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Justin Bieber Denies Reports That He’s Studying To Become A Church Minister And Labels Them ‘Fake News’

It’s no secret that Justin Bieber is religious. He’s spoken about his faith in countless interviews, including in his 2020 YouTube docuseries Seasons. While the singer relies on his church for guidance, that doesn’t mean he’s looking to join it in an official capacity. He recently took to social media to deny reports that he’s been studying to become a new minister.

The original report came from Page Six, who alleged that Bieber was studying to become a minister at Hillsong, a megachurch that started in Australia and branched out to LA and New York City. Hillsong’s current minister was recently removed from his position after admitting to infidelity, and Page Six insinuated that Bieber wanted to take on the role. Their sources reported that “Bieber doesn’t plan to give up his music career, but he feels there’s a bigger calling out there for him.”

On Monday, Bieber caught wind of the news and shut down the reports in his Instagram Stories. Along with calling the story “fake news,” he said he isn’t even a part of Hillsong church and said he doesn’t have any interest in ever becoming a minister. He went on share his stance on the church, saying he doesn’t “need a building to connect with God.”

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A Georgia Election Official Completely Lost It On Trump’s ‘Easily, Provably False’ Voter Fraud Claims

Poor Georgia. For the last two months the state has borne the brunt of the fallout of Donald Trump’s election loss. Not only does it have a Senate runoff that could flip the Senate, effectively removing the GOP from most kinds of real power. They’ve also had to endure the outgoing president’s ire — his constant baseless accusations of voter fraud, his desperate attempts to throw out a chunk of its population’s votes, his unhinged attacks on politicians and officials. The day after Trump was caught begging Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to illegally overturn the election, another official tried to make it clear as day that his claims of fraud have no basis.

You might remember him. His name is Gabriel Sterling. He’s the state’s voting system implementation manager. He’s a Republican. And he went viral in early December when he made an exasperated and righteously angry plea to the 45th president to stop fanning conspiracy theory flames, lest he get someone killed. That didn’t work. But a month later, on the eve of his state’s runoff, he was back, just as flustered, just as articulate, and ready to debunk some nonsense.

Standing beside a big chart that read “Claim vs fact,” Sterling went to town. “There is no shredding of ballots going on. That’s not real. That’s not happening,” Sterling said. “No one is changing parts or pieces out of Dominion voting machines,” he said about another claim. “I don’t even know what that means. It’s not a real thing…I don’t even know how exactly to explain that.”

One of the Trump team’s claims is that thousands of ineligible voters, among them felons and underaged people, had cast ballots. There were other tall claims, of comparable or equal invalidity.

“None of that is true, not a whit,” Sterling said, clearly not having it anymore. “This is all obviously, easily, provably false. Yet the president persists and, by doing so, undermines Georgians’ faith in the election system, especially Republican Georgians in this case, which is important because we have a big election coming up tomorrow, and everybody deserves to have their vote counted if they want it to be.”

Sterling also talked about that notorious phone call, in which he demanded Raffensperger “find” enough votes to flip the state or simply tell people he’d “recalculated” the numbers. He said he “found it to be something not normal, out of place, and nobody I know who would be president would do something like that to a secretary of state.”

But more than anything Sterling wanted people to realize that the only stealing of votes is coming from the Trump team — and that his own supporters should ignore his attempts to spread doubt in an election process that has proven remarkably efficient, especially in the midst of a one-in-a-lifetime pandemic.

“There are people who fought and died and marched and prayed to get the right to vote. Throwing it away because you have some feelings that may not matter is self destructive,” Sterling said. “If you’re a Georgia voter, if you want your values reflected by your elected officials, I strongly beg and encourage you: Go vote tomorrow. Do not let anyone discourage you…Don’t let anybody steal your vote that way.”

You can watch Sterling’s full press conference above. And if you’re a registered Georgia voter, make sure you vote tomorrow, if you haven’t already.

