'Cannot be trusted'

When added together, Boone and Rellie spent over 450 days at a shelter in a South Carolina human society. One was deaf, the other shy, but a prospective owner who had been following their stories through social media decided enough was enough—and both deserved a happy loving home. Rellie, with a reputation of being sweet […] The post 2 Unwanted Dogs Spending Months in Shelter Become Best Friends–Now They’re Family After Adoption of Both appeared first on Good News Network.

News Pendulum Joseph Gordon-Levitt to Star in Pendulum, Horror Film From Writer of The Boogeyman Getting some Midsommar vibes off of this one By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on October 30, 2024 Credit: Phillip Caruso/Peacock Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Phillip Caruso/Peacock There’s a new horror film heading our way, called Pendulum, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Looper, Inception, and pictured above on the left in an episode of Poker Face) is set to star in it. Black Swan and The Boogeyman writer Mark Heyman has penned the script and is set to direct the film, with Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Whale) on board to produce along with Jacob Jaffke (MaXXXine, Dream Scenario) and Dave Caplan (Longlegs). Here’s the official synopsis, per Variety: In Pendulum, young couple Patrick (Gordon-Levitt) and Abigail journey to a new-age retreat in New Mexico, drawn by the possibility of healing after a traumatic event. Patrick is willing to do anything to help his wife, but becomes distrustful of the retreat’s enigmatic leader even as Abigail falls under her spell. As paranoia builds, the couple must determine if the group’s unconventional spiritual practices offer genuine healing—or mask a terrifying truth that threatens to consume them both. Is anyone else getting Midsommar vibes? I am, and I’m not complaining about it. We don’t have any additional casting news to date, though we do know that production is set to start in March 2025 in New Mexico. No word yet on when the horror film will scare its way onto a screen near you.[end-mark] The post Joseph Gordon-Levitt to Star in <i>Pendulum</i>, Horror Film From Writer of The Boogeyman appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Fantasy Read an Excerpt From M.L. Wang’s Blood Over Bright Haven The first woman ever admitted to a prestigious order of mages unravels a secret conspiracy that could change the practice of magic forever. By M.L. Wang | Published on October 30, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Blood Over Bright Haven, a standalone dark fantasy novel by M.L. Wang—available now from Del Rey. For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry.When Sciona finally passes the qualifying exam and becomes a highmage, she finds her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome—and, instead of a qualified lab assistant, they give her a janitor.What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was not always a janitor. Ten years ago, he was a nomadic hunter who lost his family on their perilous journey from the wild plains to the city. But now he sees the opportunity to understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the privileged in power.At first, mage and outsider have a fractious relationship. But working together, they uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Freynan the First Standing in the center of Leon’s Hall, Sciona felt paradoxically smaller than she ever had and big enough to eat the world. Instead of looking directly at any of the greatest men in Tiran, she let the white of their robes blur together into a general brightness. “Archmages of Tiran, I stand before you to test for the rank of highmage.” Her voice shook faintly, and she only steadied it by reminding herself that as soon as she got her introduction over with, they would let her at the spellograph. Everything would be all right when she just got her hands on those steel keys. “My name is Sciona Freynan. I studied at Danworth Academy and then here at the University of Magics and Industry.” Where applicants had studied before the University really shouldn’t have been a consideration. It was just a quick way for the testers to determine the applicant’s social status. There was a stark economic divide between common students who attended public schools and those with the connections to secure a spot at Danworth. “Excuse me, Miss Freynan.” Archmage Eringale stopped her. “Your paperwork says that you studied at a public school—East Havendel Public School of Magics—and Danworth Academy?” “Right. Yes, Archmage.” Sciona held her chin up as Bringham had told her, even as nerves writhed through her gut. “I transferred to Danworth through their scholarship program in my second year.” Papers shuffled among the archmages as a few of them made notes and others seemed to sit up a little straighter. Danworth accepted only five public school transfers per year, and back when Sciona had applied, the number had been three. She hoped this made her someone to take seriously. Not just the requisite female applicant for this decade. “Thank you, Miss Freynan,” said Archmage Eringale. “Please, continue.” “I’ve spent the last seven years working in Archmage Bringham’s laboratories in Trethellyn Hall. For four of those, I’ve served as his lead manual sourcer.” Bringham wrote beautiful, demanding action spells that streamlined Tiran’s textile production. Someone had to find the energy to test those spells before they went into factory conduits. “My areas of specialization are industrial