During a performance in Phoenix on Saturday, former George Lopez star George Lopez lead the audience in a concise, profane chant against presidential candidate and Wonka Factory escapee Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump,” said Lopez.
“Fuck that puto,” replied the crowd.
Earlier this month, the alleged puto told NBC News he’d “win the Latino vote
“They love me,” said Trump, who characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists
[h/t Billboard]
On Thursday, an Oklahoma man who killed his stepfather with an “atomic wedgie” in 2013, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, Reuters reports.
Brad Lee Davis, 35, pleaded guilty
According to prosecutors, St. Clair’s head wounds would have been fatal “if he hadn’t died from the wedgie first.” From News OK:
When authorities questioned Davis, he said St. Clair asked him to come over for drinks. The men began arguing and Davis told officers that St. Clair “came at him,” and they began exchanging blows.
Davis told investigators that he hit St. Clair’s head, causing him to lose consciousness.
Then, Davis said, he grabbed his stepfather’s underwear and gave him an “atomic wedgie” by pulling the underwear over his stepfather’s head.
“I’d never seen this before, but when we first looked at our victim seeing the waistband of his underwear was around his neck,” Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said.
“This was not mutual combat,” said District Attorney Richard Smothermon at Thursday’s sentencing hearing. “This was not self-defense. It was pure aggression.”
Judge John G. Canavan Jr. said he would reconsider Davis’ sentence at a review in 12 to 18 months.
Who is this tiny reptilian hero? This real-world Bubble Bobbler? According to owner Nick DeBakey, her name is Laura.
“This was the first time I noticed Laura’s interest in bubbles,” said DeBakey of his teensy saurian savior. “I just had her out and she was crawling over me and then my mom started blowing bubbles because my dog likes to pop them as well.”
Debakey says Laura then began popping the bubbles “almost instinctively.”
A born champion.
[h/t Tastefully Offensive]
The group of nuns dead set on preventing Katy Perry from moving into their former convent—“for what should be obvious reasons coming from Catholic nuns”—say the sale has been marred by lies and morphine-influenced affidvaits.http://gawker.com/elderly-nuns-t...
The nuns filed suit against the Archdiocese last month over the proposed sale of the sprawling property, situated on a Los Feliz hilltop with “expansive views of downtown Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
The legal battle arises out of competing deals to sell the parcel: the Archdiocese is trying to push an all-cash sale to known-sinner Katy Perry, while the nuns would prefer to see the land go to a chaste developer who would pay $100,000 upfront and $10 million on a promissory note.
The court case is essentially asking a judge to determine which group has the authority to sell the property, but the issues—some faith-based, some legal—run much deeper. The Archdiocese, the nuns say, has repeatedly lied to them and tried to bully them into selling to Perry, who they apparently object to on moral grounds. Via the New York Times:
It is clear that several of the nuns do not trust the promises of care. Sister Rita and Sister Catherine Rose say the archdiocese misappropriated a final bequest of $250,000 from Mr. Donohue, who died in 2014, and has failed in its obligation to maintain the existing retreat house.
According to Mr. Hennigan, the Donohue bequest is invested in the sisters’ behalf. He said the archdiocese had requested, but had not received, an invoice for any money owed for the retreat house upkeep.
And although at least two nuns have expressed support for the Perry deal, the women still fighting the sale say it may have been improperly obtained.
Like Sister Jean-Marie, Sister Marie Victoriano, 88, and Sister Marie Christine Muñoz Lopez, 82, have filed declarations in support of the archbishop. But Sister Rita and Sister Catherine Rose, in a filing prepared by the lawyers from the Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtingher law firm, a Hollywood powerhouse, have questioned the validity of at least the Dunne and Lopez declarations.
Sister Jean-Marie, they noted, expressed opposition to the sale both before and after signing her statement, and Sister Marie Christine, they said, was observed to be “woozy” and under the influence of morphine at about the time church officials asked her for a declaration of support.
Sister Marie Victoriano said in an email on Sunday, “I have great confidence in the archbishop’s decision and have no concern whatsoever.”
The sale, the nuns reportedly said in court papers filed on Friday, would be a breach of their sacred vows “for obvious reasons.”
Guess they’re Taylor fans.http://gawker.com/taylor-swift-a...
Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
In America, we throw out more than a third of our food, an insane 730 football stadiums worth every year. That’s up by about 50 percent since the ‘70s. Meanwhile, 50 million Americans are hungry. John Oliver spent last night’s Last Week Tonight looking into the causes of this ugly state of affairs.
The big ones: We reject any produce that doesn’t look perfect before it ever gets to the store, and once products are in the store, we hew to mostly-meaningless expiration dates set by companies that just want you to buy more of their stuff.
Oliver looked for any case where someone had been sued for donating food past its sell-by date that later made someone sick: apparently, there isn’t one. What’s more, there’s a federal law called the Emerson Act that protects good-faith food donors, so companies and farms aren’t actually facing legal catastrophe when they donate food.
On the other hand, getting food to people who need it costs money—it’s cheaper to throw the food away than pack it and transport it to a food bank. Large corporations always get tax breaks for donating, so they really ought to be doing it, but the part of the tax code that incentivizes small businesses to do the same has to be renewed every year. They often don’t know if they’ll get anything until after they’ve already paid to donate.
The House passed a bill this year that would’ve made those tax breaks permanent, but the Senate dismantled the entire bill and repurposed it, and the provision that made it viable to give away food disappeared.
Finally passing that law would be good, but so would not consistently buying 25 percent more food than we eat. America!
Jax Taylor, that lying, cheating, former video game model whose full time job is being a part-time bartender on Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules, was arrested Friday for allegedly stealing $300 sunglasses at a Sunglass Hut in Honolulu, Hawaii. TMZ has the security footage:
In the video, Mr. Taylor [is my father; call me “Jax” — the name I selected for myself] can be seen selecting a pair of sunglasses, trying to get his hair to hang in a cool way, briefly wandering around the small store (“hut”), and then bizarrely sticking one foot outside the store’s doorway, almost as if waiting for a security alarm to sound. When nothing (apparently) happens, the fleet-footed Jax quietly books it out of sight. According to TMZ, he was quickly arrested at a hotel a block away and charged with a felony, because $300 is the minimum amount for felony theft in Hawaii. Island law, man.
Instagram posts by Jax and his fellow Pump Rules castmates suggest that Jax was in Hawaii last week to celebrate his 36th birthday.
36!
Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.
Little heralded or known, in the actual revolution that brought small drones into virtually every combat unit of all four military services, Pointer was a pioneer. Developed first for the Marine Corps in 1986, Pointer was the first hand-held drone—45 pounds and transportable in a backpack. They were used in Desert Storm in 1990 and ended up being the first drones on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11, later serving in Iraq.
Pointer was not a killer, nor is it really capable of high resolution imagery. As a tactical system, it provided situational awareness—literally the ability to look over the hill or outside a bases’ perimeter, carrying color or infrared video cameras, able to see from either front or side views and relaying video back to the user. In Afghanistan, Air Force aircraft spotters working with the CIA and the Northern Alliance quietly used the battery-powered Pointers to reconnoiter Taliban front lines to better place bombs on bunkers and troop concentrations. When conventional troops arrived to fight about a month later and heard that the special operators had their own personal drones, they agitated for Pointers too, and thus the Raven was born, the most ubiquitous military drone today, in the world.
These small drones—and two wars—have practically made AeroVironment into the power house company that it is today. In November 2003, Congress approved the final purchase of Pointer (and next-generation Ravens) to start to supply the troops in Iraq. Versions have also been deployed with sensor for air pollution sensing and chemical weapons detection. The DEA also purchased Pointers in the early 1990s.
The Pointers are practically all gone, but not before they served as inspiration for the Desert Hawk and Raven, quietly living on as the special operations Puma drone, which is actually an acronym for Pointer Upgraded Mission Ability. Thus, in addition to being the vanguard for the development of personal reconnaissance in the form of Raven, they are also serving quiet duties with all service special operators in very special missions.
[First photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy; second photo courtesy of U.S. Marine Corps.]
