10-16-24 Afternoon Rush - Bachelorette Contestant Admits To 'Trans Hoax' As Social Experiment & Militia Group Confronts Disaster Relief Volunteers!

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Welcome to the Rush Hour. Your daily dose of pop culture for your Rush Hour ride. Buckle up and enjoy the drive with your host, stand up comedian, Dave Neal. Good afternoon, everybody. It's hump day, Wednesday, October 16th. 2024. And I've got all of your entertainment and pop culture news in one place. And it is a wild one today on today's afternoon rush, former bachelorette contestant admits to transition hoax and a bizarre interview.

I'll break all of that down for you. Plus Patrick Mahomes says his daughter bakes with Taylor Swift. And that sounds magical to me. I'd love to eat a Taylor Swift cookie. Oh boy, I bet it's good. The Jonas Brothers run off stage after a laser pointer targets them during a concert, and a militia group encounters FEMA workers during hurricane cleanup.

I wish these stories weren't true. What a world. Plus, we've got a preview of tonight's episode of The Golden Bachelorette. All those stories and more coming up next on The Rush. Well, let's start with a little groove. This is the songwriter for Rihanna's song SOS explaining the lyrics. Have a listen. I wrote it.

I had no idea what I was doing. The whole second verse of that song is 80 song titles strung together as sentences, because I thought it would be super clever. Take on me. You know inside you feel it right Take me on I could just die up in your arms tonight I melt with you You got me head over heels But boy you keep me hanging on the way you make me feel They're all number one songs from the 80s That's incredible, I had no idea about that No one does No one does.

There it is. Well, you learn a little bit. Could AI do that? I don't think so. Well, maybe who knows. All right. Nick Jonas runs off stage. Speaking of a lyricist, you know, everyone loves a good Nick Jonas song. I couldn't name one. I couldn't name one Nick Jonas, not my demographic. Well, he runs off stage after being targeted by laser pointer during Jonas brothers concert.

They had a concert in Prague and it was halted on Tuesday after Nick Jonas was targeted. He ran off stage footage of the incident incident emerged on social. Media where Nick can be seen dashing off stage, mid concert while making a timeout sign with his hands a rep for the O2 arena In Prague where the concert was held, confirmed to variety, the show was halted.

We can confirm that Jonas Brothers performance had to be interrupted for several minutes due to the use of a prohibited laser pointer. So my guess is they thought it was like a sniper rifle or something like that. I don't know. It sounds pretty wild, but I guess if a laser point is heading in your direction, the safest thing to do is.

Get off stage. Well, Sidney Sweeney is going to be in a new movie. She's the heartthrob dojor. We love Sidney Sweeney, uh, but she is unrecognizable on set. She seems to be getting a feeling of euphoria from working out. She's showing off her muscles and new photos from the Christie Martin biopic. Yeah.

She's kind of got like a little bit of a perm thing happening. She's getting jacked out there. I'm all about it. Um, She shared these photos about her transformation and paparazzi took photos of her and didn't even know who she was. Uh, she was wearing sweatpants and a red tank top. I love it. I love, I love when actors can, especially pretty actors.

I love when they can just dumb it down a little bit. She's going to be playing a boxer. She told deadline. She was stoked to take on the new challenge saying she grappled in kickbox for about a decade. She looked forward to getting back in the ring and training once again. I didn't know she was a grappler, but, uh, we're happy for her.

Well. Uh, from one violent sport boxing to another football. We, uh, shared that New York Jets coach who was just fired. Robert Sela was making 800 an hour, 20, 000 a day for the next two years. What would you do with 20, 000 a day? For the next two years. That's a good question. I don't know. Yeah. I'll tell you what he's doing.

He's going to Whole Foods. I tell you what, he's not going to Trader Joe's with that kind of money. You're going to need it to shop at Whole Foods. Here is, I guess, TMZ catching him outside of Whole Foods and discussing his newfound free time. Hey coach, how you doing? How are you feeling after everything this week?

Well, we saw coach Belichick and the Mannings kind of give some support for you yesterday. How does that feel? Do you feel like your Lebanese flag had anything to do with your, what happened? Oh, he's silent. Can we see you on a, on a sideline soon? All right. I like that. He said, God willing. So you can tell when these TMZ paparazzi videos are planned versus when they're not, when they're planned, the person's, you know, pulls over, sits on a stoop, talks to them for a while when they're not.