siphoning application and experimental mapping spell composition. Thank you again for your consideration today. With the Mage Council’s permission, I will now approach the desk.” Orynhel nodded his silver head, and Sciona stepped forward. This time, Archmage Scywin claimed the first prompt, using a click of his timepiece conduit to reset the desk. “Miss Freynan, before you, you will find twelve pine twigs in a bowl,” said Tiran’s master siphoner. “Using the Kaedor mapping method, ignite the twigs so that they burn slowly.” Sciona’s hands were on the spellograph before he finished the sentence. She was awake now. She was home. The mechanical give of the keys beneath her fingers settled the sea of her nerves, leaving only the mirror clarity of the task before her. Action sub-spells for fire were easy to write; as Jerrin Mordra had demonstrated, it was the sourcing sub-spell where things usually went wrong. A smidge too much energy and Sciona would reduce the twigs to ash in seconds. Much too much and she risked self-immolation, which would be an embarrassing way to flub the exam. Fire spell done, Sciona hit the break key, stamping a horizontal line into the sheaf and marking the beginning of the sourcing sub-spell. Buy the Book Blood Over Bright Haven M.L. Wang Buy Book Blood Over Bright Haven M.L. Wang Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Kaedor mapping spells adhered to a rigid structure that made their composition easy but their use in siphoning difficult. When Sciona activated the mapping spell, the Otherrealm filled the coil before her in glowing white and gray, but inevitably, the simplicity of the Kaedor Method produced a subpar view of God’s Bounty. White shapes crawled and shifted in the gray, indicating potential energy sources, but all were ill-defined. In Sciona’s preferred mapping methods, those energy sources came up crisp, bright, and easy to pinpoint. This was like looking at lantern lights through a thick fog. Sciona suspected that the blur of the Kaedor Method was precisely why Archmage Scywin had wanted her to apply it to such a fiddly precision action sub-spell. Other mages called Scywin “the Sniper” for his ability to hit the perfect energy source in any mapping coil through any mapping method. He wanted to see if this upstart sourcer could do the same. The appraising gaze of the Sniper should have terrified Sciona. On some level, it did, but Sciona’s determination converted the fear directly into focus. After years of applied mapping for Bringham, she knew how to pinpoint the right shape and brightness in the swirling gray. This was where desk mages like Mordra the Tenth fell short and where Sciona shone. She saw her mark and struck its coordinates into the spellograph before the light could move or fade: 40.5 by 23.1. Her finger stabbed the siphoning key, and the magic whooshed into effect. Like the end of a straw placed to her coordinates, the sourcing spell sucked the targeted energy from the Otherrealm through to Sciona’s action sub-spell. The mapping visual vanished as a finger-sized flame sprang to life in the bowl of twigs. A tidy success. Sciona breathed easier as the little flame consumed the twigs before her and the archmages made their notes, but it was a small catharsis. Give her something difficult. Now, the insatiable thing in her screamed. Now, now, so she could hurry up and overcome it. Archmage Bringham went next. “Before you, you will find a slab of obsidian.” He waved his wand to produce the black rock along with a pair of scales. “Bisect it.” Sciona glanced up at her mentor in surprise. This was the same spell Jerrin Mordra had just bungled—and she noted Mordra the Ninth shooting Bringham a look of irritation. A few other archmages muttered their disapproval, but Bringham had told Sciona to let him worry about them. So, she ignored the ripples of discontent among their ranks and focused on the magic at hand. Jerrin Mordra’s mistake had been siphoning too much energy into a narrowly confined cut. Under the sudden excess of pressure, his granite slab had exploded. Given the density of obsidian, Sciona’s task would require a lot of pressure focused to the width of a knife-edge… or a modest amount of pressure focused to an edge no wider than a molecule. The latter ran the risk of slicing straight through the desk and into the floor, but Sciona banked on her targeting precision and defined the edge as one molecule in width. Watch this one, Scywin, she thought as she finished her mapping sub-spell and locked in her coordinates. There was no explosion when she siphoned, not even a crack as the rock resisted the spell. The obsidian simply fell into two pieces, mirror-smooth where her cut had passed through. It may not have been professional, but she couldn’t resist a smile as she placed the two halves on the scales before her and watched the needles bob to a stop at the same number. Perfect halves. Even on his second try, Mordra the Tenth hadn’t managed that. A few of the archmages whispered to one another as they took in the results. Mordra the Ninth looked like he could kill someone— though it was unclear whether his ire was for Sciona, Bringham, or his shame of a son. “Clearly, she just copied the first applicant,” Archmage Duris said. “She didn’t, though,” Archmage Gamwen pointed out. “Her composition was entirely different—and superior on multiple levels. Weighing the halves evenly, for one, instead of trying to gauge halves by a measure of length.” “Still,” Duris said in irritation. “It’s not fair that she saw the spell performed before it was asked of her. I won’t be counting it toward her score. Miss Freynan.” He turned sharp green eyes on her. “Let’s see if you’re up to more than simple cutting and ignition spells.” At forty-two, Duris was the youngest archmage in a century, and Sciona supposed she couldn’t blame him for scorning her—or any mage who performed in his presence. The master conduit designer had either invented or improved half the devices in modern Tiran. Who were these youngsters to encroach on his hard-won territory? When he waved his gloved hand, the obsidian and scales vanished, replaced by a row of empty glass bowls. “Using matter from the Otherrealm, create an incendiary device that activates when thrown over fifteen feet in the air.” Matter from the Otherrealm? Not just energy? “I’m sorry?” Gamwen looked incredulously at Duris. “How is this prompt relevant to the skills of a mapping specialist?” It wasn’t. Alchemy was a highly specialized field that required entirely different training from all other spellwork. Siphoning matter from the Otherrealm was, after all, a fundamentally different practice from siphoning energy. Of the mages who had tested before Sciona, only one had been asked to siphon matter, and industrial alchemy had been his second major. “I agree with Gamwen.” Duris’s senior conduit designer, Eringale, spoke up in an admonishing tone. “What are you trying to do, Duris? Blow the little lady’s hand off?” It was Bringham who said, “Let her give it a try. It’ll be all right.” “Will it?” Gamwen seemed doubtful. “I believe so. In any case, it looks like she’s already gotten started.” Bringham knew his apprentice well. Sciona was already at the scratch paper, sketching a flowchart of the spells she would need. There was no way to map for matter in the Otherrealm because no mage had ever found a way to display the physical reality of God’s Bounty. All a mage could do was choose his coordinates, siphon, and hope he got what he needed. And if he did get the matter he needed, it was often mixed in with a sludge of other elements, crushed together in the passage from one realm to the next. Sometimes, the blind-siphoned sludge was dangerous—explosive, acidic, or poisonous. More alchemists died in their laboratories than any other type of mage. Before composing for the siphoning itself, Sciona wrote an accompanying spell to scan whatever came through from the Otherrealm and give her a chemical breakdown. Chemistry was not one of her specialties, but she hoped she would recognize a dangerous compound in time to jump back from the desk. In the end, she had to siphon five times, filling all the available bowls to the brim with mystery muck, before she came up with enough carbon for her purposes. Another painstakingly written alchemic spell pulled the carbon from all the dishes to form a ball the size of Sciona’s fist—her incendiary device. Not that pure carbon was combustible. Sciona couldn’t make a true material explosive because, well, she wasn’t a damn alchemist; she didn’t know the chemical composition of a bomb off the top of her head, and guesswork could kill her where she stood. What she could do was write around the need for advanced alchemy. With the soon-to-be bomb resting on the floor before the desk, she was back in her element: energy-based magic. Like all sourcing spells for conduits, this one had to make use of Tiran’s energy Reserve. Tapping the Reserve was the only way for a sourcing sub-spell to yield energy without the need for manual mapping and targeting. She assigned the sourcing spell the name POWER. Next, she wrote an action sub-spell called FIRE, inside which she assigned the carbon ball the name DEVICE and translated the directives scribbled on her notepaper into the runic language of the spellograph: CONDITION 1: DEVICE is 15 Vendric feet higher than its position at the time of activation.ACTION 1: FIRE will siphon from POWER an amount of energy no lower than 4.35 and no higher than 4.55 on the Leonic scale.ACTION 2: FIRE will siphon within the distance of DEVICE no higher than 3 Vendric inches.If and only if CONDITION 1 is met, ACTION 1 and ACTION 2 will go into effect. The matter siphoning may not have come easily, but throwing the bomb was by far the most daunting part of the demonstration; true to form as a woman and a scholar, Sciona had a terrible arm. Stepping back from the desk, she carefully lowered the carbon ball and eyed her intended trajectory—over the desk but not directly over, away from herself, but not too close to the archmages. Men sniggered on the benches behind her just as the Danworth boys once had the few times she had tried to play ball with them in her skirts. Back in that schoolyard, she had turned around and hurled the deerskin ball ineffectually at the boys. If she did that here, it would be so much more satisfying—and possibly murder. As tantalizing as the mental image was, she ignored her spectators and kept her eyes focused upward on the murals of the Founding Mages above. On where she was going, not where she had been. With a deep breath, she drew her arm back and slung the ball toward the ceiling. DEVICE soared farther forward than she’d intended but successfully hit fifteen feet and—whoosh!—burst into flame. Fire burned ferociously around DEVICE, using the carbon as an anchor in space, until the ball descended below fifteen feet, extinguished, and fell to the floor, trailing smoke. Another success. The spells only got harder from there. If the archmages meant this to demoralize her, Sciona supposed even their wisdom had its limits. The deeper she sank into complex magic, the more focused she became, the more her surroundings fell away until nothing mattered. Not even the opinions of the greatest men in Tiran. At last, Gamwen leaned over to Orynhel and said, “Archmage Supreme, we’re nearing the maximum prompt count.” And Sciona was almost disappointed. She was so wrapped up in the work at this exhilarating pace that she didn’t want it to end. More important, she realized she had yet to fail a prompt. Cautious elation welled up inside her. There had been a few stumbles, yes, but no spell that she had failed outright. She was passing. Nodding, Archmage Orynhel said, “Before we move on to our final deliberation, does anyone have a last prompt for Miss Freynan?” “I do.” Archmage Duris lifted his white-gloved hand, and a cauldron appeared before the desk—an industrial cauldron, bigger than the desk itself… bigger than three desks stacked one on top of the other, the kind of cauldron a factory worker might fall into and not be discovered until his body bloated and bobbed to the surface. “Miss Freynan, before you, you will find a cauldron,” Duris’s voice said from behind the wall of metal. “Levitate it.” Sciona stared blankly at the monstrous vessel between her and the archmages. It had to be a hundred times heavier than anything the other applicants had been asked to move. And Duris wasn’t just asking her to move it; he was asking her to levitate it, a deeply delicate operation. Sciona had to walk partway around the desk to even see the archmages’ panel past the cauldron. “May I use any mapping method I choose, Archmage Duris?” she asked and thought she saw Bringham smile. “Sure.” Duris folded his arms as he leaned back in his seat. “But no siphoning the Reserve.” Meaning Sciona couldn’t direct the siphoning to stop when a condition of her action spell was met. She would have to calculate and source the energy on her own. Perfectly. On the first try. “You’ve demonstrated your aptitude with tame—we might say womanly—amounts of energy. A highmage must master far more than that.” “Yes, sir…” But this task would require an enormous amount of energy. The prompt was dangerous—unless Duris thought Sciona didn’t have the skill to access that much energy. Or maybe he knew that she had the skill and just wanted to see if she had the nerve. “Duris, I don’t like this.” Gamwen voiced Sciona’s apprehension. As the leading mapper in all of Tiran, he knew the risks if she attempted the spell. But Archmage Orynhel raised a withered hand, silencing the objection. “The prompt has been issued, Gamwen. Miss Freynan, please proceed.” “Yes, Archmage Supreme.” Sciona approached the cauldron and experimentally pushed on it with both palms. It didn’t budge. Putting her shoulder to the metal and throwing all her weight against it only got her a sore arm and some unhelpful chuckles from the benches at her back. Her heartbeat was picking up again—not in excitement, this time, but in fear. The fact that she couldn’t shift the cauldron an inch meant that she had no read on its weight over a few hundred pounds. In Bringham’s labs, Sciona had gotten good at estimating the weight of machinery, but always with more information than this. There, she would have been able to ask, What are the dimensions on this thing? What’s it made of? Iron? Pewter? Steel? Some newfangled alchemic compound I should read up on? The material looked like steel, but… She rapped her knuckles on the side and frowned at the sound—muted, like there might be a layer of some other material inside, but she was half again too short to look over the rim. The cauldron could weigh five hundred pounds. It could weigh five thousand. “Miss Freynan,” Archmage Orynhel said when Sciona had circled the vessel several times. “You are required to begin composing a spell within the next minute.” “Right.” Sciona let out a shaky breath and returned to the desk. “Sorry, sir.” The levitation formula was quick work, but she paused, still stumped, when it came to estimating the cauldron’s weight. Too low and the cauldron wouldn’t move at all. She would fail at this final hurdle. Too high and… well, too high and at least her end would be a dramatic one. She bit her lip. A memorable death had to be better than the obscurity that awaited if she failed. That thought swallowed all fear. Sciona erred on the side of power and set her values around the estimate of five thousand pounds. Now, to source the energy to lift that much weight… She smiled. This was where Duris assumed she had neither courage nor power, but he had misjudged. This was where her fingers hit the keys and sang. She had been making borderline heretical adjustments to traditional mapping methods since she was twelve. At twenty-seven, she had her own fully formed methods so heavily adapted and reworked that, save for the base lines, one could scarcely recognize them as Kaedor, Leonic, or Erafin. They were something new. They were Freynan, methods she would have the right to publish under her name if she could just get through this last spell between her and the High Magistry. Sciona’s custom composition allowed her to map a wide range, like the Leonic Method, but then pull in close on promising energy sources, like the Kaedor Method. On top of that, she had added modified lines from the Erafin Method to sharpen fuzzy patches of energy to bright pools. The field in her mapping coil seethed with white, but no single source here was big enough to levitate five thousand pounds… In an act of reckless confidence, she entered three different sets of coordinates and siphoned them all at once. The spellograph rattled with the rush of energy, Sciona seized it to keep it from shaking off the desk, and— BOOM! The cauldron shot toward the ceiling—and into it, right through Founding Mage Stravos’s handsome copper-haired head. Cracks burst like lightning across Mordra the First’s inventions and Highmage Sabernyn’s trial, and shouts of shock rang through the chamber. As chunks of the ceiling broke loose, Sciona’s sense of selfpreservation finally caught up with her; she let go of the spellograph and dove under the desk. Limestone thundered onto the desktop, tumbling from the wood to the floor on all sides. In the next moment, the cauldron crashed back to the floor, terrifyingly close, adding a spray of stone tiles to the chaos. And thank God for Aunt Winny and her fussing; the rain of debris bounced off Sciona’s petticoats, leaving her dress torn but her legs untouched. The cauldron’s final impact reverberated through the chamber as clouds of stone dust settled in a soft hiss. Then, silence. Rolling to her knees, Sciona peered from under the desk. Judging by the damage to the ceiling and the size of the indent in the floor, she had vastly overestimated the cauldron’s weight. It wasn’t five thousand pounds. It had to be right around one thousand. She was out from under the desk before she realized what she was doing, brushing rubble from between the spellograph keys. Amid a mess of splintered wood and shattered glass bowls, the machine had waited for her fingers, undamaged, like a sign from God. “Miss Freynan,” one of the archmages was saying in concern. “Are you all right? Shall we call in the medic?” “No.” She tore the used spellpaper from the platen and replaced it with a fresh sheet. “Pardon?” “No!” Her voice grew stronger as she lay into her action spell—the same one she had written before, but this time with the correct values slotted in. “I have it!” “Miss Freynan, you have not been asked for any further spellwork,” Archmage Duris said warningly. “Step away from the desk and find your seat.” But at that point, Feryn Himself could not have stopped Sciona’s hands. The arithmetic came easily now that she knew the weights involved. Within a few breaths, she had hit the break and started her custom mapping spell anew. “Miss Freynan!” Archmage Duris’s voice sharpened in outright anger. “Failure to follow instructions will result in your disqualification!” The wrath of an archmage would have shaken anyone with half a brain. It did shake Sciona, setting her stomach churning, but the churning was just another form of energy, one more shot of fuel in the engine speeding her to the end of the spell. The Otherrealm burst open before her, glowing with a wealth of energy. She found her coordinates. “Step back this inst—” Duris choked on the rest of his words as Sciona hit the final key. Her spell roared into action, vibrating the spellograph with more energy than the little machine was built to handle. Sciona finally did as she was told then. She backed away from the desk with both hands raised—in surrender? In triumph? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the cauldron, hovering motionless in the air before the archmages. Perfectly controlled. Excerpted from Blood Over Bright Haven, copyright © 2024 by M.L. Wang. The post Read an Excerpt From M.L. Wang’s <i>Blood Over Bright Haven</i> appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) is pushing forward in Missouri v. Biden, aiming to uncover the depth of government-led censorship on social media. This legal action follows a June Supreme Court ruling that vacated a preliminary injunction in the case, previously known as Murthy v. Missouri, which barred officials from the White House, CDC, FBI, CISA, and the Surgeon General’s office from pressuring social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech. NCLA’s clients, including prominent figures such as Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty, as well as free speech advocate Jill Hines, allege that they were systematically blacklisted, shadow-banned, de-boosted, throttled, and even suspended across major social media platforms due to their viewpoints on Covid-19, public health, and government policies. NCLA claims this censorship campaign was orchestrated as part of a “whole-of-government” initiative that saw coordinated efforts across a dozen federal agencies, with direction from top White House officials. We obtained a copy of this new filing for you here. While the Supreme Court ruled that NCLA’s clients lacked the standing needed to sustain the preliminary injunction, the organization argues that this ruling does not spell an end to the lawsuit. According to NCLA, the standard for standing at the injunction stage is higher than what’s required to advance a case through its initial pleadings. The Alliance is seeking further discovery to show that government actions indeed stifled speech and violated the First Amendment—an assertion that Supreme Court Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch echoed in their partial dissent, in which they warned that the government’s actions raised “serious First Amendment concerns.” Digging Deeper: NCLA Calls for More Discovery NCLA’s clients argue that, despite limited preliminary discovery, they have already uncovered evidence pointing to a vast and well-coordinated censorship apparatus involving dozens of high-ranking officials and well over a hundred government actors. Emails and internal communications have revealed direct pressures on social media platforms to censor content, particularly on topics related to COVID-19 and elections, where government messaging was at odds with some of the censored viewpoints. Now, NCLA is requesting more extensive discovery to investigate additional actors and confirm the full extent of this censorship effort, believing this will further support their claims against the government. Should the court approve, NCLA expects to reveal a clearer picture of an “assault” on free speech by government agencies using social media companies as intermediaries to suppress certain viewpoints. Seeking a Fourth Amended Complaint In addition to calling for more discovery, NCLA’s clients are also seeking permission from the District Court to amend their Complaint. This amendment would bring new voices into the case, including members of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen”—a group the Biden Administration singled out for removal from platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Meta. The plaintiffs argue that the Administration’s targeted pressure on social media platforms to censor these individuals underscores their right to participate in the case and adds further evidence of standing. In June, the District Court highlighted that the Administration’s direct campaign against specific users strengthened the plaintiffs’ case for standing. A refusal to allow these individuals into the case would, according to NCLA, effectively reward the government’s covert strategy of pressuring social media companies to censor speech without facing legal consequences. NCLA’s Fight to Protect Free Speech NCLA’s clients are optimistic that with adequate discovery, they can meet the Supreme Court’s clarified standards for standing and ultimately prevail on the merits of their claims. They contend that without such legal recourse, government actors could continue suppressing Americans’ speech in secrecy, circumventing the Constitution in ways that escape public scrutiny. “Our plaintiffs, who have been censored extensively on social media and targeted for suppression by government actors, deserve to know the extent of the government’s involvement in silencing them,” said Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel at the NCLA, in a statement to Reclaim The Net. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Unmasking a Social Media Crackdown: NCLA Seeks Full Discovery on Government Censorship Tactics appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The House Judiciary Committee has accused FTC Chair Lina Khan, appointed by President Biden, of using the agency’s powers to target Elon Musk’s Twitter. The claims emerged in a report, revealing that the FTC intensified its scrutiny of Twitter immediately following Musk’s acquisition, pushing for an immediate vote on a long-pending consent decree. Documents indicate that despite the consent decree being in negotiation before Musk’s involvement, Khan initiated an urgent vote just days after Musk’s acquisition was publicized. Over the first three months of Musk’s leadership, the FTC sent Twitter over a dozen letters, initiating more than 350 demands for documents and information, some of which extended beyond the scope of the existing consent decree. We obtained a copy of the report for you here. A consent decree, as Cornell Law School notes, is a settlement that is approved by a court, where the FTC can enforce specific conditions and demand information as part of ongoing compliance checks. Historically, consent decrees were discussed and reviewed thoroughly by FTC commissioners and staff before any voting. However, the report criticizes Khan for rushing this process, limiting the time for proper review despite Republican Commissioners’ requests for more time to examine the evidence. Commissioner Noah Philips and his attorney advisor questioned the sudden urgency, with Khan’s team responding that it was due to Musk’s recent acquisition. Yet, the reviewed FTC documents show that Khan pushed for the accelerated vote even before Twitter requested a swift resolution. This fast-tracking of the vote did not align with Khan’s public claims that it was Twitter, not the FTC, urging the quick decision. However, the urgency communicated internally clearly linked the expedited process to Musk’s takeover. Moreover, the FTC’s aggressive approach post-consent decree involved demanding extensive communications from Twitter related to Musk, which the Committee described as a tactic to harass Musk. The FTC also explored leveraging Twitter’s disclosure to journalists as a potential way to invalidate the company’s claim to document privacy. This increased scrutiny coincided with revelations from the Twitter Files, disclosed by journalists like Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, which highlighted attempts by the Biden administration to influence Big Tech towards censoring certain online narratives, allegedly impacting election integrity. The FTC initially justified their investigation into Twitter citing the legal concerns triggered by the disclosures Musk facilitated to these journalists. Yet, the FTC concluded earlier in 2024 that Twitter had adequate privacy safeguards, leading to the closure of this investigation. In this vein, the report from the Committee suggests that the FTC’s aggressive stance may have been more about punishing Musk for exposing government pressures on tech censorship than about genuine regulatory concerns. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post FTC Chair Lina Khan Faces Backlash for Alleged Targeting of Musk’s Twitter Takeover appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

When Gov Protected 'Children in Need' Turn Out to Be Al-Qaeda, Do 'Racist' Citizens Get Their Lives Back?