Tommy Craggs, the executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, the editor-in-chief of Gawker.com, are resigning from the company. In letters sent today, Craggs and Read informed staff members that the managing partnership’s vote to remove a controversial post
On July 17 , Craggs informed the managing partnership that, “If we decide to pull the post, I think I have to quit.” Still, as we reported last week
Here is Craggs’ memo to the editorial staff of Gawker Media:
I want to give you some sense of what happened within Gawker Media on Friday, and what has happened since, as a means of explaining why I have to resign as executive editor.
On Friday, I told my fellow managing partners—Nick Denton, founder and CEO; Heather Dietrick, president; Andrew Gorenstein, president of advertising and partnerships; Scott Kidder, chief operating officer; and Erin Pettigrew, chief strategy officer—I would have to resign if they voted to remove a story I’d edited and approved. The article, about the Condé Nast CFO’s futile effort to secure a remote assignation with a pricey escort, had become radioactive. Advertisers such as Discover and BFGoodrich were either putting holds on their campaigns or pulling out entirely.
(This isn’t the place to debate the merits of that story, other than to say that I stand by the post. Whatever faults it might have belong to me, and all the public opprobrium being directed at Jordan Sargent, a terrific reporter, should come my way instead.)
That there would even be a vote on this was a surprise to me. Until Friday, the partnership had operated according to a loose consensus. Nothing had ever come to a formal vote, and the only time anyone had even hinted that the partners might intrude on a departmental prerogative was when Andrew Gorenstein wondered openly in a partnership meeting why Sam Biddle hadn’t been fired.
I’d learned of the vote via gchat with Heather Dietrick, who throughout the day was my only conduit to the partners, Nick Denton included. The only reply to my pleading emails about yanking the story was a sneering note from Gorenstein. That is to say, none of the partners in a company that prides itself on its frankness had the decency or intellectual wherewithal to make the case to the executive editor of Gawker Media for undermining (if not immolating) his job, forsaking Gawker’s too-often-stated, too-little-tested principles, and doing the most extreme and self-destructive thing a shop like ours could ever do.
All I got at the end of the day was a workshopped email from Denton, asking me to stay on and help him unfuck the very thing he’d colluded with the partners to fuck up.
No one told me the vote was actually happening, by the way. It just … happened, while I was on a plane to California. No one in editorial was informed that Nick had reached what he now calls the point of last resort; no one had explained what other resorts had been tried and had failed in the less than 24 hours between publication and takedown. The final count was 4-2 (with Heather’s nay joining mine, despite initial reports otherwise), and the message was immediately broadcast to the company and to its readers that the responsibility Nick had vested in the executive editor is in fact meaningless, that true power over editorial resides in the whims of the four cringing members of the managing partnership’s Fear and Money Caucus.
Will they ever explain themselves to you? I don’t know. This is from the partnership’s text message thread on Sunday [all is sic]:
Gorenstein: Im getting emails from Keenan at gawker re post vote
Gorenstein: In not dealing with her
Me: Yeah, God forbid you explain yourself
Gorenstein: I’m 1 of 5
Nick Denton: We will all need to be at the office tomorrow morning to talk with Edit. I propose a meeting before at 9am among the Managing Partners. And you can all expect to be asked why you voted as you did at the all-hands.
Gorenstein (still replying to me): Don’t give me that bullshit
Me: I won’t be attending
Me: I would encourage you to meet with all of edit, but knowing you people I doubt you will
Nick Denton: I encourage everybody to do so, also.
Me: So that’s what it sounds like when Nick has my back.
Me: By the way, Andrew, Keenan is a male. You all should get to know the writers you just sold out.
Me: They may not be around for long.
Then Nick accused me of being “self-indulgent” for making it “all about the writers being sold out” and for not being sufficiently attuned to the damage the brand would suffer.
But of course it is all about you, the writers. The impulse that led to Thursday’s story is the impulse upon which Nick himself built Gawker’s brand, the impulse against which Gorenstein sells his ads. The undoing of it began the moment Nick himself put the once inviolable sanctity of Gawker Media’s editorial to a vote.
One of the least rewarding parts of this job has been subjecting Max Read to a series of meetings that resulted in the creation of the company’s “brand book,” articulating for advertisers what it is that makes Gawker matter. As it happens, initial copy for the brand book—which you can read here (or here)—was approved on Thursday just hours before Gawker’s Condé Nast post went up.
The brand book was a preposterous exercise. The essence of Gawker has always been what happens when we get out of those meetings and go back to writing and editing the stories you do that no one else can do. You writers are this company. You are funny. You are smart. You are vital. You are honest and righteous and pissed-off and stupid, so galactically stupid, and you commit hilarious blunders and you perform great, honking prodigies of journalism that make me proud to have sat in a room with you. Often you do all these things in the same day. You are this company. Nick forgot that, and I hope he one day remembers it. You are, you will always be, the best argument for a company that no longer deserves you.
I love you all.
—Tommy
Here is Max Read’s memo to the managing partnership:
To the partnership group:
On Friday a post was deleted from Gawker over the strenuous objections of Tommy and myself, as well as the entire staff of executive editors. That this post was deleted at all is an absolute surrender of Gawker’s claim to “radical transparency”; that non-editorial business executives were given a vote in the decision to remove it is an unacceptable and unprecedented breach of the editorial firewall, and turns Gawker’s claim to be the world’s largest independent media company into, essentially, a joke.
I am able to do this job to the extent that I can believe that the people in charge are able, when faced with difficult decisions, to back up their stated commitments to transparency, fearlessness, and editorial independence. In the wake of Friday’s decision and Tommy’s resignation I can no longer sustain that belief. I find myself forced to resign, effective immediately.
This was not an easy decision. I hope the partnership group recognizes the degree to which it has betrayed the trust of editorial, and takes steps to materially reinforce its independence.
Best wishes,
Max
Read also sent the following memo to the writers and editors of Gawker.com:
Hey gang—
I’m quitting today. Tommy is too. You’ll see his email shortly. (Keep it between us till I email the partnership, please!)
Here’s the email I’m sending, which I hope outlines clearly why I am leaving.
[Text of above email to managing partnership]
If there is a reason to stay at Gawker, it is all of you. I mean this both sentimentally and practically.
Sentimentally in the sense that I cannot imagine working with a sharper, smarter, funnier, weirder, finer group of humans than the ones I have been lucky enough to inherit, hire, and poach here. I hope I have made this clear enough, but I am consistently and constantly in awe of every one of you, of your skill and your inventiveness. When you are in the office this week, look around: You are working with a rare class of talent. You will want to remember what it was like to write alongside so many current and future stars. I hope at some point over the next week or so I will have a drunken opportunity to tearfully and inappropriately corner each one of you to inarticulately communicate to you my gratitude and admiration and love.
Practically in the sense that the future of the site, and in most ways the company, is now in your hands. Collectively, you have the ability to demand from management the editorial protections you deserve, and I hope you organize this week to do so. I still believe Gawker can be great, even when it abdicates its own core institutional beliefs, because I know that Gawker isn’t really some constellation of Brand Values that can be betrayed at whim. It’s you guys. My friends.
I think I’ve already said everything I need to say about The Post Itself in the email I sent around on Saturday. Ultimately my decision is about the process by which this happened. If the partnership had not conducted some kind of utterly opaque backroom vote to delete it—if we had simply posted Nick’s note, as much I disagreed with and disliked it—I think this Monday would be very different.
I will be at the editorial meeting with Tommy; I’m not sure I can stomach whatever town hall Nick has planned. If you’re around, you should come in. If not, let’s get a drink soon. Or go to Spumoni! Or Atlantic City.
The last year of my life, and especially the last six months, have probably been the happiest and most fun. I have never been prouder of my work. And it was easy because all I had to do was give this group of writers access to Kinja and a mandate to be weird and funny and mean and skeptical and fearless. I hope that you guys will remember it as fondly as I will. If another mad Hungarian ever wants to give me $10 million dollars to start a website it’s good to know I already have a perfect hire list.
Here is the email Read sent to staffers on Saturday:
Hi guys—
(It would be nice if this—both the letter itself and the information it contains—was kept between all of us and not leaked anywhere.)
Sorry for going AWOL so quickly yesterday without warning. It was a weird day. I want to keep you all appraised of where everything stands (as far as I can tell) and what I’m thinking.
