IKEA Monkey

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If you were looking for a delightful little video to help carry you through the rest of the week, good news: Tucker Carlson has you covered. On Wednesday, NowThis released leaked footage of the conservative pundit and panda-sex alarmist going apeshit during an unaired interview with historian Rutger Bregman—and the thing is deeply, deeply unhinged.

In the eight-minute clip, which looks like it was filmed on a cell phone aimed at a control room monitor, Carlson starts by chatting Bregman up about how the historian owned a bunch of rich people at Davos last month by telling them to actually pay their fair share of taxes. The conversation starts amicably enough, but when Bregman calls out Fox News and Carlson himself, the host completely melts down, telling him to "go fuck yourself" and calling him a "tiny-brain... moron."

"You are a millionaire funded by billionaires, that’s what you are," Bregman says, setting Carlson off. "And I’m glad you now finally jumped [on] the bandwagon of people like Bernie Sanders and AOC, but you’re not part of the solution, Mr. Carlson. You’re part of the problem, actually."

That gets Carlson heated, and he tries to defend himself—but Bregman just rips into him again. "You’re all like, 'Oh, I’m against the globalist elite, blah, blah, blah,'" Bregman says. "It’s not very convincing, to be honest." At that point, Carlson completely loses it.

"Why don’t you go fuck yourself," he screams. "You tiny-brain—and I hope this gets picked up, because you’re a moron! I tried to give you a hearing, but you were too fucking annoying."

Bregman took a victory lap on Twitter once the video dropped to admit that he was the one who leaked it, slipping in a nice little Noam Chomsky quote while he was at it.

Unfortunately, the footage only includes audio of Carlson's rant, and the interview never made it to air, so we can't see the spittle fly as he bellows out a litany of F-bombs and insults. But that's what imaginations are for. Give the whole video a watch above and enjoy listening to a rich guy get very mad when someone calls him out for being rich, everybody.

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Less than one week until the Oscars, The Academy is still beefing up its list of performers, and its latest addition, they hope, will rock you.

We know the "who." It's the reason the story gathered national attention in the first place. We mostly know the "when," "where" and "how." They were the reasons for immediate doubts.

Too bright for the Oscars?

Plus Karen Elson, Emily Ratajkowski, and Rowan Blanchard.

Compared to the Emmys, Golden Globes and, presumably, next week’s Oscars, last night’s WGA Awards were a wildly—and satisfyingly—unpredictable affair. So much so, in fact, that several of the nominees, including Best Original Screenplay winner Bo Burnham and Best Comedy/Variety Sketch Series winner Nathan Fielder,…

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Richard Branson has officially ventured into a new field outside of cell phones and airplanes. Now Virgin is dabbling in cruise lines! The best part? Virgin Voyages won't have buffets and it is adults only!

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On Thursday, the Wyoming state Senate failed to pass a bill that would have ended the use of the death penalty in the state. While some of the state’s senators likely had the typical reasons for supporting the death penalty (tough on crime, blah blah blah), one woman, Republican Lynn Hutchings of Cheyenne, offered up…

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The 911 calls came in a flurry starting at 1:24 p.m. Friday. An employee who had just been fired was shooting up Aurora’s Henry Pratt Co., the callers said.

Police officers arrived four minutes later and almost immediately encountered gunman Gary Martin, a 45-year-old with a history of violence...

Friday’s settlement didn’t confirm that the NFL colluded against Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, but it didn’t prove it hadn’t colluded, either.

Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid settled their collusion case with the NFL on Friday. It was arguably the biggest win that Kaepernick and Reid could have possibly gotten out of the lawsuit.

Kaepernick started his collusion case in November 2017, with Reid joining him the following March. The players were at the forefront of protests about the oppression that people of color face in the United States — protests that have been perhaps the biggest story in the NFL for more than two years.

Mark Geragos, the lawyer representing the Kaepernick and Reid, issued the following joint statement with the NFL:

For the past several months, counsel for Mr. Kaepernick and Mr. Reid have engaged in an ongoing dialogue with representatives of the NFL. As a result of those discussions, the parties have decided to resolve the pending grievances. The resolution of this matter is subject to a confidentiality agreement so there will be no further comment by any party.

Because of the confidentiality agreements signed as part of the settlement, we will never know for certain whether or not the owners colluded against Kaepernick and Reid. But this settlement also doesn’t prove that they didn’t collude. The NFL losing its summary judgement motion last August suggests that the Kaepernick and Reid had, at the very least, a viable shot of winning the case.

We also might never know how rich that settlement is. Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman reported that team officials speculated that it could have been anywhere between $60 and $80 million.

But the amount of money also kind of doesn’t matter.

For the NFL to decide not ride out the lawsuit, and settle with both Reid and Kaepernick instead, suggests that the two players had a case. This settlement also came before discovery, a period in which more evidence is brought forward, was completed. The NFL chose to close the lawsuit before whatever skeletons they might have had in their closet were potentially exposed. They paid for silence.

