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Simone Biles Called Out USA Gymnastics President for an Anti-Kaepernick Tweet


Simone Biles, record-breaking champion of the vault, is fresh off selection camp in preparation for the Doha, Qatar world championships—but that doesn’t mean she’s not keeping an eye on what people in her sport are talking about. On Saturday, she took to Twitter to call out a tweet by Mary Bono, a former Republican congresswoman from California who had just named the interim president and CEO of USA Gymnastics the day prior, in which she criticized Nike for its affiliation to Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL player who famously knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racism.

Biles had apparently been scrolling through to see what her sport’s new leader was up to (or had been up to) and noticed a tweet from Bono dating back to September, right after Nike launched its “Just Do It” campaign featuring Kaepernick. It consisted of a photo, presumably of Bono, marking out the Nike swoosh on a pair of shoes, in protest of the ad. The champion gymnast wasn’t about to let that moment slide: Biles issued an epic tweet of her own that resurfaced Bono’s original social message.

“mouth drop,” Biles replied to the tweet. “don’t worry, it’s not like we needed a smarter usa gymnastics president or any sponsors or anything”

Biles was presumably referring to past USA Gymnastics leadership—specifically, past president Steve Penny, who was a key figure in the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal that rocked the gymnastics world earlier this year and was named in a damning ESPN report as one of the leaders who allegedly helped to cover up the rampant abuse. (She herself is one of the abuse survivors.) Plus, Biles has been sponsored by Nike.

A few hours after Biles’ response, Bono deleted the original tweet and issued an apology on the social media platform: “I regret the post and respect everyone’s views & fundamental right to express them. This doesn’t reflect how I will approach my position @USAGym I will do everything I can to help build, w/ the community, an open, safe & positive environment,” she wrote.

Bono also acknowledged that her Tweet—now a topic of conversation—wouldn’t exactly disappear: “Hey all, I know the Tweet will live on but have taken it down to move the focus to all I hope to accomplish on behalf of a great sport & those who are dedicated to it… I look forward to telling my gymnastics story, my vision for the future of the sport and why I wanted the job.”

Given that Bono’s tweet carried an implication of disdain toward people who have been victimized, it’s not a great look for a president coming in to carry forward an organization and team just recovering from sexual abuse scandal. A perfect 10 for Biles, though—as per usual.

Related Stories:

Simone Biles Just Nailed a Gymnastics Move No Woman Has Ever Done Before

Serena Williams Says Athletes Should Be ‘Grateful’ to Players Spearheading NFL Protests

Beyoncé Surprised Colin Kaepernick With the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award





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Donald Trump's History of Calling Women 'Dogs' Just Got Longer With New Omarosa Tweet


On Tuesday, Donald Trump went on Twitter to blast his former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, calling her a “lowlife” and a “dog.” Manigault Newman—currently promoting a tell-all, Unhinged, about her time working for the president—has said in recent days that she plans to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion and also has released recordings of Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly firing her in the White House Situation Room.

“When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out,” Donald Trump tweeted. “Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”

Shocking, certainly, but even more so: This isn’t the first time Donald Trump has referred to women as animals. Throughout his career, he’s hurled the “dog” insults at people he doesn’t agree with, and while his list includes a few men (Steve Bannon and Mitt Romney), it’s also stacked with women including journalist and entrepreneur Arianna Huffington (“…she is a dog who wrongfully comments on me”) and actress Kristen Stewart (“Robert Pattinson should not take back Kristen Stewart. She cheated on him like a dog & will do it again–just watch.”) Writer Gail Collins also once claimed that Trump wrote “The Face of a Dog!” over her picture after seeing a column he thought unflattering.

Trump has also repeatedly called women pigs and commented on their looks. During the first Republican debate, moderator Megyn Kelly commented, “You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Your Twitter account …” Trump interrupted to say, to laughter, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.” (He’d said O’Donnell was a “big, fat pig,” a “disgusting pig” and a “real loser” after a disagreement they had in 2006). The women whose physical appearances he’s judged ranges from his former political rival Carly Fiorina and Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski to celebrities like Heidi Klum and Angelina Jolie. And let’s not forget the time he was caught on a 2005 hot mic saying he could grab women “by the pussy.”

Trump’s disrespectful cracks and hostility against women may be nothing new, but many critics quickly pointed out that calling Newman a dog could also read as racially charged. The insult comes after Trump has attacked other women of color, including Maxine Waters, whom he has referred to as having a low IQ. It also seemed to add fuel to Newman’s allegations that she’s heard tape of the president using the N-word while he was on his former reality show ,The Apprentice, on which Newman competed in 2004.

