#mike merrick

[evilhorse]

In hell, baby—in hell!

[mystycor]

Why don't you get it? Can't you get it? Understand.

[k5shasstuff]

lazy sketches :P (mike got a little confused about the universes, bc I don't want to post it separately, I don't like him)

[larsbarsart]

Marbletober Days 26-27... Uhhhh Gay People

Listen, I'm slacking, I know

Anyways, have some bonus doodle of me as a Fnaf Security Guard! Because I watched the movie and adore it!

Bonus-Bonus doodles of a couple o' kiddos! Nothing weird to see here!

[the-hottest-band-tournament]

Round Three of The Hottest 80s Band Tournament

R.E.M 

Defeated opponents: The Stone Roses, Chicago

 Formation: 1980

Genres: Alternative rock folk rock college rock jangle pop post-punk

Lineup: Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass and keyboards 

Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass, keyboards and drums 

Mike Mills – bass, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead vocals and guitar

Michael Stipe – lead vocals, occasional harmonica, percussion and guitar

Albums from the 80s: 

Murmur (1983)

Reckoning (1984)

Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)

Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)

Document (1987)

Green (1988)

Propaganda: These Georgian boys invented "college rock" with their sound that was at once a throwback and a move forward. 

The Damned 

Defeated opponents: Great White

Formed in: 1976

Genres: Punk

Lineup: Dave Vanian – lead vocals

Roman Jugg – guitar, keyboards, vocals

Bryn Merrick – bass, backing vocals

Rat Scabies – drums

Albums from the 80s:

The Black Album (1980)

Strawberries (1982)

Phantasmagoria (1985)

Anything (1986)

Propaganda:  The Damned propaganda because goths should fight for their faves to the last drop of blood, there's no other way. First, they have all the types of guy you can imagine, like it's some wild option. Second, Dave Vanian for sure looked good for 131 y.o.

I don’t really know how this propaganda fits in but I think it’s cool

[psstitsnynx]

Eat up tumblr-

Songs : Creeping around ( Ihascupquake ) / Fnaf 3 Rap ( JT music )

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A federal appeals panel appears inclined to restore the limited gag order in former President Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case, but may loosen some restrictions so he can more directly criticize special counsel Jack Smith.

A three-judge panel of the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Monday in the closely watched case, which stems from Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and obstruct the lawful transfer of power. He pleaded not guilty.

None of the three Judges embraced Trump’s claims that the gag order should be wiped away for good because it is a “categorically unprecedented” violation of his free speech rights. Yet they also posed sharp questions to prosecutors as they tried to find the boundary of where intense campaign trail rhetoric crosses the line of undermining a criminal case.

“We certainly want to make sure that the criminal trial process and its integrity and its truth-finding function are protected, but we ought to use a careful scalpel here and not step into really sort of skewing the political arena,” Circuit Judge Patricia Millett said.

The limited gag order from District Judge Tanya Chutkan – which was temporarily frozen by the appeals panel when they agreed to hear the case – restricts Trump’s ability to directly attack Smith, members of his team, court staff or potential trial witnesses. He is allowed to criticize the Justice Department, proclaim his innocence and argue that the case is “politically motivated.”

The appellate judges, who are all Democratic appointees, heard the case on an expedited schedule and are expected to issue a ruling soon, but the timing is unclear.

Here are key takeaways from the hearing:

TRUMP POLITICAL RHETORIC CAN’T ‘DERAIL’ THE CASE, JUDGE SAYS

Millett repeatedly challenged Trump attorney D. John Sauer, saying it was important to draw a distinction between purely political campaign rhetoric and speech intended to subvert the legal process.

“First of all, we’re not shutting down everyone who speaks,” Millett said. “This is only affecting the speech temporarily during a criminal trial process by someone who has been indicted as a felon. … No one here is threatening the First Amendment broadly.”

Sauer argued that the restrictions on all criminal defendants against illegal speech like blatant witness tampering were more than enough to protect the integrity of the case. He said the gag order infringed on Trump’s “core political speech.”

