Friday, June 29, 2018
This Footage of an Alleged Thief Falling Through the Ceiling Deserves an Oscar
Earlier this week, a couple allegedly trying to use a stolen credit card at a convenience store in Alberta, Canada, wound up in hot water after the clerk caught on to their scam. When the cops showed up, the perps panicked, getting into an insane game of cat-and-mouse with the police that ended with one of them somehow falling through the ceiling—all because they tried to make off with a free can of soda, Canada's CTV News reports.
CCTV cameras inside the convenience store captured the entire thing—and, honestly, this footage deserves an Oscar.
The fiasco started when Richard Pariseau shoved his beau, Brittany Burke, into the cop trying to apprehend them. While a shirtless Pariseau tangoed with the officer—at one point trying to hurl a bag of sunflower seeds at him—Burke dashed into the back room, climbed a ladder, and started crawling around in the ventilation system like Bruce Willis in Die Hard.
Burke makes a few critical mistakes here, starting with sticking her face directly into a camera on her way into the ceiling. Even if she somehow made it out undetected, she'd still be screwed. She also loses a sneaker while she's scurrying around up there, which is just a huge bummer. Nikes are expensive, man! But her most egregious error, of course, is misjudging the stability of that ceiling—resulting in an ungodly tumble best viewed in GIF form.
Ultimately, CTV reports, the cops arrested the rogue couple and charged them with a litany of crimes, from using a stolen credit card to "obstructing a police officer," which is a bit of an understatement for what happened here. The wildest part: The object of Burke's desire, that coveted item she and Pariseau allegedly tried to buy with a stolen card, the treat that drew them, siren-like, to their doom, was a can of soda that cost a goddamn dollar.
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FX Reveals 'Always Sunny' Season 13 Premiere Date and What's Up with Dennis
On Thursday, FX finally announced the premiere date for season 13 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia—and gave us a taste of what the gang will be up to now that Dennis moved away, Deadline reports.
When Dennis left to be a father at the end of season 12, and actor Glenn Howerton went off to be a teacher or whatever on NBC, fans were left worrying if the inventor of the D.E.N.N.I.S. system and general sociopath was gone for good. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly earlier this year, Howerton made it clear that Dennis wasn't completely written off It's Always Sunny, but he was a little vague about how big—or little—the character's role would be next season.
Now, thanks to a new plot synopsis from FX, we've got a bit more info about what the future holds for Dennis and the rest of the gang when the show comes back on September 5. Sadly, it sounds like they won't all be back together in Paddy's Pub any time soon.
"The Gang Returns... mostly," Thursday's announcement says, teasing the upcoming season's premiere on September 5. "Mac (Rob McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), Dee (Kaitlin Olson) and Frank (Danny DeVito) return to their duplicitous, scheming ways at Paddy’s Pub, while Dennis (Glenn Howerton) takes on the new role of father in North Dakota."
"Even without Dennis Reynolds," the announcement continues, "the Gang has its hands full as Charlie hopes to have a child with The Waitress, Mac sets out to understand his newfound sexuality, Dee takes feminism to new heights, and Frank goes to great lengths for the Gang to experience the greatest moment in Philadelphia sports history—an Eagles Super Bowl victory."
OK, that all sounds about as incredible as wine in a can, and it's likely that we'll see Dennis make some appearances in the new season. But from the tone of this announcement, it unfortunately sounds like whatever subplots the golden god might be involved in will probably focus more on raising Brian Jr. than trouncing Mac in a game of Chardee MacDennis. Still, this is Dennis we're talking about—he's bound to get bored and ditch his new family for Philly again, right? He can't do the right thing forever.
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Anthony Kennedy Was Never Really a Friend to Liberals
This is another entry of our column from the hosts of the legal podcast Mic Dicta breaking down issues knocking around the US legal system.
The best thing you can probably say about Anthony Kennedy is that he won’t be remembered as the worst justice on this Supreme Court. The meanest is probably that it is a historical accident that he will be remembered at all.
Confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1988, Kennedy was a compromise choice by President Ronald Reagan after his first two nominees failed. The first, Robert Bork, was voted down for the good reason of being an extremist loon; the second, Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew his own name from consideration for the hilarious reason that he smoked pot sometimes in his 20s and it was scandalous. At the time, nobody doubted that Kennedy was a conservative, but at least he was completely uninteresting.
Somehow, though, due to changes in personnel and the leftward shift of Justice David Souter, Kennedy often found himself alone in the nominal center of a court lurching rightward. Though the four on either side of him shifted, he stayed sitting in the middle. This position gave him a rare power: The tug of war for his soul from both sides required constant appeals to his idiosyncratic sense of personal morality and, apparently, aggrieved Christianity (Masterpiece Cakeshop v. CCRC).
The upshot is that though he usually voted with whichever conservative bloc was ascendant, on rare occasions Kennedy would peer into the abyss and recoil. His most famous apostasy was striking down laws that manifest overt discrimination against homosexuals (Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas); he wrote the opinions legalizing gay marriage nationwide (US v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges), seeming to swell with pride (sorry) at his discovery that homosexuals are people. Similarly, though he was pro-death penalty, he balked at allowing it to be used on minors (Roper v. Simmons), those with intellectual disabilities (Atkins v. Virginia), or for crimes other than murder (Kennedy v. Louisiana). In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, he stunned his supporters when he declined to overturn Roe v. Wade. He also held that the Guantanamo prisoners were eligible for habeas corpus (Boumediene v. Bush).
It is from these few cases that he found himself crosswise with his ideological allies in the culture wars—which seems a bit ungrateful, considering all he gave them. Despite his reputation among conservatives as a squish, a crypto-liberal seeking the approval of the Georgetown swells, Kennedy was the deciding vote to invent modern Second Amendment jurisprudence out of whole cloth (Heller v. District of Columbia), to shred restrictions on campaign finance (Citizens United v. FEC, American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock), to strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (Shelby County v. Holder), to expand the Takings Clause to stymie environmental protection legislation (Palazzolo v. Rhode Island), and, most recently, to undermine collective worker action by destroying public sector unions (Janus v. AFSCME) and effectively ending class arbitration of employment law violations (Epic Systems v. Lewis).
