Studios are currently busy turning out reboots of popular franchises. From Godzilla to Men in Black, it looks like nothing is sacred if it can be polished off and remade to make a quick buck. We've scoured various internet archives to find some of the best classic Hollywood movies that are so spectacular they should never be remade. It would almost be Hollywood blasphemy to remake these fan... Source

Humans have always felt like they need to preserve the present for future generations. The earliest suspected time capsule dates all the way back to 1777. It was found in Burgos, Spain, and contained treasures like a wooden statue of Jesus Christ and documents about the politics, culture, and economics of the time. Those findings were relatively boring compared to some of the creepy and... Source

THE CENTER SQUARE—Within a few hours of being sued, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed not to interfere in Tuesday’s election process and a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to ensure it didn’t. On Friday, the DOJ announced its plan “to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states for the Nov. 5 general election,” with the most in eight Texas counties. The monitoring was part of its effort to enforce “federal voting rights laws that protect the rights of all eligible citizens to access the ballot,” it said. The DOJ said it regularly deploys staff to states to monitor “for compliance with federal civil rights laws in elections in communities all across the country.” On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson and Attorney General Ken Paxton said no federal monitors would be permitted to enter any polling places in Texas. Nelson sent a letter to the DOJ stating, “Texas law is clear: Justice Department monitors are not permitted inside a polling place where ballots are being cast or a central counting station where ballots are being counted” and neither are federal inspectors. Paxton’s office also sent members of an Election Day Rapid Response Legal Team to major counties throughout the state to monitor Election Day activity and “address litigation arising from the election, as necessary.” Late Monday, Paxton also sued the DOJ, the attorney general and multiple DOJ officials saying the proposed plan “lists no federal authority for this ‘monitoring’ because there is none. Texas law determines who can monitor voting in Texas.” The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division and argues the DOJ’s proposal violates the Administrative Procedures Act, DOJ wasn’t acting in accordance with federal law and in excess of its statutory authority. It asked the court to restrain federal authorities from monitoring voting in Texas. “The Biden-Harris administration’s lawless intimidation campaign infringes on States’ constitutional authority to run free and fair elections,” Paxton said. “Texas will not be intimidated and I will make every effort to prevent weaponized federal agencies from interfering in our elections.” U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk agreed and issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the DOJ from doing so. He also ordered the defendants to confirm that no “‘observers’ … will be present in Texas (1) polling locations or (2) election tabulation centers in violation of Texas Election Code.” The DOJ and Paxton’s office also reached an agreement, which states that DOJ monitors “will remain outside of polling and central count locations.” It also states that the DOJ “understands that, within 100 feet of those locations, DOJ election monitors are subject to Texas law regarding electioneering and other conduct within 100 feet of polling and central count locations” and the DOJ “commits that consistent with its longstanding practice, it will not interfere with voters attempting to vote.” The agreement also states that “Texas recognizes that voters may speak with DOJ personnel at the referenced locations should they so choose, within the parameters set by the Texas Election Code.” “Texans run Texas elections, and we will not be bullied by the Department of Justice,” Paxton said after the agreement was reached. “The DOJ knows it has no authority to monitor Texas elections and backed down when Texas stood up for the rule of law. No federal agent will be permitted to interfere with Texas’s free and fair elections.” His office is encouraging election administrators and members of the public to immediately report any violations of the agreement to appropriate local election officials and to his office at illegalvoting@oag.texas.gov. The state’s lawsuit against the DOJ remains pending until the election concludes Tuesday night to ensure DOJ compliance, Paxton said. Originally published by The Center Square The post After Being Sued, DOJ Agrees Not To Interfere in Texas Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. As Americans head to the polls today, a flurry of accusations has erupted on social media platform X, with several users alleging that Google’s search results display potential bias in the presentation of voting information. This controversy arises at a critical time as the presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, are neck and neck in the polls. Several prominent figures and ordinary users have posted screenshots showing that searches for “where to vote for Harris” yield a special interactive map pinpointing voting locations, while equivalent searches for “where to vote for Trump” simply redirect users to generic search results, including news headlines from mainstream media outlets. Reclaim The Net was able to reproduce the same results as the complainants. Google says it’s working on a fix. Most voters seeking information on polling locations are likely to search for general terms such as “where to vote” rather than specifying a candidate in their query. But while Google provides a useful service by directing voters to their polling stations, the consistency of this feature across different searches is crucial to maintaining fairness and neutrality. If Google offers a specialized map feature to help voters find polling locations when searching for one candidate, it stands to reason that the same functionality should be available regardless of which candidate’s name is included in