It's this case where he's just going to his car. Look, it's gotta suck. Like he didn't. plan, you know, as a football coach or football player, you're essentially busy from like July to January if things go well. And I'm sure he did not have it in his playbook as it were, that he would be unemployed come October.

I say, just take the money. Get, you know, some valuable family time, go on a nice Whole Foods run. And by the way, is there anything better than going to the rest, going to the store when you have free time? I mean, I hate to say this because I understand the pandemic was a very tough time for a lot of people out there, but it was a time when my wife and I really bonded over kind of slowing down our rat race.

And maybe it was a good reminder to us that there's no, like, what's the point in working 24 seven, obviously, like we live in a world where pay is down and expenses are up and a lot of people just have these crazy work schedules, but the pandemic literally forced us to go home from work. Buy a sack of potatoes and make some loaded potatoes while we watch Survivor.

And, you know, we just needed that so much in our life. We started going on afternoon walks together during the pandemic, and we do that today. And I don't know if there's a better thing for couples to do out there than to find a Time every day to go on a walk together. It gets the body and the brain moving.

It gets the heart rate going and, you know, working out to get a couple of that workout together, look great in bed together and stay together. Uh, well, I'm not saying I look good in bed, but that's a different story. Hey, when you have a baby, you eat every carb you can find. Uh, going carb free is the single life.

Once you got dad bod, you got biscuits in the belly. Well, speaking of biscuits in the belly, Patrick Mahomes was on a podcast and says Taylor Swift's baking is as good as her music. Uh, so not only does she shake it off, she shakes and bakes. I have to ask you, has Taylor ever baked something for you and what did she make you?

Um, I don't, she's never like baked anything specifically for me, um, but, uh, She's, uh, she's made different, uh, treats that have been around my house, like muffins and, and, and donuts and stuff like that. Her, uh, Sterling's a big baker as well, so they make some stuff together sometimes, and I'm not gonna say I don't eat them.

So, uh, she's, she's as good as everybody's talked about. She's, she's great as it comes, uh, as far as it comes to baking. Let me tell you something. You know who doesn't bake? My wife, Tasha. She is not a baker. She'll, I'm the baker in the household. She'll eat it. She is, she is an eater, not a baker. And by the way, can you believe this?

I totally missed out on shouting out my wife yesterday. It was her second wedding anniversary. You know, I'm not, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to be honest with you guys. There's this trope that the man always forgets the anniversary. Yesterday we were preparing for our flight to Boston. We had to drive to Boston and fly to Nashville and we had to get all of our stuff together.

You know, we have a baby for the first time. So we're packing the baby, you know, the, this, the, that all the things that go along with it, making sure the breastfeeding time lines up with, you know, all of that stuff, right? Uh, you change his diaper just so he can, you know, shard himself in the TSA line. It happens every time it's a tale as old as time.

But the point is. The point is, is that my sister texted me and says, happy wedding anniversary. And she texted it to me and she's, and she sent it to Tasha as well. She sent it in a group chat. Now, if she just sent it to me, I would have used that as a hint to then tell Tasha happy, happy anniversary. But because we were both in it, I couldn't pretend that I knew all along.

I said, Tasha, look at your, look at your DMs. And she, we laughed. Look, we just, we. We are, we are on such a day to day basis on life right now that, uh, yeah, we forgot. So we'll make plans. We'll be okay folks. But, um, I don't know. I'm sure, I'm sure families of a young baby can relate that nothing really matters in your life.

You just become so consumed in your baby. And again, we will, we, we of course try to do things without the baby, but, um, that, that, that very rarely happens. Like the baby is, you know, he's a five month old. He's in every plan we make, uh, because, uh, you know, we're, we're not at the stage where we just. Leave him at home with the babysitter.

That's not happening yet, folks. Uh, one of these days, uh, one of these days. All right. Well, we have a lot to get to. I'm going to cover the bachelorette trans hoax. Boy, geez, you wish you didn't have to cover this story. I'll have that story for you after a quick word from our sponsor. Well, as promised, here it is.