Even his famously “liberal” opinions weakened as he got older. A non-sectarian prayer at a graduation violated the Establishment Clause in 1992 (Lee v. Weisman) but a Christian prayer to open municipal meetings was fine in 2014 (Town of Greece v. Galloway). He voted to preserve Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey but spent the rest of his career approving one state restriction on abortion after another—including most of the Pennsylvania restrictions he reviewed in Casey. Until Sandra Day O’Connor retired, he spent a few years in dissent disagreeing with her about what their joint opinion in Casey meant. His ruling granting habeas rights to Guantanamo prisoners in Boumediene was promptly undermined by the DC Circuit, which tacked on a rule giving the government the benefit of the doubt on all evidentiary questions about a detainee’s terrorist designation and has overruled every lower court release since 2010; the Supreme Court has declined to grant certiorari to review the Circuit’s rule. He suggested that political gerrymandering had a constitutional limit (Vieth v. Jubelirer) but when the time came to actually explore that limit he punted (Gill v. Whitford, Abbott v. Perez), hiding behind jurisdictional reasons to dodge grappling with the grotesquely discriminatory facts.
Then there was his prose. His swing position meant that handing him the pen to write decisions was the price the other justices had to pay, and that pen was often purple. Whether writing about people exploring the “mysteries of life” in Casey to his florid descriptions of the bond of marriage in Obergefell to his condescending description of a hypothetical woman who may someday regret a medical abortion in Gonzales v. Carhart, sections of his opinions often read like stream-of-consciousness musings disconnected from the law he was considering.
In the end, though, any question of his political loyalties are answered by two decisions, one judicial and one personal. In 2000, he was the fifth vote to stop the recount in Florida and install George W. Bush as president. Eighteen years later he asked a new president to pinky swear that he wouldn’t act racistly (Trump v. Hawaii) while solemnly agreeing that it would be legal if he did as long as he didn’t write it down, just before he retired and allowed Trump to choose for his replacement on the Court someone unlikely to care at all.
The New York Times has reported that the Trump administration waged a “quiet campaign” to persuade Kennedy to retire, and noted that Kennedy’s son worked with Trump when he was at Deutschebank, becoming one of the Trump Organization’s primary lenders. But it hardly seems necessary to think conspiratorially. Kennedy came to the federal bench on the recommendation of California Governor Ronald Reagan, and was elevated to the Supreme Court by President Reagan. He didn’t need anyone to tell him when to retire. He knew when he’d retire all along. Kennedy was at the center of the Supreme Court, but he was never neutral.
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Charles Star is a Brooklyn-based lawyer and the host of Mic Dicta, America's best-named legal podcast. Follow him on Twitter.
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This Maryland Shooting Survivor 'Couldn't Give a Fuck' About Thoughts and Prayers
In the wake of the shooting at Annapolis, Maryland's Capital Gazette that left five people dead on Thursday, leading Republicans did what they always do after a mass shooting: offer their "thoughts and prayers" to the victims and their families, and not much else. Fed up with lawmakers' refusal to address America's gun violence problem, a reporter who survived the shooting put the issue bluntly—telling CNN she "couldn't give a fuck about" thoughts and prayers if they're not backed up by action.
In a gut-wrenching interview with Anderson Cooper, Capital Gazette staff writer Selene San Felice described what it was like to cower under a desk and text her parents to tell them she loved them, adding that—as horrifying as the shooting was—"people will forget about us after a week."
"I'm going to need more than a couple days of news coverage and some thoughts and prayers, because it's—our whole lives have been shattered," she said. "And so thanks for your prayers, but I couldn't give a fuck about them if there's nothing else."
San Felice gave the interview alongside Phil Davis, another Capital Gazette staff writer who tweeted a harrowing account of the shooting on Thursday afternoon. He told Cooper that while the shooter reloaded inside the office, he prayed that "there weren't going to be more bodies"—but that prayers weren't enough to stop a mass shooting.
"If we're at a position in our society where all we can offer each other is prayers, then where are we?" Davis said. "Where are we as a society where people die, and that's the end of that story?"
The cops arrested the suspected shooter, 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos, who reportedly held a grudge against the paper ever since it covered a case in which he plead guilty to harassing a woman in 2011. He once tried to sue the Capital Gazette, and has made several death threats against its reporters. He's been charged with five counts of first degree murder.
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Desus and Mero Take a Stroll Down Memory Lane
During the series finale of Desus & Mero, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero invited Charlamagne Tha God, Pio, Vashtie, and more to watch some of the most important moments from The #1 Show in Late Night, including rough moments from their very first episode, tense scenes from their infamous beef with DJ Envy, and a never-before-seen clip of the duo's very own Animal Planet-esque show.
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Desus and Mero Pour One Out
During Thursday's series finale of Desus & Mero, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero gave their final shout outs to chopped cheese, poppin' bottles, and, of course, the VICE office flies.
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Desus and Mero Pick Their Best Rainbows Ever
At the end of every Desus & Merointerview, each illustrious guest gets to pick a rainbow that expresses some sort of human truth. During the series finale, the VICELAND hosts reminisced on some of their favorite rainbows, showcasing the profound, the funny, and the downright strange.
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Jordan Peele Is Bringing the Sci-Fi Comedy Series 'Weird City' to YouTube
How does Jordan Peele work so much? Has he somehow defeated the basic human need for food and rest? Think about it: He's currently working on his Get Out follow-up, rebooting Twilight Zone, working on TV shows about 1970s Nazi hunters and Lovecraftian nightmares, and even getting back together with Keegan Michael-Key for an unofficial Key & Peele reunion. Now, because that's somehow not enough, the guy's got another series in the works.
On Friday, YouTube announced that it had given Peele a direct-to-series order for his new sci-fi comedy series, Weird City. According to Deadline, the show is an "an anthology set in the not-too-distant future metropolis of Weird," with each episode exploring "issues that pertain to present day life" and telling "stories that could only be told now through the prism of sci-fi and comedy."
From that synopsis, Weird City sounds a lot like a less fucking depressing Black Mirror, or maybe Twilight Zone with a few more laughs thrown in. Knowing Peele, he'll figure out a way to make the whole thing his own. He co-created the show with former Key & Peele writer Charlie Sanders, and the pair will write the six-episode first season together.
"Writer/creator Charlie Sanders and I collaborated on some Key & Peele sketches that took on everything from the ‘Black Republicans’ to 'Continental Breakfasts’ to ‘Family Matters,'" Peele said in a statement. "Now, with YouTube, we present a series of comedy-driven, twisted-ass science fiction stories that take place in a world close to ours but just a little bit off."
Writer/producer Jose Molina will serve as the series' showrunner, which is pretty exciting—Molina is a brilliant storyteller, and the co-host of what is low-key the greatest film industry podcast with the worst name, Children of Tendu. With a team like this behind it, Weird City is definitely gearing up to be something special.
The show is an exciting get for the newly-minted YouTube Premium, following on the heels of YouTube's surprisingly solid Karate Kid spinoff, Cobra Kai. Weird City doesn't have an official release date yet, but its supposed to hit the streaming service sometime next year. By then, Peele will probably have another nine projects in the works.
