A celebration of his life is being planned

'There was a backlash'

'Pretty wild day'

News Wednesday Ooh La La! Lady Gaga Will Be in Season 2 of Netflix’s Wednesday By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on November 13, 2024 Screenshot: ABC Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: ABC Season two of Wednesday, the Addams Family series centered on Jenna Ortega’s rendition of the macabre titular character, will see Lady Gaga in at least one of the upcoming episodes. Entertainment Weekly broke the news that the singer-actor is currently filming for the show in Europe, though what role she is taking on remains unknown. In addition to being a singing sensation, Lady Gaga has several acting credits under belt, including starring in the recent Joker: Folie á Deux as well as A Star is Born and House of Gucci. She also, of course, performed with the Muppets (pictured above) in Lady Gaga and the Muppets Holiday Spectacular, a 90-minute masterpiece I’ll be watching this Thanksgiving and every Thanksgiving after. Lady Gaga isn’t the only big name joining Wednesday for season two. Steve Buscemi has joined the cast as the principal of the boarding school, Nevermore, and Billie Piper is a new series regular as well. Other confirmed guest stars include Joanna Lumley, Thandiwe Newton, Christopher Lloyd. Frances O’Connor, Haley Joel Osment. Heather Matarazzo, and Joonas Suotamo (best known as Chewbacca). They join Ortega and the returning cast, which includes Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Luis Guzmán as Gomez, Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley, and Emma Myers as Wednesday’s pastel-loving bestie, Enid. No news yet on when Season Two of Wednesday will start streaming on Netflix.[end-mark] The post Ooh La La! Lady Gaga Will Be in Season 2 of Netflix’s <i>Wednesday</i> appeared first on Reactor.

New Hollywood, also known as The Hollywood Renaissance, denotes the period from the 1960s to the early '80s when shifts in film revolutionized how movies were made. Suddenly directors were the head honchos, style and narrative became rebellious, and leading ladies left movie-goers speechless with their command of the screen. Some of these women never left the spotlight, such as Jane Fonda and... Source

President-elect Donald Trump has announced Cabinet and other senior-level appointments that likely will face challenges in implementing some of the returning president’s promised reforms.  Some key appointments—including treasury secretary and secretary of health and human services—have yet to be announced by Trump. Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced he would name Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as attorney general, the nation’s chief law enforcement official as head of the Justice Department. When Trump battled the Justice Department in his first term, Gaetz was one of his staunchest defenders as a member of the House Judiciary Committee.  Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.—a rival in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries—as his secretary of state. State Department bureaucrats are likely to show “inherent resistance” to whoever Trump names to the job, said Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.  “The top priority of the new secretary [of state] should be to ensure that the department is responsive to presidential directives, not resistant to them,” Coates, a deputy national security adviser during the first Trump administration, told The Daily Signal.  “The secretary should make crystal clear that he or she is implementing President Trump’s policies, not continuing on past practices,” Coates said. “One way to do this would be to significantly expand the roster of political appointee ambassadors, and give them political appointee staff members as well as foreign service officers. Another would be to zero-out all foreign assistance in the next budget and require all requests for funding to be thoroughly reviewed.” Also on Trump’s foreign policy team will be former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Israel; Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., nominated to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and New York businessman Steven Witkoff, appointed as U.S. envoy to the Middle East.  Trump also named Fox News host, Army veteran, and author Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.  “At a time when bloat and woke initiatives detract from the core warfighting mission of our armed forces, we need a secretary like Pete who has both served in combat and advocated for veterans on Capitol Hill,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said in a public statement. “Under President Biden and Secretary [Lloyd] Austin, our military has grown weaker while foreign conflicts have increased. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth will make our military great again while continuing to put America First.”  Trump also named to his national security team former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a former Democrat who endorsed Trump during his 2024 campaign, as director of national intelligence; former Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas, who used to hold that post, as director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., as national security adviser.   