Billie Eilish is perhaps the most talented artist of our generation…and I don’t throw that around lightly. At only 13, Eilish wrote “Ocean Eyes” alongside her brother Finneas and launched her prolific career. And at the fair age of 22, Eilish has 24 GRAMMY Award nominations and nine wins, two Oscars, two Golden Globes, and countless other accolades.
Beyond that, she recently announced her third album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, to be released May 17, 2024. She spent the days leading up to the announcement building excitement by adding all of her Instagram followers to her “Close Friends” list. Eilish had the most Instagram followers in 48 hours…with her count increasing by 7 million followers total.
While her debut album, when we all fall asleep…where do we go?, was a chart-topper in its own right, it landed Billie every GRAMMY it was nominated for at the ripe age of 18…Eilish has solidified herself as one of the most revered and sought-after popstars in the world.
Eilish recently caught media attention for quietly revealing her sexuality. In an interview with Variety, she states that she’s always liked girls…and assumed people always knew that. In a viral snippet from her new song, LUNCH, she details a love affair with a girl.
But people don’t only adore Billie for her catchy tracks that consistently top the charts. It’s not just her songwriting ability and unique vocals that keep us hooked. People love her because she’s unafraid to speak her mind.
Whether it be complaining about too many influencers being at an awards show, or calling out other artists for using unsustainable practices…Billie does not hold back.
Billie Eilish On Sustainability
Eilish home
rethinkingthefuture.com
The Eilish home is iconic for many reasons: it’s where Billie and Finneas recorded her debut album, countless other songs, and EPs, in an effort to conserve water there’s no grass, and the roof is covered in solar panels. And being environmentally conscious extends beyond the four walls of their home.
When the hottest young talent is discovered at such an early age like Eilish, record labels are chomping at the bit to sign them. It’s like when a D1 athlete is ready to commit to college…you have your pick.
But what Eilish and her mom, Maggie Baird, were looking for wasn’t about money or label-perks…they were seeking a solid sustainability program. And while that may seem like standard practice, most labels didn’t bring up environmental policies during these meetings at all.
After signing to The Darkroom via Interscope Records, the struggle didn’t stop there. Billie Eilish and her family have been consistent contributors to the fight against climate change.
Maggie Baird has since started Support + Feed, which focuses on the climate crisis and food insecurity. Support + Feed helped Eilish’s 2022 Happier Than Ever tour save 8.8 million gallons of water through plant-based meal service for the artist and crew members.
During Billie’s 2023 Lollapalooza performance, she aided the launch and funding of REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project – which guaranteed all battery systems used during her set were solar powered. The MCD’s overall mission is to lower – and eventually eliminate –the music industry’s carbon emissions.
But more recently, Billie Eilish called out other artists for releasing multiple versions of vinyls in order to boost vinyl sales. In an interview with Billboard, she says,
“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging … which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money and gets them more…”
Artists convince fans to buy different versions of their albums by offering exclusive features on each vinyl. Take Taylor Swift, for example, who released five separate vinyl versions of Midnights, each with a different deluxe “Vault” track.
While Billie may not have been trying to shade one artist in particular, the point is that she’s fed up. After being the rare artist in the industry who go out of their way to remain environmentally conscious, Eilish sets the bar high.
How Eilish’s New Album Is Sustainable
Billie for "Hit Me Hard and Soft"
William Drumm
Social media users were quick to claim Eilish was hypocritical by announcing that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT will have eight vinyl variations. However, each vinyl is made from recycled materials – either 100% recycled black vinyl or BioVinyl, which replaces petroleum used during manufacturing with recycled cooking oil.
This just illustrates that Eilish wasn’t directing criticism towards other artists for using vinyl variants to gain album sales…but she does think there are better ways to do it that benefit the environment without hurting their sales.
Does Stormy Daniels Deserve to Blow Up Trump Plaza Hotel?
The former adult film star is the subject of a GoFundMe campaign for the demolition, but is she really the most deserving?
Long before he wreaked havoc across the United States and the world at large, Donald Trump inflicted his horrors on Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In that case, it was a string of failed casinos financed with high-interest junk bonds that he was never going to be able to pay off. Their collapse and the tremendous ten-figure debt he took away from them in the early 1990s was, at the time, Donald Trump's most public and embarrassing scandal.
It's a record he has since broken on numerous occasions — losing reelection, allowing over 300,000 Americans to die of a virus that other countries successfully contained, being associated with Rudy Giuliani — but the scars of Trump's early failure still mark Atlantic City. Where they haven't been rebranded or demolished, his massive, shuttered buildings have stood disused and dilapidated.
For Donald Trump, it may be enough to have his name scraped and scrubbed from these decrepit shells. But for the citizens of Atlantic City, they stand as stark reminders of how one wealthy, arrogant man helped to topple the local economy.
