Podcaster Tim Pool filed a defamation lawsuit against Vice President Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign Thursday. Pool says he has faced an increase in death threats and that suspicious people have been monitoring his place of business, two developments he finds alarming after two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump. “It’s putting a target on my back for things I don’t believe and things I actually argue against,” Pool told The Daily Signal in an interview Friday. Pool’s lawsuit focuses on one specific post on the social media platform X from Harris’ campaign, on Aug. 31. “Trump operatives say their Project 2025 plan is to give Trump total, unchecked legal power so they can jail and execute those who don’t support Trump if he wins (They have since scrubbed this video from YouTube),” the campaign posted. Trump operatives say their Project 2025 plan is to give Trump total, unchecked legal power so they can jail and execute those who don’t support Trump if he wins(They have since scrubbed this video from YouTube) pic.twitter.com/z6VVtthKr4— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 31, 2024 The Harris campaign included a video clip from May 31, in which Pool calls for putting Democrats in jail if they get convicted of crimes. Elsewhere in the video, Pool insists that any jailed Democrats should face charges through the legal process, with their civil rights honored. Pool’s Response to the Post Pool claims the X post is egregiously false on multiple levels. First, he calls it “absolutely incorrect” to say he is a “Trump operative.” Second, he has no affiliation with Project 2025 or the organization behind it, The Heritage Foundation. Third, “It stated that I wanted Trump to have extra-judicial authority to jail and execute the people who refuse to support him, which is, I believe, the most shockingly extreme thing you could accuse someone of advocating for or believing.” “I didn’t specifically say ‘political opponents,’ it said ‘those who don’t support him,’ as if to imply your run-of-the-mill voter who says, ‘I don’t support Trump,’ may face extrajudicial execution by some kind of psychotic dictatorial regime,” the podcaster explained. “It’s an absurdity, it’s insane.” He framed the claim, which he said is false, this way: “One of the top presidential campaigns claims that a top global podcast, prominent political show is calling for run-of-the-mill voters who don’t support Trump to be executed should he win.” Pool has long opposed the death penalty, and he went on to condemn the death penalty in that May 31 video. As for the claim that he “scrubbed” the video from YouTube, Pool says he only removed the video because YouTube flagged it, but that the entire video remains up on Rumble and other platforms. Increase in Threats Pool said the Harris campaign’s post led to an increase in threats against him and his company. “Within a few days of this post going up, a strange man started lurking around one of my properties, our old studio location where we no longer operate out of,” he recalled. Employees told him that “a strange individual wearing a dress was trespassing on the property and filming the building.” “This individual apparently got into a fight, injuring one of our employees,” he added. “I have absolutely seen an uptick in” social media messages, “some insinuating to the effect of wanting me to die or intending to have me die.” Pool said he receives “death threats… on a regular basis.” He said he and his company were swatted 13 times in 2022, that malignant actors deceived police into sending an emergency response team to his offices. Police once searched his office while he was live on air. Pool said he received bomb threats with “bomb machines” and credible threats, he said. “But after this tweet goes out, I certainly noticed a dramatic increase in messages,” he said. Threats used to come “once or twice a month,” but Pool said now the number is “in the hundreds.” Defamation Hurdles James R. Lawrence III, a partner at Envisage Law and former chief counsel at the Food and Drug Administration at the end of the Trump administration, is representing Pool in the defamation lawsuit. In order for Pool’s lawsuit to succeed under the Supreme Court’s precedents starting with New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), Pool has to prove that the Harris campaign spread a falsehood against him with “actual malice,” or a “reckless disregard for the truth.” Lawrence admitted that the standard represents a high bar, but he cited the case of D.A. King v. Southern Poverty Law Center—a defamation case that cleared a key legal hurdle last year—as evidence of a similar case. King pleaded that the Southern Poverty Law Center defamed his organization, the Dustin Inman Society, by calling it an “anti-immigrant hate group,” years after the SPLC had explicitly stated that it was not a “hate group.” This key detail bolstered King’s case and made it easier for him to claim that the SPLC knew it was false to call his organization a “hate group.” Similarly, Pool and Lawrence argued that the Harris campaign must have done research on Pool’s show, and that a modicum of research would have revealed Pool’s opposition to the death penalty and his support for civil liberties. “They state that it had since been scrubbed by YouTube, which would indicate they did some looking into what the show actually was,” Pool said. As for the clip the campaign posted, it “had been out in the internet or on the internet being discussed for two months,” Lawrence noted. Outlets such as Mediaite had covered the interview, and that coverage “does not attribute these atrocious views to Tim in particular… but focuses on what others on the broadcast were saying.” None of the reports from the time claim that Pool “advocated for… Donald Trump to be made dictator, for the Constitution to be suspended, and for President Trump in a second Trump administration to imprison and then execute his political enemies,” the lawyer noted. “You don’t see any of that in the reporting.” Lawrence also noted that the tweet has been viewed by 12 million people on X, and that it has made it more difficult for Pool to reach out to liberals and moderates with whom he would like to engage ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. Complaint – Pool v. Harris Filed – colorizedDownload The post ‘PUTTING A TARGET ON MY BACK’: Tim Pool Explains Why He’s Suing the Kamala Harris Campaign for Defamation appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Are Conservative and Liberal Brains Different? Maybe Just a Little