Collusion cases are “a bitch” to prove, as an NYU law professor explained to SB Nation back in May. If the lawsuit had run its course, Kaepernick and Reid might have lost. In this instance, settlement feels like victory for the two.

Bits and pieces came out after the lawsuit was filed that raised eyebrows about the NFL and its team owners. The plethora of mediocre (and in most cases, worse) quarterbacks who were signed over Kaepernick — like Nathan Peterman, Austin Davis, and Mark Sanchez — was the first red flag. Later, it would take Reid six months to find a team, which was odd considering he was just a 26-year old Pro Bowl safety. Then came the seven “random” drug tests he received.

In the mean time, the NFL passed a rule essentially banning protest during the national anthem, then backtracked on it like an All-Pro cornerback after receiving negative reaction from fans and players.

That external negativity toward the league never let up. While the protests weren’t as visible in 2018 as they had been the previous two seasons, many high-profile people boycotted the Super Bowl, and musicians cited the NFL’s treatment of Kaepernick as a reason that they wouldn’t perform during the halftime show. Athletes in other sports, such as LeBron James, wore Kaepernick jerseys during Super Bowl week to show their support for the quarterback.

NFL owners are probably happy with this settlement, which may finally take Kaepernick out of headlines for them. Since Kaepernick took his first knee back in 2016, they haven’t been shy about wanting players to stick to football. Most infamously, former Texans owner Bob McNair said at the NFL meetings between players that the owners “can’t have the inmates running the prison.”

Kaepernick knew when he started his protests that there was a chance that he would lose his career over it. He also didn’t care. “This is not something that I am going to run by anybody,” Kaepernick said. “I am not looking for approval ... If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”

Kaepernick shouldn’t have had to lose his job over standing up for the oppressed. Frustration and anger still lingers because of the way he was seemingly frozen out of the NFL for insisting that the world be a better place.

But Kaepernick put it all on the line anyway, because he saw an opportunity that was bigger than him, or any individual.

For Reid, it felt like a miracle that he even got signed in the first place. And despite the NFL’s best efforts to remove him from their fields, he prevailed. Reid was so good for Carolina, that he signed a three-year extension this offseason. Through that contract, Kaepernick’s protest will still live on in NFL stadiums.

Paying to keep people quiet and shove things under the rug has been a textbook wealthy white man move for years. NFL owners will likely sleep just fine after doling out a few million dollars — divvied up among 32 teams — to Reid and Kaepernick. But the settlement is still significant. For NFL owners to take the loss and run suggests our suspicions about the jig were right all along.

Rapper Flo Rida will headline Naperville Ribfest on July 4.

Known for songs like “Low,” “Club Can’t Handle Me” and “Right Round,” the four-time Grammy nominee is the third main stage artist to be announced for the annual festival.

“We knew early on we wanted to bring new headliners to Ribfest 2019,”...

The megalodon -- also known as the biggest shark ever -- became extinct a million years earlier than previously thought, due to competition from much smaller great white sharks, according to new research. The full paper is published in the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences.

In his first public statement from prison, Bill Cosby said he will never have remorse for his crimes and called himself a political prisoner.

GIPHY, in collaboration with Paisley Park and Prince’s estate, has done a truly remarkable thing. It’s created an official archive of high-quality Prince GIFs, from virtually all of his music videos. You can browse it by album and by song.

The result is a veritable gold mine for both Prince fans and meme hunters.

It’s got the early stuff:

The classic stuff:

The stuff that’s so sexy it’s a little uncomfortable:

And the self-iconographic work at (what shouldn’t have been) the end:

Please note, however, that if you want reaction GIFs from Prince interviews, live shows, and other non-music-video appearances, you still have to use the regular search function like everyone else.

Via Anil Dash (who else?)

Tags: Anil Dash   GIFs   music   Prince

President Donald Trump personally paid to have a "golf simulator" installed in the White House residence that allows him to play virtual rounds of golf, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Pat Hughes and Ron Coomer’s Cubs broadcasts on WSCR-AM 670 will remain as free as sunshine and a summer breeze.

So there’s solace, perhaps, for those who don’t want to or can’t pay for a cable, satellite or streaming service to watch the Cubs on television once the team’s Marquee Sports Network...

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said Thursday that he would be willing to abandon his presidential ambitions midstream if Democrats nominate a centrist who makes it too difficult for him to win as an independent candidate.

Schultz, who made the comments while visiting The Washington Post, has...

Like two neutron stars slowly pulled together by their mutual gravity, orbiting around each other before collapsing together and obliterating everything in space around them, Alex Jones and Joe Rogan are beefing.

