Cynthia Nixon and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo held nothing back in a nasty debate for the Democratic seat in the state’s race for governor. Nixon and Cuomo squared off Wednesday night — at Hofstra University — in the only debate scheduled…
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Josh Duggar Resurfaces on Facebook, Sparks Feverish Debate Over Forgiveness
This just in:
Josh Duggar is alive and well…
… much to the annoyance and chagrin of many Facebook users.
On Wednesday afternoon, the official Duggar Facebook page shared a photo of nearly every member of this infamous family gathered at a restaurant in celebration of Jim Bob’s birthday.
As a caption, the post read as follows:
Happy birthday to a man that wears many, many hats! Jim Bob, you are an amazing husband and wonderful father. Your heart for people and the desire you have to see others come into relationship with Jesus is beautiful.
Our whole family has been blessed by you.
You have led and guided us and we are so blessed to call you “ours.” Happy birthday!!
Seems pretty straightforward, right?
Pretty much what you’d expect from this family in recognization of this kind of occasion, no?
However, it wasn’t this message or even Jim Bob turning another year older that has elicted serious debate online.
It’s the presence of the person front and center in that picture above: Josh Duggar.
Josh, of course, has been persona non grata for years now.
That’s what happens when you admit to molesting your own sisters, as Josh did in 2015; and then when you also admit to cheating on your wife.
Multiple times, we presume, considerning Duggar had an account with the infidelity website Ashley Madison.
In response to these scandals, TLC canceled the series 19 and Counting, although it has since launched a spinoff titled just Counting On.
Moreover, Josh and his wife Anna have remained pretty far out of the spotlight, sitting at home, caring for their five kids and, when it comes to Josh, trying as hard as he can to keep his hands to himself.
In light of this new photo surfacing, however, many Internet users have taken to the Comments section and engaged in a rather fiery debate over whether Duggar deserves to actually be forgiven.
Is he a “weirdo,” as someone has labeled him above?
Is he absolved of his sins because his family doesn’t hold these sins against him?
Should we let something as heinous as pedophilia go simply because it’s been talked about a lot and/or took place many years ago?
Then there’s the stance, espoused in one remark shared here, that Jesus has forgiven Josh… provided he doesn’t molest or cheat again.
Is this even how it works?
If Josh did commit these acts again and then sought forgiveness, wouldn’t these same people be saying the same thing?
Back in June, Josh made another rare social media appearance, this one by his own doing, on his own account.
He posted the following family photo in honor of his son, Marcus, turning five years old.
The comments Josh received in response to this image?
They were pretty similar to a handful of the critiques posted above.
“Josh should be castrated!” someone wrote at the time, while another added:
“Those poor little girls are at risk for being prey to their own father! The plot to cover for this monster was a very Christian thing to do!”
So… yeah.
Josh may be better served just keeping to himself for the rest of his years.
The guy may have avoided any jail time for his horrible actions as a teenager, but he’ll never be free from online castigation.
And thank goodness, right?
Monday, June 11, 2018
LeBron vs. Jordan Debate is Dead, Says Michael Rapaport
The greatest-of-all-time argument between LeBron James and Michael Jordan is just like the dodo bird and T-rex … dead forever, so says Michael Rapaport. Rapaport’s point … LBJ getting swept 4-0 by the Warriors effectively ends any conversation…
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Royal Wedding Dress Debate: Who Wore It Better?
On Saturday afternoon, it finally happened.
As documented in detail, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got married in London.
The former Suits actress and the son of Princess Diana said “I Do” in front of hundreds of guests in attendance at St. George’s, not to mention thousands lining the street outside and millions watching at home.
But we’re not here right now to talk about those two romantic words.
We’re here to discuss four equally famous words:
Who. Wore. It. Best.
The subjects in this case are the two Royal Brides from the past decade, Kate Middleton and Mrs. Markle.
The former, of course, tied the knot with Prince William back in 2011 in an event whose anticipation we never thought could be topped until today.
At the time, the Duchess of Cambridge wore a lovely lace Alexander McQueen gown designed by Sarah Burton, the fashion house’s creative director.
The now-legendary gown featured long lace sleeves, a v-neckline and an extremely long train.
Kate’s dress was also composed of French Chantilly lace and English Cluny lace throughout the bodice, skirt and underskirt.
Here. Take a look below in order to refresh your memory:
Markle, meanwhile, went with Givenchy.
She donned an ensemble by the fashion house’s creative director Clare Waight Keller.
It featured a boat neckline bodice, long sleeves and a sheer cascading veil adorned with lace trim.