Trump announced that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is his choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, which among other things is in charge of protecting the nation from illegal immigrants and terrorists.  DHS, created in the wake of 9/11, is known for a large bureaucracy that includes many bureaucrats who sought to slow-walk Trump’s policies in his first administration.  The best way to deal with deep state issues in the DHS is “radical transparency,” said Lora Ries, former acting deputy chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security.  “Americans need to know how their money has been spent and to regain trust in government,” Ries, who now directs the Border and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.  Trump, who faced conservatives’ criticism in his first term for spending levels, announced late Tuesday that two entrepreneurs and prominent supporters—Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—would lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Ramaswamy unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. At this point, this isn’t an official department of the government with policy-making power. The Daily Signal asked several experts with The Heritage Foundation to assess the first 100 days for Trump Cabinet officials and what some of their unique challenges might be in tackling an entrenched bureaucracy that has come to be known as the “deep state.” Nevertheless, Trump’s treasury secretary and director of the Office of Management and Budget could use Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s recommendations to cut woke expenditures or green energy subsidies, said Richard Stern, director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation. “They will both be uniquely situated to help audit the government and identify waste and be able to start acting on DOGE’s recommendations through rulemaking and other executive actions,” Stern told The Daily Signal, referring to the next treasury secretary and OMB director.  “They will have to ensure that appointees are in a position to audit the work of career ‘civil servants’ who, during the first Trump term, worked to undermine the administration and are shielded by federal law from being held accountable for not doing their jobs,” said Stern, who formerly led a budget and spending task force for the Republican Study Committee, a large and influential caucus of House Republicans.  Stern added that the Treasury Department and OMB director will need to use Schedule F and other tools “to make the career federal workforce under them as close to [serving] at-will as possible to ensure they do their jobs and are held accountable.” Trump announced the Department of Government Efficiency on Tuesday on his social media platform, Truth Social.  “I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’),” Trump wrote in the post. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excessive regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies—Essential to the Save America movement.” Trump announced that former Rep. Lee Zeldin, who ran unsuccessfully in 2022 for governor of New York, will be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  The EPA and the Department of Interior will be important to the second Trump administration’s energy policies. But Zeldin and the next interior secretary must “make it clear that they have a mandate from the American people to make energy reliable, resilient, and affordable,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation.  “America needs cheaper energy and a stronger electrical grid. The interior secretary needs to task the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to roll back prohibitions on offshore drilling and issue more leases, and the Bureau of Land Management to do the same with onshore drilling,” Furchtgott-Roth, former chief of staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, told The Daily Signal. “The Bureau of Land Management is also responsible for enforcing the boundaries of national monuments, which were enlarged by President Biden and need to be reduced.” Furchtgott-Roth said the EPA should address the Biden-Harris administration’s tailpipe emissions rule, intended to convert much of America to electric vehicles, and its rule to force power plants to reduce coal emissions 90% by 2039: Equally important are regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. The tailpipe rule would require 70% of new cars sold to be hybrid or battery-powered electric by 2032. This rule has been challenged and the EPA administrator working with the Department of Justice should pause this rule on Day One, due to the legal challenges.  