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Republicans Are Reportedly Big Mad At Trump After A Rally In Which He Said Stacey Abrams Would Be A Better Governor Than Brian Kemp

Donald J. Trump hasn’t been president for almost ten months now, and it’ll be a good while before he could even possibly be re-elected. That hasn’t stopped him from holding what is almost certainly his favorite activity: rallies, in which he rants and rambles for 90 minutes or so to adoring fans who thrill to his petty grievances. But at his latest hoedown on Saturday night, he may have pissed off the wrong people: Republicans.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein, Trump descended upon Perry, Georgia, ostensibly to pitch a trio of loyalists he prefers to the Republicans in charge. But as his style, he spent most of the time on the attack. He lambasted some of his favorite arch-nemeses in Georgia’s Republican party: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and, of course, Governor Brian Kemp. But he may have gone too far, even for the party over which he still holds sway.

Trump was complaining about how Stacey Abrams didn’t concede her gubernatorial loss in 2018 right away. (Though, unlike some people, she did eventually.) Being Trump, he couldn’t help but slip in a ancillary dig at another enemy.

“Of course, having her I think might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told the crowd. Usually a Trump crowd will cheer for anything, but the reaction was much more mixed. There were some boos, some gasps, but no sustained applause. He later returned to the subject. “Stacey, would you like to take his place?” he said, with a nod to Kemp. “It’s OK with me.”

According to Bluestein, this made Republican officials hopping mad. Without naming names, he claimed he was being bombarded with texts effectively saying Trump was torpedoing his own party. They told him things like, “What a s*it show,” “We have reached a new low,” and “I am just so mad — beyond words.”

Bluestein also mentioned that a top official affiliated with Raffensperger said, “Democrats will win 2022 general in a landslide if a Trump endorsed candidate makes it through the primary.”

Mind you, this is just Georgia, whose Republicans have been standing up to Trump since the 2020 election, refusing to do his bidding, even after he all but made them household names amongst his hopped-up base. But it could signal an ever-growing gap in the party, which has either stuck by Trump’s side or, in more cases, simply stayed silent as he unleashed his wrath.

Meanwhile at the same rally, Trump said something even more dastardly: He talked about the months-long audit of Arizona’s ballots, which was conducted by Trump loyalists and which not only restated that Biden won the state, but that Biden won even more votes than previously thought. And he openly lied by claiming he’d won. The crowd, of course, ate it up.

(Via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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The Sky Pulled Away From The Lynx Late To Set Up A Semifinals Series With Connecticut

After a thriller in Seattle that saw the Mercury take care of the Storm to reach the WNBA semifinals, the Chicago Sky went on the road to visit the 3-seed Minnesota Lynx.

Minnesota led by one after the first quarter, but it was all Chicago the rest of the way. Led by Courtney Vandersloot’s 19-5-5 performance, the Sky steadily pulled away from the Lynx to leave little doubt as to the outcome down the stretch.

The exclamation marks on the victory came in the form of a pair of steal-and-scores from Vandersloot, who led the way with a terrific overall effort.

On the other side, Aerial Powers led all scorers with 24 points, while Kayla McBride added 19 and Sylvia Fowles had 17, as that trio did their best to keep Minnesota in the game.

However, the rest of the Lynx roster beyond those three could only cobble together 16 points, and the more balanced attack from the Sky was able to wear them down. Chicago had five in double-figures — Vandersloot with 19, 16 from Kahleah Cooper, 15 from Azura Stevens, 14 from Diamond DeShields, and 11 from Allie Quigley. That kind of offensive balance is going to be critical in a five-game set with the Connecticut Sun coming up in the semifinals, as they draw the WNBA’s top seed for a shot at the Finals — with the other semi now being set as Phoenix vs. Las Vegas.

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Billie Eilish And Finneas Joined Coldplay To Perform ‘Fix You’ At The Global Citizen Festival

Coldplay has had quite an eventful weekend. The band just shared their new single, “My Universe” featuring BTS, which will appear on their upcoming album, Music Of The Spheres. They also made an appearance at the Global Citizen Festival, where they played tracks like “My Universe” and “Fix You,” the hit song from their 2005 album X&Y. For the latter performance, Coldplay invited Billie Eilish and Finneas on stage to perform with them.