(Via The Daily Beast)

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KennyHoopla Gets Real About His Recent Mental Health Struggles In A Heartfelt Open Letter

KennyHoopla released his debut EP How Will I Rest In Peace If I’m Buried By A Highway?// in 2020, and it received widespread critical acclaim and even afforded him the opportunity to collaborate with Travis Barker. But the musician recently opened up about continuing to struggle with mental health. Sharing a powerful open letter with fans, he announced he is going on hiatus in order to prioritize his mental health:

“I am not okay, I haven’t been for a long time. Even through my gratefulness and blessings it feels like a burden to wake up in the morning and a challenge to rest at night, or at all. I tell you this with an anchor on my heart. […] I had felt narcissistic, ashamed or embarrassed for some reason to post this, never wanted to let anyone down but I know the best version of myself looks like an honest one. I’ll be going away for awhile to try and fix this and becoming a stronger me for myself and all of you!”

KennyHooopla’s message was met with an outpouring of love and support, with people applauding his honesty and vulnerability, while echoing the importance of prioritizing mental health.

Before announcing that his break, KennyHoopla chatted with Uproxx. “Everyone wants to be this figure, but all I’ve ever wanted to be was myself and the greatest, biggest, strongest version of myself,” he said. “So, it’s very important for me to be wearing Vans and dressing almost, you can call it normal, but myself, and expressing that.”

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Republican election official in Georgia publicly debunks President Trump’s fraud claims

By now most Americans have heard, or at least heard about, President Trump’s hour-long phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, in which the sitting president attempted to convince the official in charge of Georgia’s election to “recalculate” and “find” him enough votes to overturn the state’s results in his favor.

The criminal implications inherent in the asking aside, the phone call was filled with baseless allegations that the president has “heard” and that “Trump media” has been sharing. It’s the constant drumbeat of the past two months—the counts are wrong, the machines were rigged, the votes were flipped, the ballots were counted multiple times, fake ballots were brought in, signatures weren’t checked, the recount was wrong, the audit was corrupt, and so on and so on and so on. The breadth and depth of fraud allegations is stunning, which is exactly the point. One or two allegations are easily checked and either verified or debunked. Flooding media with every allegation in the book makes it 1) impossible to debunk due to the sheer volume, and 2) more likely that some of the allegations will be believed, regardless of actual evidence.

It’s Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone with sh*t” approach to handling the media, and unfortunately, it works.


However, at some point, people need to realize that the real experts on elections are the actual experts on elections. That’s not the president of the United States. That’s not random poll observers. That’s not any of the Newsmax or OAN reporters. That’s not any of the so-called “data scientists” (some of whom hilariously turn out to be Sean Hannity’s producer) who make claims in non-binding hearings but not in court.

In the U.S., the people elected and appointed to serve as state election officials are the final authority on whether or not an election was run properly. (Unless a lawsuit leads to a court deciding that something went awry, of course. As of now, Trump’s legal team and allies are 1 and 61 in court for election cases. The one case they won just allowed poll watchers to stand a few feet closer to the poll workers.)

One of those election officials, Republican Gabriel Sterling who serves as the Voting Systems Manager for the Secretary of State office in Georgia, spoke at a press conference today to set the record straight on the continued allegations.

“We’ve seen nothing in our investigations of any of these data claims that shows there are nearly enough ballots to change the outcome. And the secretary and I at this podium have said, since November 3rd, there is illegal voting in every single election in the history of mankind because there are human beings involved in the process. It’s going to happen. So the question is limiting it and putting as many safeguards as you can in place to make sure that it doesn’t happen.”

Sterling mentioned the hand tally and the allegation that Dominion machines used “fractional voting” or flipped votes. “Again, by doing the hand tally, it shows none of that is true,” he said. “Not a whit.”

He also addressed the overall claims about the Dominion voting systems, pointing out that in the counties in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that used Dominion voting machines, Trump actually won a majority of the vote. Then he debunked the idea that 900,000 votes had been deleted, as that would have meant a mathematically impossible turnout to begin with.