The power plant rule would require all coal-fired power plants and some natural gas-fired power plants to close by 2040 if they can’t sequester 95% of their carbon emissions by the early 2030s. This rule raises the cost of electricity and weakens the grid and should be paused by the EPA administrator, working with the Justice Department. The post Trump’s Slate of Cabinet Nominees Could Be Key to Tackling Deep State appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) ultimately was elected to lead Republicans as they took a majority in the Senate following the 2024 election red wave. But what transpired before today’s leadership vote surrounding free speech and censorship contextualizes the direction Republicans have chosen to take on the important constitutional issue.  Recently, legacy outlets Politico and The Washington Post reported on, and appeared to sympathize with, an amendment co-sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) that would continue the work of an anti-free speech State Department program, the Global Engagement Center (GEC). In response, the Media Research Center relentlessly sought answers from the potential Senate majority leader candidates. The Media Research Center reached out to Cornyn, Thune and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL).  The GEC, for its part, was shown to have aggressively worked to censor free speech on social media platforms, including targeting users of platforms as being a part of foreign influence campaigns. For example, Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi has reported that the GEC has smeared Twitter users by accusing them of acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China. The GEC gave Twitter a list of “5500 names” that included CNN employees and “multiple Western government accounts.” The GEC has also been caught working with, and even giving $100,000 to, the George Soros-funded anti-free speech Global Disinformation Index (GDI). In Feb. 2023, Washington Examiner Investigative Reporter Gabe Kaminsky exposed the GDI for seeking to “defund conservative media” by cutting them off from their advertising funding. The Media Research Center called Cornyn’s D.C. and district offices 12 times, in addition to sending two emails and a text message to Cornyn Press Secretary Tatum Wallace about the amendment. At no point did any Cornyn staffer address the amendment or even agree to speak on the phone. A staffer from Sen. Thune’s office informed the Media Research Center that Sen. Thune did not have a comment on the amendment. The Media Research Center also passed on concerns about the amendment to a staffer at one of Sen. Scott’s regional offices.  Ahead of the vote, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) asked for questions on his “BasedMikeLee” X account for a Nov. 12 candidate forum with Cornyn, Thune and Scott. The MRC reached out to Sen. Lee using its X accounts to provide questions about the future of the Global Engagement Center and government-funded censorship to ask at the forum.  Using the @theMRC account, the MRC asked specifically about Cornyn’s amendment and whether the senators seeking the leadership position would support the GEC’s anti-free speech work. Sen. John Cornyn is co-sponsoring an amendment to continue the work of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. Where do each of you stand on funding entities like the anti-free speech Global Engagement Center, which has been shown to have pushed to censor the American… — Media Research Center (@theMRC) November 12, 2024 Separately, using the @FreeSpeechAmer account the MRC asked more broadly how each of the senators would help ensure the U.S. government is not used to undermine the constitutionally-protected free speech rights of its citizens. What will each of you do to help ensure that the American people are safeguarded against foreign adversaries while not allowing the U.S. government to be weaponized against U.S. citizens and their constitutionally-protected free speech rights under the guise of protecting them… — Free Speech America (@FreeSpeechAmer) November 12, 2024 Though the forum was not aired to the public, Lee said during the forum he hosted that “[n]early every Senate Republican s in attendance” and that the senators running for leadership were having a “productive discussion addressing a really wide range of policy and procedural questions.”  Following the forum, Lee announced that while he “liked all three leadership candidates,” he considered Rick Scott to be the “most aggressively reformed-minded candidate,” and that Scott received his endorsement for the position. Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