This comes after Coldplay shared a documentary that gave viewers an exclusive look at how their BTS collaboration came to life. The 12-minute short captures the first in-person meeting between the artists, showing BTS praising Coldplay, calling them the “king of stadium tours,” a “role model” and a “great influence.”

As for Billie and Finneas, the former was recently included on Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people. Megan Thee Stallion wrote about the singer for the issue and called her a “rare spirit who speaks from her heart with no pretenses” and a “woman who stands up for herself and advocates for women everywhere.” Finneas, on the other hand, is a few weeks removed from his most recent single, “The 90s.”

You can watch the performance in the video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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Trump Denies A Report That His Team Considered Assassinating Wikileaks’ Julian Assange

A new report from Yahoo! News alleges some shocking claims about how the U.S. government under former Donald J. Trump handled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The journalist and activist was not well liked over his habit of making public oft-damning documents. And in 2017, two years before his arrest, and after a particularly egregious leak, both the CIA and high-up Trump officials allegedly plotted ways to off him — claims Trump himself has denied.

According to the report, the CIA toyed with ways to kidnap Assange, who spent over six years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after being granted asylum. What prompted them to take things next level? WikiLeaks’ publication of sensitive CIA tools, known as “Vault 7,” which was called “the largest data loss in CIA history.”

Some talked of kidnapping. Others went further:

Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”

That didn’t happen. But they had other methods, including, as per Yahoo!, “extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices.

Among those out for blood was former CIA director Mike Pompeo, who was among those “seeing red” over the Vault 7 leaks. But Trump claims he was never on board.

“It’s totally false, it never happened,” Trump told Yahoo! News. “In fact, I think he’s been treated very badly.”

Assange had sought asylum at the Ecuador embassy after an international arrest warrant was put out for him over claims of sexual misconduct. He wound up spending nearly seven years there before being arrested in April 2019. He currently resides in a London prison as courts decide whether to extradite him over his role in the Chelsea Manning affair.

(Via Yahoo! News)

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Ghostface Killah Reveals ‘Supreme Clientele 2’ Will Be Produced By Kanye West And Mike Dean

Ghostface Killah’s last album came in 2019 with Ghostface Killahs, a 14-track effort with features from Method Man, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, and more. Now,the Wu-Tang rapper is ready to release his fourteenth album. He hopped into Reddit’s HipHopHeads forum and revealed who would handle production on his upcoming album, Supreme Clientele 2. “SUPREME CLIENTELE 2 IS EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY: KANYE WEST, MIKE DEAN & PRODUCERPLUGUNI.COM, RELEASE DATE: FEB 2022,” he wrote in the post.

That means fans won’t have long to wait.

Ghostface has recently been looking backward, as well as forward. During an interview with Vulture, Ghostface spoke about Supreme Clientele and some of his intentions, or lack thereof, behind songs on the album.

“When I was rhyming on ‘Nutmeg’ and ‘One’ on Supreme Clientele, I made a style that I couldn’t even tell what it was,” he said. “I just wanted to use some words that sounded good with each other and everybody’s trying to decipher what I mean when, really, I don’t even know what it means because I had no beat.” He added, “But something said, ‘Make a record. Write a verse real quick just putting words together, whether they mean something or not. Just put them together.’”

The announcement comes months after Ghostface put on a show with Raekwon for a Verzuz battle back in February.

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Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell Seemed To Implicate Kevin McCarthy And Samuel Alito In The Plot To Overturn The 2020 Election

Sidney Powell is not exactly a reliable narrator. The disgraced lawyer, once described as the “Kraken” in Trump’s flailing attempts to overturn the 2020 election, has herself argued that “no reasonable person” would have believed her nonsense Dominion conspiracy theories. So take this with a quarry of salt: In a new interview, Powell seemed to suggest the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was an attempt to buy time so they could stop Joe Biden’s win. Oh, and she had some help.

As per Raw Story, Powell went on The Stew Peters Show, where she claimed that, while Trump was revving up his base to descend upon the nation’s capital, she and others were filing a “12th Amendment constitutional challenge to the process the Congress was about to use.” They alleged that they wanted to sue then-vice president Mike Pence to follow that amendment, not the Electoral College Act.

