Alan is a writer and editor who lives in New York City. His work has been featured in such publications as Salon, The Advocate, Plus Magazine, George Takei Presents, The Huffington Post, Spoiled NYC, Towleroad, Distractify, Elite Daily, and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Film.
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In an interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition” last week, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz criticized a proposal from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to raise taxes on the super wealthy as ridiculous.
“Free Medicare for all, government-paid, free college for all — first of all, there’s no free. I mean nothing is free,” he said, adding that while he sees the need for "comprehensive tax reform," Warren's "ridiculous plan of taxing wealthy people a surtax of 2 percent because it makes a good headline or sends out a tweet when she knows for a fact that's not something that’s ever gonna be passed, this is what's wrong."
“You can’t just attack these things in a punitive way by punishing people," he concluded.
But a new poll from Morning Consult shows that the majority of Americans support a wealth tax by a 60-21 margin, a number that includes majority support from Republican voters. Americans also support raising the marginal tax rate back up to 70 percent, as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has suggested.
Warren shared the poll results with her social media following––and took a direct shot at Schultz.
"Dear Howard Schultz: if you're looking for bold ideas with broad bipartisan appeal for your 'centrist' presidential campaign, may I suggest my #UltramillionaireTax?" she tweeted, noting how the tax would provide avenues for such initiatives as student debt relief and health care.
Americans "don't want to replace a self-absorbed billionaire President with another one," she said. "Americans want real change. We should listen."
Many concurred with Warren's sentiments.
Schultz, who has a net worth of roughly $3 billion, would likely be subject to the proposed wealth tax.
Since Schultz announced he would consider running for president, liberal voters have assailed him, saying he could potentially split the Democratic vote and guarantee President Donald Trump a win in 2020.
Schultz was in the news last week after he claimed Senator Warren once asked him for a campaign contribution and that he turned her down, fearing that her policies would lead the U.S. down a path to “socialism.”
When asked why he didn’t contribute to Warren’s campaign, Schultz said, “I don’t believe the country should be heading to socialism. I think she believes in programs that will lead to a level of socialism in America. She’s a smart woman. I respect her. This isn’t personal. I just don’t agree with her.”
Last Tuesday, Schultz said the health plan proposed by Harris––she’s running on a “Medicare for All” platform––would spell the end of private health insurance.
“That’s not correct, that’s not American. What’s next? What industry are we going to abolish next? The coffee industry?” asked Schultz on Tuesday during an appearance on “CBS This Morning.”
“I don’t agree with that,” he continued. “The Affordable Care Act should stay and it should be refined. But the thing we should get rid of is the insurance industry? Again, this is exactly the situation ― it’s far too extreme on both sides and the silent majority of America does not have a voice.”
What a way to show the years go by! Pittsburgh meteorologist Ray Petelin interviewed his daughter Elizabeth every year on the first day of school, all the way from kindergarten to senior year of high school.
He recently shared a sweet video where he spliced together Elizabeth at various ages answering the same questions each year.
The post went viral, as parents who are currently sending their children off to new years of school chimed in.
People were impressed by the level of dedication.
The post also got a lot of parents crying.
Even people who aren’t parents were moved by the video.
People loved the changing career goals.
Someone noted how long the “interview chair” seemed to last over the years.
Plenty of parents planned to copy the idea.
Other parents shared their own yearly traditions with their children.
The comments section was a celebration of parenting's joys and pains.
Petelin also talked with his work colleagues at KDKA about the now viral video.
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Michael Keaton and his alter ego Beetlejuice raised hell in a hilarious sketch to promote the upcoming film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to the 1988 fantasy horror comedyBeetlejuice.
Keaton, who is reprising his ghoulish character in the new film, participated in "Not Ones," a parody of the YouTube channel Hot Ones, in which celebrities test their limits by trying a succession of increasingly hot sauces, usually on chicken wings, while answering interview questions.
The Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner hilariously appeared as himself and as his "bio-exorcist" character in the spicy challenge.
At the start of the clip, Keaton welcomed himself as Beetlejuice to the show, to which the supernatural entity asked how long the bit will take because he had to "get to the spa."