We've got the Bachelorette contestant, Josh Sider, who said he was a woman for five or six months, and now he says it was all just a social experiment, which we call trolling. Now, as far as it being an actual experiment, um, it is, it is a real just, um, cry for attention, if you ask me. Here's what he had to say.

You want to know what's going on. Well I gotta be honest, for the last five months I've been conducting a social experiment online to expose how gullible and how delusional the left is.

Now to say the left is delusional, again, we spoke to people about this. You know, the idea that if someone comes out as trans, what are you supposed to do, ask them for proof right away? No, you just accept people for who they are. Not everyone is like a megalomaniac on Instagram doing things for likes. Now, we know that he faked his death.

He said, no, it wasn't fake. And you know, it was very bizarre. His family, you couldn't get in touch with him for a while. He faked his death and then he was no longer dead. He goes to a mental health place that clearly the guy's off his rocker in other ways. But to say that this was some grand experiment is just laughable.

We love it, Josh. And now I'm so happy that you came on this program and you're so gracious to fly all the way here from Chicago to come speak with us and talk about how insane the world is that. You, putting on a woman face, I guess, is that the best way to describe it? Yeah, woman face. You were accepted by some, you were demonized by most, and now you're saying this was all a ruse, this was a social experiment, and I know you studied sociology, didn't you major in sociology?

I did. Wow, he majored in sociology, guys. I guess it's okay. Look, he wasn't demonized by most. The only people that demonized him knew he was faking it. You know, no one demonized him for being trans. They demonized him because they knew he was exploiting a marginalized community. People on the comment section are saying, get this man into a mental hospital.

Oh, this is terrible. He's causing so much hate and making fun of a community. He needs some help. Uh, and look, he'll, he'll be applauded by some that use him as a pawn and some, you know, faux culture war that exists out there. Uh, you know, we're, we're covering this in today's Patreon, patreon. com slash Dave Neal, and I was talking to my community and someone said, listen, if you believe someone, when they say they're trans.

And then later on they lie, you can expose them as a liar. If you don't believe someone is trans, you could possibly. Uh, be hurting them in a way, because, you know, you know, it's like, it's like such a delicate place for somebody who's trying to find their identity. Right? So I have no problem calling people by their pronouns, believing people for who they are, because most people aren't exploiting an issue of identity like this of gender identity.

So again, it's such a non story to me when he transitioned, other than no one believed him. What you did is arguably. One of the greatest social experiments of our modern internet age, in my opinion. You want to know, so he says it's the greatest social experiment, which again, like I covered in my video today on YouTube, the experiment, as far as I can tell, didn't involve any taking of any, uh, statistical information.

Like, what was he trying to show that That that the left is easily duped and then the people that didn't believe him, he's now calling them haters. It was a lose lose. If you ask me for everyone involved, but let's just remember if anyone is struggling with their identity, be you. You don't have to fit into any boxes.

Just be you. And the people that believe in you and the people that respect you won't care who you are. I remember when my, one of my best friends from college came out to me as gay. He was worried that I was going to disown him as a friend. And I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah, my, my friendship with you has nothing to do with Who you like or who you're into and you'll, you'll see this.

I mean, Will Ferrell has this new documentary that came out with his friend who came out as trans in his sixties. Do you think someone in their sixties just comes out as trans? Because they're part of a social experiment. No, it's it's when you know, the dust settles on people's lives and they realize Maybe they've been hiding their true identity.

Like enough is enough. And people come to that point and trans people have existed since people have existed on a spectrum of hyper masculine to hyper feminine to everything in between. It's all a spectrum. How, uh, you know, how we relate to what norms we fit into is up to us. And I think it's up to us as a society to be welcoming of people and not let people like Josh Siter, um, get in the way of our good nature.

You know, all right. So anyway, here's a very interesting story coming out of Carter County, an armed group confronted FEMA workers, and they were open carrying with weapons, which I think they're allowed to and surrounded the FEMA workers. Um, this all took place while they were, they actually weren't even FEMA workers.

They were disaster relief volunteers in Northeast Tennessee. So this isn't too far from me. Let's have a listen to this bizarre story. The elk mills pokey area of Carter County is now a much longer drive from the sheriff's department in Elizabethan. So when a 911 call comes in, like it did Saturday, it was a good thing the situation was diffused before it got worse.

