitter account posted the exchange, quickly gaining Swift’s attention:

PS I wrote this tweet all by myself in case you were wondering

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) January 24, 2022

“I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really fucked up to try and discredit my writing. WOW,” Swift shot back, facetiously adding, “PS I wrote this tweet all by myself in case you were wondering.”

Albarn later responded to Swift, apologizing and blaming the media for reducing his comments to “clickbait.”

I totally agree with you. i had a conversation about songwriting and sadly it was reduced to clickbait. I apologise unreservedly and unconditionally. The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting. I hope you understand. – Damon

— Damon Albarn (@Damonalbarn) January 24, 2022

“I totally agree with you. i had a conversation about songwriting and sadly it was reduced to clickbait,” he wrote. “I apologise unreservedly and unconditionally. The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting. I hope you understand. – Damon.”

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones sat with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Monday and discussed his experience on his podcast later in the evening.

“I just had a very intense experience being interrogated by the January 6 committee,” Jones said. “They were polite, but they were dogged.”

He added, according to his lawyer’s count, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment “almost 100 times” as was “advice of counsel.”

“The questions were overall pretty reasonable,” Jones remarked. “And I wanted to answer the questions, but at the same time, it’s a good thing I didn’t because I’m the type that tries to answer things correctly even though I don’t know all the answers, and they can kind of claim that that’s perjury because about half the questions I didn’t know the answer to.”

Jones said that the committee had already established links between him and Trump officials, having obtained text messages between him and Trump fundraising officials Caroline Wren and Cindy Chafian, who helped organize a pro-Trump rally on Jan. 5.

He said he denied employing any members of the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers as security in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and claimed that he tried to discourage people from entering the Capitol on that day.

He described trying to stop the pro-Trump crowd as “mission impossible” and deplored the people who committed violence.
“We learned there were a bunch of people inside the Capitol,” Jones said. “And that was so stupid and so dumb. I didn’t support it that day and I don’t support it now.”

“We got the hell out of there once we couldn’t stop it,” Jones added, saying the events of Jan. 6 were a “horrible historic fiasco.”

“Let’s get something clear for the committee and my audience and everybody else: I don’t want a civil war in this country and that’s a terrible idea,” Jones explained. “And I don’t want lawlessness by anybody. And I don’t want anybody attacking anybody, OK?”

“InfoWar means we fight with information,” Jones concluded, striking a rare tone of moderation, adding that it is a “non-violent war” and that he only “fights with words.”

Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

How can you not be romantic about football?

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen never got a chance to touch the football in overtime of his team’s loss to the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday night. But his exceptional play throughout the game was so well-respected by Chiefs fans, they decided to support the Oishei Children’s Hospital in his honor.

Kansas City sports fan Brett Fitzgerald called on Chiefs fans to send donations of $13 increments to The Patricia Allen Fund. The amount represents the Chiefs final scoring drive in regulation that took just 13 seconds against the Bills and sent the game into overtime.

According to Fitzgerald, he originally planned to suggest donating to a charity supported by Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, but after learning Bills fans usually donate to other team’s charities, he chose Oishei Children’s Hospital as the recipient.

“The credit goes to Bills Mafia,” Fitzgerald told WIVB News 4. “I’m just some guy who put something on the internet.”

As much as Bills Mafia is known for jumping through tables and setting themselves on fire during raucous pregame tailgates, the passionate group is also one of the most charitable fanbases in sports. Last year, after Buffalo beat the Baltimore Ravens in the playoffs, Bills Mafia donated more than $500,000 to Lamar Jackson’s charity.

Recognizing their benevolence, Chiefs fans decided to follow the lead of Bills Mafia and donate to Allen’s charity of choice. The Patricia Allen Fund was started in Nov. 2020, when Bills fans began donating to the Oishei Children’s Hospital after the passing of their quarterback’s grandmother. More than $1 million was raised and the Patricia Allen Pediatric Recovery Wing was unveiled last year.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki took a shot at former President Donald Trump when Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked about a Biden official’s tweet.

At Tuesday’s press briefing, Doocy asked Psaki about a tweet from Secretary of State Antony Blinken in which the administration’s top diplomat expressed solidarity with Ukraine.

I #StandWithUkraine. @StateDept stands with Ukraine. The United States stands with Ukraine. https://t.co/7Vj0amAf22

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) January 22, 2022

“The secretary of state, a few days ago, tweeted ‘I #StandWithUkraine,” Doocy said, and asked “Has that ever worked at stopping an authoritarian regime from doing anything? A hashtag?”

