Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro, considered one of the favorites for the 2028 Democrat presidential nomination, took the side of a court that ruled against Democratic officials who defied state law — but condemned such actions by officials after the court’s ruling. On Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that counties must reject undated and misdated ballots after Democrat election officials openly defied the order last week. The officials’ actions came as the recount of the race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick began. Casey would not concede after multiple outlets, including the Associated Press and Decision Desk HQ, called the race for McCormick. Last week, Democrats in the Bucks County Office of Commissioners rejected their Republican colleague’s motion to stop “noncompliant” ballots from being counted. The Democrats’ move came after the commonwealth’s Supreme Court granted the GOP’s request to block the counting of mail ballots without dates. Last Thursday, Gene DiGirolamo, the sole Republican on the three-person panel, introduced a motion to reject the attempt to count what the GOP called “noncompliant” ballots. In response, Democrat Diane Marseglia, the chair of the commission, dismissed the proposal out of hand. “Not going to second that, mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter in this country and people violate laws any time they want,” she said. “So for me, if I violate this law it’s because I want the court to pay attention to it.” “It is critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court,” Justice David Wecht wrote in a 4-3 decision, according to The Hill. Casey’s campaign intervened to oppose the effort to stop undated mail ballots from being counted. Shapiro issued no statement about the Democrat officials’ actions until the court ruled against his party. He blamed a “lack of clarity” due to “certain legislative actors refusing to act on critical election reforms” for the issue having to be resolved by the courts. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ Only after the court’s decision did Shapiro write, “As we move forward, I want to be clear: any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process. The rule of law matters in this Commonwealth, and as I have always said, it is critical for counties and officials in both parties to respect it with both their rhetoric and their actions.” .@GovernorShapiro weighs in: pic.twitter.com/ctApXo71xN — Carter Walker (@ByCarterWalker) November 18, 2024 Zach Jewell contributed to this article.  Related: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Against Dems Who Defied Law, Won’t Allow Undated Ballots Related: ‘People Violate Laws Any Time They Want’: Dem Election Officials State Willingness To Defy Law Ahead Of Recount

Picking out the perfect band to play at your wedding can be tough, but one couple struck gold with this sassy trombone player. In fact, the musician became the center of attention at the reception when he busted out some of his killer dance moves! Bride Carlie Dreux Lenskold wasn’t even mad — she thought this guy was hilarious! She shared the funniest video of his antics on social media. When the musician first let loose on stage, not that many people seemed to notice. However, by the time he was sitting on the ground and operating the trombone with his feet, wedding guests were cracking up! Later, the performer moved to the dance floor and started getting even more creative with his dance moves. At one point, he pretended to ride his trombone like a horse. Later, he played his instrument while doing the splits! @carliedreux nothing but love for him ♬ Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) – ABBA Judging by the wedding guests’ reactions, this trombone player was a big hit! Carlie definitely appreciated that he took her reception to the next level with his fun personality. “Imagine hiring a band for your wedding and getting this absolute DIVA,” wrote the bride in her video. This clip has received around five million views on social media. Commenters loved how this trombone player turned a beautiful wedding reception into an unforgettable one! “He didn’t come to play, he came to SLAY,” one user said. Another joked, “How do I hire them for like… a Tuesday night when I’m feeling low?” Screengrab from TikTok Luckily for this person, someone else in the comments section dropped the musician’s name: Jonathan Arons. However, it sounds like this Grammy-winning artist is probably way too busy to drop by on a weeknight! According to his website, this trombone player has performed with some of music’s biggest names, including Aretha Franklin, Bon Jovi, and Stevie Wonder! He also appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Oh, and did we mention he was also on America’s Got Talent? Despite his tight schedule, Jonathan Arons still found the time to give a shout-out to Carlie on social media. He thanked her for sharing the viral video of him performing at her wedding. Isn’t that sweet? You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Trombone Player Steals The Spotlight At Wedding Reception With Hilarious Moves appeared first on InspireMore.

Oh, how sweet it is

A post shared on social media purports that the general election vote count shows that more people voted against President-elect Donald Trump than for him.   View on Threads   Verdict: False There is no evidence for the claim. Fact Check: Pennsylvania Senate candidate Republican Dave McCormick has filed an appeal to the Bucks County Board of […]

A post shared on social media purports that President-elect Donald Trump posted that he was told he did not win the election. Verdict: False The claim stems from satire. Fact Check: Trump has announced Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary. NPR reports that this announcement comes after Trump promised […]

'I'm all for it'

A post shared on Threads claims President Joe Biden purportedly agreed to a recount of the 2024 presidential election.   View on Threads   Verdict: False The claim is not referenced on the White House’s website or verified social media accounts, and Biden also has not commented on the claim. There is no other evidence […]

'Fear among immigrant communities'