“Again, this is all easily, provably false,” he said. “Yet the president persists.”


Regarding Trump’s allegation that some part of the Dominion machines were being switched out, Sterling said, “This one I don’t fully understand. No one is changing parts or pieces out of Dominion voting machines. That’s not — I don’t even know what that means. That’s not a real thing. That’s not happening. The president mentioned it on the call…from two days ago. That’s, again, not real. I don’t even know how exactly to explain that.”

Visual aids are always helpful, so there was also a CLAIM vs. FACT poster displayed next to Sterling as he spoke that gave specific responses to specific numbers claims. Why people just believe numbers they see online instead of going to the source—again, the actual election officials—to see the actual, verified numbers is a bit baffling, yet here we are. Here’s a close-up of the poster:

Again, Sterling is a Republican (as is Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp, all of whom stand by Georgia’s election result). He wanted Trump to win. He mentioned that Trump’s allegations might be discouraging people from turning out to vote—especially Republicans who might be convinced that the election system is so flawed that there’s no point in participating in it.

“Everybody’s vote is going to count,” Sterling said. “Everybody’s vote did count.”

Sterling referred to his press conference as yet another “Whack-a-mole” event, alluding to the fact that he has had to debunk these allegations over and over again, one at a time, for two months since the election. At one point he said he had screamed at his computer when he heard an allegation that’s been debunked many, many times. So many of the “suspicious” allegations of fraud we’ve heard in testimonies and read in affidavits are just normal vote collecting and tallying processes that lay observers simply don’t know are normal.

The poor guy sounded like an exasperated parent who’s having to lecture their teenager about something they already should know for the hundredth time. Can’t really blame him. It’s exhausting to constantly battle a flood of misinformation and disinformation, especially when it’s coming from the president himself.

You can watch the entire press conference here:


Georgia Secretary Of State’s Office Holds Press Conference | NBC News

www.youtube.com

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Cab driver takes drunk passenger who refused to wear a mask directly to the police station

A belligerent anti-masker in Victoria, British Columbia started 2021 nearly $700 poorer for forgetting the number one rule of riding in a cab: the driver is always in charge.

On New Year’s Day at 1 am, a cab driver picked up the man who was clearly intoxicated and refused to wear a mask. The drunk guy also put his hands in the driver’s face while he was operating the vehicle.

While refusing to wear a mask and to social distance in any location is dangerous, the drunk passenger was being especially terrible because COVID-19 is more likely to be spread in the confined, indoor space of a cab.


“When you are in a confined environment, there is a risk of airborne infection, especially in ride-sharing trips that take just 15 to 20 minutes,” Varghese Mathai, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, tells Verywell.

The drunk guy didn’t just put the cab driver in danger but future passengers as well. Studies show that COVID-19 can live on metal for up to five days and on plastics for two to three. How many people could he have infected by spreading the virus inside of the cab?

The cab driver knew he had to get rid of this passenger, but instead of dropping him off at the nearest street corner or driving him home, he plotted the perfect revenge.

The driver decided to change course and head towards the nearest police station.

What was the passenger going to do about it? Jump out of a moving vehicle?

But before arriving at the station, the driver called 911 and made sure the police knew they were on their way so they could throw the book at the passenger when he arrived.

According to the Victoria Police Department, the driver called 911 to report that a passenger was “belligerently refusing the driver’s requests for the passenger to adhere” to the province’s Covid-19 Related Measures Act guidelines (CRMA).

According to the province’s guidelines, when using a cab or a ride-hailing service, passengers must “as much as possible, avoid physical contact with passengers.” They are also required to social distance and wear a face covering.

When the driver arrived at police headquarters, officers were there waiting for the passenger’s arrival. However, the belligerent man refused to get out of the cab. So the officers removed him forcefully and placed him into custody.

The man was charged with three counts, abusive or belligerent behavior, failure to wear a face covering, and failure to comply with the direction of an officer. The fines totaled up to $690 CAD ($542 USD).

The man was also cited for public intoxication.

The next morning he probably woke up and realized that was the most expensive cab ride he ever took.

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David Spade Probably Isn’t Going To Do An ‘Uncut Gems’-esque Drama Like His Friend Adam Sandler

First off, did you know David Spade is 56? The eternally youthful SNL vet has been around for a very long time, and though he’s had his ups and downs — including having his Comedy Central chat show Lights Out cancelled early into the pandemic, after less than a year on-air — he’s always found a way to stay in the spotlight. (Indeed, he already has a new show, The Netflix Afterparty.) But will he ever be as ambitious as his good friend Adam Sandler and do the occasional intense drama — make his own Uncut Gems? Well, as he says in a new interview, probably not.

“With Sandler, I think once you do 10 $100-million movies in a row, it’s like, you want to try something new,” Spade told The Los Angeles Times about Sandler. “He’s a f*cking hard worker. Every movie we’re working on, he’s writing the next one at lunch. With me, I don’t work that hard.” In fact, something like The Netflix Afterparty is more his speed.

A talk show just sounded like a fun, steady job. I’m not as thirsty to do a million movies or 20 tours. I don’t want to chase my tail for the next 20 years. I don’t think I could be on the real road like Joan Rivers or something. I’m not as tough as her. To fly f— Southwest and connect in Houston to go to gigs every night? You want a good reputation, but as far as just grinding it out, that’s not my favorite thing.

Spade, however, does say that one does have to be open to new challenges. “Doing different things is sort of a survival mechanism,” he said. But he’s also realistic. “I’m not America’s No. 1 movie star. It’s never been that easy to get a movie going. I’d do one about every two years, and that’s not an everyday job.”

Of course, not that Spade hasn’t done movies. Older ones, like Tommy Boy and Joe Dirt, still get him mentions on the street (or did in the before-time), and he’s had hits with recent Netflix films, like the recent The Wrong Missy, which the service claims had 59 million views in its first month. But Netflix doesn’t often advertise its viewing stats, unless they’ve got a hit, which meant Spade couldn’t rely on, say, box office numbers so that people knew he’d had a hit.

“It’s so embarrassing. I have to go door-to-door around my neighborhood and tell everyone,” Spade said. “I used to have documents and proof. When Netflix started the top 10, that helped. I got 100 more calls than I would have. I was sent a lot of movies after Father of the Year, like, ‘Wouldn’t this be funny if it was you and Kevin Hart?’”

Spade also spoke about accusations of sexual misconduct in the stand-up comic scene, with people like Chris D’Elia, Bryan Callen, and Jeff Ross all receiving accusations over the summer. (The latter filed a defamation suit against his accuser.) Spade acknowledged that it’s a “touchy subject,” but ultimately said such actions have no place in the industry. “If guys are doing something like that right now, get rid of them,” he said. “If you’re still f*cking around and treating people super [poorly] or attacking women or saying ‘suck my d*ck and I’ll give you a job’ and don’t think there’s any repercussions? This isn’t Mad Men anymore.”

That said, Spade said he is surprised that it’s so prevalent in stand-up comedy, especially compared to other industries:

This is the weirdest place that this is all happening. Getting [oral sex] in the Belly Room? You would think the NBA — sports and side chicks. I’m sure the music world is super f— sketchy. I look at someone like David Lee Roth, and he’s having contests to f— as many girls as he can and that’s what you think goes on. Then you see David Lee Roth going, “I can’t believe what’s going on at the Comedy Store!” Comedy, of all places. I wasn’t really aware of all that craziness because I’m not a super club comic anymore. You walk in, see the set list and say, ‘Hey man, how’s the crowd?’ And that’s it.

(Via The Los Angeles Times)

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How do we coax millions of Americans away from the edge of election conspiracy insanity?