Cutting him off, Millett said: “Labeling it ‘core political speech’ begs the question of whether it is in fact political speech or whether it is political speech aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process. You can’t simply label it that and conclude your balancing tests that way. We have to balance.”

Sauer responded by arguing that the speech potentially being restricted by the gag order is “inextricably entwined with the issues that are being publicly debated in the context of the campaign.”

BUT TRUMP SHOULD HAVE SOME LEEWAY

Later in the hearing, Millett and fellow DC Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard both signaled that they think the existing gag order could be loosened to allow Trump to levy additional public attacks against Smith and his team of prosecutors.

Not that they think the attacks are well-founded, but that Trump should have the right to defend himself.

“It can’t be that he can’t mention Mr. Smith,” because most Americans have heard about the case in the context that it was initiated by Smith’s team. That has become the shorthand, Pillard noted.

“Surely he has a thick enough skin,” Pillard said of the special counsel.

Trump can’t be forced under a gag order to “speak Miss Manners while everyone else is throwing targets” at him during a theoretical GOP presidential primary debate, Millet added.

The names of Smith and the other prosecutors are all “part of the public record,” she said.

The current gag order prevents Trump from “making any public statements … that target the special counsel… or his staff.” In speeches and social media posts, Trump often says Smith is “deranged” and a “lunatic.”

Trump has criticized Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, at nearly every turn. Earlier this month, he called the special counsel a “disgrace to America.”

TRUMP ATTORNEY PRESSED ON HYPOTHETICAL THREATS AGAINST PENCE AND WITNESSES

Millett posed sharp questions about the potential of Trump to intimidate witnesses while he is campaigning for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination that hit on a well-documented pattern of Trump trying to threaten, discredit or cajole witnesses through public rhetoric.

She raised the hypothetical of Trump saying at a rally that a specific person is being “bothered” by prosecutors and that he thinks people who are “faithful” and “loyal” shouldn’t cooperate with prosecutors.

In response, Sauer claimed Trump hasn’t done that in this case.

Millet asked if it would acceptable for Trump to post: “Mike Pence can still do the right thing if he says the right stuff tomorrow,” on the eve of his testimony at the trial. (The witness list hasn’t been announced yet, but Pence is clearly a major part of the case.)

Sauer said this type of speech could only be restricted if there was a “compelling evidentiary showing” of “an actual threat” against Pence.

A significant portion of Smith’s case against Trump revolves around Trump’s efforts to pressure Pence to abuse his position overseeing the Electoral College certification to block the lawful transfer of power after the 2020 election.

“The district court correctly found that the defendant’s well-established practice of using his public platform to target his adversaries, including trial participants in this case, poses a significant and immediate risk to the fairness and integrity of these proceedings,” special counsel prosecutor Cecil VanDevender argued.

CONCERNS ABOUT JURORS BEING DOXXED

At several different points, Millett expressed concern about Trump potentially revealing the personal information of jurors in his trial and how his speech might lead some of his followers to similarly attack jurors on the Internet.

The potential issue of online threats being directed toward jurors as a result of Trump’s speech could factor into the judges’ final decision on the gag order. Prosecutors have argued that those kinds of threats could prejudice the jury in the case.

“If the district court entered an order restricting a criminal defendant from making comments about individual jurors, and the defendant were a candidate for public office, would that order violate the First Amendment?” Millett asked Sauer.

“It would depend on the context, but I do concede there would be facts that could justify an order like that,” Sauer said, prompting the Judge to appear somewhat puzzled by his response.

“It would depend on the context?” she asked.

Millett returned to her concerns later in the hearing, this time pressing the special counsel’s office if it was possible to proactively protect jurors from online doxxing by Trump “loyalists” acting in response to the former president’s speech.

“Is there any way, preventatively, to protect someone’s technology? Like let’s say I’m a prospective juror, can I be protected technologically from like doxxing?” she said.

“Because we do have – as you appreciate – the problem of speech by the defendant, and then it has the knock-on effect with the loyalists’ zeal, and that’s then, you know, what causes direct efforts at threatening and harassing individuals,” the judge explained.

