Kamala Harris has attempted to convince Americans on the campaign trail that rather than growing up the silver-spooned daughter of an affluent couple afforded the luxury of routinely flying back and forth between pricey homes in two countries, she was alternatively the product and a member of the middle class. A critical component of this narrative is Harris' claim that she worked at McDonald's in 1983 — a claim not reflected in her past résumés and for which the vice president has produced no evidence. Democrats and the liberal press have attacked President Donald Trump and others who have suggested that Harris' origin story is bogus. The New York Times dutifully did its part on Oct. 20 but accidentally torpedoed the narrative by naming its only other source besides Harris: a hardcore Harris booster. At the outset, the Times' Heather Knight and Nicholas Nehamas likened doubts about Harris' politically expedient and unsubstantiated claim to birtherism, then shifted the burden of proof onto Trump: Vice President Kamala Harris has recalled her stint at a Bay Area McDonald’s 41 years ago in introducing herself to voters — a biographical detail relatable to millions of Americans who have toiled in fast-food restaurants. But former President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly accused her of inventing it. Lacking a shred of proof, he has charged that she never actually worked under the golden arches — recalling his earlier false claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. President Donald Trump masterfully trolled his opponent while tapping into classic Americana last weekend, donning an apron and serving up french fries to supporters at a McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania. 'They don't want to report it because they're fake!' "Now I have worked at McDonald's," Trump told reporters at the drive-through window. "I've now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala. She never worked here." In the lead-up to his brief stint as a fry cook, Trump repeatedly mocked Harris over her summer job claim, writing on Sept. 1, for instance, "Kamala said she worked at McDonalds — She never did. Lie!" "She said she worked and grew up in terrible conditions, she worked at McDonald’s. It was such — she never worked there!" Trump told a crowd in Indiana last month. "And these fake news reporters will never report it. They don't want to report it because they're fake! They're fake!" According to the Times, "Mr. Trump's seeding of doubts about Ms. Harris's story, while insidious and outside the lines of traditional fair play in politics, advances his goal of portraying Ms. Harris as a fraud." The first time Harris publicly mentioned ever having allegedly worked at McDonald's was reportedly in 2019, when pandering to striking workers in Las Vegas. Harris suggested in September that she worked at the restaurant during college, echoing a campaign ad from the previous month. On another occasion, Harris suggested that she worked at McDonald's to help pay for law school, which she attended several years after leaving Montreal. The Times produced no verifiable evidence of Harris' claims. Instead, it took the word of Harris, her campaign spokesman, and hearsay from a woman named Wanda Kagan. As the Washington Free Beacon has noted, the Times portrayed Kagan as a family friend who heard about the McDonald's gig from Harris' deceased mother. The liberal paper neglected to inform readers that Kagan, the only source backing the McDonald's claim besides Harris and her campaign, is herself a Harris booster who has in recent weeks and months actively supported the Democrat's candidacy. The Times noted only that Kagan was a "friend who had known Ms. Harris as a teenager and remained in touch with the family for years afterward" — a "close friend of Ms. Harris' when they attended high school together in Montreal, [who] said she recalled Ms. Harris having worked at McDonald's around that time." The reality is that Kagan is much more than an old friend. The Beacon noted that Kagan served as a surrogate for Harris during the Democratic National Convention, telling MSNBC in August, "It's an emotional and chilling ride, and I'm just overwhelmed with happiness for my friend, and I'm happy to be alive to be able to witness her now fighting for the people of America." Earlier this month, Kagan posted a video from a Harris campaign event, captioned, "Blessed to be on the stage with @Vp, and the first one she toasts. Cheers to brighter future with @kamalaharris as president!" Kagan, the partisan whose hearsay is holding up the Times' rebuttal to Trump's criticism, previously told PBS News that she lost touch with Harris after high school. "I lost touch after she went to college and then I went to college. But then I stayed in touch with her mom still, and — but then I still had a pretty unstable life again, so I was moving a lot, and so I lost her mom's contact number," said Kagan, adding that she didn't reach out directly again until Harris was San Francisco's district attorney. If secondhand information from a partisan who wasn't in touch with Harris during her college years is the extent of the Times' evidence, then perhaps it is not Trump who "lack[s] a shred of proof." Spokesman Charlie Stadtlander told the Beacon the Times' Oct. 20 article "was a thoroughly reported and edited piece of independent journalism." "The Times stands behind it completely," added Stadtlander. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Researchers recently uncovered troubling data revealing what they called a disturbing landscape that exposes children to grooming and pornography in online spaces. For years child predators have been lurking in many online marketplaces that are popular with children: Snapchat, Fortnite, and Discord are just a few of the apps that have struggled to keep teens cordoned off. As with any of these platforms, parental guidance is the most important line of defense that children should be able to rely on. According to recent research by Hindenburg, a massive, country-sized number of youngsters are under constant threat from child predators. The research focused on Roblox, which was described as the second-highest-grossing app on iOS in 2020. The platform allows users to program and play games created by the community. It became highly popularized when students were forcibly contained in their homes during COVID-19 lockdowns, at a time when long-distance learning was mandatory. As of Q2 2024, Roblox has a reported 79 million active daily users, an increase of almost 15 million from the same time in 2023, Backlinko reported. With approximately 58% of its user base under 