Seeing there was no time to waste, Keaton dove right in and asked Beetlejuice who some of his influences were.
"Well, Napoleon was a pal," he said, with hot sauce smothered all over his pale face.
"Bieber, of course, for obvious reasons."
He chucked a wing off to the side and went for another, then added, "Caligula was a wild man."
You can watch the spicy clip here.
In an attempt to "up the ante," Keaton dove into the philosophical and asked Beetlejuice:
"You've been haunting this metaphysical astral plane for over 600 years, you ever allowed yourself to, you know, contemplate the nature of time?"
"Nope," replied Beetlejuice.
At one point, Beetlejuice's ears were steaming from the heat of the wings, which didn't faze him at all, and it culminated in a fiery fart in response to Keaton asking if he was doing "okay" from all the hot wings he kept shoving into his mouth.
The sloppy spirit interjected with, "I got a question for you. Who the hell are you?"
But the Oscar nominee gave up on indulging him with a response and excused himself from the ridiculous scene.
Fans were in stitches.
In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a title that mimics the Bloody Mary summoning chant, the Deetz family returns to Winter River following the death of a major character from the first film, and Beetlejuice is accidentally summoned by Lydia's rebellious teenage daughter Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega.
Keaton reunites with original Beetlejuice star Winona Ryder, as well as Catherine O'Hara, who had some choice words in response to complaints about Hollywood sequels from trolls bemoaning the lack of originality of current movies.
"If people don’t like it, then f'k them," said the Schitt's Creek star during an appearance at CinemaCon while defending the sequel film.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is scheduled to frightfully delight moviegoers in theaters on September 6.
Fox News personality Jesse Watters was immediately rebuked by his female co-hosts on The Five after making a sexist comment about generals "having their way with" Vice President Kamala Harris in the Situation Room.
The panel on The Five was discussing the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Monday marked the third anniversary of the Kabul airport suicide bombing that claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members.
Harris has stated that she was the last person in the room with Biden before he made the decision to go ahead with the withdrawal, a plan initially set in motion during former President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump, Watters, and other conservatives have used Harris's involvement to criticize her.
And Watters decided to criticize her with a side of unadulterated sexism when he said:
“What is her foreign policy? This is where the president has his most impact. You have a lot of room to maneuver there as commander in chief.”
“We don’t know who she is. We don’t know what she believes. She’s gonna get paralyzed in the Situation Room while the generals have their way with her."
Watters' comments prompted his co-host Dana Perino to say his name in a disapproving tone while Jeanine Pirro simply said:
“Whoa, Jesse, I don’t like that. Take it back.”
But Watters dismissed these concerns, smiling and saying:
"Figuratively! Have their way with her, control her! Not in a sexual way!"
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Of course Watters laughed it off and proceeded to joke further:
"I'm sure my mother was probably, go on MSNBC tonight and say, 'My son, Jesse Watters, made a joke about Kamala Harris being manhandled by generals in the Situation Room and he has desecrated the memory of his grandfather. It's disgusting!'"
"I can see my mom doing that and I wish I had a political dynasty so I can take shots as well."
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Many were disgusted by Watters' joke and swiftly called him out.
Watters is no stranger to making sexist remarks on The Five.
Late last month, for instance, he left people baffled after questioning why a man would ever vote for a woman "just because she's a woman" in a sexist rant.
At the time, Watters addressed the successful fundraising call orchestrated by White Dudes 4 Harris that raised more than $4 million for Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign.
Watters criticized the group, suggesting their support for Harris—now officially the Democratic nominee—after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race is only based on her gender and suggested voting for her would be foolish.
He also described the group's call, which included celebrities such as Jeff Bridges and Bradley Whitford, as "a struggle session for pale, hairy, flabby California artists, and it was basically saying, if you want to be accepted by women, you should vote for a woman.”
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Convicted financial fraudster Martin Shkreli was ordered by a New York federal judge to turn over all copies of rap group Wu-Tang Clan's exclusive album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, also known as "the world's rarest album."