Powell also claimed she had some inside help. One was Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who she said was “our circuit justice for that.” Then she implicated Minority Whip Steve Scalise and House Minority Leader Kevin. McCarthy, who she said tried to stall Nancy Pelosi from reconvening Congress. But that didn’t work.

“She got notice when we made our filing,” Powell claimed. “She wanted to file an amicus brief, and then everything broke loose, and she had to speed up reconvening Congress to get the vote going before Justice Alito might have issued an injunction to stop it all, which is what should have happened.”

In other words, Powell and her co-conspirators, she claimed, were hoping to buy time so that Alito could help flip the election Trump’s way. And it all would have worked out had it not been for that meddling Nancy Pelosi. Ron Filipkowski, who shared a clip of the interview on social media, went even further, saying Powell was suggesting “that the purpose of the insurrection was to DELAY the electoral college certification to give [Justice Samuel Alito] time to intervene on this legal challenge. But, Powell says they didn’t anticipate Pelosi reconvening Congress that day.”

Again, Powell is not exactly a reliable source. But it is possible that she said the quiet part loud, as many die hard Trump people tend to do. That’s how some on social media saw it.

Powell is one of a number of Trump loyalists who are being sued by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims linking them to a byzantine plot to steal last year’s election. It was also reported last week that Trump insiders knew those claims were bull.

You can watch Powell’s interview below.

(Via Raw Story)

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The Mercury Knocked Off The Storm In OT To Reach The WNBA Semifinals

Two legends and future Hall of Famers met for, possibly, the final time on Sunday in Seattle as the Storm played host to the Phoenix Mercury in the second round of the WNBA Playoffs. Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi played pivotal roles in what became an overtime thriller, with Taurasi burying some key buckets in overtime to lift Phoenix to a semifinal series.

The two teams traded leads and big shots in the fourth quarter, headlined by Sue Bird who was sensational for the Storm in the fourth, refusing to let her team bow out whenever Phoenix gave them a punch. Bird had 16 points and five assists on the afternoon, coming alive down the stretch.

On the other side, it was Britney Griner who was a force down the stretch inside, simply dominating anytime the Storm dared to send single coverage her way. Griner finished the game with 23 points and 16 rebounds to lead Phoenix in both categories.

The final minute of the game wasn’t exactly an offensive clinic from either team, with stagnant sets, missed free throws, and questionable isolation play that saw the game get sent to overtime on this Mercedes Russell block of Skylar Diggins-Smith.

In overtime, the Storm went up early on a three and were looking to extend it, but Brianna Turner got a massive block that led to a Taurasi three to tie it up, as she got going when the Mercury needed it the most.

Taurasi would hit a baseline jumper after that to give Phoenix a lead, one they wouldn’t relinquish again as they held on through the foul game at the end for an 85-80 win. They’ll have to wait for the Lynx and Sky game to conclude to know which of the Sun or Aces they’ll play next in a five-game series, but have had it rolling with a balanced offensive attack thus far, as Skylar Diggins-Smith had another 20-point outing (with seven rebounds and six assists), and Brianna Turner added 12 points and 12 rebounds.

For the Storm, it’s possibly the end of an era as Sue Bird will contemplate retirement. She and Taurasi did an emotional on-court interview afterwards reflecting on their battles over the years, followed by a jersey swap between a pair of all-time legends.

We’ll find out later whether this will indeed be it for Bird, but if nothing else she and Taurasi gave us one final incredible showdown after giving the game of basketball so much for two decades.

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Drake’s ‘Certified Lover Boy’ Goes No. 1 For A Third Straight Week

Drake’s Certified Lover Boy is one of the most popular albums of the year, but the rapper originally intended for it to arrive much earlier. He originally said it would arrive in January, but he was forced to delay it following knee surgery and rehab. Sure enough, it’s been dominating the charts.

Certified Lover Boy lands its third consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated October 2, thanks to 171,000 album units sold, a number comprised of 165,000 streaming equivalent album units thanks to 222.16 million on-demand streams of the album’s 21 tracks. The album also earned 4,000 pure album sales this past week. With its third week at atop the album chart, Certified Lover Boy has now spent the most weeks at No. 1 for a hip-hop/R&B project since Lil Baby’s My Turn tallied five nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2020.