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Thursday, June 28, 2018
The 'Neutron Option' Democrats Could Use to Retake the Supreme Court
If Democrats needed another reason to despair, they got one on Wednesday, when Justice Anthony Kennedy, the so-called swing vote on the Supreme Court, announced he was retiring. This gives Donald Trump the chance to appoint a second justice, after Neil Gorsuch last year, to the bench. Since this nomination will be confirmed barring a Republican revolt in the Senate, liberals are looking ahead to a future where a conservative majority on the Supreme Court approves of causes ranging from voter suppression to the criminalization of abortion. Worse still, even if Democrats take back Congress this year and the White House in 2020, they'll have to get every new progressive policy past an unfriendly, far-right high court that will wield de facto veto power over the other two branches of government.
David Faris has a way to cheer frustrated liberals up—and maybe scare the hell out of everyone else. The Chicago-based political science professor came out with a book this spring called It's Time to Fight Dirty that imagines a variety of extreme hardball tactics Democrats can employ if they gain power in 2020 to ensure Republicans won't be able to stop their agenda. For Faris, getting rid of the filibuster that allows a Senate minority to block most legislation (a.k.a. the "nuclear option") is just the start: He's talking about shit like breaking up California into seven states and doubling the size of the House of Representatives. But he told me that the section of the book he "had a sleepless night over" was a chapter about what he called the "neutron option for the Supreme Court."
That would involve first proposing a constitutional amendment to end lifetime tenure on the court and pushing a proposal to let each president pick two justices per term, a compromise that Faris hopes would "end the court wars." He suspects Republicans wouldn't go for that, however, so he'd advise the next Democratic president to just "pack" the court as FDR tried to do in 1937 before Congress rose up against him and prevented it. That would involve passing a bill to expand the size of the court and allowing the president to appoint however many justices would be needed to create a new liberal majority, with the friendly Senate signing off on any appointee. (This would be legal, Faris points out, because there's nothing in the Constitution stipulating the size of the court, which has in fact fluctuated in the past.)
That kind of naked exercise of power would represent a new frontier in the destruction of the political norms that used to govern DC. But Faris isn't alone in thinking that the Republicans' unprecedented blockade of Merrick Garland, the moderate judge Barack Obama nominated to the Supreme Court in 2016, should demonstrate to Democrats that they need to stop caring about norms. After all, the thinking goes, the GOP obviously doesn't. I've seen versions of Faris's argument appear in the socialist magazine Jacobin and all over my Twitter feed in the past few days, so I decided to ask him about it.
VICE: Even if you had the White House and Congress, you'd need to pass a pretty controversial law to add justices to the court. Would moderate Democratic senators really support a court-packing move?
David Faris: I share your skepticism about whether the Senate will go along with this. Hopefully they will have enough seats in the Senate that they don’t need every single vote to do this. But if they don’t do things like eliminate the filibuster and pack the court in the first year [in power], what they are going to see over the course of that next president’s first term is law after law after law either be held up by the filibuster or get passed and then get smacked down by this conservative Supreme Court.
My gut tells me that the leadership is going to have to see the consequences of not playing hardball, and those consequences are going to be really dire. Potentially, the next Democratic president is not going to accomplish much of anything, which means we’ll probably lose the 2022 midterm elections and then probably loose the 2024 election too. Everything from gun control to healthcare reform—all of this stuff will be really vulnerable to this new majority on the Supreme Court. I’d like the Democrats to do this right away, but it may take a few months or a year of seeing their initiatives go up in flames before they take the possibility of playing this kind of hardball seriously.
If conservative justices on the court see this possibility developing, do you think they would moderate their opinions in order to appease the Democrats? Would they avoid slapping down Democratic laws to preserve their institution?
I think the only person who is venerable to that kind of pressure is probably [Chief Justice John] Roberts himself. It would take a while for anyone to see how that pressure plays out in the court. I wouldn’t count on the threat alone to make a difference in how these justices rule. The conservatives on the court right now are people who have spent their entire adult professional lives being trained in a particular interpretation of American constitutional jurisprudence—they’re committed ideologues, that’s why they’re chosen. If I’m putting myself in Neil Gorsuch’s shoes, I’m not going to switch my judicial philosophy because Democrats are threatening to pack the court. I'm going to hope my team wins the next election and we do it right back to them.
If Republicans came back to power, they might consider even more drastic action—in your book, you note that some conservatives are skeptical of judicial review. The GOP might say, "Well, the courts don't have any power." Do you worry about the long-term destabilization of the system because of this kind of thing?
I worry about the long-term trajectory of this democracy anyways. There’s a scene in Life of Brian where they’re executing this guy for heresy and he keeps taking the name of the Lord in vain when he’s about to be stoned to death and the Roman guards are like, “You’re only making it worse for yourself.” How could it be any worse? In my mind we’re in the midst of a serious crisis of American democracy. One of the two political parties has decided that none of the informal rules that have guided American politics for the last 50 or 100 years apply to them anymore and are pretty ruthlessly committed to shrinking the electorate and preventing people from voting.
It doesn’t matter what the next Democratic president does, there’s going to be a hysterical response from the right. In my mind, holding back because of the fear of escalation or the fear of that reaction—all that means is we’re not going to get anything done. I worry more about what’s going to happen to this country if Republicans come back into power in 2022 and 2024.
In 2016, I held firm to the idea that Republicans would be punished at the polls for not seating Merrick Garland—it was the final stage, I guess, in my political radicalization to see that the voters didn't care at all. I think Democrats could actually get away with this. By 2024, there will still be some people burning with rage about the court packing, but elections will be fought about other things, fundamentally.
"There are ways for the parties to come together to fix this. But the Republicans are never going to do it unless they feel what it’s like to have it done to them too."
Do other people in the Democratic coalition agree with you on this stuff? It's very radical.
A year ago when I told some friends, “What about court packing?” the reactions were not great from everyone. As the Trump administration unfolds I’m getting more and more positive reactions, including from institutionalists, people who work in the federal judiciary. Just given the way the Trump administration has been so relentlessly divisive and horrible, day by day I think it’s increasing the appetite on the left to play procedural hardball right back. Do I think this would have majority support today? Probably not, but I think it would poll well with the Democratic base. If Roe v. Wade gets reversed, I think that’s going to increase the appetite for court packing.
If Republicans hadn't blocked Garland's nomination in 2016, do you think you would still have the same view?
No. In fact, if they had appointed Garland and then Donald Trump had gotten elected, I think the Republicans would be talking about court packing right now, because Republicans were the ones talking about not letting Hillary Clinton fill any Supreme Court seat if they held the Senate. That was John McCain, that was Richard Burr, that was Ted Cruz—I think the party would have coalesced around that very quickly. In my mind the Garland stuff put us in this new world where you don’t get to pick a new Supreme Court justice unless you hold the Senate. I think that’s the new rule.