Books Science Fiction Five Books About the Dangers of Messing With Science Stories about experiments gone wrong (or gone horribly right). By Lorna Wallace | Published on November 19, 2024 Photo by Ryan Zazueta [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Ryan Zazueta [via Unsplash] Many scientific advancements have vastly improved the quality of human life, but not every breakthrough has been a boon. We need look no further than the invention of nuclear weapons for proof of that. Plenty of authors have turned their minds to imagining the horrors that can result from tinkering with science, from the murderous (but misunderstood!) monster brought to life in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to the genetically engineered dinosaur mayhem of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park (1990). Along the same lines as those sci-fi classics, here are five books that explore the dire consequences of science gone wrong, including cruel human experiments and cutting-edge technologies going haywire. Intercepts (2019) by T.J. Payne Nobody likes it when work follows them home, but it’s a particularly big problem for Joe Gerhard, who works at a secret government facility that conducts inhumane experiments on people. By day, Joe supervises the tests, which involve human subjects being kept in a near-constant state of sensory deprivation—a state which unlocks abilities that can be put to use by the government. By night, Joe tries to be the best dad he can be to his teenage daughter Riley—but that job becomes a lot more difficult when Riley starts seeing a strange ghostly figure. For me, the scariest thing about Intercepts isn’t where the story ends up—although it is suitably bloody and dark, while also being grimly satisfying—but where it starts. Government-organized and funded human experimentation is well-documented throughout history and it’s absolutely terrifying. Even though Intercepts goes in a wild sci-fi direction, the basis of the story is sadly all too grounded in reality. Final Girls (2017) by Mira Grant Mira Grant’s novella Final Girls is about a new experimental therapy that uses virtual reality to run people through horror movie scenarios in an attempt to heal their past trauma (that’d be a hard pass from me!). Reported results have been incredible so far, but journalist Esther Hoffman—whose bread and butter is debunking pseudoscience—is unconvinced. Although Esther is hesitant to try it out for herself, she agrees to undergo a session in order to tear it apart more thoroughly give it a fair shot. The woman behind the technology, Dr. Jennifer Webb, is confident that Esther will change her mind and plans to use the journalist as a selling point to convert other skeptics. The experience of regression therapy via horror movies (although Dr. Webb insists that it’s more complex than that) is supposed to be scary, but, of course, things quickly go off the rails. The short page count and lightning fast pace make the story fly by, but the horrifying VR scenarios still manage to pack a gruesome punch. The Queen (2024) by Nick Cutter Nick Cutter is no stranger to imagining the horrifying possibilities that science can unlock—The Troop (2014), The Deep (2015), and The Breach (2020) all explore this topic—and his latest offering, The Queen, follows suit. The story starts with teenager Margaret trapped in the kitchen of a country club, where people are mutating into grotesque forms in the ballroom. We then cut to one day earlier, with Margaret waking up to a text from her best friend, Charity… which is unexpected, considering Charity has been missing for the past few weeks. Over the course of the day, Margaret follows the breadcrumb trail that Charity texts to her, which gradually reveals why she’s missing. The journey takes Margaret all over town—ending at the country club—and exposes the secrets behind the mysterious Project Athena, an experiment spearheaded by an absurdly rich tech guy called Rudyard Crate, who has an unhealthy obsession with insects. The Queen features wasps and ants in abundance, plus many squirm-inducing descriptions of repulsive mutations. But running alongside all of the body horror, there’s also an emotional story of female teenage friendship in all of its loving—and sometimes messy—glory. Our Hideous Progeny (2023) by C.E. McGill Our Hideous Progeny is linked to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with main character Mary being the great niece of Victor Frankenstein. Mary never met Victor, but she comes across his scientific notes about fashioning a man from various body parts and then bringing him to life. Being a scientist herself—and desperately wanting to prove herself to the largely misogynistic scientific community—she decides to try and supersede her great uncle’s work. The story takes places during the Victorian era, with the setting being split between the smoggy bustle of London and the misty quiet of northern Scotland. Rather than being outright scary, Our Hideous Progeny is wrapped in creepy Gothic atmosphere. Mary’s creation is certainly horrifying to some, but, like our main character, I’m a monster apologist. The creature in both this story and in Frankenstein just needs to be treated with kindness! The various men that Mary deals with are the true monsters of the story, but thankfully she’s buoyed up not only by her passion for science, but also by a budding sapphic romance. Second Variety (1953) by Philip K. Dick Second Variety takes place in a version of America that has been utterly ravaged by radiation bombs dropped by the Russians. Although the Americans immediately retaliated, Russia maintained the upper hand, eventually moving troops onto American soil—or, rather, into bunkers below American soil, because the surface is now a wasteland. But the playing field was leveled when American scientists created razor-filled spherical killing machines called “claws.” Major Hendricks has to venture out of the safety of a bunker when he gets word that the Russians have a matter of extreme importance to discuss. While traveling across the wasteland, he learns that the claws—which are built by automated machines and which have been designed to repair themselves (people really don’t want to go near them!)—have now started making their own terrifying adaptations. The story beats of this novelette likely won’t come as a surprise to anyone well-versed in sci-fi, but that doesn’t make this version of a robot-filled world any less scary. This short list is clearly not intended to be exhaustive—there’s a wealth of classics that fit this theme, from H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), without even getting into the 20th century and more recent works! But I’d love to hear your recommendations for books and stories that explore the horrors of science—please leave any examples not yet mentioned in the comments below![end-mark] The post Five Books About the Dangers of Messing With Science appeared first on Reactor.

The gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair have begun. Trump-haters in newsrooms are sounding the alarm about the anticipated separation of families under “Operation Aurora,” the mass-deportation of illegal aliens that president-elect Donald Trump promises and which 58% of Americans support, according to an Oct. 16 Marquette University survey. “If Trump gets his way, his deportation program threatens to rip families apart,” Nicole Narea warns in a Nov. 8 Vox column. A Denver Post editorial went so far as to compare Trump’s plan to FDR’s effort “to round up foreign-born Japanese Americans during World War II” and called it “a clear nod to the white supremacists backing his campaign.” Here is my free advice to foreign citizens who want both the American dream and family cohesion: Enter legally. My sainted parents wed in 1960. Two years later, they arrived with U.S. visas in their Costa Rican passports. I hatched in Los Angeles in 1963, and my sisters followed in 1965 and 1967. So far, no one has threatened to send us anywhere. My mother’s parents, sister, and younger brother arrived in 1965. They all landed legally. My grandparents—Aguelo and Aguela, as we called them—are gone, but my aunt and uncle are in L.A.—alive, well, and grandparents in their own right. Lesson: To avoid family separation, come to America legally. If you invade—as Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have let 8.4 million illegal immigrants do—you instantly violate 8 U.S. Code § 1325: “Improper entry by alien.” Henceforth, you are a lawbreaker, and America owes you less than nothing. The argument that illegal immigrants “just want better lives” is vacuous, hollow, and infinitely meaningless. Who doesn’t want a better life? I want a better life. So, may I barge into Elon Musk’s mansion and drain his wine cellar? Even with his $303 billion checking account, Musk must long for something that would afford him a better life. Regardless, that grants him no license to breach the French-Monaco frontier and occupy a 345-foot yacht or $79 million, sun-splashed palace. Illegal alien supporters now focus their rage on the incoming border czar. “Tom Homan is skilled at using public safety rhetoric to justify vicious tactics that tear families apart,” Heidi Altman, director of the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement to Fox5. Arash Azizzada, co-director of a group called Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, told Al Jazeera that Homan’s appointment confirms Trump’s dedication to keeping his “most cruel and racist policy promises.” Such hyperbolic twits should dismount their unicorns and fill hard chairs before absorbing this news: Homan received a Presidential Rank Award for serving Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He scored that honor in January 2016—from Barack Obama, one of six Democrat and Republican presidents whom Homan served between 1984 and 2018. (In July 2016, by the way, The Associated Press reported that Obama had deported “more than 2.4 million people, nearly as many as his two predecessors combined.”) That’s right. Obama saluted Homan’s performance as executive associate director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations. According to ICE’s press release trumpeting Homan’s trophy, this distinction—“the nation’s highest civil service award”—is “bestowed to leaders who’ve achieved sustained extraordinary results” for “consistently demonstrating strength, integrity, and commitment to public service.” ICE described Homan’s “extensive accomplishments” as “impressive and wide-reaching in scope.” In fiscal year 2013, Homan deployed a “federal biometric information sharing capability that resulted in the removal of more than 325,000 criminal aliens.” “In FY 2014, ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] removed nearly 316,000 individuals from the United States,” according to ICE. “Nearly 56%, or 177,960 of those removed, were convicted criminal aliens. … The amount of criminal aliens removed from U.S. communities in FY 2014 would fill the Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium to capacity more than two times over.” (Note the liberal use of the proper legal term “aliens” rather than today’s gratingly woke euphemism: “migrants.”) “In the three years that ICE’s Executive Associate Director Homan has been at the helm, ERO has removed more than 920,000 aliens from the United States. In that same time frame, ERO arrested and removed 534,000 criminal aliens. These accomplishments have a direct impact on national security and public safety.” “Homan successfully led expedited efforts to expand family detention capacity from 96 to more than 3,000 beds, an increase of more than 3,000%.” (In short: Tom Homan, thank you for locking up illegal aliens.) “And finally,” ICE concluded, “a record 98% of FY 2015 removals met one or more of the civil immigration enforcement priorities, which constitutes a near perfect execution of the stated mission.” Democrats who foam at the mouth at this news should relax, wipe their frothy chins, and read this: “I think the American people appreciate and believe in immigration. But they can’t have a situation where you just have half a million people pouring over the border without any kind of mechanism to control it.” Thus spoke Barack Obama in 2009. His words were as true then as they are true today. And Tom Homan, Trump’s new border czar, has Obama’s Presidential Rank Award to prove it. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post New Border Czar Tom Homan: Award-Winning Public Servant appeared first on The Daily Signal.