The tower of the Trump Plaza Hotel has been a particular problem in recent years. In its disintegrating state, it became a hazard to public safety, with chunks of its crumbling façade falling to the street below. There is a bright spot on the horizon, however.
Atlantic City's Revenge: Blowing Up Trump's Casino For Charity | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBCwww.youtube.com
This year the city has finally begun demolition on this piece of Donald Trump's legacy, with a pyrotechnic finale scheduled for February. The opportunity to push the button imploding the hotel's stripped-bare tower is being offered at auction, with proceeds going to the Boys' and Girls' Club of Atlantic City.
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small has said that he hopes to raise "at least a million dollars," noting that he's "a pretty ambitious guy." Currently, the bidding stands at around $60,000, but it will remain open until January 19th — one day before Trump will be forced to relinquish the presidency to Joe Biden. A live auction among the highest bidders will follow on the 29th.
But should the privilege of erasing this blight — and publicly humiliating Donald Trump — really belong to the wealthiest person with a grudge against the soon-to-be-former president? Surely there's someone with a more legitimate claim to that honor.
That's what former adult film star Zoe Britton thought when she heard about the auction last Thursday. Britton tweeted the suggestion to crowd-fund a bid for her friend Stephanie Clifford — AKA Stormy Daniels — to push the button that topples Trump Plaza Hotel. Daniels enthusiastically signed onto the idea, adding the detail that the button should be modeled after a toadstool — a reference to her infamous description of the president's genitals.
The concept has since become a reality with a GoFundMe campaign that has so far raised a little over $1,700 to award the responsibility for that symbolic implosion to Stormy Daniels. But is she really the most worthy candidate?
For anyone who has somehow remained unaware of Daniels' history with Trump, the former adult film star had an (alleged) affair with Donald Trump in 2006. Back then he was merely the star of The Apprentice, and famous for being a rich assh**e and the basis for Biff Tannen's arc in Back to the Future Part II, and reportedly invited Daniels to dine with him when the two met at a charity golf tournament.
What (allegedly) followed from there was a whirlwind romance involving Shark Week, a periodical spanking, a promised role on Celebrity Apprentice, and a grudging resignation to physical intimacy. But the real drama is in the aftermath.
Several years after their (alleged) affair ended, Daniels reportedly shared details of her relationship with Donald Trump with a gossip magazine. Contrary to his enthusiastic attitude toward previous tabloid affairs, Donald Trump apparently didn't want his tryst with Daniels to be publicized. Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer at the time, intervened to squash the story — though rumors of the (alleged) affair were still published in Life & Style that October.
Not long after, Daniels reports that a man approached her in a parking lot with instructions to "leave Trump alone." Daniels had her young daughter with her at the time and recalls the man saying "That's a beautiful little girl — it'd be a shame if something happened to her mom," before leaving them. That was in 2011, but the fallout was far from over.
EXCLUSIVE - Stormy Daniels Details Sex with Donald Trumpwww.youtube.com
In October of 2016 — shortly before the 2016 election, and around the time of the infamous Hollywood Access "grab 'em by the p***y" tape — Fox News reporter Diana Falzone allegedly wrote an article on the affair that the outlet chose to shelve. Secretly Michael Cohen had arranged to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep her quiet — in violation of campaign finance law.
In January of 2018, rumors of the affair surfaced anyway. In the meantime, Donald Trump had become president. Stormy Daniels initially denied them — supposedly at the behest of her then-lawyer Keith Davidson, who may or may not have colluded with Michael Cohen to bury that story as well as the (alleged) Karen McDougal affair.
When Daniels eventually acknowledged the (alleged) affair and began sharing the sordid details, she became a target of Donald Trump's most ardent and unhinged supporters. She has received numerous death threats and was even arrested on flimsy charges by some politically-minded police in Ohio.
In short, Stormy Daniels' life was thrown into chaos by that brief, regrettable (alleged) affair with Donald Trump. And as a result of her coming forward, the scandal occupied America's attention for perhaps as long as any in Trump's tenure.
The legal issues that ensued eventually motivated Michael Cohen to renounce his longtime loyalty to Trump. He even went on to be a cooperating witness against Trump, offering congressional testimony that the president was a "con man" and a "racist" who had committed illegal acts of obstruction and self-dealing while in office.
In short, Stormy Daniels contributed perhaps as much as anyone in the last four years to the efforts to expose Donald Trump as the pathetic fraud that he is. And she has suffered for it.
On one hand, that seems like a strong case for letting Daniels push that momentous and possibly-toadstool-shaped button. But if she really wanted to, she could use some portion of the reported $800,000 advance on her memoir Full Disclosure to make a more serious bid.
On top of that, aren't their others who might be more deserving? Others who have done more to take Trump down, or who have suffered more as a result of his cruelty?
The honor could go to one of the contractors Trump has put out of work, or one of the families he tore apart at the border. It could go to any student who was bilked by Trump University, or any resident of Atlantic City who suffered the consequences of Donald Trump's financial recklessness.