There are ways for the parties to come together to fix this. But the Republicans are never going to do it unless they feel what it’s like to have it done to them too. That’s how I feel right now. I was a center-leftist a year and a half ago, man! I voted for Clinton in the primary. The last two years of American history have really radicalized me.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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The Real Winners of 'Drag Race' Season Ten
Yes, we all watched Aquaria take home a well-deserved crown last night after doing a pointy boob reveal in a body suit that made her look like one of the spiny koopas from Mario, then an encore where she slayed Jessie J’s “Bang Bang” with some magic sparkles and a few glitter cannons.
She earned that crown with every damn lewk this season and is the real future of drag. But is she the real winner of this season? I think not. Here are the others who might not have taken the crown but walked away from season ten as victors.
Kameron Michaels
Kameron Michaels did not deserve to be in the final four. How many times can she do the splits, drag herself across the floor sexily, stand up, and then repeatedly pat her puss like a veterinarian doing a tick inspection? Apparently a million. She certainly did not belong in the final lip sync melee against Eureka and Aquaria. Even when she made it, all she did was spin out of her dress to reveal another dress underneath. Good job. But we will never be able to take being in the finals away from her. Just like we can never tell Donald Trump he wasn’t president even though he got there under the shadiest of circumstances, we’ll never be able to tell Kameron that she was not a finalist. That, ladies and gentleman, is a victory.
Butterfly Conservationists
After seeing what Asia O’Hara did to some poor live butterflies during her first performance, organizations that look after the care and migration of assorted butterfly species should see a sharp rise in donations. During her lip sync against Kameron you could tell she was trying to pull a stunt that didn’t quite come off. Presumably, she'd planned to open her boobs and have butterflies come out, but instead they just dropped plopped to the stage, like Oogie Boogie at the end of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Then she had gross saggy boobs to lip sync with the whole time.
Miss Vanjie
Indisputably no one has been made more famous this season than Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, who turned one episode on this show into an international cultural moment. She is by far the most recognizable of the queens this season, and the crowd gave her a huge standing ovation when she was introduced at the finale. She'll probably be back for season 11, but let’s see if she can turn being a meme into a career. Maybe she can call up Keyboard Cat and Damn Daniel for some advice.
Watch:
Discussions About Race
Say what you want about The Vixen, but she got all of these queens talking about race, both at large and in the drag community. Last season Kennedy Davenport lamented that the lines at her meet and greets aren’t as long as the white queens, but this season The Vixen took it to the next level. When arguing with Aquaria and Eureka, right or wrong, she spotlighted how people of color are treated differently in this country, sometimes unconsciously. While RuPaul’s “we were all rooting for you” moment at the reunion was more about how to deal with anger, Ru facing off against Asia was about how black queens should deal with the added pressures they face. Thanks to The Vixen—who raised a black power fist at the finale—many people may now be a little bit more clued in as to how race affects everything in this country, even reality television competitions.
Lena Dunham
There have been a lot of super fans as judges during the ten seasons of this show, but none was more insightful, hilarious, or engaged as the Girls star. She even went back to chill with the queens during Untucked. When Christina Aguilera did it in the first episode, it was to let the queens adore her. But Lena went backstage because she wanted to meet these people and learn all about them. Give this girl a post Drag Race talk show already.
The Mini Challenges
One of the few good things about this show going to a 90-minute format is that each week we got to see a mini challenge as well as the full runway action. These were usually when the queens reminded us that this was created as a camp parody and still is. Whether the game was sitting on things to identify them, dressing up as straight dudes, or decorating pancakes (yes, even decorating pancakes) these were always a respite from a competition that some are starting to take a little bit too seriously.
Aquaria’s Eyebrows
I have never seen a more superior feat of structural engineering in my life.
Sasha Velour
Sasha’s roses wig lip sync is still one of the top moments of the series and, this season, no one was able to top it. Asia and Aquaria tried, but neither has the command of performance theory (or the ability to execute it) like Sasha. Then she sashayed out dressed as a glitter alien Eve complete with a ruby snake and a bedazzled apple and reminded us all why she was crowned queen in the first place.
RuPaul
The celebration of the ten years of Drag Race wasn’t so much about the show as it was about its host. The queens from season one and season ten lip synced to a medley of her dance songs that we all somehow know all the words to even if we never once consciously listened to any of them. The biggest reception of the night, even bigger than Miss Vanjie’s, was the one for RuPaul herself. She even got a benediction from Oprah Winfrey, the secular goddess herself. It’s just a reminder that we tuned in to crown a new queen for the season, but no one will ever be bigger than Ru.
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How Dick Size Matters to Men's Health
This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.
Dick size—it’s a topic every man thinks about.
Am I big enough? Am I small? What is big enough? Is it what I see in porn? OH GOD, IS THAT WHAT NORMAL SIZE IS?!?!
Big dicks, while they never left, have once again entered our collected psyche with the recent introduction of the term “big dick energy.” Now, as many have pointed out, people don’t necessarily need to possess a massive hog—or even a hog at all—in order to wield this mighty energy, but you would have to be a moron to not see the connection. It’s right there in the name, “BIG DICK” energy.
Is there a connection to the swagger one walks around with and the size of their love rocket? It sure seems like there is and one academic is trying to see if that assumption is true. Dr. Alicia Walker of the University of Missouri launched a study earlier in the month and it will see her look at thousands of pictures of dicks and interview hundreds more in an attempt to see if there is a correlation between confidence and dick size.
VICE contacted Dr. Walker to talk about her research and ask what she’s learned studying dick sizes.
VICE: So, what exactly is the study?
Walker: This study is trying to look at the relationship—if there is one—between penis size and self-esteem, willingness to engage in relationships, condom usage, and perception of sexual competency. Basically, it’s trying to look at it and how this impacts how men navigate their lives.
What are you hoping to accomplish with the research?
Hopefully, it will start a conversation, or a discourse around this. There are a lot of men out there suffering from body dysmorphic disorder. There are a lot of men who believe they are small or below average who aren’t. Then there are a lot of people who are below average and that impacts how they interact with the world.
For instance, I’ve talked to men who haven’t been to the doctor for a physical in over a decade because they don’t want to be naked in front of their doctor. I’ve talked to men who have never even approached anyone for a romantic relationship because they don’t believe anyone would be interested in them because of their size. I’ve talked to men who have attempted suicide because of their size.