On top of that, Drake now has the third-most weeks spent at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since 2010. That also means he’s earned his 30th overall week atop the albums chart, putting him behind Adele, who has 34, and Taylor Swift, who leads the way with 42.

Another highlight on this week’s chart comes with Lil Nas X checking in at No. 2 with Montero. The singer’s debut tallied 126,000 album units in its first week on the chart.

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People Are Furious That Meghan McCain Made Her First Post-‘The View’ Appearance On ‘Meet The Press’

It’s been almost two months since Meghan McCain left The View, the morning chat-a-thon in which she often got into loggerheads with her more progressive co-hosts. The conservative commentator (and John McCain daughter) may not exactly have been missed, but she chose her television comeback wisely: On Sunday she went on Meet the Press, the long-running show in which elected officials are supposed to answer to the public. And people were pissed.

McCain, who has a degree in art history and once interned at SNL, weighed in on Joe Biden’s administration, including his Build Back Better agenda, which includes a $3.5 trillion reconciliation package that may not pass thanks to Democrats like Kyrsten Sinema. McCain is no fan.

“I will say that President Biden ran on being a moderate,” McCain said. “He ran and won with the help of independent, centrists, Trump-wary Republicans and he’s not governing as one.”

She singled out his latest piece of legislation. “The Build Back Better agenda is the most progressive modern agenda of all time,” she averred. “And it’s not polling well. So I think I’m just confused why they’re doubling down on something that is cratering in the polls.”

Thing is, it’s not cratering in the polls. A new poll finds a whopping 66% of Americans, including 61% of registered Independents, support it. Many on social media were happy to point out that McCain was going on a major news show to spread misinformation.

McCain herself later responded to one of her critics…by addressing a completely different subject: Biden’s own polling, which has sunk in recent weeks.

Others wondered what a former host of The View was doing on what’s purportedly a serious news program.

Many laid the blame at Meet the Press Chuck Todd and anyone who greenlit McCain.

You can watch McCain’s full segment in the video above.

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An Old Penn And Teller Clip About Vaccines Is Circulating Again Amid Coronavirus Vaccine Skepticism

Vaccination efforts in the United States continue to lag. Meanwhile more than 2,000 people are dying largely preventable deaths due to the ongoing pandemic. While anti-vaccination rail, federal officials are likely to authorize the vaccine for a wide group of children in the coming weeks. The Boston Globe reported Sunday that Pfizer will deliver vaccine testing data for children 5-11 in a matter of “days” and authorization is widely assumed coming after that. But vaccine hesitancy among some parents existed well before COVID-19, which only amplified and exacerbated fears amid a wave of misinformation on social media and Fox News.

That’s why an old Penn and Teller clip went viral among those in favor of vaccination this weekend. The clip runs for exactly 90 seconds but tells a very clear story about the incredible benefits of the wide array of vaccines that have helped prevent child illness and death for more than a century now. The segment comes from the pair of magicians’ Showtime series, Penn + Teller: Bulls*it!, which ran from 2003 to 2010.

The video is simple: On the ground are two sets of 110 plastic bowling pins, representing children. A plastic shield is put up on one side labeled “vaccines.” The other has nothing to protect it. Jillette discusses an older strain of virulent anti-vaccination: the unproven fear that they cause autism in children, which averages a single case out of 110 American children.

The two then start throwing plastic bowling balls at the piles that represent various diseases humans have limited due to vaccines. Mumps, measles, polio, rubella, and strains of the flu are all represented, slowly taking down pins on the unvaccinated side while the vaccine shield keeps the other side upright and healthy. The point is clear: without an array of vaccines already widely accepted by most people in society, many more children would die from many more diseases each year.

“Which side do you want your child to stand on?” Jillette asks. “So even if vaccinations did cause autism — WHICH IT FU*KING DOESN’T — anti-vaccination would still be bulls*it.”

The clip’s brevity, as well as its stark visuals, makes for instantly-sharable content in the modern internet age, which is why it appeared all over social media over the weekend. While too many parents and other anti-vaxx Americans will remain unswayed by yet another example of vaccine efface, well, actually I can’t really think of a silver lining as bodies continue to pile up for no reason other than ignorance and maybe even outright malice.

[via Digg]