It could go to E. Jean Caroll or any of the dozens of other women who've accused the president of sexual misconduct, or to Stacey Abrams, Gretchen Whitmer, or Martin Gugino. Or It could go to any of the loved ones of the 318,000 Americans who have died of COVID so far this year...
In the end, the people who deserve the honor of destroying one of Donald Trump's monuments to his own ego may outnumber even the numerous vanity projects on which he's plastered his name. But the best way to honor all of them is not through some symbolic bit of dramatic catharsis. It's by erasing the corrosive legacy Donald Trump has left on our government, our discourse, and our democratic institutions.
Unfortunately, that will take a lot more than the push of a button.
Deceased Brothel Owner Wins Nevada Election: This is America
Dennis Hof won his bid for Nevada Assembly District 36 last night, despite having died three weeks ago.
Midterm elections are often considered a referendum on a sitting administration's progress—a collective report card graded by the people. Early numbers from this year's elections suggest a substantial and possibly record increase in voter turnout, which has been historically low in non-presidential voting years. It's not surprising, given the turbulent political climate, that candidates from both parties continued to campaign at full speed up until the final hours. Yet despite an election cycle that saw blatantly racist attack ads, felony accusations, and threats of violence, the one surefire road to victory has been apparent for years: death.
Outlandish as it may seem, at least nine dead people have been elected to public office since 1962—six in the last 20 years alone. The latest, Dennis Hof, whose body was discovered last month after the legal brothel owner had celebrated at a campaign-and-birthday party, claimed victory in Nevada last night. Prior to his death, the 72-year-old had been celebrating with friends Heidi Fleiss, Ron Jeremy, and Joe Arpaio.
Ballots Beyond the Grave: Deceased People Who Have Won Elections
Rep. Clement Miller (CA, 1962; airplane accident)
Reps. Nick Begich (AK) and Hale Boggs (LA, 1972; airplane accident)
Gov. Mel Carnahan (MO, 2000; plane crash)
Rep. Patsy Mink (HI, 2002; viral pneumonia)
Sen. James Rhoades (PENN, 2008; car accident)
Sen. Jenny Oropeza (CA, 2010; cancer)
Sen. Mario Gallegos (TX, 2012; liver disease)
Dennis Hof (NV, 2018; cause of death not yet reported)
The Nevada Independent
Hof ran for office as a self-proclaimed "Trump Republican" and stated that the president's 2016 win ignited his own desire for a career in politics. Similarities between the two run deep. Hof gained fame as a reality star on the long-running HBO documentary series Cathouse, which captured life at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, one of several legal brothels owned and operated by Hof. In 2015, he published a memoir titled "The Art of the Pimp," a clear homage to Trump's "The Art of the Deal." In it, Hof included a psychological profile by psychotherapist Dr. Sheenah Hankin, which categorizes Hof as a narcissist who abused the sex workers he employed.
Among the issues he championed were immigration reform, a repeal of Nevada's 2015 Commerce Tax, and a campus carry law that would allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring their weapons onto Nevada college and university campuses. He was endorsed by Roger Stone and Grover Norquist. In the 2018 primary elections, Hof beat incumbent James Oscarson by a mere 432 votes. Because he died within 60 days of the upcoming election, Hof remained on the ballot, though signs were posted at polling sites notifying voters of his death.
It seems as though these issues matter more than electing a living person to citizens of the 36th Assembly District. In fact, a 2013 study by Vanderbilt University found that, in lower-level elections, voters are most likely to elect the candidate with the highest name recognition.
The 36th Assembly District, which spans Clark, Lincoln, and Nye counties, has long been a GOP stronghold. Hof defeated Democrat Lesia Romanov, a first-time (living, breathing) candidate and lifetime educator who works as assistant principal of an elementary school for at-risk children. Romanov was impelled to run for office by a desire for common-sense gun reform following the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. Yet, too many of her constituents, upon discovering she was running against Hof, she became a de facto advocate for women, including "survivors of sex trafficking and exploited and abused brothel workers," according to NBC News. Romanov was among many women running for office in hopes of making Nevada's legislature the first to hold a female majority in the country.
As The Washington Post reported in 2014, there hasn't been an election with a dead person on the ballot in which the dead person lost. It's hard to determine what's more damning for American democracy: that voters are so divided that they're more likely to vote for a dead person than cross party lines or that they've been voting that way for years. At the same time, one might argue that giving Hof's seat to a living Republican (as appointed by county officials, according to state law) is a better outcome than if it'd gone to Hof himself, considering his history of sexual abuse allegations. The most preposterous indictment of the American political system is that although deceased candidates have been elected before, now the electorate could seemingly ask itself—in all seriousness—whether a dead serial abuser makes a better candidate than a living one. And no one seems to know the answer.