This has very serious implications and I realize that everyone is all like "hahaha it’s so funny" but it’s really not, it’s actually really serious. It’s about how people see themselves and their bodies and how it impacts the choices that they make. It’s actually really important.
How does society see penis size?
We are size-obsessed, you know, we constantly make jokes about size. We have discussions and size-worship all over the place—porn, for example, it’s a big motif there. They’re all much larger than normal. Even this week there has been all this talk about big dick energy. That’s a trending hashtag right now that we’re having a conversation right now saying that men who have this are better and more confident. The point is we certainly have a social narrative that bigger is better and that if a man doesn’t measure up he’s less of a man.
Are you hoping to combat that narrative?
Yeah, I hope so…
What will actually take place during the study? What steps will you be going through?
There are two components of the study and people can participate in both of them or just one of them. There is an interview component and there aren’t any photographs that are a part of it. That’s just people talking with me about their experiences and how they feel and how they think their size has impacted how they see themselves and the kind of things they do or don’t do.
Then there is a survey that does ask for photos but for a very specific reason. The standard for any kind of penis measurement is what we call the bone-press method [“really jam it in there as far as you can”] so we have them all using that and it’s uniform. So people are asked to send in pictures showing the method and the measurement so we know it’s accurate. So once we verify that it is a correct method, we destroy the photos. The only people who can participate are men over the age of 22.
How is it going so far?
Gosh, we’ve had more than 2,000 looks at the study and I don’t know exactly how many completed the survey off the top of my head. I’ve completed thirty Interviews and I have a lineup for more folks.
Is it easier to get uh… bigger men to talk about their dick size?
It’s actually the opposite. It’s pretty funny; every man I’ve talked to they’ve all said the same thing you just said: "Oh, all you’re going to have is a big sample of guys who are larger than average." It’s not been the case—we’re actually low on people that are above average. We don’t have anywhere near as many of those participants as those who are average and below.
Are you starting to see any preliminary findings?
Preliminary findings are that this is an issue as I’ve talked about with doctors—relationships and suicide attempts. Some people say I don’t even try and get condoms because they’re not going to fit and I’m going to be too small etc. I’ve started to see some of those patterns. This all came from multiple people I’ve talked to and they’ve all been tied back by size. I’m starting to see an effect on that end. I sadly don’t have enough men above average to draw any conclusions from them.
What was the genesis of this project?
I’ve been thinking about this project for six years. The genesis of it was that a number of women I know, who don’t know each other, told me similar stories about their personal partner sample which were all well-endowed men. That got me a little curious, mainly being what are they vetting for that is leading to this. The only thing they really had in common is they looked for a partner who had a lot of self-esteem or confidence and that was the only trait they all were looking for.
What is it like looking at so many pictures of dicks? That’s definitely not part of a normal person's workday.
This is a regular day for me. I’m a sex researcher this is what I do.
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Hate Group Leader Says He's Done with Politics and Binging 'Handmaid's Tale'
Over the last five years, Matthew Heimbach had the dubious distinction of being one of the most prominent leaders of the American white nationalist movement. He founded the racist Traditionalist Worker Party, was deemed the "the little Führer" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and marched in Charlottesville. But it doesn't look like Heimbach will be marching alongside tiki torches and polo shirts in DC on the anniversary of "Unite the Right" this year. In fact, he just told Talking Points Memo that he's decided to quit politics entirely.
"I could not have possibly done a worse job with my original plan and I give up," he told TPM, emphasizing that he was "done with politics forever."
Things started to sour for Heimbach back in March when he got swept up in a trailer park brawl involving his co-leader and father-in-law, Matthew Parrott, as well as their two wives. This led to the collapse of the Traditionalist Workers Party, as well as Heimbach's arrest. He was found in violation of the probation he was under for pushing a Black Lives Matter protestor at a Trump rally. Now, after spending 38 days in jail, he's apparently decided to re-think his whole life.
"I decisively failed at my original mission which was to be a voice for working class white folks, and ended up in the middle of the most humiliating white trash spectacle of the year," he stated.
So what's a white nationalist to do when he loses his family and the animating force of his life practically all at once? According to what he told TPM, the little Führer's routine involves a lot of TV. When the outlet called him, he said he was busy catching up on the second season of the Handmaid's Tale. He might be trolling, but it at least mirrors what he told the SPLC earlier this week, sharing that he also heard "Orange Is the New Black is pretty good."
"I’m just focusing on my responsibilities and duties," Heimbach told TPM. "To my family—and God."
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Wednesday, June 27, 2018
This Professor Needs Thousands of Dick Pics for Her Study on Penis Size
A Missouri State researcher has launched a new investigation into penis size—and she's asking dudes to send their nudes for science.
Earlier this month, assistant sociology professor Alicia Walker launched a new study focused on the correlation between male self-esteem and their dick size, the New York Post reports. Walker wants to get to understand how the perceived notion of having a small penis can affect a man's confidence and emotional health, both in relationships and in day-to-day life.
"I’ve spoken to men who have been suicidal because of their anxiety and unhappiness with their size or perceived size," Walker told the Post. "Men that haven’t been to the doctor in more than a decade or are not using a condom because they’re convinced they can’t get one that fit them."
To do this, she's searching for at least 3,600 men over the age of 22 to measure their junk, snap some photos both of their erect and flaccid wangs, and fill out a quick online survey. She's looking for subjects from all around the world, recruiting participants both online and in person at nightclubs and hospitals, according to the Springfield News-Leader.
"These are not sexy pictures," she specified to the News-Leader. The photos are supposed to be "clinical," with very specific rules about how to measure and document your junk for the study.
As funny as the idea of a professor soliciting dick pics for science might sound, the study's goals are pretty serious. Walker told the Post that she's already spoken to men who have contemplated suicide or unwilling to be in a relationship, convinced that they're well below the average penis size.
"We need to be talking about men’s body dysmorphia, and the way our society worships size and the way that worship impacts men... It really is incredibly damaging," she said, according to the Post. "They can’t admit that they feel this. Imagine carrying around all this anxiety about your body and then imagine you can’t even tell your friends?"
Walker will be collecting photos and survey information between now and August, when she'll stop accepting new submissions and start combing through her dick pic trove to see if she can piece together some data. If nothing else, maybe this study will help someone finally explain what the fuck "big dick energy" actually means, once and for all.
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A Second Trump Term Just Got Way More Likely Thanks to the Supreme Court
If you're a Democrat or a fellow traveler on the broader left, so many tragic, painful and unprecedented things have already happened under Donald Trump's presidency that you might forget we're not even halfway through this thing. Thanks to a monster Supreme Court ruling against unions that came down Wednesday, even that forecast is suddenly looking way too optimistic.
