THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Stephen A. Smith

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith has a simple solution for the Golden State Warriors if their star forward Andrew Wiggins won’t get vaccinated. Trade him.

“They should trade Andrew Wiggins today. Period. Get rid of him, send him some place else. This is not a hard decision for me,” Smith said bluntly.

If Wiggins didn't get vaccinated, Smith continued, he "would not be able to play in 41 home games for the Golden State Warriors," so "what do you need him for? What good is he for you?”

Smith slammed the "bad situation" in the NBA where the coaches, medical personnel, and staff all had to be vaccinated, but the league had been unable to reach an agreement with the players' union.

He's been consistent in this criticism, pointing out how many athletes take all sorts of nutritional supplements but are unreasonably refusing vaccines that have now been proven safe in millions of people.

Tom Brady and LeBron James are vaccinated. Wiggins can't seriously claim those guys don't care what they put in their bodies. Smith's words were harsh, but logically sound.

MEDIA LOSER:
Chris Cuomo

There are a lot of jokes we could write about the Cuomo Bros. here but honestly, we're just fed up with the seemingly endless list of powerful men who keep being creepy jerks.

CNN's Chris Cuomo, already dealing with the cn  the controversy around advising his brother, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), on how to handle a series of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, now has his own accuser, who went on the record in a scathing New York Times op-ed. 

Shelley Ross, Cuomo's former boss at ABC News, described how Cuomo had walked up to her at an Upper West Side bar in 2005 and gave her "a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.” She added that Cuomo, “with a cocky arrogance,” told her that he could “do this now” that she was no longer his boss. Cuomo emailed her an hour later to apologize, saying he was "ashamed." 

The whole sordid tale must sound very familiar to the women who were harassed by Cuomo's "Love Gov" brother: a powerful man ignoring boundaries and insisting he's just being "friendly."

Hugs are friendly. Grabbing your former boss' butt is not. This isn't complicated. 

The A-Block

We're living in Groundhog Day

In the 1993 film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character Phil Connors is stuck repeating the same day over and over again until he can learn to be a better person (We would have marked this with a spoiler alert, but come on, the movie is nearly thirty years old).

Many recent news stories have left us feeling like Connors at the beginning of the film, exhausted from seeing the same crap happen over and over again, the same tired arguments and silly conspiracies trotted out about the 2020 election and Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but without the peppy Sonny and Cher soundtrack to kick it off.

The much-maligned "audit" of the 2020 election in Arizona has been completed, and -- quelle surprise! -- the results show that President Joe Biden won. Again

Former President Donald Trump touted the results of this audit, somehow not quite understanding that they showed he was a bigger loser to Biden than ever. He also complained about the media reporting on the results of the audit before they were officially announced, ignoring the fact that he had done the exact same thing.

The official Maricopa County Twitter account went off on the goofballs doing the audit, slamming them as incompetent. 

“No one has lost the state of Arizona more than Donald Trump,” CNN's John Berman mocked the former president. We'd laugh at that more if we didn't believe we'd be seeing the same dang story all over again soon in another state, because Trump is now demanding an audit of the election in Texas, a state he won by more than 600,000 votes. 

Fox News' Tucker Carlson recycled the ridiculous suggestion from a Georgia congressman that the Jan. 6 rioters looked like "tourists." Never mind that that congressman was seen barricading a door that day, or that Carlson not-so-curiously neglected to show his viewers the more violent video clips from that day, as Mediaite's Michael Luciano details.

Meanwhile, the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 has issued subpoenas for documents and witness testimony from Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Steve Bannon, and Kash Patel. We expect a round of stonewalling and dubious claims of executive privilege, but this time around, at least for Bannon, Trump isn't in the White House to issue any pardons.


In Other News...

Two Hosts Test Positive for Covid-19 LIVE on The View Moments Before Kamala Harris Interview

WATCH: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Debbie Dingell Get Into EPIC Screaming Match On Capitol Steps

NYT Stealth-Deletes Reference to ‘Influential Lobbyists and Rabbis’ in Piece on AOC’s Iron Dome ‘Present’ Vote

Charlie Kirk Wants to Start a Border Militia to Protect 'White Demographics in America'

Must See Clip

'They looked so real!'

Michael Strahan and Jimmy Fallon gave visitors of New York City’s Madame Tussauds quite a fright on Thursday night.

The late-night host invited his first guest, Michael Strahan, to join him at the museum, as they both wanted to “have a little fun” with those looking to see wax figures of their favorite stars.

The two managed to fool the museum’s visitors by sitting perfectly still as fans posed for pictures with what they thought were wax figures of the stars.

The video is a delightful three minutes of Fallon and Strahan shocking the heck out of some very surprised, and very happy, fans. Watch it here.

Links We Like

No, Vaccinated People Are Not ‘Just as Likely’ to Spread the Coronavirus as Unvaccinated People
- Craig Spencer, The Atlantic
The CDC Made America's Pandemic Worse
- Peter Suderman, Reason
The Anti-Vax Ethos of ‘Live and Let Die’
- Robert Tracinski, The Bulwark
How MLMs took advantage of the pandemic
- Emily Stewart, Vox
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