16 years old, that equates to a community of at least 46 million children. Bathroom simulators Children are exposed to grooming, pornography, violent content, and what researchers categorized as extremely abusive speech on the platform. Researchers created accounts as if they were children and said their avatars routinely faced grooming attempts while being able to access games with sexual, violent, and pornographic content. In a press email, Hindenburg founder Nate Anderson pointed to 73 active group pages on Roblox — available to children of all ages — that "solicit child sexual material and/or sexual experiences from minors." At the time of this publication, at least 45 of those pages remained active, with another dozen or so pages still active but having recently disabled comments and/or posts. The active groups are, at best, disturbing. Multiple pages refer to people who have a fetish for role-playing as skunks, while other groups refer to diaper-changing and the brand Pampers consistently. The page "pamped studios" links to a game called Diaper Tycoon, which offers achievements for "girls pull ups" and "boys pull ups." One group called "wedgie" warned users that the group would likely be deleted soon and directed them to another community. Users on that page wrote public messages, visible without signing in to the platform, that included "add me if you u would obey me in ANYTHING I say." Other posts read "[Femboys] add for heavy 'lemonade,'" and "Hello, i do roleplays and stuff." Anderson said that Roblox has quietly removed some questionable children's games and put others under review. These included titles such as Escape To Epstein Island and Public Bathroom Simulator. However, there are still three different Public Bathroom Simulator games available for users of “all ages:” Public Bathroom Simulator Public Bathroom Simulator (2) Public Bathroom Simulator (3) Screenshot obtained by Blaze News from https://www.roblox.com/games/18991046468/Public-Bathroom-Simulator Roblox responds Roblox explained in an email that it has published a response to Hindenburg's accusations, but most of the statement addresses claims of fraudulent financial statements. Addressing the safety concerns, Roblox wrote: "Roblox takes any content or behavior on the platform that doesn’t abide by its standards extremely seriously, and Roblox has a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on the platform." In a separate blog post, the company stated that its detecting and reporting systems flag just 0.0063% of its total content for policy violations surrounding bullying, hate speech, or violent extremism. "It's no coincidence that our policies are significantly stricter than those found on social networks and user-generated content platforms and cover everything from profanity to ad standards," the company added. Specific to users under 13, Roblox says it has filters in place to block the sharing of personal information and attempts by users to take conversations off Roblox, where "standards and moderation are less stringent." Additionally, the company says it does not allow users to exchange images or videos through voice or text messages. Furthermore, it said that all uploaded content (images, video, audio, 3D models, and text) goes through a comprehensive review process, including artificial intelligence augmented by humans. Naturally, these provisions haven't been able to prevent some offenders from skirting the security measures. An elementary school teacher in Prince George's County, Maryland, was federally indicted after messaging a 9-year-old student on Roblox. Mark Cobb allegedly sent messages to the child on the platform in which he asked for and received sexual photos. Police said they later found more videos and images of children under 12 at his home. The teacher was charged with nearly a dozen child sex abuse crimes, WJLA reported, including the alleged coercion and enticement of a child and possession of child pornography. Roblox was asked to directly address this incident and whether the company could have prevented it. This article will be updated with any applicable responses. 13,000 incidents Unfortunately, this was not the first crime of this nature with a connection to Roblox. Several predators have been arrested for enticing children by offering them the platform's virtual gaming currency, Robux. In 2019, a Florida man was charged with 26 counts relating to child pornography and solicitation of a child for asking children ages 10-12 to send naked photos in exchange for Robux. In 2020, a registered sex offender in Michigan was arrested for enticing an 8-year-old girl into sending him sexual content in exchange for Robux, as well. Police later found over 20 videos of the child on his iPad. More recently, at least six men have taken their communications from Roblox offline and escalated to actual incidents of rape or kidnapping against their victims. In 2021, a California man was charged with kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old after he communicated with the child on Roblox. In 2022, another man drove from California to Pennsylvania to break into a 14-year-old's home. The man assaulted the young girl and was charged with assault, unlawful sexual contact, and corruption of a minor. The same year, a 33-year-old man from Georgia kidnapped and raped a 13-year-old girl he met on Roblox; he was charged with five felonies, including statutory rape and child molestation. Other Roblox-fueled charges in 2022 included a Florida man kidnapping and sexually assaulting a child under the age of 12 and a man in Michigan kidnapping a 14-year-old girl. The Michigan man picked up the child from school and later dropped her off at a homeless shelter. Roblox has attempted to stem this activity by developing relationships with federal and state authorities, including directly allowing law enforcement to connect to the company's Roblox Law Enforcement Portal. The company also says it proactively reports "potential safety threats" to the FBI. Roblox also reports potentially harmful content to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, reporting over 13,000 incidents to the NCMEC in 2023 alone. This vast number displays the sheer volume of potential predators Roblox is dealing with. Hindenburg's founder told Blaze News that one of the reasons this is happening is because there isn't enough up-front screening for new users. "Users do not need to provide any personal identifiable information to set up an account," Anderson said. "Anyone, including pedophiles, can register an account in under a minute and begin anonymously playing and chatting with children." Anderson added that bypassing the parental controls is as easy as "self-identifying at 13+." As with any of these platforms, parental guidance is the most important line of defense that children should be able to rely on. It remains true, however, that an overarching conversation about child safety online, and whether or not children need access to these types of platforms, is sorely needed. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Just 11 days before Election Day, the RealClearPolitics average of polls is showing a tie between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Both candidates have 48.5% of the vote, according to the RCP average. The average also shows Trump leading Harris in the battleground states.The staff at RealClearPolitics selects polls they consider authoritative and calculates an average, which many use to get a general sense of election races. A tie in the polling likely means an advantage for Trump since, as many have noted, historically the Republican underperforms in polling. "If we have a polling shift like we've seen in prior years from now until the final result, Donald Trump would actually win," said CNN poll analyst Harry Enten in August, when Harris had a strong lead. The average also shows Trump leading Harris in the battleground states 48.4% to 47.5%, respectively. The RCP average has shown Harris in the lead since Aug. 4, while Trump was leading prior to that date by as much as 2 percentage points. In mid-September, Harris hit her highest lead, also about 2 percentage points. Some immediately began trying to undermine the veracity of the RCP average after it showed a tie. "Your daily reminder that RealClearPolitics is biased and distorted by including junk, partisan polls in its simple averages. Garbage in, garbage out," replied Timothy McBride, a Washington University professor. RCP also shows a slight lead for Democrats in the generic congressional campaign average, 47.2% to 47.1%. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Undecided Pennsylvania voters in a focus group said Democrats calling Donald Trump the next Adolf Hitler is not convincing them to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.Speaking with Mark Halperin, all seven participants agreed the argument that "Trump is Hitler" and a "fascist" from Democrats in the final days of the election is unproductive. Instead, they want to see more important issues addressed."To me, it's horrible that she's saying that about him. If he was saying that about her, everybody would be up in arms," a woman named Linda told Halperin."She obviously thinks it's going to help her. I don't think it does at all," another participant said. The participant claimed it would be unusual for former Chief of Staff John Kelly to make up a story of Trump praising Hitler's generals but added that Kelly "had the responsibility to resign the day that was said, if that's true. "I don't think that's the case," the participant said. 'I know President Trump, and he would never say this.'"I think part of the reason why I'm being pushed towards Trump so strongly is that I find that the Democrats and the left just keep going straight to Hitler all of the time, with everything," another man said. "If it's the left not pushing Hitler, it's the right pushing Stalin. So it's like we're fighting World War II every single day for every single election. It's so exhausting. ... It's so hyperbolic."When Halperin asked the group to raise their hands if they thought Harris' recent attacks on Trump were valuable to the discourse, no one did.Halperin admitted it was just one focus group and not a poll, but said, "You will look in vain, I believe, for anything in the media that tells you how the voters feel about this argument. I just haven't seen it anywhere else. So whose view of this argument would you most like to hear right now? I would argue undecided voters in Pennsylvania."The Trump campaign has responded to Harris' accusations with a new ad featuring a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp denouncing the comparisons.“I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes. For her to accuse President Trump of being like Hitler is the worst thing I've ever heard in my 75 years of living in the United States. I know President Trump, and he would never say this," Jerry Wartski said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Though there are lots of gaming subscription services around these days, I firmly believe that Humble Choice is the best of the bunch. This long-running service offers eight stunning games (to keep) for an a fraction of what you'd pay if you bought them. On top of this, it also gives you monthly coupons which you can use to get up to 20% off in the Humble Store. Continue reading The best way get premium games free each month MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Check out the latest Humble Bundles, Browse the latest Humble sales, Get Humble Choice

Back before the Final Fantasy and Square Enix developers fused together to become Square Enix, series creator Square (as they were at the time) also brought us another essential JRPG series, the most popular of which was 1993’s Romancing SaGa 2. A fundamental early pillar of the genre, its nonlinear structure and broad class selection made it a key influence on the industry, but it didn’t make it to a worldwide launch until 2016. Now, its full-scale remake has finally arrived, modernizing it for a 2024 audience, and it’s already proving a hit on Steam. Continue reading 30 year old JRPG Romancing SaGa 2 finally gets its due with a new, full remake MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best JRPGs, Best old games, Best anime games

What are the best Dragon Ball Sparking Zero mods? There isn’t a game in the world that can’t be improved with user created mods, and Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is no exception. While the PC version of the game may have its flaws, it more than makes up for this with its modding potential. There are some aspects of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero that were hampered by technical limitations due to the console versions of the fighting game, but mods are here to save the day. We’ve also featured some mods that add new costumes to part of the Sparking Zero roster, including some deep cuts that hardcore fans will appreciate. Continue reading Best Dragon Ball Sparking Zero mods MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Dragon Ball Sparking Zero roster, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero release date, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero system requirements

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