Tracy Elder with the International Alliance of Community Chaplains, who's running the donation center in the area, found herself between FEMA workers and a group of armed citizens criticizing the work of the government agency. They were armed. They were, they were all open carry. Um, they had surrounded them and it was, there was a lady that was yelling at them and threatening them.

Elder says a trooper was nearby and she was able to explain to the group that her volunteer organization is not fema. It's a disaster relief charity. I don't care what, whatever their beef is with the government or FEMA. That's not my, that's not my job. My job on this ground is to take care of the folks here.

Carter County Sheriff Mike Fraley says the group is believed to be from North Carolina, where similar incidents have happened because of misinformation about FEMA. Those FEMA workers, they're here to help, and if you don't want FEMA, Famous help then, you know, politely tell them. So, but they, they are human beings just like we are.

Fraley says if that group comes back, there will be consequences. And in order to deter similar behavior, he's setting up a new command post where deputies will work and sleep. And we're going to assign two officers, uh, up here, 24 hours a day. And they're going to basically work the life of a firefighter.

Unbelievable. I mean, can you imagine this folks? Listen, these armed, uh, vigilante militia groups, like they think they're protecting their country. They know there might be racist undertones and other undertones, but they're just operating on such a limited information that it's so, you know, Scary to think how easily it is to activate people to do the wrong thing here.

What a wild story. We'll have updates as this progresses. Cause you know, the elections in three weeks and God forbid poll workers get shot up, you know, all, I mean, We're going to need a national guard out there just to conduct a democratic election. Well, Mint Mobile is our sponsor of the week. Can you believe this?

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So yeah, whether you're, um, FEMA or a group trying to work for the cleanup. Let's be a part of society that brings people together. Let's be a part of a society that lifts up the, um, you know, the sort of, uh, the, the people that are struggling and helps those in need. I think we can do that. And one way we inspire.

Our community in our country to come together is to share stories that we can all relate to stories of love and loss. And usually this is what's so sad about the issues going on out there, you know, nine 11 happened. Everyone came together Uh when when when it's an us versus them it rallies people to come together, but now With all the misinformation that frankly could be coming in part by foreign sources.

You just don't know what to believe anymore. And it, and it makes us live in a world that is questioning our reality. One thing that is a highlight in our world is a show like the golden bachelor and golden bachelorette, uh, where everyone can root for love for people. Like we've all had parents. We've all had people that.

Uh, you know, they're approaching the last act in life and they want to find happiness and we find that Pursuit in golden bachelorette a new episode is tonight. It's getting rave reviews. Here's a quick clip of what to expect tonight We're at a bowling alley today, and it's my last ever group date. How are you?

Thank you We have Bowling shirts. We have beer. We have food. By the way, what's better than bowling beer food. And it's always the best kind of food, right? Just that fried greasiness. Why do bowling alleys have greasy food when you got to touch the bowling ball? You know, they need, uh, they need a little sink right next to the bowling ball.

So you can wash up between chicken wings. Anyhow, the trailer is very visual based, so I'm not going to share it with you, but the next episode is tonight and we'll have a recap for you guys tomorrow. Well, I wanted to. share some thoughts on what went down on, on the, uh, dancing with the stars. We have Jen Tran discussing after her dance, how her partner, Sasha Farber educated her, and, uh, she shared with him a little swifty lingo.

We'll get to that story next. All right. Bachelor at Jen had a great dance on dancing with the stars. Here she is on good morning America, discussing that with her partner, Sasha. Well, I've learned that I, I feel like I'm in, if I was in, in eras, I would be era. An era, babe. I would be in the lovers era. Lover.

Era Lover. That's the album name, honey. That's what I meant. That's, see we still got some work to do. And back to the classroom bracelets, bracelet. What do we do with the bracelets? We switch them for friendship. So when you see someone, you change them. Oh, good. Wow. So there it is. Jen training her partner on all what it means to be a Taylor Swift fan.

And we've got actually another clip here to share of, uh, uh, the lady who played Topanga on Boy Meets World. One of my first crushes, Danielle Fishel. She talks about her breast cancer journey. My doctor told me, you're going to be okay. I just want you to know, I'm so thankful that it's stage 0, but I do want you to know there is no easy cancer.