Assistant special counsel Cecil VanDevender said he wasn’t aware of any technological tools that would work to mitigate the issue “at the source.”

“If they exist, I think they are not widely used and not easy to incorporate, particularly for every witness and every potential juror,” he added.

CHUTKAN DEATH THREAT LOOMS LARGE

A death threat issued against Chutkan in August by a Texas woman loomed large over the hearing, with two judges bringing up the incident as Sauer, Trump’s attorney, was pressed on whether his client’s speech can lead to real world actions by his supporters.

“What the district court is finding is we have a past pattern: When the defendant speaks on this subject, threats follow,” said Circuit Judge Brad Garcia. “Why isn’t the district court justified in taking a proactive measure? Not waiting for more and more threats to actually occur and stepping in to protect the integrity of the trial?”

Sauer countered that there is “an evidentiary burden here,” and argued that despite Trump’s online comments on the case, prosecutors “haven’t come forward with a single threat that’s even arguably inspired by any of his social media posts.”

But Garcia and Millett quickly pushed back, with them both bringing up Abigail Jo Shry, who was charged in August after making the threat against Chutkan.

“The day after (Trump) said, ‘If you come after me, I’m coming after you,’ that threat issued,” Millett said.

Shortly after Smith unveiled the federal charges against Trump, Shry called Chutkan’s chambers and left a voicemail message threatening to “kill anyone who went after former President Trump,” according to a criminal complaint.

The death threats also allegedly included racist comments against Chutkan, who is Black. Prosecutors said in court filings that Shry called the Judge a “stupid slave nigger” in the voicemail.

Sauer attempted to distance Shry from Trump’s comments, saying that in her case, “there’s no evidence of any reading of social media.”

“That particular threatener is a – unemployed, you know, mentally unstable, heavy alcoholic who sits on her couch drinking beer all day, according to her father. Never leaves the apartment, watches the news, not reads things on social media, watches the news on TV, gets angry about it and makes angry, threatening calls,” he said.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — House Republicans will intervene in Steve Bannon’s court case as the former Donald Trump adviser faces prison for defying a congressional subpoena. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Wednesday morning that the House would weigh in with the federal court considering Bannon’s appeal of his four-month prison sentence. Bannon defied a subpoena from the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress, by a rioting mob of Donald Trump supporters. The Justice Department prosecuted him for contempt of Congress and a jury found him guilty.

Bannon’s attorneys argued the committee wasn’t legitimate, partly because it only had two Republican members, and the House, which was then under Democratic control, defended itself in a 2022 brief. Johnson said in an emailed statement the House amicus brief would simply “withdraw certain arguments made by the House earlier in the litigation.” At the same time, Republicans are demanding the Justice Department respect their subpoena for the recording of President Joe Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s mishandling of classified documents after he left the vice presidency. The Justice Department gave lawmakers a transcript of the interview, but refused to hand over the audio. Johnson announced the House would sue the Justice Department on Monday. “There’s been admission that they edited the transcript in some ways and we need to know in what ways,” Johnson said Wednesday at a press conference.

[...] In addition to taking the Justice Department to court, some Republicans support a resolution by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) to revive the House’s long-dormant “inherent contempt” power, which has been used in the past to actually arrest administration officials for defying subpoenas. Luna said she would force a vote on the resolution on Friday. It’s likely the House would table the resolution. HuffPost asked House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) ― who also refused a Jan. 6 committee subpoena ― if it was odd for Republicans to dismiss Bannon’s subpoena while insisting Garland obey their own.

House Republicans plan to coddle criminals by hatching a plan to keep Stephen Bannon out of jail.

See Also:

HuffPost: House GOP tries to save Steve Bannon from facing justice

[evilhorse]

Ooops! She’s coming! Au revoir, love!