The delicate veil was actually made from silk tulle and it included a trim of hand-embroidered flowers in silk threads and organza.
Check it out here:
Both women looked gorgeous. Stunning. Beautiful in every way possible.
About this there can be no debate.
But let’s be honest now: While the world is standing up and applauding Meghan and Harry on their big day and wishing them the very best of luck, they’re also engaged in a different kind of debate.
It’s the kind summed up by the quartet of words we jotted down above:
Who wore her Royal Wedding Dress best, Middleton or Markle?
Go ahead and vote the poll below to make your opinion known:
You must pick one: Who wore her Royal Wedding Dress best, Meghan Markle or Kate Middleton? View Poll »
It’s worth noting that Middleton’s dress grew to be so iconic and so memorable that H&M designed a similar version that retails for the affordable price of $ 299.
Will Markle’s gown create such demand?
Will designers be lining up to essentially copy it and offer it at a discount to the masses?
It’s far too early to say.
However, this much we can state with certainty:
Prince William and Prince Harry are both very lucky men. They married stunning women with terrific fashion taste.
Everyone here is a winner in the broad sense of the word… but only one of these brides can be a winner in the specific sense of this post.
So we ask again: Which Royal Wedding Dress do you like best?
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Yanny vs. Laurel Debate SOLVED! Who Was Right?!
By now, you’ve heard the infamous Yanny or Laurel video for yourself. At the very least, you’ve heard the debate.
It’s The Dress all over again, but this time it’s people’s sense of hearing that’s turning husband against wife and sister against brother.
But, as is the case with most things, there is a correct answer.
#Yannygate, which no one is calling this, involves a single audio clip played in a video.
Some people hear “Yanny.” Others hear “Laurel.”
Others hear both.
(For me, I heard “Yanny” in a high pitched voice, but when I brought my phone closer to my hear, I heard “Laurel” clearly in a deep voice, and I can no longer hear “Yanny”)
People are joking about this being grounds for divorce, and respond with shock and disbelief that anyone could hear anything but what they themselves are hearing.
But there is a correct answer.
The voice is saying “Laurel.” Officially.
As with so many social ills, this one originates on reddit.
A redditor by the name of RolandCamry made a recording of the robotic pronunciation of “Laurel” from vocabulary.com.
He says that, because he recorded the audio off of his speakers, there is a distortion that creates the auditory peculiarity.
Speaking to TMZ, RolandCamry says that the “Yanny vs Laurel” debate originated when he played the recording for his friend, who heard “Yanny.”
They then decided to broadcast this peculiar audio clip to find out what others hear.
The words “Laurel” and “Yanny” have very similar acoustic qualities.
If you’re wondering why people hear it differently, there are a couple of factors.
One, different people played the audio on different devices under different circumstances.
Do you ever switch a song from one device to another and suddenly it sounds clearer (or like crap)? That difference can radically alter your perceptions.
Two, different people hear things differently and process auditory information differently. In fact, people’s senses can vary a great deal without realizing it.
Age is even a factor. Those with “younger” ears are more likely to hear “Yanny,” which is at a higher pitch. Those with “older” ears are more likely to hear “Laurel.”
Three is that our brains work based on efficiency rather than accuracy.
If you already “know” what you’re hearing, that is what you’re likely to hear.
Which is why some people heard both, and had to process the audio over multiple listens before they heard it differently.
This is a similar phenomenon to how one might hear song lyrics.
Once you read that Rihanna sings “so if you must falter, be wise,” your mind is less likely to process the audio as “Caligula, salsa, beehive.”
So, there you have it.
Congratulations to Team Laurel. You guys were right.
Congratulations to Team Yanny. You guys have younger ears, for whatever that’s worth.
Monday, February 5, 2018
Jill Duggar: Latest Photos of Baby Samuel Spark Debate
Jill Duggar’s parenting has become a subject of great interest amongst the Duggar faithful in recent months.
Typically, when Jill posts a new photo of her children, the response from fans goes something like this:
The first comments consist mainly of fawning praise for her skills as a mother and compliments about how cute her kids are.
Then the haters and mom-shamers come out in force.
Whether Jill is putting a tortilla on her son’s head as a hat or seeming to favor one child over another, her follwoers are always quick to let her know they disapprove.
Sometimes, their concerns are legitimate (Derick allowing his infant son to play with a plastic water bottle was a recent parenting low-light.), but more often the goal seems to be to shame Jessa into believing she’s an unfit mother.