In yet another 5-4 decision along sharply ideological lines, the US's highest court held that public (a.k.a. government) employees can't be required to help pay the cost of bargaining union contracts. Not only will that make it harder for all workers to get decent wages and benefits—they'll have fewer resources to extract concessions from management—but it could punch Trump's ticket for a second term while setting organized labor and Democrats back for a whole generation.
The case, Janus v. AFSCME, centered on an Illinois child welfare worker named Mark Janus who sued the union representing him and other state employees because he had to pay a $45 fee each month that went toward the cost of collective bargaining despite not being a union member. No one made him actually join the union, and the money—called "agency" or "fair share" fees—was not used for explicitly political activity. The reason he had to pay was that courts have long agreed workers who benefit from collective bargaining should have to contribute to that process even if they weren't union members. Otherwise, a lot of people would presumably choose not to chip in, and these free riders would risk disrupting "labor peace," which is to say they would leech off the hard work of labor organizers and foment discord between workers and management.
But Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed to the court by Trump, sided with the other longtime conservative voices on the Court and deemed the minor inconvenience of the fee—which, to be clear, also benefits people like Janus through collective bargaining—a violation of his First Amendment rights. The idea is that giving any money to a union means helping an inherently political entity; in this case that entity was a labor union that also worked on behalf of Democrats.
What the decision means in practice is that "right to work," the conservative euphemism for the notion that you shouldn't be forced to join a union or pay dues to work a job, now applies to the public sector, the the last remaining part of the American economy where unions remain strong. More than a third of government workers in the US belong to labor unions, compared to only about 6.5 percent of workers at private firms. The former figure has held relatively steady since the late 70s, even as many private unions have seen their numbers dwindle and wages go terrifyingly stagnant across the American economy.
"The decline of unionization over the past generation has been a primary driver of economic inequality in the US, and the one place that has sort of stood up in the face of pretty fierce de-unionization has been the public sector," Josh Bivens, director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told me. "This [case] is sort of a laser [trained] right at that."
Now unions have to get workers to voluntarily pay for collective bargaining, a campaign they've been working on for some time in anticipation of this decision. Suffice it to say that is going to be an uphill battle—and is obviously not an ideal fight to be waging when the labor movement is also trying to help the Democrats retake Congress and, eventually, unseat Trump. The sort of fees Janus objected to can't be used to help Democrats—or anyone—win elections. But by forcing unions to work harder to fund their non-political operations, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court have effectively kneecapped them.
"That's diverting attention from things unions would normally do, which is get-out-the-vote and efforts to organize during elections," Celinda Lake, a prominent Democratic pollster, told me of unions' frantic efforts to recoup lost fees by getting people to opt-in to paying them.
Calling the decision a "very big deal" for national politics, she noted that it coming down now is especially important long-term because national and local districts will be redrawn—or "reapportioned"—after the next census. But we could be seeing the impact of weaker unions struggling to advocate on behalf of workers as soon as this fall, and certainly two years from now.
"It makes 2018 somewhat harder. I think it makes 2020 even more [difficult]," Lake told me.
Perhaps the most terrifying picture of how badly this could go for Democrats comes courtesy of an academic paper published earlier this year. Examining so-called "right to work" laws and how unions altered American politics between 1980 and 2016, they found places with the anti-union measures in place cut the Democratic share of the presidential vote by 3.5 percentage points. They also found turnout went down between 2 and 3 percent. Among other reasons, this was because the laws cut the flow of cash to Democratic campaigns by sapping them of resources, made it less likely for voters to be contacted by organized labor, and even appeared to make it less likely for non-elites (a.k.a. working-class people) to run for office.
Unions don't just help workers bargain together for better pay and benefits, though of course that's their primary purpose. They also can change workplace culture and the political consciousness of their members. "They have a really big effect on how people think about politics and even how they construct their identities," Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a Columbia political scientist who co-authored the study, told me. "That sets them apart even from traditional advocacy groups that are mainly about collecting checks and making campaign contributions. Unions of course do a lot of that—they are huge campaign donors—but they also have this grassroots element to them that is pretty significant. It's hard to think of another organization on the left that plays that kind of role. On the right, I would say the most comparable organizations are the churches or the National Rifle Association."
That means that no matter what happens in 2018 and 2020, the country will almost certainly be less hospitable to left-wing populism and grassroots progressive appeals in the years to come. In fact, Hertel-Fernandez pointed to evidence suggesting trade unions may have helped keep some white men from embracing the far right in Europe. And in the short-term, the prognosis is ugly for the left. "This creates another obstacle for Democrats to retake the House or even have a shot at the Senate," Hertel-Fernandez told me.
After all, despite Democrats' focus on socially liberal suburbs in recent years, unions are still a key wellspring of the Party's support and muscle and energy in big cities. Demographic changes won't rescue the party overnight (as we saw in 2016). And as we hurtle toward 2020, Trump will be able to point to everything from a massive corporate tax cut to low unemployment to palpably pro-business Supreme Court decisions to generate good will—and huge troves of campaign cash— from his donors.
"If you look at decisions like this... and combine it with some of the poll numbers, the strength of the GOP, he's not simply plummeting politically at this point," Julian E. Zelizer, a Princeton professor of history and public affairs, told me. "There are many reasons Republicans could not be confident or not optimistic but truly believe they have a shot at winning the White House again with him at the top of ticket. I think that's just reality."
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Here's What Michael Rotondo Is Up to Now
Remember Michael Rotondo, the unemployed 30-year-old who refused to leave his parents' home, forcing them to legally evict him? During Tuesday's episode of Desus & Mero, the VICELAND hosts learned what happened after Rotondo's big move, and offered him some unconventional life advice.
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Watch the Trailer for Timothée Chalamet's 'Beautiful Boy' and Try Not to Cry
In May, we got our first look at Beautiful Boy, an upcoming film starring Timothée Chalamet as Nic Sheff, a meth-addicted kid whose father (Steve Carell) struggles to pull him out of his addiction, that's already drumming up Oscar buzz. On Tuesday, Amazon Studios dropped the movie's first full-length trailer, and it might just leave you sobbing at your desk. Probably best to take this one to the supply closet.
It opens with Chalamet and Carell meeting up in a diner, where even a simple question—"So how you doing?"—sends them both into an emotionally-charged meltdown. We also get flashbacks to what life was like between the father and son before Nic started using, and meet a few other folks in the film's cast: Amy Ryan as Nic's mother—reuniting Ryan and Carell after their stint together on The Office—along with Maura Tierney as Nic's stepmom.
