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A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 77 percent of Republicans believe that there was widespread voter fraud in the presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, while only 60 percent of “registered voters polled” trust that President-elect Biden’s victory was legitimate. Not great. These voters are unable to accept reality, CNN’s Don Lemon claims, because Trump and GOP senators like Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, and Ron Johnson keep peddling absurd conspiracy theories.

“Why do they believe that? Because you have been telling them that!” Lemon said on Monday night, speaking to Republican politicians who continue to push Trump’s illegitimate agenda. “Of course they’re going to believe it. If you would stop telling them that and start telling them the truth, then maybe they would believe the truth, that the election was not stolen and it was a clean election, according to everyone who has investigated, most of them Republicans.” Lemon wants everyone to “stop saying that we must respect Trump supporters who believe bullsh*t because it is bullsh*t that you have been feeding them! The president and you have been feeding them the BS. And now that they believe it… another self-fulfilling prophecy and feedback loop. ‘I can’t believe that. My constituents believe this, so I must…’ It’s all BS! And it’s all made up!”

Lemon’s well-said rant echoes what Whoopi Goldberg told co-host Meghan McCain, who believes the media doesn’t respect Trump voters, on The View yesterday: “Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. We lost four years ago now. He’s lost this year. You’re not allowed to kvetch and poop all over this!” (I guess you can’t say “bullsh*t” on ABC, but you can say it on CNN.) Watch the Lemon clip here.

(Via Mediaite)

Cardi B drew some attention over the holiday break after she shared a video which suggested that she doesn’t like Kulture listening to her latest hit, “WAP.” In the clip, Cardi is listening to the song but frantically pauses it when she notices that Kulture is walking into the room. For some reason, that led to backlash among some, which Cardi has now addressed.

One Twitter user wrote to Cardi, “So ya daughter cant listen to it but everybody else’s daughter can ? @iamcardib AW OKAY ! Exactly what I been saying you have an agenda to push with that trash ass label your with. DISGUSTING.”

Cardi fired back, “Ya needs to stop with this already ! I’m not jojosiwa ! I don’t make music for kids I make music for adults.Parents are responsible on what their children listen too or see.I I’m a very sexual person but not around my child just like every other parent should be.” She continued in another tweet, “There’s moms who are strippers.Pop p*ssy ,twerk all night for entertainment does that mean they do it around their kids ? No! Stop makin this a debate.Its pretty much common sense.”

Cardi also addressed her salty language recently when she vowed to stop talking “about suckin and f*ckin” on Twitter after she was apparently “shadow banned” on the platform.

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

The Pacers and Pelicans met on Monday night in New Orleans in what turned out to be the most exciting game of the night in the NBA. Indiana led by as many as seven in the fourth quarter before Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball caught fire for the Pelicans to take a 10-point lead with just over two minutes to play. From there, chaos ensued as New Orleans’ offense would shut down, unable to score over the final 2:22 of regulation, and a wild late sequence from the Pacers saw them force overtime.

Immediately following a three to cut it to a one possession game, Victor Oladipo helped force a turnover as J.J. Redick and Lonzo Ball got swarmed in the backcourt as Oladipo ripped it away from Ball while on the ground — and the Pelicans had a timeout to use had they recognized it. From there, the scramble was on and they found Myles Turner who faked a pass and found himself wide open for the game-tying three.

In overtime, the incredibly physical play continues as the two teams traded buckets, with the Pacers, briefly, taking a four point lead before Zion Williamson came in and got a bucket within seconds of entering the fray.

On the next possession, the Pelicans managed to get a takeaway from the Pacers and get Lonzo Ball running on a leak out for the tying score, forcing the Pacers to try and win the game on their last possession, turning to Malcolm Brogdon to make something happen.

His floater bounced in and the last second heave to Zion was unable to connect for New Orleans, giving Indiana a rather improbable come from behind 118-116 win as they steal one on the road against a feisty Pelicans team that is still figuring things out. Oladipo continues his strong play to start the season, looking like the All-Star of old with 25 points, six assists, and five rebounds to lead the way, while getting ample help from his fellow starters as Malcolm Brogdon, Domantas Sabonis, and Myles Turner all chipped in 17 or more.

For the Pelicans, it was a disappointing game to let slip away after such a strong fight in the fourth quarter to take control. Ingram finished with 31 points and eight assists, while Zion added 24 points and 10 rebounds and Ball had 18. Still, they have to find ways to get some easier offense late rather than needing Ingram to create so much for them, as we saw what happens when his path to the basket gets cut off and the contested jumpers aren’t falling.

Indiana moves to 5-2 with the win as they continue to impress to open the season, while New Orleans drops to 4-3 as they lose their first game at home.