Fortunately, Jill’s latest pic attracted a far more inocuous form of crticism:
That’s Samuel with his aunt Johannah Duggar.
The pic attracted hundreds of comments within minutes of going live, and for once the debate had nothing to do with Jill’s parenting skills”
“He is too cute!! He looks a lot like Jessa to me!” wrote one fan.
Believe it or not, this comment sparked a heated debate about which Duggar Samuel most closely resembles.
Not only did fans pick apart Samuel’s appearance in an effort to figure out which of his aunts and uncles the baby most closely resembles, they subjected Johannah to the same treatment.
“Johannah is so grown up, I think she looks like a mix of Joy-Anna and Jessa,”
“Wow she looks just like Joy at that age!”
“She looks just like Josh,”
Interestingly, Johnnah is now the second-oldest Duggar girl who still livesathome with her parents – but it’s by a pretty sizable margin.
(Jana Duggar, 28, is the oldest.)
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Duggar social media post if there wasn’t some harsh criticism and pointed questioning, as well.
“Where is Israel? Y’all haven’t posted a picture of him in a while….and y’all didn’t take him to Texas with you last week? Hope he’s ok!” wrote one fan.
Another seized the opportunity to bring up the Josh Duggar sex scandals, writing:
“Were Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joy NOT abused by Josh? YES they were. Multiple times. And religious indoctrination IS abuse. So is blanket training. What you see on tv is all scripted and rehearsed.”
Just another day in the life of reality TV’s most controversial family.
Watch Counting On online to join the debate.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Tom Brady Kisses Son on Lips, Stirs Wild Internet Debate
Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback in NFL history.
There"s really no debating this point.
But there is some debate raging across the Internet over a scene in the Facebook docu-series Tom vs. Time that features Brady and his 10-year old son, Jack.
What the heck are we talking about?
Scroll down to find out!
1. The GOAT
2. What the Heck is Tom vs. Time?
3. The Controversy:
4. Cue the Backlash!
5. People are Disturbed
6. Words of Wisdom
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Jeremy Calvert Triggers Gun Debate with Controversial Christmas Gift
Jeremy Calvert did not give his four-year old daughter a Queen Else doll for Christmas.
He did not get little Adalynn a play kitchen or a few board games, either.
Nope.
Instead, the Teen Mom 2 star presented the toddler with an actual rifle, the sort of weapon that one points at things and then pulls the trigger to shoot real bullets at those things.
Was this wildly inappropriate? Or actually very responsible?
See the weapon in question and join the debate below…
1. Jeremy is No Longer with Leah Messer
2. What Do You Get a Girl Who Has Everything?
3. And She Loves It!
4. Wrote Jeremy as a Caption:
5. I Have More to Say!
6. What Do You Think, Twitter?
Friday, October 13, 2017
Facebook Explodes in Debate: What Color are These Shoes?!?
It"s been about two and a half years since the Internet was split in two over the color of a dress.
Was this clothing item white and gold or black and blue?
Friends turned on friends and family members turned on family members as a result of the debate. It got ugly.
Have we learned anything from that back-and-forth? Can we settle the next color-related fashion question more peacefully?
Let"s find out below, as a new debate has arisen over the following pair of Vans sneakers…
1. This is the Pieceof Footwear in Question
2. The Details Behind This Debate:
3. Cue the Internet Reaction
4. Pink! Blue! Neither? Both?
5. What. The. Hell?!?
6. How Did We Get Here?
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Tomi Lahren & Chelsea Handler"s Healthcare "Debate" at Politicon
Chelsea Handler and Tomi Lahren’s debate wasn’t as contentious or bitchy as most had hoped — but it did reveal Tomi hasn’t fully fled her parents’ nest. The liberal-conservative showdown Saturday afternoon at Politicon was less debate, and more…
Thursday, July 20, 2017
French Montana Weighs In On Rap vs Rock Debate
For those wondering, French Montana has the answer for how hip-hop surpassed rock in popularity on the charts — his new album, “Jungle Rules”! We got French out in New York where he was mobbed by fans and asked him about the new Nielsen report…
The Little Couple Fights for Medicaid, Joins Healthcare Debate
As previously reported, The Little Couple will return to TLC this fall.
Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein have relocated to Florida, however, and will allow cameras to follow them and their two children around their new home state, which the reality stars selected because Arnold was offered a pretty awesome job there.
A doctor, Arnold was previously the medical director of the Simulation Center at Texas Children’s Hospital and the Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology at Baylor College of Medicine.
But she’s now working at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.