Psaki used the question as an opportunity to take a shot at Trump.

“I will have to say that, unlike the last administration, we don’t think Twitter is the only means of engaging or negotiating or discussing important topics,” Psaki deadpanned.

She also snarked at Doocy’s network.

“But it is important for us to convey to the Ukrainian people, who do view commentary through a range of forums — I don’t know how many are Fox News watchers, maybe some of them — and including social media, that we stand with them, we support them,” Psaki said. .

“And that includes in their efforts to protect the sovereignty of their country,” Psaki said.

While the media is buzzing about  Biden roasting Doocy as a “stupid son of a bitch” on a live microphone at the end of a photo op with the White House Competition Council Monday, the president also recently had a similar exchange over Ukraine policy with another Fox reporter.

At the end of a photo op Thursday afternoon, Heinrich shouted an unscheduled question that Biden did not answer, but did comment on into a hot mic.

“Why are you waiting on Putin to make the first move, sir?” Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked Biden, who laughed and muttered “What a stupid question.”

Watch above via C-Span.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki very pointedly declined to say that President Joe Biden “regrets” calling Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch” into a hot mic.

The media has been abuzz since Monday, when Biden roasted Doocy as a “stupid son of a bitch” on a live microphone at the end of a photo op with the White House Competition Council — immortalized for all time in an official White House transcript.

Doocy took the jab in stride, and later recounted a cordial phone call with the president in which Biden smoothed things over — but Doocy was asked if the president apologized when recounting the call to Sean Hannity, and repeatedly declined to call it an apology.

At Tuesday’s press briefing, CBS News Radio White House correspondent Steve Portnoy attempted to close that loop.

“Forgive me, it’s sort of the elephant in the room,” Portnoy began. “Many people in the country were talking about last night this morning.”

“Does the president regret saying what he said about Peter? Can you shed some light if you have had any conversations with him today about what happened last night?” he asked.

“Well, I would say what’s most important, and it’s, Peter’s sitting here. So this is kind of a funny thing. But the president, the president called Peter, and he [Doocy] confirmed that. So this is only why I’m speaking to this. And if you have private conversations with the president, I will assure you I’m not going to convey that on your behalf,” Psaki said by way of explanation.

“Peter spoke to this. The president called him. He conveyed to him that it was ‘nothing personal, man’ and also acknowledged that all of you were going to ask him a range of questions. So I think that speaks for itself,” Psaki said.

She added “Hopefully, I did that justice,” as Doocy joked “Can confirm, a person familiar.”

“We only do on-the-record stuff here, Peter,” Psaki said with a laugh.

Watch above via C-Span.

Every once in a while, a hack comes along that fills you with a mix of awe and judgment for being so basic, so obvious, that you can’t believe you didn’t think of it yourself. But while you mutter “duh” under your breath, you must reluctantly admit, it was news to you.

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Without question, we live in an era of media over-saturation. Even post-COVID (lol), the industry is still pumping out new movies and new streaming services to host them on at an alarming rate—and those same services mean we also have easy access to thousands of films from the last century. I never need to rewatch a…

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Former Saturday Night Live cast member Will Forte returned to the show on Saturday to host the program for his first time ever, and he marked the occasion by envisioning what his MacGruber character would be like if he fell down the alt-right rabbit hole.

Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe reprised their roles as MacGruber’s assistants, Vicki and Piper, as they joined Forte in the sketch, where they were trapped in a room together and tasked once again with disarming a bomb. All three of them started the scene in face masks, though MacGruber quickly tricked Vicki and Piper into giving him their face masks so he can burn them along with his own.

“What are you doing?” Vicki exclaims before MacGruber answers that he’s “freeing us from tyranny.”

MacGruber claimed to be vaccinated, showing off a laughably-fake vaccine card that misspells “Pfizer.” He eventually admits he’s “not getting that stupid shot.”

“I don’t want the government putting a tracking device in my scrotum,” the character said.

In the next sequence, it becomes quickly obvious that MacGruber has contracted Covid, for which he is consuming ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, bleach and other substances that right-wing figures have held up as legitimate Covid treatments. After taking shots at Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Joe Biden, MacGruber has just enough time to ask his assistants if they ever heard of QAnon just before the bomb blows up again.

In the third scene, MacGruber’s conspiratorial indoctrination becomes complete as he takes on the appearance of Jacob Chansley, (AKA the QAnon Shaman). He rattles off several conspiracy theories about Hollywood, the globalists, cancel culture, and just about everything in between before once again dropping the ball on the bomb.