[reportwire]

2024 GOP rivals court donors at big Las Vegas meeting, and some warn Trump is

2024 GOP rivals court donors at big Las Vegas meeting, and some warn Trump is

The Republican Party’s nascent 2024 class, emboldened as ever, openly cast Donald Trump as “a loser” over and over on Friday as they courted donors and activists fretting about the GOP’s future under the former president’s leadership. Trump’s vocal critics included current and former Republican governors, members of his own Cabinet and major donors who gathered along the Las Vegas strip for what…

[5ivebyfive]

I’m heartbroken over the loss of Matthew Perry. But I’m seeing so many posts about him in Friends and not enough of his other awesome projects. 4 of his characters are in my list of comfort shows. I’ve been through so much, and watching my comfort shows with him, has been with me through those times.

Here are some other great roles I love him in.

Matt Albie - Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

My favorite show he’s in by far. If you haven’t seen it you should find it and watch it! It’s only one season, but it’s soooo worth it. I don’t think it’s streaming anywhere without buying it, but if you’re talented enough you can find it elsewhere.

Joe Quincy - The West Wing

Just a fantastic show. Please watch it! It’s on Max.

The Good Wife and The Good Fight - Mike Kresteva

Two great shows!! And Mike is a fun character.

Fools Rush In - Alex Whitman

Romantic comedy. Very good! I’m not sure where/if it streams. I haven’t watched it in a while but it was always a favorite.

Three To Tango - Oscar Novack

Such a good movie! Funny funny and a great cast!

Ally McBeal - Todd Merrick

It’s a short guest spot for him, but he is great! Plus, it’s one of my top 5 shows and simply wonderful and fun.

Matthew Perry - Studio 60

Obviously, these are not all of his roles, but they’re among my favorites. He deserves to be remembered for his roles outside of Friends. I truly hope you check some of these out, because he was so great in everything he did.

[mrs-stans]

Meet the makeup wizard who transformed Sebastian Stan into ‘A Different Man’

By Josh Rottenberg

At the tender age of 5, Mike Marino saw “The Elephant Man” for the first time and his life was forever changed. When David Lynch’s haunting and heartbreaking story of the disfigured John Merrick would air on HBO in the early 1980s, Marino found himself horrified but unable to look away, sparking a fascination with prosthetics that would eventually lead him to becoming one of Hollywood’s top makeup artists.

“I was so afraid of it, but little did I know how beautiful that story was and how much of an imprint it would leave on my brain and soul,” says Marino, 47, who earned consecutive Oscar nominations in 2022 and 2023 for his makeup work on “Coming 2 America” and “The Batman,” the latter starring a totally transformed Colin Farrell. “If it wasn’t for that film, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”

But for actor, TV presenter and disability rights advocate Adam Pearson, Lynch’s film took on a more painful role in his life. Growing up in England with neurofibromatosis type 1, a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on his face, Pearson was often taunted by classmates who cruelly called him “Elephant Man” and other names. As he got older, he saw how movies routinely depicted people with disfigurements as freaks, villains or victims, stripping away their humanity. “There’s an element of laziness to it,” says Pearson, 39. “How do we show this character is evil? Let’s slap a scar on them.”

Now, through a twist of fate, the lives of Marino and Pearson have intersected on a very different project: the darkly funny, mind-bending psychological thriller “A Different Man.” Directed by Aaron Schimberg, the A24 film stars Sebastian Stan as Edward, a shy, disfigured actor working in New York City who undergoes an experimental procedure to transform his appearance, only to find himself losing the role he was born to play — himself — to a cheerful, outgoing man named Oswald with his same facial deformity, played by Pearson. Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”) co-stars as a playwright whose latest work brings Edward’s identity crisis to a head.

“A Different Man,” which The Times called “a self-deconstructing meta-pretzel of a dark comedy” following its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, tackles complex themes of identity, beauty and disability with a blend of Charlie Kaufman-esque surrealism and David Cronenbergian body horror. Along with Stan’s performance, Marino’s meticulously crafted prosthetics are key to bringing Edward and his inner agonies to life, reflecting the deeper emotional anguish of a man trying to escape his own skin.