the search. David Sacks, a noted investor, tweeted a screenshot showing the Google feature that assists users in finding their voting station when searching for Harris, accompanied by a sarcastic comment suggesting that the feature is not available for Trump supporters. Elon Musk chimed in with his own observation, raising the question to his vast number of followers, “Are others seeing this too?” Adding to the controversy, a tweet from the account DogeDesigner noted that Google has the largest corporate donations to the Democratic Party, implying that this could be influencing the alleged disparity in search result treatment. Emma-Jo Morris from New York added to the outcry by posting a similar comparison, noting the disparity in how Google handles searches for the two presidential candidates. Her post has received significant attention, amassing nearly half a million views, indicating the widespread notice and concern about the issue. The concern among voters is palpable, as they demand transparency and neutrality from tech giants, especially on an election day filled with high stakes. In a response from Google News, Google said it’s working on a fix: “The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches because Harris is also the name of a county in TX. Happens for ‘Vance’ too because it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Google’s Interactive Polling Station Map Ignites Claims of Pro-Harris Bias as Voters Head to the Polls appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Here comes UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming once again – with more demands regarding “misinformation” and “hate speech.” And, censorship – the kind that would be algorithmically recommended, leading to demonetization of content and creators. Yet a UN press release makes a grand statement – that its Communications Department is continuing to work “where public interest media are struggling to operate or are prevented from covering the truth.” Backed up by a number of UN members (Lithuania, Estonia, Vietnam, and El Salvador among them, for their own specific reasons) –  Fleming addressed the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), to seemingly casually throw in “disinformation,” “AI,” and such, together with some of the most difficult issues related to wars and geopolitical hotspots (which is what the UN is supposed to be dealing with in the first place.). But Fleming took the opportunity to work not only her department’s engagement on “climate communications,” the humanitarian issues in the Middle East, Ukraine, etc. into her statements, and instead also highlight the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity, which recommend how member-countries may meet their commitments from the Global Digital Compact. The principles, Fleming noted, “have important recommendations for tech companies.” She complained that there has been “very little self regulation” there, and identified two groups – those who want a “healthier information ecosystem” and those that want it to be “toxic.” Fleming is not only optimistic that the first category is more numerous, but also about “lots of pressure” that’s currently on AI developers. In her words, it’s to “put the guardrails up before it is too late.” Too late for what, though – that’s something the UN press release doesn’t go into. Instead, this reporting about the committee’s meeting looks like it’s designed to at once promote the supposed successes of the UN Communications Departments in these various areas (detailing the number of various website hits, video views, etc.,) – and ask for more money from member states, to sustain the effort. Namely, it mentions that these achievements were made “despite the resource crunch.” Opponents of Fleming’s approach, and that of the UN in general, might be saying – may the crunch continue. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UN’s Latest on “Misinformation” and “Hate” – Will Tech Bow to Pressure? appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. For those in, or knowledgeable of the EU system who at the same time make digital rights, online privacy and security their priority, the work is never done – the European Union’s bureaucracy keeps throwing new challenges their way. A recent scheme – dubbed “EU Going Dark” – is detailed by lawyer, and former German member of the European Parliament Patrick Breyer, who says the EU Commission (EC) has been working on this surveillance, encryption-undermining plan behind closed doors. If the accusations against the scheme are true, as far as the EC is concerned, that’s for good reason – even if one is unacceptable in a democracy. Namely, opponents like Breyer call the measures “tyrannical” in nature, with scope described as “frightening.” The plan is said to be developed by the High-Level Group (HLG) on access to data for effective law enforcement. The reported effort to make sure that the ongoing work on the package of measures remains far from the public eye has been successful – at least up to this point. Breyer notes that those behind the scheme had managed to keep it secret from most citizens, journalists, and politicians – but some documents are available. The key takeaway from the plan – which is in the phase of impact assessment and implementation preparations – is the reintroduction of what Breyer calls indiscriminate mass collection of data pertaining to people’s communications, “without suspicion.” The former MEP sees the plan to introduce this package of surveillance measures as non-transparent, while “rarely questioned.” And yet other than mass-scale data harvesting and retention, it also entails erosion of online encryption, which is necessary for a secure internet – from chats to bank transactions. The plans outlined here mention encrypted messengers – however, once weakened, technically, and a matter of policy – or both – encryption is weakened for all. Should it prove accurate, the extent of the upcoming operation being described as being massive is no exaggeration. Hardware manufacturers would be under obligation to make sure phones, “smart home” devices, cars, etc., are always “monitorable.” One element of this comprehensive surveillance is forcing providers of encrypted messenger apps to allow for interception of content, prevent encryption of both subscriber information and metadata, and hand over to the authorities users’ GPS location for tracking. Service providers and their representatives who refuse to comply would be punished, all the way to imprisonment. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Inside “EU Going Dark” The EU’s Push to End Private Messaging appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