Back in April, Eminem celebrated twelve years of sobriety. The rapper had been addicted to prescription pills for some time and he was finally overcame it during a stint in rehab in 2008. Afterwards there was a period of time where Em had to relearn how to live without giving into his addiction. And as he recently mentioned in an interview, that also meant he had to relearn how to rap sober.

Em touched on the time period in a recent interview with SiriusXM’s Gray Rizzy. He’d recently had a lyric leak from his Relapse era which referenced Chris Brown’s assault of Rihanna and Em formally apologized to the singer in his recent track “Zeus.” He told Rizzy that he has no recollection of recording that line because it was during the time that he was relearning how to rhyme.

“The rhyme schemes didn’t even sound familiar to me. So I was caught off guard, too. I was like, ‘What the f*ck, I said that?’ And that was during early stages of the ‘Relapse’ record that I was working on. So, you know, it’s ten-plus years old, but not making excuses for it. I said it and I was wrong for saying that, it was f*cking stupid. A lot of times, especially with the Relapse record, when I first started learning how to rap again, because of the drug situation that I went through and having to relearn a lot of things, that was one of those things that it was like, well, if it rhymes, say it. I think that being able to look back — I mean, that’s not even an excuse — but I’m just saying there was a phase I was going through with that Relapse record.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Em address his subtle Snoop Dogg diss on the same track. He said the source of his contention was a Breakfast Club interview where Snoop said he could live without his music. “I think it was more about the tone he was using that caught me off-guard ‘cause I’m like, where is this coming from?” he said. “I just saw you, what the f*ck? It threw me for a loop. I probably could’ve gotten past the whole tone and everything, but it was the last statement where he said, ‘Far as music I can live without, I can live without that sh*t.’ Now you’re being disrespectful. It just caught me off-guard.”

Listen to Eminem’s full interview with SiriusXM above.

There was a lot that was appalling about Trump’s notorious Georgia phonecall this weekend. He begged secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to flip the state, which he lost by nearly 12,000. He straight up told him to claim he’d “recalculated” the votes in his favor. He complimented the last name of an attorney named Ryan Germany, which was weird. He also might have — in a story picked up by Pop Culture and later extrapolated upon by Defector — also farted. Loudly.

Not long after The Washington Post released the full hour-long audio of the smoking gun of a chat, one internet sleuth a) appeared to listen to the whole thing, which ye gods, and b) singled out a moment during the 51-minute mark in which Trump seems to let ‘er rip mid-sentence, in the midst of a nonsensical rant about corruption. He even says “excuse me.”

It’s a muffled recording, so it could have been anything. Maybe he moved weird in a particularly noisy chair. Maybe one of his minions farted instead. Or maybe the outgoing president really let an audibly wet one into the air while trying to steal an election.

It was a moment eerily reminiscent of a similar moment from another of his team: when Rudy Giuliani let loose an ambiguous fart sound while also trying to baselessly argue voter fraud. But whatever the case, it sure sounds like a fart, and others agreed, especially since it betrays Trump’s lack of self-control.

Of course, let’s not take our eye off the ball here. Fart or no fart, it happened while he was trying to, at the very least, undermine democracy so he doesn’t suffer legal and economic hell.

(Via Pop Culture and Defector)

After winning the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2019-20, Montrezl Harrell struggled mightily in the NBA’s Orlando bubble. Fortunately, Harrell looks to be back to his old ways as the 2020-21 season begins, contributing 12.9 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in the first seven contests for his new team, the Los Angeles Lakers. However, Harrell’s free agency didn’t necessarily go according to plan and, since leaving the L.A. Clippers, he hasn’t been shy about making a few quips about his former employer.

That theme popped up again this week in speaking to Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register, with Harrell speaking about the Lakers’ “free-flowing” attack and throwing in the phrase “we play basketball over here” when referencing his new team.

“It’s really just being able to just play my game and just not being kind of told and sit on, ‘You always got to be this, this or this,’” Harrell said. “It’s kind of been the system I’ve kind of been playing in for a while. It’s got to be threes, layups or let’s get free throws. But that’s not like that over here. They play to the style of everybody’s game and we’re not looking at anybody that, ‘You have to do this, you got to do that,’ man. We play basketball over here. It’s free-flowing game.”

It has to be noted that, again, Harrell played extremely well with the Clippers, particularly when paired with Lou Williams on what was a potent second unit. That context makes these particular statements interesting to say the least, simply because it’s not as if Harrell didn’t find significant success in his previous stop in that role he was asked to play.

At the same time, it is natural for a player to not be overjoyed when a previous team lets him go and to find solace with his new group. This time around, it probably also helps that the Lakers are the betting favorites to win the 2020-21 title, and Harrell can thrive in a role built for him alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

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.”

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)

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.”

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