The film was adapted from two memoirs, David Sheff's Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction, and Nic Sheff's Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines, told from his perspective. He got into booze, weed, cocaine, ecstasy, crystal meth, and heroin at an early age, bouncing in and out of rehab all through his teen years and relapsing countless times. All the while, his dad fought to help him, even when Nic threatened to put the rest of his family at risk. The trailer for the adaptation makes it clear that director Felix Van Groeningen's take is gearing up to be just as heavy as the memoirs.
Check out the trailer above, and pack a box of tissues for the theater once the film drops October 12. Or bring your dad. You should probably bring your dad.
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'Permit Patty' Is Officially Out of a Job
Alison Ettel, the woman dubbed "Permit Patty" after she lost her shit in a viral video appearing to report an eight-year-old black girl selling water "without a permit," is now out of a job. On Tuesday, Treatwell Health announced that Ettel had officially stepped down as CEO and that the cannabis company, which produces weed products for cats and dogs, will be moving on without her.
Treatwell has been under fire ever since footage of Ettel hit the internet last weekend. In the viral video, Ettel appears to call the police over a kid selling $2 bottles of water on the street in Oakland. She later tries to hide behind a low wall when she realizes she's being filmed. Ettel later told Huffington Post she only "pretended" to call the police because the girl was being loud, and the San Francisco Police Department confirmed to NBC News that it never received a complaint.
"I think she’s a bully," the girl's mother, Erin Austin, later told CNN. "Just the fact that she called the police on a child, that’s evil. But to call on a child of color, knowing that police have been killing black kids, that says to me that you don’t care about my child’s life."
By Tuesday, at least seven California businesses reportedly pulled Treatwell products from their shelves or cut ties with the company in protest. That night, Treatwell released a statement in response to the "situation that occurred in an escalated moment."
"In a heated moment, a critically wrong decision was made by our CEO," a spokesman for Treatwell wrote. "The guilt lies in that decision, and while it was completely wrong, the act that followed was not motivated by any racist intent whatsoever."
Ettel has now stepped down from her post, "in the best interest of [Treatwell's] patients," and will no longer be working with the company, effective immediately. "It is Ms. Ettel’s belief that TreatWell, its employees, and patients should not have to suffer because of a situation that occurred in an escalated moment. And she regrets her part and is remorseful," the statement continues.
It's unclear if Ettel is going to stay in the pet cannabis industry or look for something new—but whatever she winds up doing, she better be sure and get the proper permitting first.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2018
No, David Lynch Didn’t Actually Praise Trump
Welcome to Evesplaining, politics writer Eve Peyser's column about why everyone else is wrong and she's right.
If you need any more proof that subtlety is dead, Donald Trump tweeted a Breitbart article headlined, "Director David Lynch: Trump ‘Could Go Down as One of the Greatest Presidents in History'" on Monday evening. Later that night, the president also boasted about Lynch's apparent support of him at a rally in South Carolina. So did Lynch actually praise Trump? No.
The Breitbart story aggregated a recent Guardian profile of the iconic director, which touched upon his unconventional political views. Lynch voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries, and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in the general election. “I am not really a political person, but I really like the freedom to do what you want to do,” he told the Guardian.
He noted that Trump "could go down as one of the greatest presidents in history," but only because he's revealed the utter idiocy of the American political system. "No one is able to counter this guy in an intelligent way... Our so-called leaders can’t take the country forward, can’t get anything done. Like children, they are. Trump has shown all this," Lynch said. That is more a condemnation of politics write large than a complimentary statement about the president.
While I wouldn't phrase it like that—that statement practically begged for the Breitbart treatment—Lynch is on point. For all the chatter about Trump being a uniquely evil political force, his presidency seems like a logical conclusion of a political system that is fundamentally broken. Trump's greatest achievement (perhaps his only one) is his how he's revealed the fragility and corruption of the establishment. American democracy has been in trouble for a long time, and was ripe for a demagogue to take over. Trump has made that abundantly clear.
But the whole incident reveals more about Trump and the right than it does about Lynch. The president has spent the majority of his adult life seeking approval from the New York and Hollywood media elite. As Jeet Heer wrote in the New Republic, Trump's fixation on Lynch's so-called approval demonstrates "how hungry the Republican right is for acceptance by Hollywood. They are so famished for celebrity praise that they’ll even take it in the form of very ironic and slippery statement from a film director who loves to cultivate an air of mystery."
Lynch's work is steeped in dream logic that is just as elusive and weird as it is cogent. It invites analysis and second guessing. In that sense he seems like an artifact from an earlier age—with Trump, everything is painfully obvious.
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Desus and Mero Break Down the Saga of #PermitPatty
Last weekend, a video of a white woman calling the cops on an 8-year-old black girl for selling water made waves on social media. The woman, later identified as cannabis startup founder Alison Ettel, promptly became a meme in the same vein as BBQ Becky. During Monday's episode of Desus & Mero, the host talked about Ettel's odd profession, tear-filled apology tour, and the call that changed her destiny.
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Watch This Very Good Boy Give His Human Friend CPR
Do you ever feel like things are wholly, irreparably awful? That our country is a horrific mess, that the internet is garbage, that even summer is ruined now that snakes have learned how to hide inside pool noodles? Well, OK, sure, there's an unending deluge of examples to build that case if you want, but let me offer you a compelling counterargument on the side of goodness in this world.
Behold:
Yes, that is a dog. Yes, he is performing CPR on that police officer. Yes, dogs are sweet and kind and possibly the purest thing left in this cruel world.
The video was posted on Twitter last Friday by the Madrid police force, who apparently decided to teach its K-9 unit how to both resuscitate a person and fill our cold hearts with glee. When a police officer falls to the ground, the dog, Poncho, immediately leaps—literally—to the rescue. He starts by doing big, pounding compressions on the officer's chest and listening to his breathing like he's taken careful notes from The Office. The whole thing is adorable and actually pretty incredible to see from a dog, though maybe a hassle if you're just trying to sleep next to him.
"A dog is the only thing on Earth that loves you more than he loves himself," the Spanish police force wrote in their tweet alongside the video, quoting 19th-century humorist Josh Billings. And it's true—can one of MIT's robot dogs perform CPR like that? Well, they probably could. But would they want to? No. They'd be too busy tearing apart our puny human flesh and recharging their batteries on our dying body's electrical currents or something.
Until that happens, go outside and find a dog to pet today. It won't fix everything, but it's a start.
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Sean Spicer's Talk Show Wants to Explore the 'Merits of Making Your Bed'
Sean Spicer has been clamoring to get back on TV ever since he left the White House, trying (and failing) to become a talking head on cable news, turning down a run on Dancing with the Stars, unveiling wax statues, and somehow actually managing to weasel his way into the Emmys. Now it seems Spicey's concocted a new plan to make it back onto the small screen: starting a TV talk show that sounds about as exciting as an infomercial.