If the past four years has taught us anything, it’s that when you think things can’t really get any nuttier, they totally can and will.

Case in point: Lin Wood’s latest tweets.

Lin Wood is a lawyer who has filed or joined multiple lawsuits on behalf of President Trump in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Wood has been an outspoken supporter of Trump and a forceful pusher of conspiracy theories—not only about the election, but about…well, just take a look.

Wood already made headlines a few days ago for suggesting Mike Pence should be executed by firing squad. Late last night, in a series of tweets, Wood lays out absolutely bonkers allegations against Chief Justice John Roberts and the world’s “most well-known & ‘elite’ intelligence agencies.”


I’m not fond of amplifying these kinds of batsh*t crazy rants, but considering how intertwined this individual is with the current legal actions of the president of the United States, and considering the fact that President Trump has retweeted this man’s tweets just within the past month, it’s important to understand the level of unreality that a significant portion of Americans are living in—or at least tacitly accepting.

In a series of tweets, Wood wrote:

I believe Chief Justice John Roberts & a multitude of powerful individuals worldwide are being blackmailed in a horrendous scheme involving rape & murder of children captured on videotape.

I have the key to the files containing the videos. I have also shared this information.

This blackmail scheme is conducted by members of 10 of world’s most well-known & “elite” intelligence agencies. One of those groups was hacked by a group known as Lizard Squad.

The blackmail files of rape & murder were obtained by this group & copy was provided to Isaac Kappy.

The blackmail targets are approached with a gun, a child, & a camera. The target is ordered to rape the child on video. The target is then ordered to shoot the child on video. The target is then owned & controlled by the blackmailers until blackmail evidence loses its value.

After Kappy received the hacked files from member of Lizard Squad, he gave files to one friend and the encryption key to another friend. He provided this information to his friends shortly before he was murdered in May 13, 2019. Members of Lizard Squad were jailed for hacking.

Jeffrey Epstein used this same blackmail scheme of child rape & child murder to either further his own interests or those of any intelligence agency with whom he worked. ALL who flew on his private jet or visited his island must be IMMEDIATELY interrogated & brought to justice.

I decided to post this truth on Twitter & Parler as wall exists around @realDonaldTrump that may have prevented me from getting this evidence to him. Kappy tried to deliver info to President but was then murdered. I do not know who Kappy gave it to for delivery to the President.

I have concerns that information from Kappy was not delivered to @realDonaldTrump & his effort to get it to President may have caused his death. I am aware that my life is now at great risk. But I put my faith in God. I prayed before I made the decision. I had to reveal TRUTH.”

Let’s pause for a moment here.

First of all, how is this even a thing that he believes? Someone just walks up with a gun and a child and a camera? What? Most of us who actually are not pedophiles would rather die than rape a child. And if someone handed us a gun to shoot a child, most of us would shoot the person trying to blackmail us instead. On a basic level, this is just dumb.

Second of all, every conspiracy theory sucks people in with grains of truth, so let’s briefly get those out of the way. Lizard Squad might sound like a made-up thing, but it was actually a real hacking group that successfully disrupted XBox and PlayStation systems in addition to committing other hacking crimes. A bunch of members were arrested in 2014—but their arrest had nothing to do with intelligence agencies.

Former Lizard Squad member Vinnie Omari, when asked about Wood’s tweets, told the Daily Dot, “That sounds fucking insane, bro. I’m not going to lie to you. That sounds like the type of stuff that I usually laugh at people for bringing up in conversations.”

Omari said he’d never heard of Wood or Kappy and that the group never hacked any government entities or agencies. “We never hacked anything in regards to any of these billionaires like Jeffrey Epstein or any government officials,” he said.

That won’t convince the conspiracy theorists, of course. We’ll get to that in a minute. At this point you may be wondering who the heck Isaac Kappy is. Kappy was an actor and musician who tragically died by suicide by jumping off a bridge onto a freeway in Arizona in 2019. He left lengthy messages on social media before his death, expressing remorse for who he had been, stating that he had spent thousands of hours diving into QAnon conspiracies, talking about how he’s abused himself with drugs and alcohol, and apologizing to people he’d hurt.