She has dedicated her professional life to the well-being of her young patients, while the practicing neonatologist also has an important personal reason to take an interest in children’s healthcare:
She, her husband and their two kids all have skeletal dysplasia, commonly known as dwarfism.
As you may have heard, there is an ongoing debate over a plan to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something called the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017.
You don’t read The Hollywood Gossip to delve into the nitty gritty of this proposed legislation, but numerous politicians have come out against this legislation because it cuts Medicaid by billions of dollars.
Because Medicaid goes a long way toward helping kids with disabilities, Arnold is strongly opposed to the plan.
As a result, she, Bill, their five-year old and their six-year old visited Capitol Hill last Thursday to join the Children’s Hospital Association for a day of meetings with members of Congress.
“My goal of putting our lives out there is to raise awareness, so whenever I have opportunity to use this platform … well, that’s why I put up with TV cameras in our house,” Arnold explained at the time.
She and her family are talking to Representative Pete Olson of Texas in the above photo, doing all they can to explain their point of view on health insurance.
Arnold spent her day last week talking to Republicans who have supported the proposed cuts to Medicaid.
“The timing is critical,” she said, adding:
“The BCRA is scary – it would cut $ 43 billion in Medicaid funding, which would more negatively affect kids than adults. We have to speak out. We have to talk to our congresspeople.”
Arnold shared the same sentiment on social media.
As a caption to the photo shared at the outset of this article, she wrote the following:
Please get involved & remind your congress leaders to put kids’ health first! Great time meeting with members of congress to talk kids’ healthcare coverage! @speaknowforkids #littlecouple.
We aren’t about to tell readers what to think when it comes to this topic.
But we can all likely agree that it’s refreshing to see a reality star use her platform for something she truly cares about, for something that affects millions of people, as opposed to simply shilling for her own lip kit, right?
Well done, Dr. Arnold.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Kevin Sorbo Goes For Round 2 of the Jesus-Trump Debate (VIDEO)
Kevin Sorbo is still positive Jesus would be down with Donald Trump — even on day 82 of his very eventful presidency. We got Kevin leaving LAX, where we asked what Jesus would think now that Trump has tried to implement an immigration…
Monday, February 6, 2017
Airbnb Super Bowl Ad Takes Aim at Trump, Stirs Internet Debate
Airbnb most definitely went there during Super Bowl LI.
One of several Super Bowl commercials with a political bent, the following commercial aired during the first half of the Falcons-Patriots game, quickly causing its company and its affiliated hashtag to trend.
And that hashtag was this "#WeAccept."
An outspoken corporate critic of Donald Trump and his recent Executive Order (aka the Muslim Ban), Airbnb has made its objection to the President"s policies very clear over the past week or so.
“We believe no matter who you are, where you’re from, who you love or who you worship, we all belong," the commercial says.
"The world is more beautiful the more you accept.”
The Airbnb ad aired just nine days after President Trump signed an executive order to temporarily close America’s borders to all refugees, along with citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries.
The commercial does not mention this controversial ruling (which has since been challenged in court) specifically… but it"s obvious what the company is referring to in the spot.
According to The New York Times, Airbnb did not even plan on advertising on the Super Bowl until its recently learned there was inventory remaining.
In a memo to employees after the executive order, Airbnb’s chief executive, Brian Chesky wrote the following:
“This is a policy I profoundly disagree with, and it is a direct obstacle to our mission at Airbnb."
That same weekend, the company started to provide free and subsidized temporary housing for those who had been affected by the immigration restrictions.
The founders of Airbnb also penned a lengthy message on their official website soon after the ad aired.
"These efforts are just the beginning, and we hope you consider joining us by sharing your home with someone who is displaced or donating to organizations that assist those in need," it reads.
"It’s possible that a child today will grow up in a different kind of world, one where they"re accepted for who they are, no matter where they are.
"Because we really do believe that the world is a better, more beautiful place the more we accept each other
Watch the commercial below and then weigh in:
Monday, January 23, 2017
NFL Viewers Debate: Does Troy Aikman Look Like Jay Z?
The NFC Title game was a dud, as Atlanta blew out Green Bay by a score of 44-21.
But Twitter still managed to have fun with the lopsided contest, debating the merits of an unexpected celebrity lookalike, one offered up by Turd Ferguson.
This user, who uses the handle @moske, shared a photo of Fox broadcaster Troy Aikman and wrote as a caption:
😂😂😂 at Aikman looking like white Jay-Z.
Cute the responses and the intense debate! We"ve documented most of it below: