Vice President Kamala Harris shared a video on social media that purportedly shows former President Donald Trump discussing abortion. “Whether the women like it or not” pic.twitter.com/lFbx5rbWrd — Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 31, 2024 Verdict: Misleading Trump was speaking about protecting women from migrants. Fact Check: In the final moments of campaigning, Trump will be visiting Pennsylvania, North […]

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'He pushes the envelope all the time'

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'It's been thought to be a safe, red Trump state'

In the same way that artificial coral reefs can jumpstart marine ecosystems, solar farms, if they’re constructed properly, can create more biodiversity than agricultural fields. That’s the key point a coalition of Australian planners and researchers are trying to get across to land developers in the state of New South Wales (NSW), where a flat, […] The post Experts Demonstrate How Solar Farms Can Become Hubs for ‘Biodiversity Enhancement’ at Every Level appeared first on Good News Network.

Movies & TV The Penguin “Get me an army!” — The Penguin’s “Top Hat” The Penguin and Sofia move towards their final showdown… By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on November 4, 2024 Credit: Macall Polay/HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Macall Polay/HBO Salvatore Maroni first appeared in the comics in 1942’s Detective Comics #66 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson, & George Roussos as “Boss Moroni,” a gangster who was on trial for killing Bookie Benson. The prosecutor was “Harvey Kent,” and Batman testified on the stand to Moroni’s guilt. Kent produced a two-headed coin found at the scene with Moroni’s fingerprints on it. Angered, Moroni threw acid at Kent, which scarred half his face and one of his hands, which eventually led him to becoming one of Batman’s most enduring foes, Two-Face. Over the years, Moroni became Maroni and Kent became Dent, but Maroni’s status as the guy who, in essence, created Two-Face remained, both through various retcons and additions to the lore in the comics, as well as in many (though not all) of the screen adaptations. The 1996 miniseries Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale established Maroni as a rival crime boss to the Falcone family that was established in the “Batman: Year One” story by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli, which has been one of the major influences on the Matt Reeves version of the Bat-mythos seen in The Batman and The Penguin. Alas, if Two-Face shows up in one of the “Reeves-verse” productions, it won’t be Maroni who “creates” him, as this version of ol’ Sal doesn’t make it out alive. Clancy Brown, as usual, gives a magnificent performance. The alliance between the Maroni family and the Gigante family is entirely built on the mutual hatred Sofia and Maroni both hold for the Penguin, and that loathing is etched in Brown’s every pore. Last week ended with Sofia discovering that Penguin’s mother is still alive, despite the best efforts of Penguin to convince everyone that she died years ago. Credit: Macall Polay/HBO The present-day portion of the latest episode of The Penguin opens with Penguin coming home to find a broken door, Vic with a head wound, and no sign of Francis Cobb. Penguin gets Vic the hell out of the apartment first, telling him to get in touch with everyone working for them and gather them. He needs an army. Then Maroni arrives, having been waiting for Penguin to show up. Maroni starts by beating Penguin up with his own golf club that he took from his apartment, then forces Penguin to bring him to his operation. I love Maroni’s reaction to the Bliss setup Penguin has in the abandoned trolley tunnels. Is he impressed with the scale of the operation? The fact that he has access to the whole city? Nope, he just sees a guy in a filthy stinky underground sewer, a fitting place for a rat like him. It continues the theme of the “Reeves-verse”: the differences in class. Penguin is working-class poor. Maroni is a gangster from a family of gangsters, who married into another family of gangsters—he was, as Penguin so perfectly and succinctly put it way back in “After Hours,” “born full.” He’s used to big mansions and nice things, not dank, dreary underground lairs. (Penguin predicted this last week, saying that the Maronis’ and Gigantes’ noses are so far up they’ll never look down.) There’s one more important difference, which we’ve also seen from jump in this series: Penguin has earned the loyalty of those underneath him. He’s completely confident that Vic can get him an army, and when he brings Maroni down to the abandoned trolley tunnels, he’s able to turn the tide because his people will fight for him, not just roll over for Maroni. That’s part of why Penguin is able to win. The other reason is that Maroni has a heart attack in the middle of the rather lengthy fistfight between him and Penguin. It’s not a surprise, really. Your wife and kid being immolated doesn’t do much for your blood pressure, and given that he’s a fugitive, it’s not entirely clear that he’s been under a doctor’s care in any case. Colin Farrell beautifully plays Penguin’s disappointment that it ended that quickly. “The fuck?” he cries, and then tries to taunt Maroni with his victory, but Maroni himself is no longer in a position to respond. And then for good measure, and probably because he’s familiar with the tropes of the comics this series is based on, he shoots Maroni several times to make sure he stays dead. Credit: Macall Polay/HBO I said the “present-day” portion of the episode started with Penguin discovering that his mother’s been kidnapped, because we open with an extended flashback, showing us how Oz Cobb’s brothers Jack and Benny died. While we’ve heard plenty of stories about the brothers’ death, we’ve never gotten the specifics of how it happened. First of all, the casting department hit it out of the park here, as Emily Meade and Ryder Allen do an absolutely letter-perfect job of playing the younger versions of Francis and Oz, respectively. (It’s worth mentioning that Allen is interviewed for the after-show, “The Penguin: Inside Gotham,” and the kid is very smart and thoughtful. He’s got quite the career ahead of him…) We see Oz’s jealousy of the attention that Francis gives to his brothers, and we also see how smart he is, and how the wheels even then were always turning. (Points to the set designers, also, for re-creating 1988: we’ve got older cars on the street, older types of currency changing hands, a big PC with a CRT monitor on top of a CPU with 5¼” disk drives, an old-fashioned adding machine, and so on.) Francis apparently was doing bookkeeping—or book-cooking—for a local gangster named Rex, and we see Oz, Jack, and Benny deliver a ledger to Rex, for which the gangster gives them $50. It starts raining, so they go to the very same abandoned trolley tunnels that Oz will use as a headquarters decades hence to play hide-and-seek. Oz is “it” first, and Benny and Jack hide in a tunnel that is only accessible via a ladder. With his messed-up foot, Oz can’t climb down the ladder, and he’s pissed at his brothers for doing that. Even as Jack apologizes in a manner that sounds sincere, Oz closes the big metal door to the tunnel and leaves. The tunnel is flooding, however, and eventually the brothers drown. Oz goes home and tells Francis that his brothers went to the movies (he says they saw Beetlejuice, an amusing in-joke, as that was a pre-Batman collaboration between director Tim Burton and actor Michael Keaton, plus its sequel is now in theatres…). Oz tells Francis that he didn’t go with them because he wanted to be home with his mother, which just solidifies his bond with Francis—what he wanted all along. The two of them then sit down to watch a videotape of Oz’s favorite movie, the 1935 Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical, Top Hat. In particular, Oz loves the scene where Astaire is performing “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails” while dressed in the titular outfit (very similar to the sartorial choices favored by the Penguin in the comics), and uses his cane as a fake gun to shoot down his backup dancers. Oz really likes that bit, and unsubtle but effective bit of characterization… The next part of the flashback, interestingly enough, isn’t seen directly, but rather in the present day, during a conversation between Francis and Sofia, specifically when Sofia brings Jack and Benny up. Penguin told Sofia a story about his brothers and his mother back in “Inside Man.” Since he lied about Francis being dead in that conversation, Sofia questions whether or not Francis’ other two sons are dead also. This leads the dementia-suffering Francis to have a flashback to the day after Oz abandoned his brothers, yelling at someone (probably a cop) to look for them and try to find them, they didn’t have an umbrella, they aren’t anywhere they should be, and just generally being hysterical with worry over her missing sons. The scene between Sofia and Francis is another tour de force. Cristin Milioti and Deirdre O’Connell are stellar, as Francis is supremely confident in her son’s ability to think two steps ahead and get the better of his opponents, because everyone always underestimates him. She also has some words of derision for Sofia, for thinking that she’s doing anything different by changing her name to Gigante—she’s just another gangster doing gangster things. Credit: Macall Polay/HBO This proves cathartic to Sofia, who then goes to visit Gia in the children’s hospital, as Sofia’s little cousin—the only remaining survivor of Sofia’s massacre of her family in “Cent’Anni”—has been making noises about talking to the police, and also has been self-harming. While Sofia lies to Gia and says that the gassing really was an accident, that Sofia wasn’t responsible (Gia remembers seeing a gas mask in Sofia’s bag), she also tells Gia an important truth: the people who died were bad people who deserved it. And then Sofia changes tracks. She sends a car to the tunnels to do an exchange with Penguin: Francis for his Bliss operation. Penguin has no intention of honoring his end of the deal, but neither does Sofia. The car has what looks like a dead body under a blanket, so Penguin hesitates to uncover it—which proves disastrous, as it’s really a bomb. In an amusing touch, Penguin is saved from the blast by going into the very same tunnel that he trapped his brothers in. When he climbs back up to the surface, he’s discovered by Detective Wise (Craig Walker), established back in “Inside Man” as a corrupt cop working for Sofia, who plans to bring him to Sofia… Before that confrontation with Wise, however, we have one more flashback. The story Penguin told Sofia in “Inside Man” was about how his mother grieved for Jack and Benny. After weeks of her lying in bed and barely speaking or eating, she suddenly emerged from the bedroom all dressed up, and took Oz to Monroe’s, where they danced to the live music. We see that play out exactly as Penguin described to Sofia, but we also see an important conversation between Francis and Oz: Francis needs Oz to take care of her. She needs a better life than what they have, and he has to do it for them. Oz promises to do that very thing for her. Which pretty much gets him started on the road to where he is now. Oh, and we also see Sofia and her people take Francis to Monroe’s, which is apparently where the final confrontation between Penguin and Sofia will take place in next week’s season finale. Penguin’s Bliss operation appears to be toast, and a big chunk of his army is now dead or injured. One thing we don’t know is where Vic is—he didn’t appear in the episode after Penguin sent him to get an army. You gotta figure that he will play a role in the final battle as well….[end-mark] The post “Get me an army!” — <i>The Penguin</i>’s “Top Hat” appeared first on Reactor.

THE CENTER SQUARE—The majority of mail-in ballots requested in Pennsylvania have been returned as of 8 a.m. Monday. Of the 2.2 million issued, the Department of State is in receipt of 1.8 million, or 81.4%, according to its daily report. By party, Democrats have mailed in 83.1% of the 1.2 million requested; Republicans 82.1% out of 715,287; and unaffiliated or other third parties at 72.7% out of 282,162. That leaves roughly 408,000 ballots unaccounted for heading into Election Day. Votes received after 8 p.m. on Tuesday will not be counted. Postmarks will not suffice. More than 9 million residents are registered to vote in Pennsylvania, where all signs point to a tight race that could deliver the White House to either candidate. The commonwealth’s 19 Electoral College votes lead the pack of seven swing states, including North Carolina and Georgia at 16; Michigan 15; Arizona 11; Wisconsin 10; and Nevada at six. President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Pennsylvania against incumbent Donald Trump came in at less than 82,000 votes. In 2016, Democratic challenger and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the state by roughly 40,000 votes. Since Al Gore (2000) and John Kerry (2004) won the state, Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes have gone to the eventual president every cycle. Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally schedule suggests the Democrats hope to hold onto Biden’s margin on Tuesday. Her campaign will spend all day crisscrossing the state to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Allentown. Trump, meanwhile, will hit Pittsburgh and Reading as the two candidates—polling a dead heat, according to the most recent RealClear average—spend the eve of the campaign vying for the affections of Pennsylvania voters. Meanwhile, county election offices arguably face a more grueling schedule. Understaffed and overloaded with mail-in ballot processing duties, errors and accusations of fraud have already made headlines. In Lancaster, York, and Monroe counties, workers have intercepted thousands of suspicious voter registrations, many of which are linked to a charity canvassing operation tied to a liberal super political action committee. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party also sued the Erie County Board of Elections for mail-in ballot errors impacting up to 20,000 voters. And across the state in Bucks County, a suburb of Philadelphia, Trump’s campaign filed a legal challenge against election officials for alleged voter suppression. The action came after workers told residents that requested mail-in ballots could no longer be submitted on the spot—a choice that slowed down the process and created long lines outside of the office. Originally published by The Center Square The post Majority of Pennsylvania’s Mail-In Ballots Returned appeared first on The Daily Signal.