Shkreli was the co-founder and former CEO of pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals who served over six years in federal prison and was fined over 70 million dollars after being convicted of financial crimes.
He was nicknamed "Pharma Bro" following the controversy of Turing jacking the price of Daraprim to insurance companies from $13.50 to $750.00 per pill following the pharma company's acquisition of the antiparasitic drug's manufacturing license.
Shkreli was released from prison in 2022 after serving the majority of his seven-year sentence for financial crimes, which included lying to investors and defrauding them out of millions of dollars through two of his failed hedge funds.
In August 2015, Shkreli purchased the only existing hard copy of Wu-Tang Clan's seventh studio album, which was not available for downloading or streaming, for reportedly $2 million through Paddle8, an online auction house.
After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in March 2018, he was ordered to surrender his assets, including Once Upon A Time In Shaolin.
In July 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice sold the seized rap album to digital art company and cryptocurrency collective PleasrDAO, who endeavored to make the coveted project widely accessible.
However, when Shkreli broadcast snippets from the exclusive recording on the streaming platforms Periscope and Hitbox.tv, PleasrDAO sued Shkreli, accusing him of violating the forfeiture order by retaining the digital contents of the album and playing it publicly without permission, thereby diminishing the value of the record.
On Monday, Judge Pamela K. Chen issued an order to prevent Shkreli from possessing any and all contents of the album following her previous order to block Shkreli from streaming the album last month.
Shkreli's legal representative referred to the ongoing lawsuit in a statement that read:
“This order is merely a preliminary measure entered by the court to maintain the perceived status quo before any discovery occurs - the order has no bearing whatsoever on the final outcome of the case."
He has until the end of the week (August 30) to turn over all copies of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin to his lawyers.
Wu-Tang Clan spent six years creating just one hard copy of the 31-track Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, a project they deemed a piece of contemporary art.
The American hip-hop musical collective auctioned it off in 2015 under the condition the album would never be released publicly.
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Being a guest in someone's home is a privilege, but that doesn't always make it pleasant.
Whether it's cleanliness, tidiness—yes, those are two different things—vibe, food, pets, or the human inhabitants, there's a lot that can turn a guest off from ever visiting again.
Reddit user Cosplay6718 asked:
"What made you to think 'I'm never visiting again' after being in someone's home?"
"When I lived in Pakistan, I was in fifth grade, going to an Emirati international school. My best friend was the son of the ambassador of the Emirates (UAE) to Pakistan."
"We bonded over not really fitting in with the other kids in our grade and. RuneScape. Most kids in our school were government brats from Pakistan or ambassador brats from other countries."
"My parents were just regular jo schmo's who were temporarily moving back to Pakistan to just give us a taste of the homeland and needed us to be at a school on par with American education."
"So yeah, I go to this kid's house. Picked up in a big black Escalade. Spend the day at the Emirati Enclave and it was wild. ATVs in the front yard. Crashed one into a car and they were just like 'eh, no problem, just a dent'. Every video game console at the time (360/PS3 era)."
"Then his dad comes home. The ambassador. And this guy was just not happy to see me."
"And apparently, my mom had been calling all day trying to figure out where I was, and they were just hanging up on her."
"His parents just scared the sh*t out of me, and I suddenly became hyper-focused on the fact that I'm part of a minority sect that Emirates and other Arabs of that region of the Middle East are not fond of."
"So yeah, I GTFO'd ASAP. Still loved my friend dearly, but never wanted to go back."
"There was a woman that I was seeing years ago. She was in between places and living with her pseudo dad."
"Went over to hang out and meet her more or less family, and there is just a massive cage in the living room with a huge blue and gold macaw in it."
"This thing was old, nasty, and f*cking loud. It would just scream bloody murder every couple of minutes."
"I don't know if you've ever heard one in an enclosed space, but their screeching will make your eardrums rattle in your head to the point you can feel them. It just seemed to be screeching as a desperate way to entertain itself."
"So yeah, between the ungodly noise and the sadness of the poor old bird, I never went back there."
"The way my wife's stepdad treats everyone. He used to be a big shot at his work. Now, he's retired and still think he runs everything."