Trump denied the allegations in a series of tweets on Monday, writing, “.@MarkBurnettTV called to say that there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa. I don’t have that word in my vocabulary and never have. She made it up. Look at her MANY recent quotes saying….such wonderful and powerful things about me – a true Champion of Civil Rights – until she got fired. Omarosa had Zero credibility with the Media (they didn’t want interviews) when she worked in the White House. Now that she says bad about me, they will talk to her. Fake News!”





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Roseanne Barr Addresses Valerie Jarrett Tweet in Unhinged Video: 'I Thought the Bitch Was White'


Two months ago ABC canceled its reboot of the nineties sitcom Roseanne, following a racist Twitter rant from the show’s star, Roseanne Barr, that compared former Obama administration aide Valerie Jarrett to an ape.

Barr eventually apologized for her comments on the podcast Stand Up NY, but in a new video making its internet rounds, the comedian appears unhinged as she spews an expletive-heavy commentary on Jarrett yet again. The video surfaced late Thursday when Barr posted it to her YouTube account.

“I thought the bitch was white!,” she screams, referencing her racist tweet about Jarrett. “Goddamnit! I thought the bitch was white! Fuck!”

In the video Barr is seen smoking a cigarette and appears agitated as someone off-camera tells her to imagine a presidential address after a sex scandal. It’s unclear who shot the footage. But Barr isn’t interested in the commentary, shouting into the camera about Jarrett and Iran.

“I’m trying to talk about Iran, I’m trying to talk about Valerie Jarrett wrote the Iran deal! That’s what my tweet was about!”

The clip offers no other context, other than a caption that reads, “Roseanne, like always, cuts through the bullshit and gets the heart of the matter.”

Barr has offered a series of baffling explanations to justify her jabs at Jarrett, which have ranged from claims that she was commenting on anti-Semitism to an assertion that she was “Ambien tweeting.” However, the tweets weren’t the first time her feed has been mired in controversy; she has a history of peddling conspiracy theories and racist ideas on Twitter.

Jarrett addressed Barr’s comments publicly in May. “First of all, I think we have to turn it into a teaching moment,” Jarrett said. “I’m fine. I’m worried about all the people out there who don’t have a circle of friends and followers coming to their defense.”

When ABC first announcing it was firing Barr and killing the reboot, president Channing Dungey wrote in a statement, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”

Since then, ABC has ordered a spin-off of the reboot called The Conners, which would continue with 10 episodes starring Roseanne original cast members John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, and Michael Fishman. Barr will not be a part of the program.



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Trump's 'Be Careful' Tweet Prompts Calls of Security for Maxine Waters


In what many observers are calling a thinly veiled threat, President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon took his feud with California Congresswoman (and Glamour Woman of the Year) Maxine Waters to a new level with a tweet telling her to “be careful” what she wished for.

So what sparked this latest outburst? That would be the comments made by Waters during a weekend rally in Los Angeles where she called on members of the public to confront Trump administration officials if they encounter them.

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” she said. “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

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Waters’ remarks came after White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that she had been refused service at a restaurant because of her position in the Trump administration.

Now President Trump has responded via Twitter, writing, “Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!”

Waters has yet to comment on the most recent tweet, but she previously spoke to Glamour about her thoughts on Trump’s character. “The most upsetting part is discovering that the person who won the election and became the president of the United States of America is a man who has no good values. His character astounds me,” Waters said in 2017. “I can’t believe that we have a president who would lie, who would distort, and who does not appear to have an appreciation for government and how it works.”

Rep. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat who holds a leadership position on the Congressional Black Caucus, told Glamour in a phone interview that the president’s Twitter attack on Waters struck her as “malicious” and “over the top.”

Clarke said that by her reading of Trump’s message, “It is very evident from what he said that he is wishing her ill… There is an implied harm that could visit her because of her statements.”

The congresswoman called it “beneath the office of the presidency to [imply] that someone could be harmed because they make a statement about what is taking place in this administration,” she said.

Clarke said she planned to discuss the Trump tweet with the CBC as well as the Congressional Caucus on Black Women & Girls: “We all have to sit up and take note. Women need to sit up and take note. He’s found ways to silence women throughout his candidacy and his presidency.”

Asked if she’d ever seen a president make a comparable statement in the past, Clarke replied, “Never, never — we are in uncharted territory where the breaking of norms [is] becoming the norm. The lack of civility, the lack of true respect for one another is leading to the point where the antagonism and the hostility is palpable.”