Roughly one in 10 American workers are self-employed, and roughly one in 3 perform some type of independent work, whether that is full-time or part-time employment or a side hustle alongside a traditional job. These figures may be even higher in Georgia. A 2022 self-employment report highlighted Atlanta and Gainesville, Georgia, as having some of the highest percentages of self-employed workers of any large and small cities, respectively. Moreover, the Associated Builders and Contractors ranked Georgia the No. 1 state for construction in 2023, and construction has one of the highest — and rising — percentages of independent contractors. America already has too few people working. If the employment rate were the same as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.9 million more people would be working today. Workers of all types want to know which policymakers offer a better platform for workers’ prosperity. While both parties and virtually all politicians assert pro-worker stances, their approaches to “helping” workers look nothing alike. In particular, progressives say they want to help all workers, but in reality, their policies pick winners and losers instead. Take the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to diminish self-employment and force virtually all workers into traditional 9-to-5 jobs, which include reporting to a boss and being subject to thousands of pages of labor and employment laws. In particular, a new Biden-Harris regulation would make it illegal for companies to do business with many independent contractors, freelancers, and gig workers. This regulation mirrors a law in Harris’ home state of California, AB 5, which has proven deeply unpopular. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) also supports moving more people out of independent work and into big corporations. He signed into law severe punitive penalties for employers who — whether intentionally or by mistake — misclassify employees. The law also imposes excessive restrictions, including a 14-factor test, on independent contractors in the construction industry. The full consequences of these laws are still unfolding, but they are likely to be severe. In 2023, about 64 million Americans engaged in independent work, whether full-time, part-time, as gig workers, or through side hustles. These independent workers aren’t limited to just accountants or Uber drivers — they include IT consultants, makeup artists, babysitters, musicians, interpreters, fitness instructors, copy editors, and truck drivers, to name a few. Independent workers say it provides better work-life balance, the same or higher income, and flexibility that leads to less stress and better health. In fact, nearly half of independent workers say that no amount of money would cause them to go back to traditional employment. Many people — especially parents, caregivers, and individuals with health conditions — want or need flexible jobs, and this rule will take them away. Half of the people who perform independent work say that they are unable to work for a traditional employer because of their personal circumstances. AB 5 in California has wreaked havoc on more than 600 professions, with hundreds of workers sharing how they’ve been harmed. The law is so unpopular that lawmakers have granted more than 100 exemptions and voters passed a referendum exempting ridesharing companies from the statute. The law continues to restrict employment and incomes in the state. Researchers found that AB 5 slashed self-employment by 10.5% in California. Instead of achieving lawmakers' intended goal of pushing more workers into formal jobs, the law led to a 4.4% decline in total employment. Beyond hurting workers who want and need flexibility, restrictions on independent contractors also harm small businesses. In a 2021 poll, 62% of small- and medium-sized businesses said their company’s success depended on independent contractors or that running a profitable business would be much harder without them. Small businesses rely on independent contractors to help them grow and compete with larger companies. On average, small businesses with four or fewer employees use 6.7 contractors. America already has too few people working. If the employment rate were the same as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.9 million more people would be working today. The last thing Americans need is another regulation that makes it harder to make a living and to afford the rising cost of living. Although the Biden-Harris regulation has only been in effect since March, and it’s too early to fully study its effects, the employment-to-population ratio dropped by 0.3 percentage points between March and July. This decline represents a loss of 700,000 workers. If the next administration continues to push similar policies, Georgians will likely be among the Americans who suffer the most.

Archaeologists digging at the remains of an ancient Gaulish village in the French town of Dieppe came across a note left by an archaeologist who'd worked at the same site in 1825. The post 200-Year-Old Message In A Bottle From An Archaeologist Found At The Remains Of An Historic Village In Northern France appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images Cards Against Humanity sued SpaceX for allegedly trespassing on and damaging its property in Texas. The company behind the card game is asking for $15 million in damages, according to its complaint against SpaceX, filed in Texas state court on Thursday, but has also said it will “accept Twitter.com in compensation.” SpaceX has been using the “pristine vacant property” in Cameron County, Texas, without permission for around six months, the suit claims. Cards Against Humanity bought the plot in 2017 as part of a stunt to “make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for [former President Donald] Trump to build his wall.” SpaceX has since acquired “many of the vacant lots” on the road surrounding Cards Against Humanity’s property,... Continue reading…

What if you could see 30 years into your heart health future with a simple blood test? According to Chauncey Crandall, MD, a world-renowned cardiologist and director of preventive medicine at the Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic in Florida, a new study finds that this is...