Matthew Chapman is a video game designer who attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and lives in San Marcos, Texas. Before joining Raw Story, he wrote for Shareblue and AlterNet, specializing in election and policy coverage.
GOP Minnesota Senate candidate Royce White erupted Monday over an image of what appeared to be a news report that megastar singer/songwriter Taylor Swift had endorsed President Joe Biden for re-election.
The image in question showed a picture of Swift with the banner "TAYLOR SWIFT BACKS BIDEN" and a quote, "Under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs." The image bore a knockoff Biden/Harris 2024 logo and what appeared to be the logo for First Coast News, a local ABC and NBC affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida.
In reality, the image is fake: while Swift did endorse Biden in 2020, she has not made any candidate endorsement in 2024. But White, a former basketball star and mixed martial artist who allies with former President Donald Trump and disgraced conspiracy theorist webcaster Alex Jones, was outraged nonetheless.
"Are people really that gullible? Wow!" wrote White on X. "The healing process of sex transitions? #Godspeed."
Read also: 'Shut your mouth!' GOP Senate hopeful lashes out as flub buries him in mockery
White has also picked a fight with The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger, for reporting that he owes $100,000 in child support despite claiming publicly he was "current" on payments.
"That's not a scoop, the arrears are public record," he wrote on X. "Yes the anti-family court system is working exactly as it's designed to, create discord between families and family members. Roger, you're a cuck and we won't take one single back step. I didn't SAY I'm current, I am current. Only leftists take you serious."
New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Monday was roasted on social media after he unveiled the “official NYC Bin” at a Gracie Mansion press conference — and described the roll-out as a “trash revolution.”
According to video of the event, Adams walked out to the tune of “Empire State of Mind,” rolling a black trash can beside his podium. He then successfully tossed a bag of garbage into the bin.
ABC 7 reports the NYC mayor told reporters, “Today, we are tossing even more black bags into the dustbin of history and taking the next step forward in our 'Trash Revolution.’”
Read also: Scandal-hit New York mayor fights for political survival
The new initiative marks “New York City's first official trash bin,” ABC 7 reports.
“In addition to the new bins, officials announced that starting Nov. 12, landlords with residential buildings with one to nine units will be required to use trash bins with secure latching lids,” the report adds.
Adams said the installment of “official” trash cans will help curb the growing NYC rat problem.
"They are getting more and more bold,” the mayor said.
Observers were quick to marvel at just how long it took for New York City to discover “official” trash bins.
“New York City is living in the future!!!” Podcast host Breanna Morello wrote on Twitter.
“New York discovers trash cans,” CBS News reporter Kathryn Watson said.
"Congratulations to New York City, which has seemingly invented the trash can," Brown research associate Benjy Renton mused.
Bulwark editor Sonny Bunch added, “New York learning about trash cans in 2024 is an insane flex.”
But the Adams Administration isn’t letting the grouchy haters stink up their fun.
In a tweet announcing the trash cans, Adams wrote, “Introducing the official NYC Bin! Today, we ROLLED OUT the next phase of our ‘Trash Revolution,’ showing New Yorkers how we're going to place even more black bags into the dustbin of history.”
“Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” indeed.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Jon Stewart blasted President Joe Biden and Democrats on "The Daily Show" on Monday night, emphatically rejecting the "get on board" with Biden campaign post-debate.
Stewart's tirade began right where he left off post-debate: with "anger and despair."
As some Democrats have come out and expressed doubts, questions and concern over Biden's ability to run a campaign that can defeat former President Donald Trump, others, he noted, believe "they should shut the f— up."
Stewart's team then queued up clips across major networks of pundits and experts collectively demanding that those who've expressed concerns publicly cease and desist. That includes the so-called pearl-clutchers, handwringers and bed-wetters.
"We panicked and p—ed our pants," said Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
The metaphor, Stewart chided to laughs, was probably a poor one.
Read also: Jon Stewart is back — and he's got the videos of Trump's memory problems in interviews
"First of all, I'm not sure incontinence is the metaphor you want to go with," blasted Stewart, a dig at the 81-year-old Biden's age.
Stewart then laid out why some have, in his eyes, valid concerns from the bed-wetting side of the party. He pointed to troubling moments of "disconnect" and held up a chart showing the number of "huh?" moments over time.
The comedian's first exhibit: a clip of Biden last year asking "Jackie, you here? Where's Jackie?" He appeared to be asking about Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski, who had died.
"Unfortunately, Jackie was dead," said Stewart. "It's something the president seems to have known six weeks earlier when he released a condolence statement about her death."
One mark for the "huh?" chart.
Stewart then played a clip of Biden seeming to forget another major death. Biden told a crowd in Las Vegas in February he recently met with French president Francois Mitterrand — who died in 1995.
That remark earned a second mark on the "huh?" chart.
Stewart eventually concludes the debate was a "shocking display of cognitive difficulty — recognizable to, unfortunately, anybody who's dealt with aging parents. And it's a hard watch."
The host then pointed out that while Trump's own "huh?" chart is full of its own marks, Trump "delivered at the debate to expectation."
"We expect him to be f—-ing crazy," he said. "But Biden's performance and inability to articulate at times was stunning. Like, I could not believe what I was watching."
Stewart called the post-debate explanations — such as Biden had a cold and jetlag — "blatant bull—-."
He later added that authoritarianism and Trump aren't the only threats to democracy.
"An arthritic status quo, unable or unwilling to respond in any way to the concerns of voters, who just received new and urgent information about their candidate, also erodes confidence and faith in the system of government," he railed. "Get on board or shut the f— up is not … a particularly compelling pro-democracy bumper sticker."
Watch the clip below or at this link.
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather laid into the media's intense recent scrutiny over President Joe Biden's grammatical flubs Monday, writing that not only does it pale in comparison to his opponent, it fails to take into account the stakes of the election.
In Rather's piece titled "A Dangerous Double Standard," he pointed out that it seems the media is ready to pounce at Biden's every word, including his recent interview with ABC's George Stephanopolous, where the president may have mistakenly said "goodest" instead of "good as."
A transcript of that interview released by ABC showed Biden said: “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
The White House was not a fan of the transcription, and The New York Times reported that the transcript was changed to "good as" upon a later listening from ABC's standards team.
This is an unsustainable level of scrutiny, argues Rather, and the same level hasn't applied to both candidates this election cycle.
"So here we are — one slightly hard to discern word in an otherwise coherent interview," he wrote. "And then there is the other guy. The one who can’t seem to string together a single coherent sentence — a fact news organizations don’t even bother mentioning any more. Try making sense of this gobbledegook from Trump’s remarks at a recent rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania:
'Our nation was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. The battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable. I mean it was so, was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways — it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow! I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And uh the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor — did you ever notice that? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill, he said. Wow, that was a big mistake, he lost his great general and uh they were fighting uphill. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys,’ but it was too late.'"
An incredulous Rather asks, "What??"
Read also: 'You're not dumb, you're insulting!' Sparks fly on Fox News set over Trump 'lies'
He questioned why the press is hanging on Biden's every word, when Trump's own questionable speech earned crickets from the media.
"Why are the rules so different for these two men? Both should be held accountable for their deeds and words. But they aren’t. Trump gets pass after pass," writes Rather.
He later reminds readers what, in his eyes, truly matters this election cycle: Democrats have rallied around a "decent man who has devoted his life to the service of the country.
Republicans, on the other hand, "hitched their wagon to a cult leader."
"They are willing to do just about anything to win back the White House: lie; obliterate the rules; blindly back a convicted felon, a cheater, a sexual assaulter, a Project 2025 promoter, a dictator on day one, and an insurrectionist. Maybe they should change their MAGA caps to say 'The ends justify the means," said Rather.
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