So, as I think most of you know, Tommy has prepared a resignation letter. He told me it contains the word “fart.” He was going to send it yesterday when he landed in California, but was convinced to wait until Monday, so it hasn’t officially happened yet.
We talked a little on the phone yesterday and he insists that his mind is made up. When the partnership group (himself, Nick, Heather, Andrew Gorenstein, Kidder, Erin Pettigrew) voted yesterday, Tommy made explicitly clear that he would quit if the post was removed. He feels like he’s bound to follow through on that threat; he can’t walk into partnership meetings knowing Gorenstein has the power to remove posts over his objections. John Cook says Tommy tied his dick to a rock and threw the rock off the cliff; Emma says it’s more like Tommy threw the rock on the ground and jumped off himself. The point is that Tommy’s dick was torn off in a gross way. Maybe this is a bad metaphor.
I obviously would be gutted if Tommy left, and am desperately hoping he can be convinced to stay, maybe if we can make assurances of editorial protections in a union contract, or some other kind of ironclad guarantee that his power will not be diminished. I will be calling him all weekend and begging him to reconsider. If you feel like it, you should email him something genuine and heartfelt and maybe a little bit thirsty and pleading. If you have any ideas of face-saving (or, better yet, power-saving) ways for him to stay, I’m all ears.
If Tommy quits, it’s very hard for me to see a way that I can stay and maintain any claim to integrity or control over my site. But I haven’t written a resignation letter and I haven’t made a decision yet. What’s done with the post is done; I don’t think I’ll be able to secure its re-instatement. But my feeling is that if I can get from Nick a public, written apology and guarantee that this will never happen again that would establish a sufficient level of editorial protection to carry us through union negotiations, and allow me to take the reins of the site with some shred of integrity and authority intact. I plan on speaking to Nick on Monday. I would ask that anyone thinking of making dramatic public resignations (or sending their resumes around) at least wait through next week and Hamilton’s proposed editorial meeting as we see how yesterday’s events shake themselves out.
Otherwise I’m not going to talk about this publicly or respond to Nick, either in private or public, in case you’re wondering why I haven’t written or said anything. He knows how I feel about his decision to remove the post; you all know how I feel; and the statement drafted for the sites yesterday sends a strong message that I don’t think I need to add to. I don’t want to be captured in some Kinja Works! PR stunt, and I don’t want to turn this into another one of the perennial Gawker Drama! moments. I mean, it is that, but it’s also an unacceptable breach of editorial independence.
A quick word about the post: Jordan reported out a true and interesting story that stands well within the site’s long tradition of aggressively reporting on the sex and personal lives of powerful media figures, and I—and Tommy—still stand behind that story, and Jordan’s reporting, absolutely. It was always going to land poorly with the army of Gamergaters and Redditors, and with the Twitter squad of smarmy media enemies we’ve made over the last 10 years, both groups of which are desperate for our collapse. To the extent that it failed to land with the people who are generally sympathetic to us—people we like and respect—I, and only I, should have protected us better, and I would have and will talk and think harder about how we assign, approach, edit, and package those stories. But that’s all we’re obligated to do: Listen to people we respect, and try to do better next time. Jordan is the rarest of all things, a funny writer and fantastic stylist who can also report the hell out of difficult and awkward stories—in other words, a perfect Gawker blogger. I am hugely proud of what he’s done for the site, and there is no one whose work I’d rather take a stand over.
If any of you are worried, please don’t be. This is a brief storm that Nick’s shortsightedness has extended. By the end of next week it will be a vague memory. I love you guys and am utterly confident in your ability to move through the now annual mid-summer Reddit freakout with grace and good humor. If any of you want to talk or get a drink this weekend, call or text me at [redacted]. I’m mostly gonna stay out of Slack and I’m staying the hell off of Twitter. I suggest you all do the same.
It is not yet clear who will fill the positions left vacant by Craggs and Read.
When asked to justify their votes for the post’s removal, managing partners Scott Kidder and Erin Pettigrew provided the following statements.
Scott Kidder:
Hey Keenan — my vote was supporting Nick is making a tough call as Founder and Editorial Ethos of the Company. It wouldn’t cross my mind to autonomously suggest taking down a post — in fact, I can’t remember a situation where any Partner has — this was Nick’s suggestion and call.
Erin Pettigrew:
Hi Keenan,
As Scott clarified and Nick is expected to —
Nick made the recommendation and the decision to take down the post. He is the final standard bearer of editorial-decision making in the organization.
When I heard he felt this was an important decision for him to make for the company’s future, I lent him support.
Thanks,
Erin
Andrew Gorenstein did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Update, 12:20 p.m.:
Nick Denton sent the following memo to editorial staff on Monday afternoon:
To All of Edit at Gawker Media:
The Managing Partnership as a whole is responsible for the Company’s management and direction, but they do not and should not make editorial decisions. Let me be clear. This was a decision I made as Founder and Publisher — and guardian of the company mission — and the majority supported me in that decision.
This is the company I built. I was ashamed to have my name and Gawker’s associated with a story on the private life of a closeted gay man who some felt had done nothing to warrant the attention. We believe we were within our legal right to publish, but it defied the 2015 editorial mandate to do stories that inspire pride, and made impossible the jobs of those most committed to defending such journalism.
I’m sorry also that Jordan Sargent, reporting this story impeccably despite a personal drama, was exposed to such traumatizing hatred online, just for doing his job. And I’m sorry that other editors and writers are now in such an impossible position: objecting to the removal of a story that many of them found objectionable.
The company promotes truth and understanding through the pursuit of the real story — and supports, finances and defends such independent journalism. That is and remains its mission, and this story was in violation of it.
We pride ourselves on pushing boundaries and know that every story requires a judgment call. There was strong internal disagreement on whether the right judgment was made. I believe it was not and could not defend it.
Were there also business concerns? Absolutely. The company’s ability to finance independent journalism is critical. If the post had remained up, we probably would have triggered advertising losses this week into seven figures. Fortunately, though, I was only aware of one advertiser pausing at the time the decision to pull the post was made; so you won’t be able to pin this outrage on advertising, even though it is the traditional thing to do in these circumstances.
No, I was thinking in the broadest terms about the future of the company. The choice was a cruel one: a management override that would likely cause a beloved editorial leader to resign on principle; or a story that was pure poison to our reputation just as we go into the Hogan trial.
It was such a breach of everything Gawker stands for, actually having a post disappeared from the internet. But it was also an unprecedented misuse of the independence given to editorial.
Under Tommy’s leadership, Gawker and other sites have done more ambitious reporting. There have been many scoops we are indeed proud of: those arising from the Sony email hack, for instance, or the Bill O’Reilly or Hillary Clinton exposés. But even the best of our stories fail to get credit, in part because of Gawker’s reputation for tabloid trash, given another lift by the unjustifiable outing of a private individual in turmoil, in front of a potential audience of millions.
That post wasn’t what Gawker should stand for, and it is symptomatic of a site that has been out of control of editorial management. Our flagship site carries the same name as the company, and the reputation of the entire company rests on its work. When Gawker itself is seen as sneering and callous, it affects all of us.
From recent research, it is clear that the Gawker brand, for both flagship website and the company, is both confusing and damaging. A friend of the sites attests:
“First thing I’d say is being called Gawker is a big problem - all their other sites are more advertiser-friendly than Gawker itself. All the other sites are innovative, sharp, have a focused point of voice but not too snarky. Gawker itself is too snarky for me to recommend to advertisers, too risky. They’re really bitchy. The other sites are bitchy too but with Gawker itself it feels like it’s bitchy without a reason.”
The Hogan case has shown we can’t escape our past, and I can’t escape Gawker. Of the site’s qualities, some of its best and most of its worst were mine: the desire of the outsider to be feared if you’re not to be respected, nip the ankles till they notice you; contempt for newspaper pieties; and a fanatical belief in the truth no matter the cost. It is a creature of my own making. And even if it’s been seven years since I edited Gawker, I still have to represent it. Heather does in court and I do in the press. But not this time: for the first time that I can remember, I cannot stand by a story, or just agree to disagree, or keep silent.
This Geithner story was legal, but it could not be justified to colleagues, family members and people we respect. Nor was there any way to explain it to journalists and opinion-makers who decide whether we deserve the great privilege of the profession, the First Amendment that protects our most controversial work. The episode had the potential to do lasting damage to our reputation as a company, and each of our own personal reputations.