China is Trying to Encourage People to Have More Babies But It's Not Working

Anchovies and Bacon: Harris Bombed in Podcast Interview So Badly It Got Spiked

Americans struggling to pay bills? Record credit card debt? High grocery prices? Higher cost of living? No problem! A Washington Post columnist is idiotically claiming Americans are better off economically than they were four years ago.  Washington Post columnist Heather Long decided to gaslight voters one more time before they head to the polls to decide who will run the White House for the next four years. “As Election Day arrives, the data is clear: Americans are better off economically than they were four years ago,” read Long’s ridiculous opening paragraph for her Nov. 4 item. She must have realized the insanity of her claim because she then resorted to telling voters they were better off whether they knew it or not: “I understand many people aren’t feeling it because of the inflation hangover that has left prices noticeably higher than they were in 2020. But it’s important to step back and assess the full picture.” It’s as if Long is trying her hardest to channel her inner Paul Krugman.  Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni blasted Long’s reality-challenged propaganda in comments to MRC Business. “It’s easy for the elites to approve of the last four years, especially regarding economic policy, because they have not been devastated by the fallout of this administration’s mistakes,” Antoni rebuked. “For the average American, however, it has been four years on the path to impoverishment. Cherry-picked figures and erroneous data provided by the government cannot overcome widespread disapproval on the economy in opinion polling.”  And cherry-pick Long did. She pointed to the out-of-context 4.1 percent unemployment rate; propped up pay increases long-hampered by inflation pressures; fawned over “robust” economic growth being artificially buoyed by an explosion of government debt; falsely claimed that Biden created “16 million” jobs, and praised the volatile stock market generating an alleged “massive increase in wealth for the middle class” as evidence of the supposed stroke of genius that is Bidenomics.  Here's the increase in the federal debt and the increase in GDP - what do you notice? pic.twitter.com/F4oMjnskzq — E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) October 31, 2024 Did Long mention that 76 percent of Americans are currently struggling to pay their bills because of inflation? No. Did she mention that Americans are reeling from record credit card debt? No. Did she mention that at least 1.7 million people are currently missing from the labor force? Did she mention that the average American family has to spend nearly $12,000 more a year just to afford the same standard of living they had in January 2021? Nope. Nada. Zilch. But in Long’s view, “Historians are likely to give the Biden economy a better grade than voters.” She continued with her hot garbage take: “But what’s really important is how Biden and the Federal Reserve have proved endless experts wrong and pulled off the deftest macroeconomic maneuver in decades: a true soft landing. They’ve set up the next president for success. The economy has healed. Inflation is back under control. For the past 17 months, wages have grown faster than inflation, and with each passing month, more people tangibly feel that.” Economist Dan Mitchell pointed MRC Business to an analysis he conducted in September 2024 on Americans’ income situation, just to address one of Long’s distorted data points. Mitchell argued based on Labor Department data that “workers lost a lot of ground in 2021 and 2022. There’s been a bit of progress since then, but the best-case scenario is that workers have merely recovered their losses.” In essence, wrote Mitchell, this “means zero overall economic progress over the past four years.” Citing from a Census Bureau report on U.S. income, Mitchell also noted that “[t]he good news is that median family income rose last year.” However, “The bad news is that families are still worse off than they were before the pandemic.” [Emphasis added.] Ah, but how about that sexy stock market, says Long! “The stock market has gained about 75 percent since Oct. 30, 2020. (A record share of Americans — nearly 60 percent of households — have money in the market],” she wrote with glee. Not so fast. As Heritage Foundation Senior Research Associate Alexander Frei noted in an Oct. 31 column, “Inflation is also making stock markets appear stronger than they really are and cutting into returns for everyone, including those with retirement accounts.” In other words, as prices rise, “even significant returns lose their purchasing power.” Frie argued that now “[m]ore money is required to buy the same goods and services, eroding the real value of one's gains. As everything becomes more expensive, higher earnings or investment returns don't stretch as far, making it harder to keep up with the true cost of living.” But Long was adamant that “looking at the full picture shows that most Americans are better off financially than they were four years ago.” But a Sept. 25 analysis by the Financial Health Network determined that “the majority of Americans are not financially healthy, with expenses outpacing income, little wiggle room to protect against financial shocks, and diminished hope for the future.” Long is clearly trying to attempt a pathetic, last-minute effort to smear as much lipstick on the pig of the Biden-Harris economy as she can before Election Day closes out. She even undercut herself by conceding that most of her points matter “little to voters. And I get it. They are focused on high prices.” Uh, duh?  Conservatives are under attack. Contact The Washington Post at 202-334-6000 and demand it stop gaslighting Americans on their economic struggles.   

