👏🏼 Rachel Maddow calls 'em like she sees 'em

Hello!

👋🏼 It's been a minute! A huge shout-out to Christopher Wiggins for writing the newsletter last week while I enjoyed some time away with family. I hope I didn't miss too much. 🌈

📺 Bye, Ronna. Former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel got sacked by NBC News days after the company announced it had hired her as a political analyst. McDaniel had worked with Donald Trump during his presidency while leading the RNC. In that role, she actively attacked the press and even pushed conspiracies about the 2020 election. NBC's biggest news star Rachel Maddow didn't hold back on her show Monday.

“We are contending with something we’ve never had to contend with before in the news business … but part of our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions," Maddow said. On Tuesday, another announcement indicated that NBC execs had seemingly heard the complaints loud and clear: They ousted McDaniel.

🎤 Jake Shears, former lead singer of queer pop band Scissor Sisters, was our print cover star for our most recent issue. In his interview, the singer — whose latest endeavors included working on a musical with Elton John on the life of Tammy Faye Messner — talks about his success and whether we'll be seeing a Scissor Sisters reunion anytime soon. Read the interview here. 🪩

✨ Y'all, it's good to be back. ✨

Onward and upward,

Alex Cooper