"He's rude and not welcoming at all. We had a big falling out with him awhile back."
"It was inevitable to happen, especially when his rudeness started being directed towards our 2-year-old."
"There were empty cat food bags all over the floor and at least 15 cats running around the house all over everything. OK friend, we will never be having dinner at your place."
"It gives me a shiver when I think about it, it was so filthy. She asked me to house-sit and stay at her place for a couple of weeks. Um, no."
"You would never know that this chaos existed in her home. When you see her, she's put together. How this is possible I have no idea. It's overflowing litter boxes, ripped drapes, and things getting knocked over."
"I had a very best friend in middle school/junior high my mom disliked, but she was my best friend to the point people thought we were fraternal twins due to our interests, common appearance, and inside jokes."
"I begged for years to be allowed to go to her house, since she had been to mine. It felt like a blessing when my mom finally said yes."
"It's been 20 years and I remember how uncomfortable I felt after getting off the bus. It was the only house with the stairs broken and I had to follow her to get up into the house."
"Her mom was a hoarder, and the air was thick inside. Her dad was laying on the couch, then suddenly sprang up to get up in my face and quizzed me on my fears."
"I remember this viscerally because it haunted my dreams for a while. I said 'spiders' and he screeched that I had evolved from flies, and he had a 'fly person' in his house."
"'People think we evolved from monkeys and apes, but only a few peopleyes, he means what you think he means, I'm not typing out that later rant—do. People like me [gestures to self with thumb] evolve from heartier things, like dogs or cats. That's why I have so many cats!'."
"When his other rant is finished, my friend takes me to her room and we talk about her Star Wars obsession, and she tried to get me into it. I don't remember if it was The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones that was coming out. I'm still not a Star Wars fan."
"In any event, I remember there was a huge fight because I was supposed to sleep over, but the parents couldn't agree on feeding me. So I called home to ask mom if she'd drop off food, and she ended up taking me home."
"I never went back."
"I spent a night at my high school friend's house, and in the morning he asked me for $10 for the bills and the food we ate.
"Mind you, I brought snacks and drinks."
"I never said hello to him again. The worst part is, he is everything but struggling financially."
"People who actually are struggling aren’t the people who nickel and dime their friends."
"He told me to just sort of push the pizza carton with a half-eaten pizza onto the floor to make space for me on the couch. There was trash everywhere and his advise was to just push it to the side with your foot to 'make a path'."
"He was slovenly to a degree I'd never known had I not visited his apartment. Not a hoarder, mind you, guy just didn't really clean. At all."
"In elementary, I was invited to a party to, and I'll never forget these words, 'watch Jurassic Park and eat pizza'. I was like you know, dope, sign me up."
"When I went there it was me and like 5 or 6 other kids, I assume lured by the same story I was. Then we watched a religious cartoon about how dinosaurs didn't exist."
"We were given one slice of the cheapest frozen pizza possible—with the cube pepperoni. And then we had a 'discussion' that eventually, somehow, got around to how Pokemon were evil."
"But if they wanted to convert me, preaching the evils of Pokemon was the absolute best way to ensure that I not listen to a word they said."
"I was doing a massive reduction in my stuff and getting rid of a lot of things. I posted to my friends on Facebook that I had a nice, but well used espresso maker to give away.
"Somebody I’d met at a Unitarian Universalist church Pagan gathering said she’d like the machine, but I needed to drop it off. I get there, the cat pee smell reaches out of the house, I can see one dog climbing on a pile of hoard inside the house, and another is barking at me from the hoarded up enclosed front porch."
"I had planned to chat and get to know her better, but I texted I was leaving it on the stairs and drove away as quickly as possible."
"I grew up in a hoarded home, spent 15 years getting my parents out of that unsafe home, and broke my career and almost my marriage getting rid of their stuff. I can’t be near a hoard anymore."
"I had a friend in high school and every time I’d go over to his house two missionaries and a church leader would just randomly pop in to say hello and talk about Mormon stuff."
"I was always polite until about the third or fourth time they did it and we started doing 'lessons'. They mentioned the lessons were designed for new believers."