But instead of his death being a cautionary tale, QAnoners like Wood claim that Kappy didn’t die by suicide but was murdered because this obscure actor had the elusive evidence proving all of the cabal nonsense that he was trying to get to the president. As if that makes sense.

Moving on. Wood wrote in continued on Twitter.

“I would never make an accusation without having reliable source for it. Stakes are too high. So I did due diligence to validate the accuracy of the shocking information I am revealing tonight. I am entirely comfortable that you are learning the truth. A truth that explains much.

I have no idea extent of blackmail scheme of raping & killing children but given the number of agencies involved, the hundreds of thousands of missing children, & the otherwise inexplicable actions of many powerful officials, celebrities, & business leaders, I fear the worst.

The number of missing children worldwide & in United States is staggering.

So I have now conveyed the truth as I know it. There has been a rising chorus of people questioning my sanity in recent days. Now you can understand why. I have no idea what will be done to me or said about me in coming days, but I will rest well tonight for having spoken truth.

Many issues in our world may be tied to blackmail scheme I described tonight, including bizarre behavior of officials & judges in recent election. @realDonaldTrump must appoint special prosecutor to thoroughly investigate. We need answers. We must investigate. For the children.”

Ah yes. For the children. I’ve written about how the QAnon child trafficking conspiracy theories are doing real harm to actual anti-trafficking organizations that work to protect vulnerable missing children. QAnon is not in the business of saving children from anything.

Oh, and there’s also this:

To be perfectly clear, this is insane. That should be totally obvious, but at this point, even obvious truths need to be stated clearly, unequivocally, and constantly. This man has a million followers on Twitter and has been retweeted by the president, who is a known peddler of conspiracy theorists himself. We also now have QAnon adherents in Congress, so this stuff can’t be ignored. As NBC reports, nearly all of Trump’s election fraud allegations come from the QAnon world, and he has hoards of MAGA followers who have bought it all hook, line, and sinker. At this point, no one can be all in for Trump and not, by extension, support these crazy conspiracy theories. They are all inextricably linked.

So how did we even get here? And more importantly, how do we get out?

It was predictable, to be honest. During the 2016 election, there were an alarming number of comments that referred to Hillary Clinton being part of an evil global cabal of pedophiles who operate in secret and communicate in code via email. The rumors included various details about Satanic rituals (which involved bizzaro accusations of harvesting something called adrenochrome from children), Obama ordering 65,000 hot dogs (which was supposedly code for little boys), and child trafficking taking place in the basement of a popular D.C. pizza parlor (which doesn’t even have a basement). Even though none of it made the least bit of logical sense and most of us just rolled our eyes at it all, a shocking number of people truly believed it—and still do.

I assumed at the time that it was just a dumb disinformation campaign to hurt Clinton’s chances of winning the election (which it was) and that it would die out after the election (which it didn’t). I think most reasonable people believed the same thing, which was a mistake. For four years, we’ve watched these conspiracy theories grow and spread. For four years, I’ve personally seen more and more people get sucked into the unreality the person/people behind QAnon created. For four years, people have continued to claim that well-known politicians and A-list celebrities are about to be arrested, that they’re all going down soon, that Donald Trump is the great savior who will finally blow the lid off of this vast conspiracy and save the world from the machinations of the evil elite. For four years, the big reveal has always been just around the corner. Just wait. (That’s literally the entire premise of QAnon. Just wait. Just wait. Just wait. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming.)

The quackiness was never going to just fade away. The fringe element just kept growing and spilling into right-wing media. And like a snowball that gathers size, speed, and strength as it tumbles down a mountain, the quackiness was becoming more and more dangerous.