PITTSBURGH—With the nation’s eyes fixed particularly on Pennsylvania for Tuesday’s election, Victory Road seemed a fitting location for residents anticipating the outcome.  One of the street’s residents, Nancy Roderick, 89, said the stakes are high. “I think if we don’t win this time, it’s all over,” Roderick, a resident in the North Hills suburbs of Pittsburgh, told The Daily Signal.  She plans to vote for former President Donald Trump and Republican U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick, who is challenging three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. “The three houses down here are Republican, but those others have Harris signs,” she noted of her other Victory Road neighbors.  In the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Trump has a 0.4% lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the Keystone State. But at least five Pennsylvania polls completed in October—including the most recent—show an actual tie between the two.  In the Senate race, Casey holds a slim 2.4% lead over McCormick in the RealClearPolitics average, though two recent polls show the race is tied.  Roderick—the octogenarian who said she hasn’t missed an election since casting her first ballot as a senior at Chatham University in Pittsburgh—doesn’t want to vote early.  “I always vote on Election Day,” Roderick asserted.  She spoke with The Daily Signal after inviting Emily Greene, AFP Action’s Pennsylvania state director, to her home. AFP Action is the advocacy arm of the conservative Americans for Prosperity. Greene passed out McCormick campaign flyers to those who answered their doors or left the flyers on the doorknob for those who weren’t home.  She coordinates the 230 door-knockers in the state. The previous Tuesday–one week before Election Day–AFP Action reached a milestone of knocking on its 1 millionth door.   “We go door to door and try to cut through the noise,” Greene told The Daily Signal. “People are bombarded with political ads and tune them out.” AFP Action focuses on persuadable voters, as well as trying to ensure that Republicans turn out and are aware of the Senate race. The door-knockers use a cellphone app that lists the residents’ address, party registration, and even if he or she is a likely conservative based on past participation. It also shows if the resident has already returned a mail ballot.  During her door-knocking rounds, Greene also hit Ryland Drive, a short distance from Victory Road. There, David Nelle, 54, was outside of his garage while blowing away leaves in the yard.  “The economy is a train wreck, and crime is high. I’ve had to fire people just to have enough money in the budget to hire additional security,” Nelle told The Daily Signal after setting down the leaf blower. “We can’t have a good economy without restoring safety.”  That’s not his only concern, as he said he is voting for all Republicans. “My daughter got a full-ride scholarship for sports, and I don’t want her competing against college boys,” he added.  Even with the app that had voter data, there were some surprises. One of the homes on Ryland Drive, listed as the residence of a Republican, had a Harris-Walz sign and a “Jesus 2024” sign. The resident didn’t answer the door. Greene noted she’s encountered split-ticket voters.  “If Harris is elected, AFP Action wants to make sure there is a firewall to stop progressive, dangerous ideas,” Greene said. “She’ll push for eliminating the Senate filibuster and for D.C. statehood.”  After seeing a Harris sign on the lawn of another registered Republican on Victory Road, Greene still knocked on the door. The Victory Road resident said he wasn’t planning to vote for McCormick.  When Greene asked if he was a Republican, he replied, “Recent events have changed my perspective.” Another registered Republican on Victory Road wasn’t enamored of his role as a swing-state voter and potential to shift the Electoral College.  He voted for Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver, and for other third-party candidates.  “I’m a registered Republican, and I lean right,” said the 31-year-old who shared his name with The Daily Signal but asked that it not be published. “Both parties have a problem. I voted Libertarian. That’s not a good long-term solution. But, if you want to cut out the fat, we are in a mess.” Asked if he’s worried about wasting his vote, he replied, “The problem is that we always accept it as it is because we don’t want the other side to win, and nothing ever changes.” The flyers say on one side, “Dave McCormick—U.S. Senate—will put party politics aside to deliver solutions,” with color photos of McCormick. On the flip side is a black-and-white photo of Casey standing in front of the U.S. Capitol, with the caption: “Bob Casey has failed Pennsylvania.”  On Ryland Drive, Greene went to the door of a registered Republican that data showed leaned conservative. Unfortunately, the stack of flyers she held showed Casey’s face. When the Republican resident opened the door to see a flier with Casey’s face, he said, “I’m not interested in seeing him,” and closed the door.  Susan Nightingale, 81, also on Ryland Drive, had already voted.  “The biggest issue is just anti-Harris. Keep her out,” Nightingale told The Daily Signal.  She appreciated the huge role Pennsylvania could play in who wins the White House and possibly who controls the Senate.  “It’s amazing that Pennsylvania is getting so much attention,” Nightingale said. “I think Pennsylvanians can overall see what is going on now needs to stop. They [the Biden-Harris administration] didn’t finish the border fence. It’s a shame they are just letting that fence material lie there and waste.” The post ‘If We Don’t Win, It’s All Over’: Battleground Pennsylvania Voters Embrace Decisive Role appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Two companies affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party have deals to build battery plants for electric vehicles in Michigan, a battleground state in Tuesday’s presidential election. The objective of Chinese communists, some political leaders say, is to shatter the U.S. automobile industry. “Make no mistake, China is seeking to undermine our nation’s economic and national security,” Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate in Michigan’s race for U.S. Senate, said in September in a written statement to The Daily Signal.  Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, said he thinks the battery plants and China’s threat to the U.S. automobile industry are a compelling issue for the state’s voters. “They recognize that if we lose the automobile industry to China—which we are doing—it’s going to significantly harm the economy in the state of Michigan,” Hoekstra said in a Sept. 18 telephone interview with The Daily Signal.  Gotion Inc., which opened Michigan’s northernmost battery component plant in Big Rapids, is a U.S. subsidiary of Gotion High-Tech Co. Ltd., the Chinese manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles. In February 2023, Ford Motor Co. announced a partnership with another Chinese EV battery manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., to build Blue Oval Battery Park in Marshall as its southernmost EV battery plant in Michigan.  The battleground state’s major party candidates for Senate—Rogers, a former GOP congressman, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat—are vying for the seat of Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who is retiring in January after four terms and 24 years.  Both Rogers and Slotkin have focused heavily on the battery plant deals in Michigan. Slotkin didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.  Ford also didn’t respond to a request for comment about its Blue Oval Battery Park, nor did China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., or CATL. The office of Michigan Democratic Chairwoman Lavora Barnes acknowledged but didn’t follow up on a request for comment from The Daily Signal. What is happening with batteries in the auto industry is typical of how China goes into other countries, the GOP’s Hoekstra said. The Chinese target industries there, subsidize them so production and manufacturing of a product is undercut in America, then jacks up prices once the technology has left the country for China.  “This is the Chinese now targeting one of the biggest industries in America: the automobile industry,” Hoekstra told The Daily Signal.  China built up its own automotive industry and now wants to drive a stake through the heart of the U.S. auto industry, he said.  “The Chinese think long term. This is a 10-, 15-, 20-year plan to make sure that in 10 or 15 years, if you want to buy a car, you’re going to have to buy Chinese-manufactured vehicles,” Hoekstra said. Hoekstra said he thinks the two battery plants will significantly affect Tuesday’s election because Michigan voters are concerned about the state government’s investment of billions of dollars in the plants through direct incentives and infrastructure investments. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, gave $210 million in taxpayers’ money to the plant operated at Blue Oval Battery Park by Ford and CATL, the Chinese manufacturer, as well as tax abatements and other handouts, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.  Gotion Inc.’s project has a price tag of $715 million in grants and tax breaks, according to Joseph Cella, an ambassador to Fiji and other Pacific islands during the Trump administration.  “The tax breaks crush the local community,” said Cella, cofounder with Hoesktra of the Michigan China Economic Security Review Group. Glenn Kowlaske, a 37-year resident of Marshall Township and retired engineering manager, recently was elected as the township’s treasurer.  Kowlaske and other challengers defeated the township’s previous leaders, who they said weren’t transparent about the Ford-CATL deal with the township of 3,000 and Marshall, a city of 7,000. “For Marshall residents, there’s a variety of concerns,” Kowlaske said. “A lot of it starts with the way the state overran, in our case, Marshall Township and the city of Marshall, to build what will ultimately be a 3,000-acre megasite [for Ford/CATL].”  Just as residents of Marshall Township voted out board members over lack of transparency about the Ford-CATL deal, residents of Michigan’s Green Charter Township voted out all five board members for supporting the deal for the Gotion battery plant. The Chinese Communist Party bribed officials in Green Charter Township to approve an initial development agreement for Gotion, Cella testified Sept. 24 before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.  However, rather than conduct the deal with transparency, integrity, and accountability, government and business elites did exactly the opposite with the Green Charter project, Cella said.  “They moved fast and in secret, binding them and shrouding them in five- and 10-year nondisclosure agreements using secret code names,” Cella said. “This ruptures the consent of the governed and certainly jeopardizes our national security.” Gotion Inc. Vice President Chuck Thelen said he couldn’t comment on the battery parts plant in Green Charter. But Tracy Ruell, a Democrat running for Michigan state representative, said in September that she supports the project because of the jobs it will bring to Big Rapids.   “These are the people who are working their butts off, and they’re barely getting by,” Ruell said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal. “We need opportunities for middle-class-wage jobs in this community, and Gotion has the ability to provide those.” Ruell said she also supports Gotion because the corporation will keep the U.S. competitive in the electric vehicle industry. “The automakers want to move into this area, and we should be doing what we can to help them do that,” Ruell told The Daily Signal. “If you look at the stats of automobile companies and where they are with the EV, we’re not at the top. If it wasn’t for Tesla, we wouldn’t even be in the picture as a country when it comes to EVs, so we shouldn’t be stopping this [the Gotion plant] for political reasons.” Hoekstra, the state GOP chairman, said he agrees that the U.S. needs to stay competitive in the global automobile industry. But, he said, he doesn’t believe America’s strategy ought to be partnering with a communist regime.  “I don’t think China’s a great partner. They do not have America’s or America’s workers or America’s economy as their point of interest,” Hoekstra said. “They want to destroy it. They want to destroy us.” The U.S. could and should partner with companies from free market-friendly places such as Japan, South Korea, or Europe, he said. The post China’s 2 EV Battery Plants in Michigan Spark National Security Concerns appeared first on The Daily Signal.