And I didn't really quite understood what she meant, but now having, you know, just been on this journey for a couple of months, I get it now. The 43 year old mother of two diagnosed with DCIS, ductal carcinoma in situ. Doctors label it stage 0 breast cancer. Having to break the news to my husband was really hard.

Both of his parents passed from cancer. I waited until the kids went to bed and he actually brought it up. He said, Still no results yet, huh? And I said, No, I did get the results back and I do have cancer. And I, I mean, truly just saw the blood drain from his face. For the last three months, Fischl undergoing two surgeries, including a lumpectomy, and weighing her options about treatment.

Hey, and this is what, uh, you know, you want celebrities to be doing with their platform, just educating others, like, hey, this happens, you know, I'm sure Danielle Fischl doesn't feel, you know, Like she's even at the age where, you know, we, you know, it kind of creeps up on you as the point. And, uh, you know, you got to get your mammograms and, uh, don't take it from me, folks.

I think everyone's got a story in their family, uh, that is like, you know, if you catch these things early, uh, they can be most likely manageable. So. Uh, interesting stuff. Let's just finish it off today with the Menendez brothers story, which is really coming back into the world of true crime as family members push for the Los Angeles district attorney to recommend resentencing.

Listen, I mean, you've got some members of the brothers family, um, Including, uh, their, their mother's sister, who's, who've always stood by them. Uh, look, I mean, at this point, I mean, we've, we've covered, uh, large murder trials in, in the past. But, I mean, what is it, I mean, what do you make of, of, of that, that consistency, specifically in this, in this case?

Well, two of the cousins testified in the first trial. They They testified that Jose was abusive, that they had seen evidence of the abuse, and that the brothers had confided in them. Again, that was excluded in the second trial, but ever since that guilty verdict, many of the family members have felt haunted by the fact that they were not heard.

Now look, I mean look, murder's murder, but obviously, is it premeditated? Is it a reaction to abuse? I don't know how it all works, but if there was information that was withheld, that would, you know I guess, uh, I don't want to say justify what they did, but maybe explain it in a different way. I think that'd be interesting to share.

Uh, in other news and our final story of the day, a judge in the Michael Jordan's dad's murder case asked for parole board to release convicted killer. Michael Jordan's dad was murdered. He, his father was slain. James Jordan. Any, uh, I guess a judge. Uh, has, he's retired and he's, uh, his name is Gregory Weeks.

He oversaw the 96 murder trial, petitioned the North Carolina State Parole Board, calling on the commission to release Daniel Green, the man who was found guilty of killing Michael Jordan's dad in the mid nineties. During a botched robbery. Now, the conspiracy around this is that, and I don't believe it. I don't have any information into it, was that Michael Jordan's dad was killed because Michael Jordan was like in a big gambling debt, which I don't know.

That sounds ridiculous, but botched robbery is also ridiculous. Uh, judge week says a forensic blood expert failed to disclose key findings during the trial evidence that could have. Cast doubt as to whether green was guilty of the horrific crime. I hate that we live in a world where forensic information is coming out.

That's actually exonerating people. I mean, it's good that it is, but it just goes to show how many people existed out there and have been wrongfully convicted. I know I watched a documentary. When I was in my, in high school, that was a guy wrongfully convicted of crimes. And he was on the death, you know, he's received a death penalty and he was able to finally exonerate himself, but how many people don't, and then you just forget about it.

We had a story that happened last week where a guy was, uh, you know, killed, um, and, uh, and, and there were still concern as to the evidence might not have been right or accurate. It's just bizarre out there. It's really bizarre. Well, look. I know it's a weird one to end on, but we're out of time for the day.

Uh, lots, lots of content to keep on talking about. So many tabs are left open here that I didn't get to. So we'll be back in the morning. We'll see you then. I hope everyone had a safe drive home, be a Taylor Swift and go bake some cookies. You can send some my way. I'll tell you, no, don't, don't send me baked cookies.

Uh, although I won't stop you if you hand me one, but, uh, you know, I left him maybe, uh, my wife will be suspect, but hey, sugar, sugar, right? All right. We'll talk to you later. I'll see you in the morning. I'm Dave Neal. This is. The Rush Hour is a twice daily pop culture and entertainment news podcast hosted by stand up comedian Dave Neal.

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