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Back in November, pro golfer Matt Kuchar won the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico, which earned him $1.3 million. It’s customary for golfers on tour to give their caddies a 10-percent cut of their tournament winnings, which means that Kuchar’s caddie, David Ortiz, should have earned $130,000 for his week of work. But…

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A  new survey found that men plan to spend an average of $339 on their partners for Valentine’s Day, while women play to spend an average of $64 -- and some men think that this is unfair.First of all, let me say that I think spending $339 on Valentine’s Day is ridiculous. I mean, where are all of these men? I would really love to know, because no one has ever spent that much on me on Valentine’s Day. Maybe I’m a little jaded, but I guess I always assumed the only reason someone would spend $339 on their partner for Valentine’s Day would be that he feels bad because he’s actually cheating on her. Considering the kind of Valentine’s Day presents I’ve gotten -- I once had a man give me only an e-card that said “Happy Black History Month is almost over” (and then that was over) -- I really am having a hard time believing that this survey could be actually true.After all, Valentine’s Day is the worst. I mean, who cares? All it means is that all of your social-media platforms are going to be flooded with pictures of other people’s flowers, complete with captions about how they were gifted by BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD, while you watch your cat lick up the crumbs from the cookies that you’re eating alone in bed. (Just me?) Even when I’ve been in a relationship, I still haven’t cared about it much because I have a career and a life and other things to worry about besides showing off my relationship on Instagram to make the cat-crumbs people feel bad about themselves.That being said, I’d still have to say that the only thing more ridiculous than Valentine’s Day is probably the fact that men are complaining about having to spend a little cash to celebrate it.Yes, $339 is a lot of money. I’ve already said that, and really, really, I think that any woman who is not a treacherous, gold-digging sociopath would probably be happy with much less. But here’s the thing: Even if you are a man spending $339 while your partner spends only $64, you still should not be complaining about it. Why? Because you have already saved so much money by just not being a woman.I mean, seriously -- it is so much cheaper to be a man. How much do your haircuts cost, like $10? (I have to spend money on getting mine cut and colored, and then on buying someone else’s hair to strap to my head, just to be acceptable to society.) How much money do you spend getting your nails done? That’s right, none, and all of the time you save by not having to waste your life sitting under those little dryers like an idiot waiting for them to be done is probably being spent making more money.Think about it: If you’re a man, you don’t even need to buy lip gloss. Do you know how much lip gloss us women have had to purchase throughout our lives? That s*** starts in like the fifth grade! Factor in that we’re also expected to wear mascara, eyeshadow, eyeliner, concealer (only men can have visible zits!), and a bunch of other garbage that sucks up our money and our time, and you might start to feel a little ridiculous about the fact that you have to get some flowers and a card.Valentine’s Day is dumb, and I’ve always believed that the people who really care about it must be some really sad people with some really sad lives. But the only thing more pathetic than getting super jazzed for Valentine’s Day is getting super salty about it because you’re a man and you have to spend a couple of extra bucks. If you find yourself complaining, then stop it. Remember: You’ve saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars thanks to society allowing you to look just straight-up worse than we do.

Dogs!

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New Carrot Cake Oreo cookies can now be found at retailers nationwide.

The permanent flavor features carrot cake-flavored wafers and cream cheese frosting-flavored creme. It joins a current slate of baked dessert-flavored Oreos that includes Red Velvet, Cinnamon Bun, and Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie.

Carrot Cake Oreos come in 12.2-oz packages for $2.99 each. If you're having problems locating it nearby, Target has it available for shipping online.

Photo via Oreo.

Kids had to work to find things to do before the internet was widespread enough to consume all our lives. Desperate for something, anything to occupy their tender minds, they scavenged for dead animals to poke with sticks, hunted for stuff to set on fire, and, most troubling of all, devoted themselves to collecting…

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Milton Lee Olive Park near Navy Pier in Chicago. | Getty Images

Need a minute?

Chicago, like many other cities, can be chaotic. Places with overbearing, tall towers and crowded, bustling sidewalks were not designed to be serene. I mean, we built an expressway along one of the most peaceful slices of real estate we have—the lakefront.

Alas, there are little safe spaces, quiet corners, and secret spots tucked away. We all need a moment to breathe, or cry, sometimes—and this list should help those who are looking for a place their hectic life on pause.

Connect with nature, escape in a stack of books, or keep out of sight in a dark theater. Weepers, criers, and anyone out of sorts are welcome—its okay to be down. What other urban places do you visit to gain perspective? Here are spots where New York, Boston, San Francisco, D.C., Philly, Detroit, and Seattle criers find particularly comforting.

ROCK ISLAND, IL—Explaining that his frequent visits to the creatures helped give him a much-needed sense of perspective in his old age, Louis Ross, 78, confirmed Wednesday that he fought feelings of loneliness by visiting the families of ducks at his local pond and savagely pelting them with rocks. “It’s so calm out…

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This year’s 143rd annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is hosting 2,800 dogs, consisting of more than 200 different breeds or varieties. Below are images from the two-day competition and preliminary activities held in New York City at Piers 92/94 and Madison Square Garden. And, for a closer look at the road to Westminster and the life of a show-dog breeder, please read “Backstage at the Westminster Dog Show,” by Ashley Fetters.