With it being Election Day, the liberal ladies of ABC’s The View turned Tuesday’s show into a collective therapy session as they tried to cope with the unknown results. They had to resort to celebrating the little victories; all of them cheering and clapping when faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin admitted she had voted for Vice President Harris. Then there was moderator Whoopi Goldberg who wanted people to fart in their voting booth. Farah Griffin said she felt “anxious, but hopeful” about how things would turn out. And despite how she previously supported former President Trump and was proud to work for him, she now proclaimed he “deserved to lose” in 2020: Four years ago today I was in the White House with Donald Trump on election night. I was there sitting next to one of his cabinet officials when Arizona was called for Joe Biden and when it became increasingly clear that he was going to lose. I believe he deserved to lose that night. At that point, I thought he haven't fight to win the election. But I thought the next four years would be the Republican Party rebuilding and something I could believe in and turning the page on Donald Trump, and it didn't do that. “So, this weekend on Saturday, for the first time in my life, I voted for a Democrat!” she boasted to an eruption of cheers and applause from the liberal audience and her fellow co-hosts. Joy Behar gave her the approval and the rhetorical pat on the head she’d been seemingly craving, when the so-called comedian told her, “Good girl!”     “I voted for Kamala Harris! I then voted down ballot for Republicans. I consider my vote on loan to her. I’m worry the direction that Donald Trump will take this country, and I take my own warning seriously,” Farah Griffin added. She got further approval from pretend moderate Sara Haines, who commended her for choosing “democracy”: First of all, I think that is a big move for you as someone who has been a Republican for your whole life, from a Republican family. And I think of it less as you voting for a Democrat and more for you voting for a democracy, for a constitution. So, I commend you for that. I know standing up if are something has a cost. So, she will get torn apart, but you did the right thing. And I commend you for that. “She’s like Liz Cheney! Same thing,” Behar touted. Towards the end of the segment, Goldberg pleaded with people not to sit out the election. She then cooked up a conspiracy theory about poll working kicking people out for farting while standing in line. She instructed people to “clutch” then “let it rip” in the voting booth: Stay in line. Yes, because if any little thing – you pass a little gas, they want to move you out. There are all kinds – So, just hold – clutch! Just stand clutched until you get in there and then once you're behind the curtain let it rip! Talk about a show with a lot of hot air. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View November 5, 2024 11:03:17 a.m. Eastern (…)            WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I'm supposed to ask you all, how are you feeling? ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Anxious, but hopeful. Four years ago today I was in the White House with Donald Trump on election night. I was there sitting next to one of his cabinet officials when Arizona was called for Joe Biden and when it became increasingly clear that he was going to lose. I believe he deserved to lose that night. At that point, I thought he haven't fight to win the election. But I thought the next four years would be the Republican Party rebuilding and something I could believe in and turning the page on Donald Trump, and it didn't do that. So, this weekend on Saturday, for the first time in my life, I voted for a Democrat! [Cheers and applause] JOY BEHAR: Good girl! FARAH GRIFFIN: I voted for Kamala Harris! I then voted down ballot for Republicans. I consider my vote on loan to her. I’m worry the direction that Donald Trump will take this country, and I take my own warning seriously. (…) 11:08:29 a.m. Eastern SARA HAINES: And I think what you said, Alyssa, and – First of all, I think that is a big move for you as someone who has been a Republican for your whole life, from a Republican family. And I think of it less as you voting for a Democrat and more for you voting for a democracy, for a constitution. So, I commend you for that. BEHAR: She’s like Liz Cheney! Same thing. HAINES: I know standing up if are something has a cost. So, she will get torn apart, but you did the right thing. And I commend you for that. (…) 11:13:14 a.m. Eastern WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Don't sit this one out. FARAH GRIFFIN: And stay in line. GOLDBERG: Stay in line. Yes, because if any little thing – you pass a little gas, they want to move you out. There are all kinds – So, just hold – clutch! Just stand clutched until you get in there and then once you're behind the curtain let it rip! (…)