The insistence the post remain up despite our own second thoughts: that represents an extreme interpretation of editorial freedom. It’s an abuse of the privilege. And it was my responsibility to step in to save Gawker from itself, supported by the majority of the Managing Partners.
This is a one-time intervention, I trust, which will prompt a debate about the editorial mission, and a restoration of editorial independence within more clearly defined bounds.
To any that resign over the deep-sixing of the Geithner story, and to any that find a gentler editorial mission too limiting: I respect the strength of your convictions. This is a decision you’re taking to preserve principles you believed I still shared. And since you were abiding by a policy we had not formally superseded, we will treat all resignations as being constructive dismissal, subject to severance.
We need a codification of editorial standards beyond putting truths on the internet. Stories need to be true and interesting. I believe we will have to make our peace with the idea that to be published, those truths should be worthwhile.
And some humane guidelines are needed — in writing — on the calculus of cruelty and benefit in running a story. Everybody has a private life, even a C-level executive, at least unless they blab about it. We do not seek to expose every personal secret — only those that reveal something interesting. And the more vulnerable the person hurt, the more important the story had better be.
The editorial ethos of Gawker needs a calibration more than a radical shift. Gawker needs to keep being Gawker. If you’re wondering whether a more explicit editorial policy will turn us into some generic internet media company, I’d say no: I see Gawker Media occupying a space on the online media spectrum between a stolid Vox Media and a more anarchic Ratter; close to the edge, but not over it.
As Heather says: Keep doing the great stories. Keep writing on the edge. Just make sure you’re proud of it. Make sure people you respect can be proud of it.
At 1pm, Heather and I will come to the 4th Floor to take questions and criticism from New York editors and writers. At 12.30 on Tuesday, we will hold an all-hands meeting again on the Fourth Floor, with out-of-town editors included and other people who are getting back to town. The Managing Partners will be present.
Last week’s story — and the drastic reaction — cannot become a habit. We are open to a full debate on editorial independence — and the evolved editorial mission that must define it. There are also some ideas about governance floating around. There’s plenty to discuss, but hopefully not too much text to write: we don’t need a bureaucracy; but we do need some clarity.
This is a company built on stories: from the very first gadget recommendation on Gizmodo in 2002; through to the Tom Cruise video that marked a newsier Gawker in 2008; the iPhone 4 story that made Gizmodo and broke its staff in 2010; to the heyday of the sensational scoop in 2013, when Gawker and Deadspin revealed both Rob Ford and Manti Teo in their lurid glory. This story, and the aftermath, look like a low-point right now. But it can also be the catalyst for necessary change. Gawker’s best stories are ahead of it.
Update, 12:45 p.m.:
Denton, for what it’s worth, was slightly more pointed about Jordan Sargent’s reporting in an email to Sargent on Friday:
From: Nick Denton
Date: Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:47 PM
Subject: Hey, Jordan
To: Jordan Sargent
Cc: Keenan TrotterCan you give Heather or me a call? You need to know you did nothing wrong. These are the stories we used to do. But times have changed.
Update, 1:48 p.m.
Jezebel editor-at-large Jessica Coen forwarded the following email she received from Nick Denton in January 2014 (when Coen was serving as editor-in-chief of Jezebel) to Gawker Media’s editorial listserv:
From: Nick Denton
Date: Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 7:37 PM
Subject: This is the opposite of our policy
To: Jessica Coen
Cc: Joel Johnsonjezebel.com/trans-woman-commits-suicide-amid-fear-of-outing-by-spor-1503902916
If the author believes this, she’s working at the wrong place. And should be guided to a more congenial work environment. We’re truth absolutists. Or rather, I am. And I choose to work with fellow spirits.
[Quote from post linked above
] “Issue two is the reporting on the trans status of the subject. This is much clearer: Don’t out someone who doesn’t want to be out. The end. Everyone has a right to privacy when it comes to their gender identity or sexual orientation, and beyond this, the trans status is not relevant.”
Email the author of this post: trotter@gawker.com
On Friday, a raging wildfire burned cars stranded on I-15 near Los Angeles while crews battled drones to put out the flames. On Saturday, part of I-10 collapsed as Los Angeles and San Diego recorded the most rain they’ve ever seen during the month of July. Oh, you know, just another weekend.
What unfolded this weekend was truly a historic event, even if it doesn’t seem like much to most of us in rainier parts of the world. It rains so little during the summer in southern California that it’s unlikely many (if any) people alive right now were around the last time either city saw this much rain in July. Weather records in downtown Los Angeles go back to 1877, and records at San Diego’s Lindbergh Airport go back to 1939 (though the lack of July rain likely extends much earlier than that).
The events that unfolded this weekend were a result of the far-flung gasps of a dying hurricane interrupting the normal, flaming hellscape that is southern California in the summer. Los Angeles recorded 0.32” of rain on Saturday, and San Diego came out on top with just over an inch of rain by sunrise on Sunday. As exciting as it is for us weather nerds, these rainfall totals are paltry when compared to just about everywhere else in the country.
Southern California stays notoriously warm, dry, and windy during the summer months, leading to an often-explosive wildfire season that’s hard to control until the rainy season cranks back up in the fall. The fires this year are on track to be worse than normal due to the lengthy drought that seems like it’s never going to end.
The fires came to national attention on Friday afternoon as an out-of-control wildfire approached a jammed Interstate 15 outside of Los Angeles. Crews rushed to battle the inferno as it lapped at the sides of the highway, but their progress was hindered by some idiots flying drones over the interstate
Less than 24 hours later, it poured. That’s not normal.
You can blame the rain on Hurricane Dolores, a once-powerful storm that reached category four status off the west coast of Mexico before dying a rapid death as it moved into colder waters. Deep, tropical moisture from the storm kept moving north after the storm croaked, pushing its way into California and allowing heavy showers and thunderstorms to develop over the parched countryside.
Such tiny rainfall totals don’t seem like much, but they’re historically significant when you figure that these cities see almost nothing during the dog days of summer. The airports in both Los Angeles and San Diego typically see three one-hundredths of an inch of rain in July. 0.03”. Zero point zero three inches. That’s the amount of most of us can see in one minute during your average heavy thunderstorm.
To put it in perspective, the long-standing weather station at New York’s Central Park averages 133 times more rain than Los Angeles during the month of July. Hey, even Phoenix—which is basically nature’s toaster oven—sees about an inch of rain in an average July thanks to the annual wet monsoon
Much to the surprise of the many southern Californians on my Facebook feed (and likely yours, as well), the skies opened up over the southern part of the Golden State on Saturday, allowing impressive amounts of rain to fall in short order.
LAX recorded 0.32 inches of rain between 7:00 AM Saturday and 7:00 AM Sunday, setting both an all-time one-day rainfall record for the city and an all-time July rainfall record. The previous one-day rainfall record during the month of July was 0.28 inches set back on July 12, 1992. You know the month is dry when five of Los Angeles’ ten wettest July days since 1945 saw little but a cloud sneeze.
The numbers are even more staggering down I-5 in San Diego, where the city’s airport picked up a whopping 1.03 inches of rain. This dwarfs the previous one-day July record of 0.23 inches set back on July 31, 1991. This weekend’s total will push San Diego over the top for the wettest July on record, a title previously held during that wet (“wet”) year of 1991.
Rain is good when you’ve been dry, but a sudden burst of rain in the midst of such a devastating drought is a bad thing. Arid ground has a hard time absorbing water, so when you see heavy rain too quickly, it can overwhelm man-made and natural water infrastructure and create significant flooding.
The flooding was so bad in Desert Center, California—out in the Colorado Desert about 45 minutes east of Indio—that it washed-out a bridge on Interstate 10, sending a vehicle and its occupants plunging more than 15 feet into the wash below. The Desert Sun reports that a pickup truck (pictured above) went down with the bridge as it collapsed; thankfully, the passenger escaped and the driver was rescued with “moderate injuries,” which is to be expected when the road collapses out from underneath you as you’re going down the highway at 70 MPH.
Even as the rain tapers off, flash flooding is possible just about anywhere experiencing heavy rain, and there’s a heightened risk of mud and debris slides in hilly areas, especially spots that recently experienced fires. The risk for landslides can still exist for days after the rain ends, so if you live in an area prone to piles of land casually collapsing, keep an eye out for that.