On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough attempted a two-part defense of Joe Biden having yesterday called Trump supporters "garbage." Part One: Try to bury the remark. In his opening gush over Kamala's supposedly "compelling" speech at the Ellipse last night, Scarborough said: She kept talking about finding common ground. She kept talking about compromise. She kept talking about being the president of all Americans, even those Americans who vote against her, and what a marked contrast. There are so many distractions in this campaign. Other news channels will get distracted with people who are not running in this campaign. What matters is what the two people who are running in this campaign are saying. Nice try at obfuscation, Joe. But let's translate what you said: Fox News will get "distracted" by Biden's "garbage" line, but not us! We'll focus on the pearls of wisdom from Kamala and Walz! Part Two: When forced to address the controversy, laugh it off. When Jonathan Lemire later raised Biden's "garbage" line, Scarborough put on a big, phony smile [see screencap] and emitted a faux chuckle, dismissively saying "of course." He then tried to shift to controversial things Trump says, claiming that "all of his people immediately go to it and brush it off and explain it away or just completely ignore it." In a risible attempt to prove that Biden didn't mean what he said, Scarborough noted that Biden "immediately afterward said no, that's not what I meant. I was talking about the comedian." Uh, yeah. You can be sure that his handlers in the wings were horrified to hear Biden's "garbage" slur on Trump supporters. So naturally they promptly put out a "clarification" in his name. After the controversy exploded, did Scarborough honestly expect Biden to double down? "Yeah, I meant it. Trump supporters. They're garbage: garbage! Every last one of them! On my word as a Biden!" One glaring, telling omission in the segment. Biden's actual comment was never shown. Instead of rolling the readily-available video, Lemire read from the transcript of Biden's remark. Why? Because people viewing the video would see that Biden was talking about all Trump's supporters. If Trump had ever said something similar, Scarborough would be running it on a continuous loop! And wouldn't you have loved to be a fly on the wall when Kamala was informed about Biden's comment, and how it has partly overshadowed her big speech? We can imagine that Kamala "unburdened" herself of a few choice words! Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 10/30/24 6:03 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: So I will say, in contrast to what Donald Trump has said, it was, I thought it was compelling.  I loved the message last night, and she kept going back to it, Willie. She kept going back to how people that disagree with her are not the enemy. She doesn't want to put them in jail. She wants to put them around the table and listen to them. She kept talking about finding common ground. She kept talking about compromise. She kept talking about being the president of all Americans, even those Americans who vote against her, and what a marked contrast. There are so many distractions in this campaign. Other news channels will get distracted with people who were not running in this campaign. What matters is what the two people who are running in this campaign are saying.  . . .  JONATHAN LEMIRE: And as you mentioned, President Biden last night kind of kicked off a firestorm himself. He was on a Zoom with Latino supporters, urging them to vote early. He addressed the Puerto Rico comments. And what he said was, I'll just read a little bit here from the transcript. He says that I know Puerto Ricans from my hometown state of Delaware. they're good, decent honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and un-American." Now, some on the right have seized that comment to mean his supporters, meaning Donald Trump's supporters, meaning all Trump supporters, half the country.  The White House is saying, no, no, there's an apostrophe there. He's talking about "his supporter," meaning the comedian. His comments are unconscionable and un-American. That's the controversy last night. The president took to Twitter soon after the Zoom, tried to clean it up, clarify that he was not talking about all the Americans -- half the American public But it is certainly a controversy that the White House and the Harris campaign are dealing with today, as the right tries to make it -- we're showing the tweet here from the president: "His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable," the president writes, "That's all I meant to say." The president said something, immediately tried to clarify it, Joe. But it's certainly a story on the right, who are trying to paint this to be the next basket of deplorables. SCARBOROUGH: [Big smile, chuckles] Well, of course. Donald Trump says shocking things every day, and Fox News and all of his apologists in the Republican party immediately go to it and brush it off, explain it away, or just completely ignore it. Here, they're trying to make a firestorm out of something that, again, if you look at it. You see what he said immediately afterward, which Donald Trump didn't say. He immediately afterward said no, that's not what I meant. I was talking about the comedian and people who supported that kind of talk.