“The movie portrays how the shell of who we are should not dictate our spirit and our personality,” Marino says. “I think it’s a very important film, much like ‘The Elephant Man’ was.”

When Schimberg first wrote the script, inspired by his own struggles with a cleft palate and his experience working with Pearson on his 2019 satire “Chained for Life,” he initially had no idea how he would actually pull off the film’s demanding prosthetics work. “I was sort of blissfully ignorant,” says Schimberg. “After Sebastian came aboard, we started cobbling the film together very quickly. It was only about a month before shooting that I realized this film was going to completely fall apart if we didn’t get this right. It was very down to the wire.”

Signing on as an executive producer for the film, Stan asked around about makeup artists in the New York area who could handle such a difficult job under that kind of time pressure. One answer consistently came back: “Literally everyone, hands down, was like, ‘You’ve got to get Marino,’ ” the actor recalls.

Though he was already busy with a job on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Marino, who has done his share of more fantastical creatures, leapt at the challenge of re-creating a real-life disfigurement like Pearson’s. “I’m fascinated with people that have something going on with their skin because it’s just the most interesting, artistic, natural thing,” Marino says. “For me, there’s an amazing beauty to how Adam looks. This was not about a scary face or a monstrous person. I don’t like to do things like that with no soul or purpose.”

Marino’s passion for makeup and prosthetics took root early in life, inspired by industry legends like Dick Smith (“The Exorcist”) and Rick Baker (“An American Werewolf in London”). Growing up in New York, Marino started honing his skills as a preteen by practicing on his friends with latex, foam and various chemicals, destroying his bedroom rug in the process, to the chagrin of his parents. While still in high school, he mailed his portfolio to Smith and received encouragement and advice by phone from the makeup legend, who won an Oscar in 1985 for “Amadeus” and earned an honorary Academy Award for his life’s work in 2012. “Once he acknowledged me, it was like, OK, this is serious. There was no stopping me.”

After cutting his teeth on “Saturday Night Live” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Marino broke into film with the 2007 psychological thriller “Anamorph” and quickly became known for his versatility, seamlessly switching between fantasy creatures and more subtle, realistic applications. His work on Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” amplified the film’s psychological horror, while on Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” he enhanced the film’s digital de-aging of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino with carefully crafted prosthetics.

Outside of film, Marino created the Weeknd’s plastic-surgery-gone-wrong look for the singer’s “Save Your Tears” video. “It’s all problems to solve,” Marino says. “There is no playbook.”

Diving into “A Different Man,” Marino used photographs and 3D scans of Pearson’s face, which has undergone some 40 surgeries over the years, as the basis for a multi-piece silicone prosthetic that would work with Stan’s features. “There was no way I could completely replicate Adam’s exact proportions,” he says. “I had to make some aesthetic choices.”

While the makeup work in “The Elephant Man” benefited from that film’s grainy black-and-white cinematography, the prosthetics in “A Different Man” had to withstand more unforgiving scrutiny. To put his Edward face to the test, Stan would walk from Marino’s makeup chair to the set through the streets of New York and crowds of strangers, giving him tremendous insight into how people treat those who look different.

“I went to my old coffee shop and the same barista who’d served me for years couldn’t identify me,” Stan recalls. “I got to really feel people’s reactions in real time. There were people who couldn’t even look at me, other people were staring and sometimes you’d get a bigger reaction, like, ‘Oh s—, it’s the Elephant Man!’ As Adam puts it, you feel like public property.”

Pearson, who shares his character’s sunny gregariousness, encouraged Stan to think about it like he does with his own experience as a movie star. “I was like, ‘You don’t know the level of invasion I get with people pointing, staring and taking photos, but you do understand a very similar thing from this angle, so lean into that heavily,’ ” he says. “ ‘And if it makes you uncomfortable, lean into it further.’ ”

While wearing the prosthetics, Stan could only see out of one eye and had limited hearing in one ear, challenges that helped further inform his performance as a man who has learned to shy away from potential threats and insults. “Edward is a character that has had to endure a lot of emotional abuse and probably some physical abuse, so he is probably always on his left foot a little bit in case something happens,” Stan says.