President-elect Trump’s nomination of decorated Army combat veteran Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense brought out the worst in the liberal media. Much of the pattern was on display during Wednesday’s edition of ABC’s The View as they actively diminished and discredited Hegseth’s 20 years of distinguished service in the Army by claiming he “does not know anything about the military,” and suggesting he’ll just get lost in the Pentagon. Moderator Whoopi Goldberg, who screeched whenever someone mispronounced “Kamala,” kicked off the conversation by mocking Hegseth’s last name and that he was a co-host on Fox & Friends Weekend: GOLDBERG: [Trump] also picked – you ready? Co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, not even, like regular, weekend, Pete Hegsgeth. [Cast members telling her how to pronounce his last name] GOLDBERG: Hegseth? JOY BEHAR: Hegseth, yeah. GOLDBERG: Okay, Pete Hegseth. To prove her profound ignorance of Hegseth’s career, Goldberg – who had never served her county –proclaimed that he “clearly does not know anything about the military.” “You know, I feel insulted. I'm a morning TV host and I've been here the longest. Where’s my ambassadorship to Italy, Donald?” bloviated Joy Behar, obviously oblivious to Hegseth’s distinguished service history, which includes two Bronze Stars, two Army Commendation Medals, and achieving the rank of major. Pretend moderate Sara Haines mischaracterized his service history, falsely claiming he was in for “five or six years” and was only “mid-rank,” whatever that means.     She then uncorked a bizarre circular argument that Hegseth couldn’t be the outsider coming in to clean up the bureaucracy because the bureaucracy wasn’t cleaned up yet: And you can say the government's bureaucratic and get an outside person that will clean it up, but it hasn't been cleaned up yet and therefore you have to understand the place you're going into to operate at its most efficient capacity. Fake conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin, who felt like she could spout off on the topic “as a Pentagon spokeswoman,” decried the pick because others couldn’t untangle the Pentagon’s bureaucracy previously. “The problem is much more qualified people have gone into that role to disrupt the Pentagon, make it more streamlined, less bureaucratic and they’ve never succeeded. They've ended up being outmaneuvered by four-star generals and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” she huffed. Hey Alyssa, wouldn’t that mean that the four-star generals and the Joint Chiefs were the problem? Flaunting her own ignorance about who in the government had the power to declare war (Congress), Farah Griffin suggested that the Pentagon’s bloat was “by-design” “because it shouldn't be as simple as signing something and we’re going to war.” She also suggested that Hegseth would just spend his time lost in the Pentagon facility. “I think that he's going to spend weeks just trying to navigate the Pentagon. It is one mile around,” she exclaimed. That was followed up by staunchly racist Sunny Hostin being her normal divisive self and peddling identify politics; suggesting Hegseth was a sexist for saying women shouldn’t be combat roles, and a racist: I think what he said about women says a lot about who he is. He also said, “First of all, you've got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chief [sic] of Staff,” which happens to be General Charles Brown Jr., a black man. And so, I think we're seeing misogyny play out. I think we’re seeing racism play out. While Hostin was making it seem as though Hegseth wanted him fired just because he was black, Farah Griffin stepped in to point out that he wanted General Brown fired because of his role in the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View November 13, 2024 11:04:25 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: He [President-elect Trump] also picked – you ready? Co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, not even, like regular, weekend, Pete Hegsgeth. [Cast members telling her how to pronounce his last name] GOLDBERG: Hegseth? JOY BEHAR: Hegseth, yeah. GOLDBERG: Okay, Pete Hegseth. And he's picked him to be U.S. secretary of defense. Now, MAGA supporters and detractors are trying to figure out ,what? Because of this pick. (…) 11:06:12 a.m. Eastern GOLDBERG: So, is this the guy that's qualified to make decisions about the most powerful military in the world, who clearly does not know anything about the military? BEHAR: You know, I feel insulted. I'm a morning TV host and I've been here the longest. Where’s my ambassadorship to Italy, Donald? Was it something I said? SARA HAINES: Beyond what he's saying about women, the scary part is the secretary of defense is the highest ranking member of the federal cabinet and there is a budget of $841 billion. It's the largest government agency. It operates 4,800 sites in over 160 countries. And as someone who right now we stand here with a country that has a lot of turmoil in the Middle East, in Russia, in Ukraine, even in Asia with China, it makes me more than a little worried that you're picking someone who has -- he served for five or six years. He was middle -- midranking, never has worked in the government. And you can say the government's bureaucratic and get an outside person that will clean it up but it hasn't been cleaned up yet and therefore you have to understand the place you're going into to operate at its most efficient capacity. So, it's alarming. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: By the way, I was rooting for Senator Joni Ernst who’s a female combat veteran to be secretary of DoD. But my issue here is – Listen, he served this country admirably. I'm grateful to Pete Hegseth for his service but has no policymaking experience and no Pentagon experience. And by all accounts, the reason that Donald Trump chose him is because he wants a disrupter who’s going to help implement his agenda. That's technically his right as incoming commander in chief. The problem is much more qualified people have gone into that role to disrupt the Pentagon, make it more streamlined, less bureaucratic and they’ve never succeeded. They've ended up being outmaneuvered by four-star generals and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So, even from Donald Trump's own intent and purpose with this guy, I think that he's going to spend weeks just trying to navigate the Pentagon. It is one mile around. SUNNY HOSTIN: It's huge. FARAH GRIFFIN: I worked there as a Pentagon spokeswoman. There are 3 million people that will be under him on day one. The entire U.S. armed forces, the entire civilian population that reports to them. It is the most complex and by-design bureaucratic agency in government because it shouldn't be as simple as signing something and we’re going to war. It should go through multiple rungs. And I don’t see any evidence that he deeply understands the role of the secretary of defense. And I would also argue it's the second most important position in government after the president of the United States. You need a cool head with the experience to do the job and I don't think he has it. BEHAR: All I heard was that women can't be in combat. Again, another sort of take women down. HOSTIN: Well -- JOY: What is this? HOSTIN: This is what America voted for. I'm not surprise the at this pick. I do agree with Adam Kinzinger that he's deeply unserious. He said this once, ‘The Pentagon likes to say our diversity is our strength. What a bunch of garbage. In the military, our diversity is not our strength.” I think that says a lot about who he is. I think what he said about women says a lot about who he is. He also said, “First of all, you've got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chief [sic] of Staff,” which happens to be General Charles Brown Jr., a black man. And so, I think we're seeing misogyny play out. I think we’re seeing racism play out. And, you know, we should be disgusted. We should be very, very concerned as Alyssa has pointed out about how important this position was. But, again, I'm not surprised that he would choose someone so deeply unserious. (…)

Syracuse football coach Fran Brown explained his strange ritual when he loses a game, which includes not showering or going to bed with his wife.Brown's team lost 37-31 to Boston College over the weekend. The coach hosted a press conference on Monday. It was at that press conference that a media member asked Brown exactly what preparation he does between a Saturday loss and a Monday press conference.Brown replied that he immediately starts watching game footage multiple times before moving on to footage about his next opponent when his family is asleep. The coach then described his ritual of not bathing if he loses."Honestly, I've got like a ritual when we lose," he began. "I didn't even get into the shower until earlier this morning. I just be mad, brush my teeth. It's like, 'I don't deserve soap. I don't deserve to do all that.'"'I can't sleep in the bed if we lose because I'm not going to be able to shower.'Coach Brown explained that not only does his habit stem from the fact that he feels he let his players down, but also that when he loses he is just up all night bothering his wife."I'm just focused on trying to get back and try to make sure that our players mentally understand that I let them down. They didn't do it," Brown said. "I just wake up all night. Especially when we lose. I wake up like, damn, that really happened that way. ... And then I just move on."The 42-year-old continued to reveal his procedure, stating that he also can't sleep in his bed with his wife if Syracuse loses, likely because he stinks."There's a process I follow all week, win, lose, or draw. Only thing is, my wife ... I can't sleep in the bed if we lose because I'm not going to be able to shower.""I just brush my teeth because I have to, so y'all don't say my breath stinks," he continued.With a 6-3 record, Brown has had a limited number of non-showering weekends but said he is focused on Syracuse's upcoming game against the University of California.The coach said he has been thinking about the historic nature of the game, given that the two teams haven't played each other since 1968.However, Brown will continue his mantra of "winners get washed.""You gotta earn the right to certain things, so winners get washed. Loser, I just kind of wait a little bit," he concluded.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Season 1 of Black Ops 6 and Warzone is nigh, and ahead of the explosion of content coming to both Call of Duty games, Treyarch has revealed some of the tweaks it'll be making to the BO6 arsenal. While Season 1 will introduce some new weapons to the meta, these balancing changes to some existing staples will also shake things up quite a bit. Continue reading A dozen Black Ops 6 weapons get hit with buffs and nerfs for Season 1 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Black Ops 6 guns, Black Ops 6 missions, Black Ops 6 loadouts