Republicans clearly believe that transgender-related liberal culture war nonsense is a winning issue for them, which means that PolitiFact views it as their job to defend Democrats from the true attacks on their record. On Tuesday, PolitiFact was it again, rating Nevada Republican Senate challenger Sam Brown “false” for correctly stating Sen. Jacky Rosen supports allowing men to compete in women’s sports. Seth Richardson, who wrote two previous articles defending Sen. Sherrod Brown’s transgender record, quotes Brown as tweeting, "Jacky Rosen voted to allow biological men to compete in women’s sports, and she made it clear she still stands by her votes against women." He also quotes his old nemesis, the Senate Leadership Fund, as “saying Rosen backed ‘trans biological men in girls’ sports.’” Richardson then rehashed his previous arguments, “But the Senate Leadership Fund’s ad cited Rosen’s 2021 and 2024 votes against amendments to broader funding bills. The super PAC made the same argument — using the same evidence — in an ad targeting another Democratic incumbent: U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio. We rated that False.” He continued, “The claims against Rosen are similarly misleading: The amendments Rosen voted against would have stripped federal funding from schools and colleges that allowed transgender girls and women to compete in sports matching their gender identity. They did not address athletic eligibility; federal law rarely dictates who is eligible for specific sports.” That was a bad argument then and it still is. The SLF’s argument was that given how schools depend on federal funding, it is appropriate to frame the proposal as a ban. Richardson also claimed, “The bills did not dictate athletic eligibility. Governing bodies such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association controls that. Federal law addresses compensation, amateur status, antitrust or other civil issues.” Yes, and “other civil issues” includes Title IX, which mandates that women be given equal sporting opportunities. Conservatives argue allowing men to invade women’s sports violates that rule. Like his defense of Sherrod Brown, Richardson’s argument that Rosen’s vote was against a measure that Sen. Tommy Tuberville tried to attach to an unrelated spending bill is not credible because there is nothing to suggest Rosen would vote the other way if a standalone bill came up for a vote. As Richardson himself noted: These claims regarding Rosen came after the University of Nevada, Reno, women’s volleyball team forfeited an Oct. 26 match against San Jose State University over reports that one San Jose State player is a transgender woman… Rosen has not commented publicly on the University of Nevada, Reno, controversy, but her campaign spokesperson, Johanna Warshaw, said in an email Rosen believes coaches and athletic leagues are ‘in the best position’ to ensure fair athletic competition.” The league Rosen is hiding behind is the Mountain West Conference, which has denounced the long list of teams declining to compete against SJSU. Sam Brown and the SLF were correct and PolitiFact was wrong again. The next time PolitiFact founder Bill Adair shows up on TV and says Republicans are fact-checked more because they lie more, just remember that PolitiFact needs to be fact-checked as well.

Last week, I saw one of the most horrifying things I have ever witnessed in the world of propaganda: Kamala Harris and John Kelly’s blatant distortion of Donald Trump’s words to an alarming degree. I just published a book about propaganda, and having researched this topic as of late, I’m deeply troubled by what I saw. This goes beyond typical political spin. It’s part of a dangerous narrative that goes after Trump, our Constitution, and ultimately, you.Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, made the same claim that the left has been making against Trump since the very beginning and has been escalating in recent weeks: that Trump is a fascist, drawing comparisons to Adolf Hitler.The most unsettling part of Harris’ statement is how it smears not only Trump but also everyone who supports him.Harris leapt at the opportunity to use this fodder for her campaign, claiming Trump wanted “generals like Adolf Hitler had,” implying that he desires a military loyal to him rather than to the Constitution. This accusation is not only unsubstantiated but also a direct insult to the very concept of the American military’s loyalty to the Constitution, a principle that sets us apart from authoritarian regimes.Let’s be clear: In the United States, our military pledges allegiance to the Constitution, not to any individual. Service members take an oath to defend the Constitution and can reject unlawful orders. I believe Kelly was fired by Trump and that this PR stunt in Harris’ campaign is his pitiful attempt at seeking vengeance for his bruised pride.If Trump had indeed said such a thing, Kelly as chief of staff would have been duty-bound to bring it before the American people immediately. Why are we hearing about this claim years later? Why wait until 2024 amid the Democrats’ growing campaign panic? This is clearly just another campaign tactic without any corroborating evidence.Harris suggests that Trump would “abandon the Constitution” and accuses him of smearing his fellow Americans as “the enemy within.” She overlooks that Trump, like Abraham Lincoln, has used “the enemy within” to describe internal threats. “If destruction be our lot,” Lincoln warned, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”In other words, the real threat comes from abandoning the nation’s foundational values. Many Americans, regardless of political affiliation, fear internal forces are pulling the country apart. Harris is the puppet of those forces.The most unsettling part of Harris’ statement is how it smears not only Trump but also everyone who supports him. She claims that Trump would go after anyone who disagrees with him — a blatantly false accusation. In reality, her own party and the machine behind her campaign have been censoring and silencing those who challenge their narrative. If you questioned the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines and lockdowns, raised concerns about election integrity, or criticized the revolving door between Big Pharma, Big Food, and the FDA, you became a target of censorship. This is why they are targeting figures like Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who openly challenge their agenda.Harris’ rhetoric crosses a line. She is perfectly comfortable telling blatant lies, no matter their repercussions, so long as it benefits her campaign. If she did it to Trump, she will do it to you. If the machine goes after Elon, Tulsi, and RFK Jr., it will go after you.This election season isn’t merely about Trump and his allies. This is about whether we will give power to the same political machine that has actively worked to discredit you and silence you for an additional four years. The decision is yours on November 5.Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.