When a guy took his AR-15 to Comet Ping Pong Pizza to save the children from the clutches of Clinton and her cabal of child traffickers and found nothing, that should have been the end of it. When the D.C. police called Pizzagate “a fictitious online conspiracy theory,” that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. Because that’s not how these things work.

There’s a reason conspiracy theories are called rabbit holes. Once you start detaching from reality, it’s really hard to come back. Real news is fake news. Fact-checkers can’t be trusted. Every reasonable explanation gets rejected. Anyone who denies the unreality is in on the conspiracy. From an objective outside stance, none of it makes sense, but within that world, it all makes perfect sense. Just wait, you’ll see.

From a psychological point of view, the draw is pretty simple. It’s a connect-the-dots mystery with the added thrill of a gambling addiction—this time, it’s really gonna happen. It’s a thrilling chase with the carrot of Trump saving the world from the evil elites always dangling just out of reach as you chase it. It has everything we’ve become accustomed to in our favorite movie plots—intrigue and deception, bad guys you’d never suspect, and an unlikely hero who we just know is going to swoop in at the finale to bring it all down. Just you wait.

The problem is that we’re not living in a movie. This is real life, and our country is being damaged in real ways by having too many of its citizens swept up in an alternate reality, which isn’t reality at all.

That’s the dilemma we face now is what to do about it. This stuff isn’t going to go away just because Biden gets inaugurated on January 20th, and it’s destructive to the fabric of society no matter who is in charge. For goodness sake, I’ve had people accuse me of being a pedophile because I wrote about how child sex trafficking organizations want people to stop sharing QAnon conspiracy theories. That doesn’t make sense, of course—but how am I supposed to sit down and have a reasonable conversation with someone who believes that? We can have disagreements about government and policy and social issues, and we can debate those things passionately even. But we have to exist in the same objective reality in order to have that reasonable exchange of ideas.

I’m not sure how we get there, but I have a few ideas. We need to have psychologists along with political pundits weighing in on the daily news shows. We need to see the opinions of cult deprogramming experts in addition to legal analysts as we talk about what happens from here. We need to be talking about how to convince millions of our fellow Americans to step back from the edge of the rabbit hole and how to extricate them from it once they’ve fallen down it.

The issues are important, but we can’t have the important conversations we need to have about the issues without a basic shared reality, and right now, we’re so not there.

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Fans See A Double Standard When It Comes To Harry Styles’ Dating Rumors

Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde were spotted holding hands at a wedding over the weekend and the news was picked up as an indication that the two celebrities are dating. While some fans applauded the potential relationship, others saw a double standard. If holding hands meant a potential relationship, where were those same rumors when Styles and Lizzo were showing each other affection last January?

The dating rumors were first circulated by TMZ Monday, which reported that Wilde was Style’s plus-one to a wedding. The publication reported that they were “holding hands and very much together.” People went a step further and alleged that the two “have dated for a few weeks” — and it sent Twitter into chaos.

Fans instantly pointed out how the media didn’t jump at the opportunity to label Lizzo and Styles as “dating” when they were publicly spotted holding hands at an awards show last year. Styles had also previously surprised an audience by joining the singer on stage to give a duet of her hit song “Juice.” During their performance, the two were sharing flirty glances and Lizzo even danced on the former One Direction singer.

Styles and Lizzo fans alike flooded Twitter to point out the double standard in Lizzo’s treatment.

See fans react to Styles and Wildes’ relationship rumors above.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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Tanya Roberts’ PR Person Is Now Saying That She’s Actually Still Alive After All

Death is a pretty finite thing in the real world, though apparently, even our grasp on the one thing we are all truly born to do has slipped in the first days of 2021. The year’s first weekend brought sad news that former Charlie’s Angels star Tanya Roberts had died at age 65 after collapsing in her home on Christmas day and a stretch in the hospital on a ventilator. It was reportedly not a coronavirus-related matter, but it was a sudden turn for the actress and one that shocked many in Hollywood.