As Edward’s face changes following his radical treatment, Marino made additional prosthetics showing the transition, including an “extremely soft, mushy version” that, in a particularly Cronenbergian scene, Stan could pull off in chunks.

Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot in “The Batman,” work for which Marino was Oscar-nominated. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Marino’s talent for transforming stars is on full display in Farrell’s hulking, thuggish look as the Penguin in 2022’s “The Batman” and the new HBO spinoff series. “When Colin saw the sculpture I made, ideas started exploding,” Marino says. “Once we did a makeup test, it was magical — he knew how to speak, how to walk and he was already the guy.”

Marino, who is preparing to make his directorial debut based on a script he wrote set in the 1980s (“It’s deliberately not effects-heavy,” he hints), has lost none of his passion for the transformative power of latex and silicone since the days he was obsessively poring through issues of Cinefex magazine as a teenager. “If you think of Michelangelo showing beauty 500 years ago in painting and sculpture, I’m still showing that same beauty but in this new hyper-realistic way, in silicone,” says Marino, who named his makeup effects studio Prosthetic Renaissance. “It’s a very unique art. It’s like moving sculptures and paintings all at once.”

As for Pearson, if he were offered an experimental treatment to change his face, like in “A Different Man,” he says he wouldn’t take it. Despite the challenges it has brought him, Pearson believes his face has shaped the life he leads today.

“I joke with my friends that my disability does a lot of heavy lifting for my appalling personality,” he says with a laugh. “Everyone thinks it’s hard to go from non-disabled to disabled but I think the other way around would be even harder. The path we walk and the struggles we go through make us who we are and they’re inseparable from one another.”

[the-hottest-band-tournament]

Round Two

Adam and the Ants

Defeated opponents: The Tubes

Formed in: 1977

Genres: new wave, post punk, punk rock, alternative rock 

Lineup: Adam Ant – vocals, bass, harmonica

Marco Pirroni – guitar

Chris "Merrick" Hughes– drums, production, acoustic guitar

Terry Lee Miall – drums

Gary Tibbs – bass

Albums from the 80s: 

Kings of the Wild Frontier (1980)

Prince Charming (1981)

Propaganda: Though they are best known as the starting point for familiar (heartthrob) solo artist Adam Ant, the original band featured most of his best and most interesting music.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Defeated opponents: Twisted Sister

Formed in: 1976

Genres: Rock, punk, new wave, power pop, jangle pop, blues rock

Lineup: Tom Petty – lead and backing vocals, guitars

Mike Campbell – lead guitar, koto, keyboards, dulcimer, mandolin, ukulele, percussion

Benmont Tench – acoustic and electric pianos, Hammond and Vox organs, vibraphone, synthesizer

Howie Epstein – bass guitar, backing vocals

Stan Lynch – drums, percussion

Albums from the 80s:

Hard Promises (1981)

Long After Dark (1982)

Southern Accents (1985)

Pack Up the Plantation: Live! (1985)

Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) (1987)

Propaganda: 

[the-eternal-quest-for-balance]

Mike Benz: This is a really extraordinary scandal that really originated in the run-up to the 2020 election, where for the first time ever, the United States of America had a permanent domestic censorship office parked at CISA, as you mentioned, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, which used a really devious set to gain long-arm jurisdiction over opinions on the Internet. What they did is they said there’s this thing called critical infrastructure, which ranges from elections to public health to basically any sensitive policy issue. If you make a post online that undermines public faith and confidence in that critical infrastructure, then you are in effect committing a cyber security attack on US critical infrastructure, necessitating a DHS intervention by what way of censorship.

This really dirty trick of calling a cyber censorship, cybersecurity, is how DHS got involved in this business. DHS teamed up with the FBI in the 2020 election. They also created a series of cutouts in the private sector and the academic worlds to serve as the attack dogs for DHS content, for social media content DHS wanted taken down. This was an extraordinary scandal that burst open around 2022. There’s a preliminary scandal that burst open in about 2022.