The rain should come to an end on Monday afternoon, allowing southern California to return to its characteristically sunny, hot, and dry weather. Given the active hurricane season predicted in the eastern Pacific, another incident like this is unlikely but not completely out of the realm of possibility. The rainy season in southern California doesn’t begin until the middle of October, and if this year’s growing El Niño proves its worth, the region could be in for some beneficial rainfall this winter.
[Images: NOAA, Getty Images, Chief Geoff Pemberton/CAL FIRE/Riverside County Fire via AP | Charts/Map: author]
You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.
Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Chicago woman, was found dead in a Texas jail cell last week. Cops say her death was a suicide; her family says it was murder. Now, authorities are releasing new details about her mysterious death, including a rough timeline of her final morning in jail.http://gawker.com/what-happened-...
Bland was arrested during a traffic stop July 10 for failing to signal a lane change. The encounter apparently escalated after she refused to put out a cigarette, and she was arrested and jailed, the New York Times reports. Bland was still alive, three days later, when a guard offered her breakfast around 6:30 am. By 9 am, she was dead.
The case is apparently being investigated as a potential murder and will likely be turned over to a grand jury, but in the meantime, a sketchy timeline—partially supported by video—has emerged.
The details, via the Times:
A Waller County sheriff’s official described a timeline for the jail cell of the woman, Sandra Bland, that started early in the morning of July 13, when she refused a breakfast tray around 6:30 a.m., until a jailer found her hanging shortly after 9 a.m. For about 90 minutes during that period, there was no movement by jail officials in the hallway leading to her cell, according to a video that the authorities released from a camera inside the jail.
...
Capt. Brian Cantrell of the Waller County Sheriff’s Office said that Ms. Bland replied “I’m fine” when a jailer was conducting rounds shortly after 7 a.m. and later inquired about how to make a phone call. But shortly after 9 a.m., a female jailer saw Ms. Bland hanging in her cell and summoned help. Other officers and emergency medical personnel tried unsuccessfully to administer CPR.
Authorities also released a brief video clip of officers discovering Bland’s body Monday. Still, the evidence is far from conclusive: the surveillance cameras apparently covered only the hallway outside, so there’s no footage of Bland’s cell or cell door.
Cops say Bland committed suicide by hanging herself with a plastic bag, a conclusion her family says makes no sense.
Her relatives “make valid points” that Bland seemed to “have a lot of things going on in her life for good,” Waller County district attorney Elton Mathis tells the Times.
According to the AP, Mathis has asked the Texas Rangers, who are investigating Bland’s death, to perform “extensive scientific testing for fingerprints, touch DNA and use any other valid investigative techniques.”
The FBI is reportedly investigating the jailhouse hard drives to ensure the surveillance video wasn’t manipulated.
Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
If you thought our girls would stay together forever, you were reportedly wrong. Our girls have reportedly broken up.
A Page Six source alleges that Cara Delevingne, model who is juuust about ready to transition into acting full-time, or so I read in the Times piece about her this weekend, and St. Vincent, perfect musician, have ended their six-month-or-so relationship. From Page Six:
[Delevingne’s] rep didn’t comment. St. Vincent’s rep said they didn’t know about a split.
But Cara looked happy Saturday at a WSJ Magazine and Forevermark screening of her film “Paper Towns.”
Rumors of the couple’s first split circulated in April
Seems like they both have cool lives regardless, idk.
Image out of which I rudely cropped Mary J. Blige (my apologies, but not now, Mary) via Getty. Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.
Josh Greenberg, one of two co-founders of the defunct music-sharing site Grooveshark, was found dead in his Gainesville, Fla. home Sunday night. His death was a shock to those who knew him—his mom and girlfriend both said he’d never been sick, and the Gainesville Sun reports police found no evidence of drugs or suicide. Greenberg was only 28.
He started Grooveshark with Sam Tarantino nearly 10 years ago, when they were both University of Florida freshmen. It was popular for a time, mostly because it provided access to pirated music, but its best feature was also its downfall—Grooveshark finally shut down
The company suffered from allegations of executive incompetence and frattishness
All of which is to say it’s not surprising that Greenberg’s mom told the Sun he was more relieved than depressed that Grooveshark’s time was finally over. She said he was excited about working on new projects, including a new mobile music app, an app for scheduling cleaning services, and teaching people how to code.
A medical examiner’s autopsy didn’t find the cause of Greenberg’s death. Toxicology results could provide answers, but not for another two to three weeks.
[h/t Uproxx, Photo: Michael Vroegop, Flickr]
Yesterday evening, a 30-year-old woman leapt to her death from the 20th floor rooftop bar in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. Patrons of the bar, who were there attending a corporate event, kept drinking after her death, according to the New York Post.
Witnesses told the Post that the woman, identified as Faigy Mayer, ran to the edge of the the 230 Fifth Rooftop Bar and crashed through through the bushes that surround the bar. From the Post:
Officials recovered two bags that might have belonged to the victim, a purse and a backpack.
It was not known if Mayer was connected to the party.
After the tragedy, some bar patrons still enjoyed table service at the establishment, where bottles can fetch as much as $300 each.
“There was a big corporate party up there and she kind of ran through them [the partygoers] and jumped,” witness Becky Whittemore told the Post. “They closed off the section where she jumped from. I think a lot of the people up there had zero clue what was going on.”
Mayer, who worked as an iOS developer for a Brooklyn-based tech firm, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Image via Facebook. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.
Reddit’s community dedicated to disseminating vicious invective about black people may be safe, but (at least one of) its jew-hating communities has finally gotten the boot. Yes, r/GasTheKikes is finally dead. And not an hour later, r/KikeTown popped right up to take its place.
At the very least, this means that Reddit’s administrators are finally making good on their word to ban “anything that incites harm or violence against an individual or group of people.” Which is nice but ultimatel meaningless gesture. Because as Reddit’s tenacious coterie of biggots has already shown us—they’re not giving up that easy. http://gawker.com/no-one-wants-t...
And because the new r/KikeTown doesn’t explicitly call for the extermination of the Jews (much like the eternally protected r/CoonTown), odds are its not going anywhere.
So congratulations, Reddit. Your wholly performative harassment policy
Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.
Who even knew that Puma was an acronym—Pointer
As a result of un-controlled procurement, fueled by two war budgets and a new alluring technology, the United States government now flies more than 100 different types of drones, generations overlapping with previous models and souped up versions of the same one: Think iPhone 5s to 5Gs to 5Ss to 6s and beyond. In the category of small hand-launched drone, there are more than two dozen pretenders, each slightly different, each an advancement, although the difference is oftentimes obscured, like telling the difference between a Chevy and a GMC, terrain left to the aficionados.
Puma is a single-person, hand-launched drone whose attributes of super quietness and a 360 degree view, more megapixels, 3x zoom, digital data link and tight landing profile make it increasingly valued and demanded. Built by AeroVironment and first introduced early in the Iraq war, the drone has already been modified and upgraded with a half dozen different packages: Puma AE (All Environment), Puma AECV (All Environment Capable Variant), Aqua Puma, Terra Puma, solar Puma, a fuel cell-powered Puma, an eavesdropping Puma, a Puma that acts as an Internet router, even some secret Pumas. Because of its relatively large size compared to Raven and Wasp, it has the power available to carry multiple payloads. And Puma carries a laser marker to illuminate targets, soon to even carry its own mini-missile.
Originally purchased by the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, an ad hoc, quick-reaction, new technology incubator, Puma is used by all four services, and has flown in missions from North Africa to Afghanistan and the Philippines. More than 300 exist, and for special operations, with its follow-me mode and two-plus hour endurance, the small drone is perfect for looking over the shoulder. Fundamentally a special operations gadget, Puma is not just quiet—it keeps its head down, low enough cost and difficult enough to find out about in real operations that it ultimately supports its own vague existence.
[Images courtesy of The U.S. Marine Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.]http://www.amazon.com/Unmanned-Drone...
Country queen Miranda Lambert and reality competition show lifestyle coach Blake Shelton announced yesterday that after four years of marriage, they’re getting divorced. The couple first met at CMT’s 100 Greatest Duets Concert in 2005. Shelton later stated he fell in love with Lambert that night, during their eye-fucking performance of “You’re The Reason God Made Oklahoma.”