Watch above, via NBC.

Newt Gingrich says that January 6 committee members “face a real risk of jail” should Republicans take over the House after the 2022 election.

Appearing on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Gingrich expanded on an op-ed he wrote for Newsweek earlier this week titled “The Wolves Will Become Sheep,” in which he argued that January 6 committee members will have the tables turned on them if the GOP should gain control of Congress.

“You have — both with Attorney General [Merrick] Garland and with this select committee on January 6, people who have run amok,” Gingrich argued. He added, “What they need to understand is on January 4 next year, you’re going to have a Republican majority in the House and a Republican majority in the Senate. And all these people who have been so tough, and so mean, and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every e-mail.”

Gingrich went on to blast Garland and the Jan. 6 committee as a “lynch mob.” He warned that Republicans may look to imprison their political opponents next January — arguing that their inquiry is breaking the law by “running over peoples’ civil liberties.”

“I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down,” Gingrich said. “And the wolves are going to find out that they’re now sheep and they’re the ones who are in fact, I think, face a real risk of jail for the kinds of laws they’re breaking.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

Harry How/Getty Images

Six teams remain alive in the chase for the Lombardi trophy. And, surprise! One of them is quarterbacked by Tom Brady.

The legendary signal caller continues his quest for an eighth Super Bowl on Sunday afternoon when his Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off against the Los Angeles Rams in a Divisional round showdown at Raymond James Stadium.

Both team’s enter Sunday’s contest fresh off blowout victories in their playoff openers. Brady’s Bucs took care of Philadelphia 31-15, while the Rams romped over the Arizona Cardinals 34-11.

This contest is expected to be much tighter. An outstanding Rams defensive front, led by the superb Aaron Donald, should have plenty of opportunities against an injury-riddled offensive line for Tampa. On the other side of the ball, the Tampa defense poses a challenge to Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and his offense on a level which L.A. has not faced in weeks.

Will Sunday’s game be the 44-year-old Brady’s last? A report from ESPN Sunday says that is very much on the table, should Tampa lose. Still, Brady is in prime position to make yet another title run. His Bucs are now the favorite to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, after Green Bay’s loss on Saturday.

The game kicks off shortly after 3:00 p.m. ET. Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth have the call. The action will be streamed live on the NBC Sports website free with a cable subscription, and can also be streamed on mobile devices via the NBC Sports app. The app can be downloaded via Apple’s iTunes Store and the Google Play Store.

While some people have always loved vintage (i.e. secondhand) furniture, others are new to the thrift store, flea market, and yard sale game, thanks to current furniture shortages and shipping delays. But shortages or not, there are many benefits to buying secondhand furniture and other items for your home, including…

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Former Chicago Tribune Editor Mark Jacob sounded the alarm about a D.C. media establishment that he says refused to report that “we have a fascist insurrection going on.”

Mr. Jacob was a guest on an episode of the Beyond Politics podcast — hosted by Matt Robison and Paul Hodes — and had some strong words for the media, particularly the political media in Washington, D.C.

Jacob, a former Sunday editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and former metro editor at the Chicago Tribune, decried the pitfalls of fact-checking lies, telling the hosts that “Too often, the way the construction is in newspaper stories is, or on TV is, is that they actually think that they’re calling out a lie, but they’re giving the lie more credence and more time and more legitimacy than they mean it. And you know how it is. The real scary thing that we have learned in this era is that propaganda works well.”

Jacob also slammed the Beltway press over its impulse to give two sides to every story:

Too many people in the Washington news media feel like it’s in their best interest to both-sides everything. It’s the safe thing to do and gets them invited to all the right cocktail parties. It gets, you know what I’m saying? It’s part of the whole social scheme of Washington for them to do that. And so they have vested interest in not reporting the fact that we have a fascist insurrection going on.

He also delivered a warning for the upcoming 2022 elections:

The Washington news media are trying to cover the midterm like it’s any other election. “Here’s how midterms have gone for the last several decades.” Well, it’s not the last several decades. We’re in a dramatically different situation because the Republicans are trying to overthrow our democracy: creating an election fraud and voter suppression and casting doubt on elections. It is a crisis. So for the media to treat it as some sort of little thing that happens every two years, and we’ll just cover it the same way we always have, means they’re missing the biggest story of their entire lives.

Listen above via Beyond Politics, and catch the whole episode here.