But on Monday TMZ, which had originally broken the story and even sourced it through Roberts’ PR rep, had to retract its story and explain that it simply wasn’t true: Roberts was still alive:

The rep had told us she died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. He told us Tanya’s husband had informed him that Tanya had passed.

We even got a quote from the rep from Tanya’s husband, Lance, saying, “As I held her in her last moments, she opened her eyes.”

Now the rep, Mike Pingel, tells TMZ, Lance got a call just after 10 AM Monday from the hospital saying Tanya was still alive. Pingel said Lance truly believed Tanya had died.

As TMZ noted, it had also gotten word from family friends that Roberts had died, claiming that her husband had contacted them with the sad news. That makes for an even more bizarre story, for sure, though it’s unclear what condition Roberts is in at this current time. The recent months have been filled with enough suffering and loss, and this is likely a painful footnote in what will ultimately be a very sad story. But it’s likely to be one of the weirdest stories of 2021, and we’re only a few days into the year.

(Via TMZ)

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Dominion Voting Systems Is Reportedly Suing Wacky Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell, And An Employee Of The Company Is Suing Trump And Some Conservative Media Outlets

Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden in November, and in a few short days, he’ll be out of a job in Washington. But the fallout from that defeat, and the various Trump tantrums that have undermined the public faith in the election process and those that help carry it out, will be felt for years to come.

Trump’s insistence to openly defy the results of the election have been made manifest in many ways, the latest of which is Trump caught on tape asking a Georgia election official to “find” votes for him and somehow undo his loss. And now there apparently will be new lawsuits, but this time from the people who make election equipment and have been harassed with claims they somehow stole the election from Trump.

According to an Axios report on Monday, conspiracy-fueled lawyer Sidney Powell is reportedly the target of a defamation lawsuit over baseless claims that Dominion somehow conspired against Trump to cause him to lose the election. Dominion CEO John Poulos spoke on an Axios podcast on Monday about the suit, and the report says that the company hasn’t ruled out a lawsuit against Trump himself:

Between the lines: Dominion, which makes the voting machines used in Georgia and elsewhere, has been the subject of baseless accusations of malfeasance during last November’s elections.

Trump, during his leaked call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, called the U.S.-based company “corrupt” and had to be corrected by Raffensperger after claiming machines had been recently removed and/or altered by Dominion employees.

Dominion says that the rhetorical barrage has led to death threats against its employees, including one who remains unable to return to his home.

Though it does feel like it a lot these days, you just can’t say anything inflammatory you want these days, especially if it’s not true. And the wild theories people have put forth about Dominion, even on television channels like Fox News and OANN, have impacted public opinion about Dominion itself. Word of potential lawsuits is what prompted both Fox News and OANN to offer on-air corrections about statements people have made about the company while appearing on programming, which was an embarrassing correction on its own but also one clearly designed to avoid legal action.

That sort of course correction hasn’t happened with Powell, and it also hasn’t occurred with Trump, who as recently as Saturday was caught on tape describing a nonsense conspiracy where Dominion somehow removed the insides of a voting machine and replaced it with new parts to somehow carry out voter fraud. And while it’s unlikely that Trump will face any legal action from his dubious pressuring of election officials to throw out results that cast him a loser, it seems Dominion just might take him to court for continuing to disparage the company without any evidence. And according to ABC News, a Dominion employee is taking matters into their own hands, suing Trump and conservative media companies as well:

Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, said he wants his life back after being named in false charges as a key actor in “rigging” the election for President-elect Joe Biden. There has been no evidence that the election was rigged.

His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in district court in Denver County, Colorado, names the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, the website Gateway Pundit, Colorado conservative activist Joseph Oltmann, and conservative media Newsmax and One America News Network.

“I have been thrust into the public spotlight by people with political and financial agendas but, at heart, I am a private person,” Coomer said in a statement.

It’s impossible to know the future, but given what we know about the actual evidence of fraud Trump and his allies clearly don’t have, it would be likely Trump continues to lose in 2021.

(Via Axios)