“I was a married guy, you know? Standing up there and singing with somebody and going, ‘Man, this shouldn’t be happening.’ Looking back on that, I was falling in love with her, right there on stage.”
Oh, that’s right—Shelton was married at the time, to his first wife, Kaynette Williams.
Anyway, he and Lambert were married at a San Antonio ranch in 2011.
A third potential Shelton wife has not been identified as the cause of his and Lambert’s breakup, but tabloid rumors that Shelton routinely cheats on Lambert have plagued the couple for years. In 2013, the couple even joked about it on Twitter:
“@blakeshelton: @mirandalambert, just read in a tabloid that our marriage is falling apart!" Oh no! Can't wait to read if we make it or not
March 18, 2013
Not knowing anything else about these two, you might be tempted to assume that frequent rumors of Shelton’s cheating (or perhaps the factual basis of these frequent rumors—if one exists) hastened the end of the golden couple’s marriage.
Blake Shelton’s PR team would like you to know that you’re wrong. Just take a look at this collection of anonymously sourced tabloid stories disseminated directly after yesterday’s divorce announcement.
From People:
And Page Six:
And TMZ:
Well, well, well. Sounds like the rotting carcass of this marriage lies directly at the cowboy boot-clad feet of Ms. Miranda Lambert. As one anonymous source bravely explained to People, “Blake is just that incredibly loyal and dedicated husband. I can guarantee you he has been faithful to that woman...he hasn’t cheated ever.”
There you have it. On top of that, Blake Shelton—a faithful husband, guaranteed by anonymous—was dying to have cute little babies, but his wife was too focused on her career. Page Six’s source explains: “He is eager to have children, but she really enjoys not being tied down...She really loves her career and touring.”
Also, per TMZ: Shelton “filed for divorce because he believed Miranda Lambert was unfaithful, not once but twice.”
How’s a guaranteed faithful™ family man to fill his long late nights, now that a sinful jezebel has broken his heart? Us Weekly reports: “A source tells Us that since the split Shelton has been working on new music late into the night in the recording studio.”
Photo via Getty. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.
We’ve all got bills to pay—even if we’re minor-to-moderate celebrities. So what’s a reality star or child actor to do when the show doesn’t get picked up for a fourth season or when (more likely) their opulent lifestyle has outgrown their bank account?
Luckily for them, it is 2015 and the world of Instagram marketing is ready and waiting. There’s an interesting limbo that awaits the wide swath of celebrities who are no longer famous enough to land an endorsement deal but are still famous enough that a company will pay them money to promote a product on their personal social media. The products that celebrities shill on Instagram are generally coherent with the nature of the medium—i.e. highly narcissistic—and tend to repeat a small range of categories: teeth whitening, weight loss teas, waist shapers.
Or, in the case of pregnant Kim Kardashian, drugs for morning sickness.
You’ll immediately notice that the caliber of most of these products is questionable, and that all of these “ads” require a certain love of selfies and correspondent lack of shame.
But one thing’s undeniable: making money this way is pretty easy. Even if you don’t have Instagram, you can do it via the tabloid medium. Mandy Moore, for example, simply has to put on some decent clothes and pretend to go grocery shopping to stay ahead of those mortgage payments. No social media presence required.
Compare that to the caption Snooki included with a post about a protein powder:
Squats make a booty good. @proteinworld Slender Blend makes a booty even better! Toning up with the best nutritional supplements out there :)
We don’t know for sure that Snooki’s being paid for that post, of course. (I mean: she is.) When a celebrity is being paid to use their platform to promote a product, they’re supposed to tag the post #ad or #spon in some way indicate that a transaction has taken place, like with Kelly Ripa here: an actual star with a real endorsement deal, for whom transparency is not a problem.
Treat yourself! #JifHazelnut #ad pic.twitter.com/LC5O0aOVqZ
July 8, 2015
Sometimes a celebrity’s post will include a discount code for the product they’re promoting. While this isn’t an outright admission that it’s a straight-up advertisement, most people can make that jump.
If I can count on anything I know I can count on my @girlycurves_ waist cincher Every mom can use that extra help😉Thanks @girlycurves_ www.girlycurves.com (They are having a 15% OFF Memorial Day Sale Use Code: Memorial) I gained some weight from my all-inclusive vaca in Mexico because I had a good time drinking and eating a lot like everyone should on vacation but now it’s time to get back on the grind and really work out for a better body and a better self! Even though I’m happy with how I look I want to achieve better results.
Compare that to this post from Hilary Duff with a caption that in no way suggests that she was paid to post an obvious advertisement.
Having a spot of @lyfe_tea(British accent) #healthkick #lyfetea
Maybe she really was given that tea as a gift, and chose to take a picture that prominently featured the product by her own accord. Realistically, however, Hilary Duff is just another player in the wild, shameless world of Instagram promotion, laid out for you below.
We are a UK based, 100% natural health products company that has a desire to promote a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Cocowhite products originated on the back of a well known practice called Oil Pulling, (see more below) to provide a 100% natural alternative to the chemical fuelled teeth whitening craze.
Lindsay Lohan
As you’ll see, our friend Lindsay is quite the prolific Instagram hawker, which is probably the least surprising thing you’ll hear this week. She’s the epitome of the type of celebrity for whom this is a pretty sweet deal. She’s not making any consistent money doing her actual job, you know she could use the cash, and because she no longer has a brand to maintain, shame absolutely does not live here no more.
Kylie Jenner
Angela Simmons
Vanessa Hudgens
Katie Price
Scott Disick and Melissa Gorga
Audrina Patridge and Ashley Benson
We can’t see your teeth, Ashley!
We have spent numerous months researching other tooth whitening products - with the aim of creating the best value and most effective product that you can find anywhere at any price. We have evaluated hundreds of different products and now are proud to release what we believe is the best tooth whitening system for you to use in the comfort of your own home. We know you’ll be convinced that BrightWhite Smile is the best at-home whitening product.
Scott Disick
Somebody please explain the word “variety” to this man.
Blac Chyna
Blac Chyna clearly knows how her bread and butter is earned.
Express Smile Atlanta is a professional teeth whitening business and can improve your smile by 3 to 10 shades giving you a whiter, brighter smile!
Monica Brown and Jussie Smollett
Almost every single Real Housewife of Atlanta:
Kim Zolciak-Biermann
(Clockwise) Cynthia Bailey, Porsha Williams, Phaedra Parks and Kandi Burruss
Nene Leakes
Basically every cast member from the Love and Hip Hop franchise:
(Clockwise) Young Joc, Nikki Mudarris, Rasheeda Frost, Mimi Faust, Soulja Boy and Ariane Davis
JWoww
Nick Cannon
Nick Cannon is our first appearance of: “People I didn’t think had to do shit like this.” Clearly spousal support was not in Mariah’s prenup.
Snooki
Ciara
Christina Milian and Khloé Kardashian
Amber Rose
Cassie
Draya Michelle
Lilly Ghalichi
Lilly Ghalichi appeared on two seasons of Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset. Lilly Ghalichi seems to have a lot of time on her hands.
Vanessa Simmons
Angela Simmons
Vinny Guadagnino
Lil Kim
Mr Blanc is a natural and peroxide free teeth-whitening product that if used correctly, will get your teeth looking and feeling whiter in 14 days.
Alexis Bellino
Ashely Tisdale
Adrienne Bailon and Lilly Ghalichi
My favorite part of all this is when someone promotes two different products that are obviously competitors. C’mon, Lilly—are you an Express Smile Atlanta girl or a Mr. Blanc customer? Pick a lane!
Audrina Patridge
Stephanie Pratt
Considering Stephanie Pratt a celebrity is definitely a reach. However, Mr. Blanc’s marketing team does not seem to share my skepticism, and perhaps the most shocking thing I found during my “research” was the number of people willing to give Stephanie Pratt money for an endorsement.
MateFit’s goal is to bring you the healthiest and most natural supplements available. Our tea is combined with a large variety of different fresh herbs and spices to create a potent mix that can assists you on the path to a healthy body.
Britney Spears
Filed under: “People I didn’t think had to do shit like this.”
Nicki Minaj
Also filed under “People I didn’t think had to do shit like this.”