Additionally, Clarke said, “We have to talk to Capitol Police to ensure that there is security for Maxine Waters” given that “we’ve already seen unhinged individuals in this climate” who are willing to commit acts of violence. In one example, Clarke noted that Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson got extra security in response to death threats she received after a public disagreement with Trump last year.

As many rush to Waters’ defense, others have condemned her statements about confronting members of the Trump administration, calling it “harassment.” Prior to Trump’s latest comments, Democratic congressional leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted out a story about Waters’ comments and—without naming her directly— wrote, “In the crucial months ahead, we must strive to make America beautiful again. Trump’s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable. As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea.”

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey made similar comments in a Monday interview with NPR when asked about Waters encouraging Americans to protest the Trump administration at every turn.

“You know, protest is good, and I’ve been encouraging people there be a lot of protests at the Mall and cities all across America protesting this really – these morally despicable actions by the Trump administration separating folks from families,” he said. “But this is also a time, I believe, as Americans who seek to create a beloved community, who believe in a more what I consider a radical love, love thy neighbor – no exceptions. And whether that person is coming over the border or whether that person is somebody who votes differently than you, we’ve got to be a nation that treats each other with our highest ideals.”

As for Trump, this is not the first time he has used Twitter to warn someone to “be careful,” Yahoo! News managing editor Colin Campbell points out.

However none of those instances used the word “harm” in the framing of the tweet, (it should also be noted that Waters did not implicitly call for any harm to come to administration officials in her speech), one denotation that many say is the clear difference between a petty insult and an actual threat.





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Donald Trump Trolls Women's March With a Predictably Selfish Tweet


A year after millions of women around the world marched against President Trump’s inauguration, the Women’s March is back with a vengeance for round two.

The slew of recent sexual abuse allegations and the rise of the #MeToo movement during Trump’s first year as president has inspired women and people everywhere to march for much needed social and political change for the second year in a row.

And amid all of this year’s inspiring action, Trump unsurprisingly took to his Twitter account to tweet his thoughts on the matter.

All things considered, his tweet started off on a strangely good note. “Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March,” he wrote. Okay, that’s a fine first sentence. But then things get weird. Rather than totally grasping or mentioning the actual reasons why people are marching on the streets — his administration, for one — he implied that the march was in celebration of his first year in office. He then encouraged his followers to get out to celebrate the country’s great economy, which by the way, was inherited from President Obama’s administration.

He continued: “Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!”

Subsequently, and not surprisingly, tons of people caught on to Trump’s ridiculous trolling. Scroll down for some recent reactions:

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Twitter Is Not Here for Ivanka Trump's Tweet to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry


We can all agree that one bright spot in an otherwise, um, challenging year was the engagement of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. When, after many months of speculation, news of their impending wedding broke in late November, a wave of people took to Twitter to send the lovebirds their happiest well-wishes. A second wave came this past week, when they announced their wedding date (May 19, 2018; set an alert now).

First Daughter and “assistant to the President” Ivanka Trump was among those who wanted to tweet their congratulations. In the first part of a two-part tweet, Trump wrote that she was “Wishing Meghan and Prince Harry a lifetime of love, laughter and happiness together.” Then she followed it up with, “I have no doubt that this couple will do extraordinary things, both individually and collectively. Congratulations!”

Love or not-so-much-love Ivanka, her message to Meghan and Harry is pretty innocuous. Thoughtful even. And she’s right: Both Meghan and Harry will likely rack up a few accomplishments as a married couple. They already have, after all, and show no signs of stopping now that they’re getting hitched.

But when Twitter spotted her message, it went off.

It appears that many people read what Trump wrote and inferred that something more was going on. Mostly, they wondered whether her kind words were just a savvy way to angle for an invite to the royal wedding. As you might have guessed, they were not kind with their accusations.

(In case you don’t remember, Trump and her husband Jared Kushner once made a cameo on Gossip Girl back in the day, hence the relevance of the above GIF.)

We don’t know if Ivanka will get an invitation, but it’s kind of hasty of Twitter to jump all over her and surmise some nefarious intent from an otherwise nice message—even if you’re not her biggest fan. What we do know, however is how Price Harry proposed to Markle; that the cake is going to be banana flavored; and that Markle is planning to focus on charity work after the wedding. We’re just counting down the days now until the actual wedding.

Related Stories:
–A Complete Timeline of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Relationship
–Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Just Did Their First Official Engagement as a Couple
–The House Where Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Fell in Love Is Now for Sale





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