"I asked which one of them was a new believer and they all looked at me. I never went back."
"My husband had an old high school friend that was living in the area of Arizona that we were visiting. My husband insisted we stop by for a visit to see his old friend."
"We pulled up and this guy had mannequins all over his yard, and not like in an artsy way either. He also had no furniture inside his house and had a brand new shiny grand piano in the kitchen because the rest of the house was FULL of these giant crystal geodes that were probably worth a fortune and cardboard boxes everywhere."
"His girlfriend offered us mac & cheese off the stove that was probably there for at least a full day. He had these small scars all over his body and pointed out they were from some magical frog ceremony and explained he was a shaman or something like that."
"My husband asked about the mannequins and he said, 'I pretend they are my ex-wife and use them for target practice' and asked my 10.-year-old son if he wanted to shoot at them. This was not in a rural area either with lots of land, this was a regular neighborhood with houses in close proximity."
"He tried to give us a tortoise when we left, and when we declined, he wanted to give us a chicken instead. It was the top strangest experience we'd ever had at someone's house."
"It was my own fault."
"I broke a decorative porcelain baby Jesus they had in a Christmas display."
"I left right after and never went back."
"A work friend invited me over to his house to watch a hockey game so I said sure why not. I brought a 6 pick of beers and he said sweet."
"He just put them in his fridge. He proceeded to pour himself scotch but never asked me if I wanted to have a drink."
"Then he pulled out some leftovers and made himself a dish, and again, he never asked me if I was hungry."
"Then I just asked for a beer—that I had bought—and he said, 'I guess, but I was going to save them for another time'."
"I left after the game, and it's been really awkward at work."
"I was a sophomore in high school and staying with my friend for a couple of days because we had just had a bad hurricane and the power in our house was out and my friend had power."
"One night my friend and I decide we’re going to go the movie theater. We couldn’t drive yet so we asked her dad to take us (the theater was 30 mins away)."
"He said yes, but her mother was adamant that my father should come pick us up from the theater after it was over. She was very insistent that she wanted my dad to come get us and felt her husband shouldn’t have to go out twice."
"Fair enough, I thought, so I called my dad and asked him if he could pick us up from the movies and bring us back to my friend’s house after. Sure, he said, and I told my friend’s mom this."
"My friend was a witness to all of this. She seemed pleased that my dad was coming to pick us up."
"After the movies, my dad picks us up and takes us back to my friend’s house. When we walk in, her mother starts asking where her husband is."
"My friend is like, 'I don’t know, we just got back from the movies. What do you mean? The mom starts saying that her husband went out to go get us from the movie theater."
"My friend and I were so puzzled and reminded her that she had wanted my dad to pick us up and told her that he was going to, so he did. She starts flipping out, insisting that that never happened, and screaming at us."
"Actually, she sent her husband out to the movie theater to pick us up, and he was still there waiting for us."
"She was acting scarily insane. My friend was trying to reason with her, but it was getting nowhere. My friend was so embarrassed and felt so bad, but I knew I had to get out of there."
"I immediately called my dad and asked him to turn around and come pick me up. Stayed in my own house for another week without any power after that."
"Better being without power than being around that crazy lady. And I never went over there again."
"To this day, I still don’t get what happened there…"
"It was SO strange. She really went crazy screaming at us, too."
"It was weird, especially because I always thought she seemed normal and nice enough before that, but it was like she totally lost all of her marbles. Truly, I don’t get it at all."
"When I was 17, my boyfriend at the time invited me to backyard camp at his friend's house. I knew the friend, he was super chill, so I said yes."
"Got there, some awesome tents were set up in the yard, grill was going, there was a giant cooler of drinks, I brought snacks. Everything was pretty awesome."
"His parents were so nice, his younger siblings came and played games with us, it was great."
"At one point I asked to go to the bathroom, so he showed me inside."
"It was so crawling with roaches, everything looked like it was moving. In my 5 minutes inside, I had to swat them off me every 30 seconds."
"His parents and siblings were just sitting around like nothing was wrong. My skin crawled for the rest of the night."
"Needless to say, I never went back."
What made you decide to never visit someone again?