Scott Disick
Kyle Richards
Amber Rose
Angela Simmons
Adrienne Bailon
Fit Tea is a loose leaf Fit Yea, that contains a powerful blend of: Organic Green Tea, Oolong Wu Yi, Organic Rooibos, Ginger, Pomegranate, Guarana, Birch, Stevia, corn and Honey Powder. You will be amazed at not only how WELL Fit Tea will work for you, but just how amazing and splendid it tastes!
Kylie Jenner
Curiously, Kylie Jenner like a few other celebrities here, has deleted this picture from her Instagram. Whether the deal included an agreed-upon time limit for the post or if she just realized that this is all a bit gauche, I’ll never know—but my money ain’t on the latter.
Sarah Hyland
Amber Rose
Ed Westwick
Vanessa Hudgens and Christina Milian
Melissa Gorga
With her sister-in-law Teresa Guidice currently serving time for being an overspending liar, I can’t even blame Melissa for this hustle.
Vinny Guadagnino and Tyler Posey
Ashley Benson
Victoria Justice
Scott Disick and Vanessa Simmons
Coco
Here’s the thing, say what you will about Coco, but homegirl is at least having a bit of fun with all this.
Made from a purely natural organic herbal blend, Slendertoxtea is a Teatox designed to detoxify and cleanse, increase metabolism,suppress your appetite, burn calories and increase energy.Together with a healthy eating plan and lifestyle, join the Slendertoxtea movement today.We hope you are as thrilled with it as we are!
Porsha Williams and Gretchen Rossi
Lisa Vanderpump and Heidi Montag
Lisa Vanderpump is one of the few Real Housewives with real, serious money. I would love to know why she feels the need to shill detox tea on social media, but I think the answer would just make me sad.
Welcome to our TeaMi family, where your health and wellness are our main goal. Health begins with what you “put in”. That is why we made sure that what we “put in” our tea is of the highest quality and purest form. There are thousands of recorded tea plant species around the world. How many exist exactly? That is like asking how many stars light up the night sky- far too many to count. So what did we do? We analyzed them, ate them, drank them and blended them in every combination possible until we found the perfect formulas to give you the most effective, organic, tasty tea!
Blac Chyna
Lilly Ghalichi
The aim of Bootea is to give you the boost you need to get back on track with your healthy eating and active lifestyle. The ingredients used in our teas have been used for centuries for health and wellbeing purposes but it is only now we have finally brought all these unique ingredients into one perfect, rounded product. Teatox is a fancy word we use to describe the way the body goes through a natural process of elimination, by removing unwanted ‘toxins’ & built up waste matter, from your body via the lungs, kidneys, bowels and skin.
Lindsay Lohan
Hi, Lindsay.
Vanessa Hudgens
Shemar Moore and Irina Shayk
Ashley Tisdale and Scott Disick
Vanessa Simmons
Angela Simmons
Ashley Benson
Katie Price
Good marketing is all about a consistent duckface.
Jonathan Cheban and Audrina Patridge
Stephanie Pratt
I’ve stopped asking “HOW?” and “Why the hell?” with this one.
Lyfe Tea is a company with the concept of letting you be the most beautiful you ever. We want you to feel fabulous! It is our goal to help our customers to live a healthy life by creating a healthy lifestyle. Our products are designed with the richest ingredients that are filled with important body builders that help to eliminate fat while improving one’s overall body function. Our teas are rich in antioxidants. They help one’s ability to focus while aiding with physical endurance. While the tea will help in controlling one’s weight it will also aid in circulatory function. It will ultimately rid the body of wasteful toxins while rejuvenating its cellular structure.
Angela Simmons
Ciara
Lindsay Lohan
This is the second detox tea that Lindsay promotes.
Vanessa Simmons
Tori Spelling
Cassie
Nicky Hilton
Filed under: “People I didn’t think had to do shit like this.” I think it’s worth noting that Paris does not promote detox tea on Instagram.
Holly Madison and Lilly Ghalichi
Kourtney Kardashian
Kandi Burress
Melissa Gorga
Hilary Duff
Doesn’t she look kind of irritated to be doing this?
Mimi Faust and Draya Michele
Jonathan Cheban
Christina Milian and Audrina Patridge
Kim Zolciak-Biermann
Kim does have like six kids, so I guess those mouths have to be fed somehow.
JWoww
Snooki
310 Nutrition is a top emergent brand when it comes to meal replacement shakes and weight loss supplements! As a Southern California-born company, situated close to the beach, 310 knows how important it is to look and feel good in your body. That is why we want to help you reach your goals.
Kim Zolciak-Biermann
Kim is a 310 Nutriton superstar. They must be paying her a (relative) bucketload of money because the frequency with which she posts about these shakes is absurd.
Porsha Williams
JWoww
JWoww, I must assume, owns equity in this company because good lord that’s a lot of posts.
Lindsay Lohan
There she is.
Alexis Ballino and Gretchen Rossi
Boris Kodjoe and Joanna Krupa
We’re leading the protein revolution with a new and innovative range of pure, GMO free supplements to help you become healthier, leaner, fitter and stronger.
Snooki
Katie Maloney
Because it’s hard to afford Coachella on a pretend waitress’ salary.
Blac Chyna
Lilly Ghalichi
I wonder if Lilly thought those gym pics looked believable.
We are a UK based, natural health supplements company, committed to delivering lasting results with affordable, healthy solutions to enhance and preserve your natural beauty.
Hairburst believe beautiful, healthy skin and hair starts from within. By using safe, natural ingredients in formulas that are clinically tested and proven, we hope to assist the overall health and wellbeing of our customers by spreading messages and information regarding health and beauty. We often use Instagram to do this.
Hairburst products are not only a great way to kickstart your hair growth journey but can also be added into your existing hair care regime. Begin the journey to the hair you want with an intense mix of natural vitamins & minerals and beging to grow healthy hair from within.
Alexis Ballino
Lindsay Lohan
Lilly Ghalichi and Audrina Patridge
Ashely Tisdale
Katie Price
Melissa Gorga
Stephanie Pratt
Stephanie. Fucking. Pratt.
Hairfinity Hair Vitamins are formulated with essential nutrients for healthy hair growth. Our vitamins nourish your hair from the inside out. See results in the first month.
Nip + Fab is a fabulous skincare and body care range founded by Maria Hatzistefanis (founder of Rodial). Designed to deliver targeted treatments for the face and body, our formulas are crammed with innovative and natural advanced skin smoothing, boosting and firming ingredients. Nip + Fab is premium skincare for everyday concerns at everyday prices.
Audrina Patridge and Stephanie Pratt
Kylie Jenner
I think it’s safe to assume that Kylie Jenner is being paid by this company. However, rather interestingly, her contract doesn’t seem to include a clause about her face being present in any of the posts. I bet Kris made that deal.
Lindsay Lohan
Our Waist Shaper Corsets can instantly give you the appearance of a slim, curvy waist while also training your waist to maintain an hourglass figure all year round.
Melissa Gorga
Kim Zolciak-Biermann
This is horrifying.
Angela Simmons and Tamar Braxton
Lindsay Lohan and La La
Tameka “Tiny” Cottle-Harris
We are a company that provides an outstanding service distributing shapewear all over the World. We believe in quality and attention to detail. Every garment is designed and manufactured at our Manufacturer headquarter in Colombia using technology, expert sewers and rigorous quality control to produce the finest garments.
JWoww
Ciara
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Contact the author at kara.brown@jezebel.com.
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The bravery of comedian Judd Apatow knows no bounds: last night on the Tonight Show, Apatow returned to his favorite topic—rape—and guess what? He’s against it! So bold.
Apatow, of course, first came out publicly against Bill Cosby in January when he tweeted, officially, that the things Cosby has been accused of are bad. An unpopular opinion, perhaps, but one he’s courageously stuck to over, and over, and over, and over.
It's official. No one is defending @BillCosby anymore. Those tweets have dried up.
January 12, 2015
Last night, Apatow stepped up his brave campaign by impersonating Cosby on the Tonight Show. The passable routine is earning Apatow gushing accolades—why? For daring to criticize a man so unpopular that even the president of the United States has called the allegations “clearly rape.”