According to the New York Times, the show is tentatively titled Sean Spicer’s Common Ground, and it reportedly has a pilot in the works. The Times got ahold of a pitch sheet for the series, which teases that Spicer would be sitting down with "some of the most interesting and thoughtful public figures for a drink and some lite conversation at a local pub or cafe."
"The relaxed atmosphere is an ideal setting for Sean to get to know his guests as they discuss everything from the media to marriage," the pitch sheet reads. "They might even tangle over the merits of making your bed or the value of a great point guard."
Ah, yes, the world's most thrilling subject: making your bed. Just imagine: Sean Spicer and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, perched across from each other at a Starbucks, discussing the finer points of hospital corners and fluffing your pillows. It's dizzying to think of what other electrifying subjects Spicey might get into. Crocheting? Regular visits to the dentist? The importance of tying your shoes?
So far, no network has picked up the riveting, fledgling series yet, but Spicer told the Times he's gearing up for the pilot, set to be filmed this July.
"In this current environment, I think it’s important to have a platform where we can have civil, respectful, and informative discussions on the issues of the day," he said.
"Civil." "Respectful." "Informative." That's an interesting choice of words coming from a guy infamous for yelling at reporters, brazenly lying about basic facts, and, repeatedly failing to demonstrate a baseline understanding of the world, like that time he said Hitler never used chemical weapons. But hey, at least having an unhinged host could make for pretty entertaining TV, right?
We won't know until the pilot drops, if that ever actually happens. The Times reports that it's been backed by a few mavericks in unscripted TV—media companies behind Family Feud and American Choppers—so maybe Spicer actually has a shot at making it back onto our TV screens every day.
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Occupy Is Back and It's Coming for ICE
Almost as soon as Occupy Wall Street roared into existence in 2011, it became the butt of jokes and fodder for mockery. The activists camping out in lower Manhattan—and, eventually, dozens of cities across the country and the world—to protest income inequality and rampant oligarchy were dirty hippies, the haters said. They didn't have an actual, concrete policy agenda, somewhat more serious critics charged, but rather were just engaged in a theatrical bit of cultural expression. Some may have just been there to yell at cops and maybe even get arrested. It was all well and good to call out the 1 percent for shamelessly enriching themselves and corrupting the political system at the expense of the other 99 percent, but what was it all going to add up to, in the end?
For all the bad-faith critiques—and there were a lot of them—of a truly inspiring and singular protest movement that emerged from the Great Recession, there was a fundamental flaw that limited Occupy's ability to change the system. The activists weren't really occupying the "Wall Street" that actually ran things, they were occupying parks. That meant they couldn't actually force the elites they opposed to change the way they did business.
Grinding some of the gears of America's immigration deportation regime to a (temporary) halt, on the other hand, is easier than you might think.
Last week, protesters in Portland, Oregon, furious at the Trump administration's policies successfully forced the shutdown of a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. They did so thanks in part to Occupy-style tactics, camping out and erecting a quasi-Utopian tent city complete with provisions, communications, legal aid, and other hallmarks of Zuccotti Park circa fall 2011. They also expressed hope that their example might inspire similar actions in other cities—a hope that was promptly answered by, among others, the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC) in New York City. That group, too, won an at least temporary victory when the ICE building in Lower Manhattan they targeted cancelled immigration hearings Monday. Likewise, an Occupy ICE group in Detroit forced a temporary shutdown there the same day, though they were subsequently forced off federal property by police, according to a local ABC affiliate.
Similar efforts have sprung up in recent days in cities like San Diego and Los Angeles, with talk of nascent protests from Chicago to Philadelphia. And while the ability of protesters in those cities to force shutdowns—and the ones in Portland and New York to sustain them—remained to be seen, the early indications were that occupying public spaces is a hell of a lot more effective when you want to stop the government from inflicting harm rather than force it to correct injustices.
"We were watching Portland really closely," Marisa Holmes, an organizer with MACC, told me Monday. "Now it's becoming a national movement of sorts—an Occupy ICE phenomenon—taking different detention centers and facilities around the country."
Holmes, a veteran of the original Occupy Wall Street protests, noted that in New York's case, at least, the legacy of that earlier movement has been instrumental in organizing actions against ICE. From the basic skills of how to train people on worst-case legal and medical scenarios to the infusion of energy that comes from left-wing groups ranging from NYC Shut It Down to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to NYC Anti-Racist Action (a local offshoot of a mostly defunct outfit that employed anti-fascist tactics in the Obama era), protesters have a lot of institutional savvy and experience to lean on.
The other thing that helps is a very tangible target.
"It's one very specific part of the system that we're trying to critique and change," Holmes told me of ICE generally and separating families at the border in particular. "Occupy had this critique—we were critiquing Wall Street and capitalism as a system. There were a lot of different campaigns and things that came out of that, and people continue to do work in specific areas [on issues like] housing and policy brutality. This an immediate response to an outrageous immigration policy."
Not that it's just a bunch of Occupy diehards getting the band back together. In Washington State, 16-year-old Seattle resident and DSA member Laura Couch has been using her time off from school to run the Occupy Northwest Detention Center Twitter account, named for the ICE facility activists have been camped out at in nearby Tacoma in hopes of mimicking the victory won in Portland. "It's not enough just to protest," she told me. "We have to unite and actually change what's happening."
That protest, she added, has had a typical overnight population of just 20 people, though numbers have been closer to 70 or so during peak protest hours like 9 PM local time. She acknowledged there was still a lot of work to do to achieve the volume and disruption of the Portland action, but didn't have any doubt people would stick around as long as necessary. "It's going to be more of a long haul than in Portland—this might take months," she said.
It's still too early to say just how effective protests will be at seriously impeding or even halting ICE operations, especially since much of the damage to immigrant families is happening hundreds of miles south, at the border. But with some of the thousands of children separated from their parents moved to the very states where occupations are taking place, and more structural "abolish ICE" sentiment infiltrating the debate in Democratic congressional primaries, the potential for even relatively modest occupations to make life a lot more complicated for immigration overlords is already clear.
"Occupy itself was sort of an eruption from a field of hot energy under the surface that came and went with respect to what was being felt on the street," recalled Todd Gitlin, a Columbia professor and social-movement historian who was president of Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s. Comparing ICE occupations to similar actions at Army draft board locations at the height of the Vietnam War, he pointed to the midterm elections as a key measuring stick for what this latest eruption of Occupy-style protests really means, and what activists intend to get before they back down.
"They may or may not feel the need to do something more orderly or organized down the pike, but for now they feel enraged and this seems to be a sort of natural place to put that energy," he told me.
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