Truly subversive stuff. (As Vulture reports, “Yep, he went there. He really went there.”) What will he take on next? Human trafficking? ISIS? The second season of True Detective?
Watch Judd Apatow's Scathing Bill Cosby Impression in 'Tonight Show' Stand-Up http://t.co/SvU6zkRQDN pic.twitter.com/9kv340iBfY
July 21, 2015
You have to see Judd Apatow's Bill Cosby impression. This is how you grill a guy: http://t.co/ImqTZRkYYK pic.twitter.com/vWniBP0li7
July 21, 2015
Judd Apatow brutally takes on Bill Cosby during 'Tonight Show' stand-up set: http://t.co/QMGprhxSS2 pic.twitter.com/67qcKQ37gC
July 21, 2015
Watch Judd Apatow destroy Bill Cosby in his first stand-up routine in 23 years http://t.co/IpMkPtZ9nQ
July 21, 2015
Maybe one day we’ll all feel secure enough to come out against rape. But until then, hero Judd Apatow is on it.
Anyway, what’s Hannibal Burress up to these days?
Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
I play along with the charade/That doesn’t seem to be a reason to change/I feel so dirty when they start talking clues/Wanna tell them I’m a detective but I just get the blues/‘Cause she’s solving it with those eyes/Investigating with that brain, I just know it/I’m the true detective/And I wish that I had Jessie’s girl!
We’re now over halfway through the season, and True Detective fans are finally noticing that the lyrics to the show’s theme song—Leonard Cohen’s “Nevermind”—are subtly changing with each episode. Why? What does it mean? Are there hints about the Yellow King buried amongst the gravel of Cohen’s late-career growl?
And what about the lyrics to the song above—Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl”—which seem to indicate that Springfield had foreknowledge of his role in True Detective, 34 years before its broadcast? How? What does it mean? Are there hints about the true detective’s true identity lodged between Rick Springfield’s slabs of palm-muted electric guitar—hints that, perhaps, point to Rick Springfield himself?
Anything is possible.
We re-enter True Detective’s universe two months after the firefight that concluded episode four, and a lot has changed since then. Ray Velcoro has departed the Vinci Police Department to work security for Frank Semyon, whose financial situation doesn’t seem nearly secure enough to be paying out competitive wages to a veteran cop, but I’m not his financial advisor so what do I know; Ani Bezzerides is embroiled in a sex harassment case that’s got her out of the field and tied down to a desk in the Ventura County evidence department; former highway patrolman Paul Woodrugh, owing to his heroic work in the firefight, is finally a real detective. (But perhaps not a true detective).
Believe it or not, the pat explanation for Ben Caspere’s death that was proffered last time around is looking unlikely. Frank is not content to believe that a meth-cooking pimp disappeared the money he’d paid Caspere to invest in the new rail corridor, and believes that the city manager’s death may be connected to the recent departure of Ali Komunyakaa, a guy who bought a corridor-connected waste management company from Frank and promptly drove off a hillside. That company, we learn, intentionally poisoned the land on which the corridor sits so that Vinci’s moneyed insiders could buy it for cheap before the coming railway sends its value skyrocketing. Frank interrogates the railway bigwig Jacob McCandless about Komunyakaa’s death, and McCandless makes him an offer: If Frank can locate a hard drive of Caspere’s that vanished when he died, McCandless will return Frank’s stake in the rail corridor.
Following up on the case of the missing girl, Ani receives some photos that appear to have been taken at one of those high-class hooker parties we keep hearing about. Included are a few snaps of blue diamonds that apparently belonged to Caspere, and that recently went missing from evidence, possibly due to some sneakiness from the fat drunk cop (R.I.P.). She also wonders wether the fat drunk cop may have had some advance knowledge of the gunfight he walked the rest of the detectives into.
With several questions left unanswered, and some encouragement from state attorney Katherine Davis, the true detectives decide to get the band back together. Davis is unsure that Caspere’s death was really solved the first time around, and now that California Attorney General Richard Geldof is parlaying the Caspere investigation into a gubernatorial run, she believes that he may have a role in the Vinci corruption he was supposedly attempting to uncover. Davis commissions Woodrugh, Bezerrides, and Velcoro into a secret to find out who killed the city manager once and for all.
Then the state attorney casually reveals that Semyon isn’t the essentially good-hearted bad guy we’ve been led to believe he is, but a full-blown sociopath. Davis informs Velcoro that the man who raped his wife years ago—and who is likely the biological father of his ginger son—was finally caught and arrested recently. As you may recall
After that, Velcoro beats the shit out of the therapist Rick Springfield; Bezerrides gets ready to go undercover at one of those hooker parties; a pawn shop employee tells Woodrugh that the fat drunk cop used to fart a lot; Bezerrides and Woodrugh find a Carcosa-lite murder scene in the middle of the woods; and Velcoro shows up at Semyon’s house, presumably to beat the shit out of him, too.
Who got killed in the woods? Will Frank’s ceiling stay water stain-free for long? What poor sap did Ray accidentally murder all those years ago?
Finally, and most importantly,
As we’ve explained to exhaustion in previous iterations of this column, True Detective is at its heart about one question and one question only: Who will be the true detective? Will it be Paul Woodrugh, he of the permanently clenched jaw? Or Ani Bezerrides, she of the permanently steely gaze? Will it be Ray Velcoro, he of the permanently grizzled appearance?
The true detective will be Rick Springfield.
A true detective is many things: clenched, steely, grizzled. But most importantly, a true detective detects. When the clues are murky, when the leads are leading in every direction at once, when the intertwined threads of a plot are so frayed as to be nearly impossible to follow, a true detective sweeps in and sorts things out. This week, Rick Springfield sorted things out.
By the end of True Detective episode five, viewers not in possession of a private investigator’s license may be forgiven for feeling a little confused. Your TV volume is cranked, you’re watching the scene for the third time in a row, and you still can’t figure out why Bezerrides is yelling about big dicks, or how Semyon came down with blue-balls-of-the-heart. (Next time, turn closed captions on.)
So it was with great relief that we watched Ray Velcoro beat the shit out of Rick Springfield in a desperate search for answers this week. “Spill,” Velcoro ordered of the soft-rock-singer-turned-shady-therapist-slash-plastic-surgeon just before he started beating, hoping to extract any discernible narrative at all from the show. What are these hooker parties, and what do they have to do with Caspere’s death? Can you remind me what “Catalyst” is? What’s with the mysterious hard drive? And why do people keep bringing up the mayor’s goofball son Tony? Please, just give these poor viewers a story they can follow.
And spill Springfield does:
Caspere concocted the idea of the parties with Tony Chessani. Tony’s a pimp with political ambition. His father doesn’t participate in the gatherings. Tony’s service makes him friends with those men of affluence you mentioned—lays the groundwork for deals that Caspere facilitated. i think both men used the occasion to compile blackmail material on their guests. Rumored that Ben had footage of various important people. McCandless—he’s the president of Santa Clara Railroad Company. It’s smaller now. Called Catalyst.
Finally, it all makes sense, I think. If Caspere was using those parties to blackmail McCandless, maybe our detectives should be asking McCandless about Caspere’s death. Does that hard drive have videos of McCandless fucking hookers? Just a hunch.
Good detective work, Rick.
Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.
A Wyoming man accused of killing one man and wounding another at a detox center this weekend was reportedly resentful and “hunting” for homeless people he had observed drinking in local parks.
Roy Clyde, 32, was arrested Saturday after he entered the Center of Hope detox facility through a back entrance, walked into a client area, and shot two men who were lying down on mattresses inside: Stallone Trosper, who died on the scene, and James “Sonny” Goggles, Jr., who was wounded.
Clyde reportedly placed the gun down and walked back out of the detox center as other clients and staff members began barricading themselves in a bathroom. He was arrested not long after.
According to the AP, Clyde—a Riverton, Wyoming city employee—indicated that he was “tired” of cleaning up after the city’s homeless population.
According to police statement filed in court Monday, Clyde told investigators he had long been considering killing people he referred to as “park rangers.” In Riverton, the term “park rangers” refers to homeless alcoholics — most of them American Indians. Many come to the city from the surrounding Wind River Indian Reservation, where alcohol is illegal, and drink in the parks.
On Monday a judge ordered Clyde held without bail. He’s been charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder.
Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
