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A new ‘fridge free’ production method for vaccines could create far more reliable immunizations for low and middle income countries, as well as cut back on waste. Currently, it’s estimated that a large percentage of all vaccine doses are thrown out because the “cold chain,” a strict process of temperature controlled storage from the moment […] The post Resurrecting Plant Inspires ‘Fridge Free’ Vaccines That Could Save the Millions of Doses Wasted Annually appeared first on Good News Network.

Column Science Fiction Film Club Jurassic Park: I’m Still Rooting for the Dinosaurs How Steven Spielberg and an amazing team of artists changed moviemaking forever. By Kali Wallace | Published on August 26, 2026 Screenshot: Universal Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Universal Pictures Jurassic Park (1993) Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, based on the novel by Michael Crichton. Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough. Would you go to Jurassic Park? If the park were real and you could go see living, breathing, non-avian dinosaurs, would you go? I would. Absolutely. No question. Caveat: I would go if it were like the park was supposed to be in this movie, a safari park with small group tours through managed natural environments. The park in Jurassic World with all the crowds and grandstands looks like my personal nightmare, so I would probably not go to that one. When I lived close enough to be a member, I didn’t even like visiting the San Diego Safari Park on busy days, and the only dinosaurs they have are cool birds. They do have a cassowary, though, and cassowaries remember being dinosaurs. You can see it in their eyes. I would go to Jurassic Park. That’s the enduring appeal and curious contradiction inherent to this movie and the lengthy franchise it spawned: We want it to be real, and the movie encourages that, while at the same time trying to say that we shouldn’t want it. It ends up being a bit of a philosophical muddle, but there are dinosaurs, so it doesn’t matter. It’s a great movie. I’ve seen it many times over the years, starting from when it was in theaters, and I never get tired of it. Let’s go back to the beginning. About 252 million years ago, when the world’s landmasses were combined in the supercontinent Gondwana, a period of intense volcanism caused a severe rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to a catastrophic mass that… Just kidding. I’m not going to give you the entire history of dinosaur evolution. That would take too long. Let’s go back to the beginning of Jurassic Park, the movie, which means going back to the beginning of Jurassic Park, the book, which was first imagined as a very different movie. In a 1993 Cinefantastique article, Michael Crichton explained that he had become interested in the idea of using DNA to bring dinosaurs back to life in the early 1980s, and he wrote a draft of a screenplay about geneticists working on the cloning. At the time, he thought dinosaurs were actually too popular, so he set the idea aside and spent a few years trying to figure out a better angle. He would later explain, in the 1993 “The Making of Jurassic Park” documentary, that he hit upon the idea of adding an amusement park element when he tried to figure out who would pay for such expensive research. There was also a period when the entire story was told from a child’s point of view, but his trusted group of first readers hated it, so he changed the perspective to an adult one. Crichton decided to write the idea as a novel rather than a screenplay because he thought it would be too expensive to make as a movie. In a time frame that I frankly find absolutely mind-boggling as an author, he began writing the novel version in 1988, turned in the manuscript in May 1990, and the book was released by Knopf in October 1990. Some articles (like this) state that Crichton discussed the book with Steven Spielberg when they were talking about developing an old screenplay of Crichton’s into what would eventually become the television show ER (1994-2009), but the timeline is a little muddy, so I’m not sure if the conversations about ER came before or after Jurassic Park. However Spielberg learned about the book, he got his hands on the galleys, loved it, and immediately acquired the rights after a short bidding war. That meant the movie was announced and in development several months before the book was published. Crichton agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to write the first version of the screenplay. Screenwriter Malia Scotch Marmo wrote a second version, then David Koepp came on to write the final version. I have read the novel, but it was a long time ago, so I’m mostly relying on online plot summaries to remember the differences. The main difference I recall is that in the book the characters already know dinosaurs are escaping the island and attacking people before the story begins, so there’s a more urgent sense of dread offsetting the initial awe, and a longer pattern of corporate greed and negligence in the face of obvious danger. Spielberg has always said that his interest in Jurassic Park was pretty straightforward: he loved dinosaurs, and he wanted to make another Jaws (1975). And just like in Jaws, the creatures were always going to be the stars of the movie. The making of Jurassic Park is extremely well-documented. It might be the most well-documented film I’ve ever researched. There are multiple books and documentaries out there, and with every new movie in the franchise comes a fresh slew of articles, videos, and retrospectives. I’m not going to write about most of the production. There’s simply too much to cover, such as the fact that Nicolas Cage was the one who convinced Laura Dern to take the role and was jealous he didn’t get to do a dinosaur movie, or how Richard Attenborough slept peacefully through the entire night the cast and crew spent sheltering in the ballroom of their hotel when Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai, or the time paleontologist Jack Horner yelled at the visual effects crew for giving the Velociraptors lizard-like tongues, or the great John Williams score and the sound design by Gary Rydstrom, or the intense emotional whiplash of Spielberg directing Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List (1993) at the exact same time. If you’re interested in the full story, I highly recommend checking out the various documentaries and books. It all makes for a very interesting look at a movie production that is notable not because it was dramatic or traumatic, but because things went pretty well, a lot of professionals did their jobs, the whole project came in ahead of schedule and under budget, and it was an immediate, unprecedented success. Oh, and it changed the art and craft of special effects in film forever. That’s what I’m going to focus on. I’m going to talk about all the work that went into creating those incredible dinosaurs. Jurassic Park is rightfully credited as a paradigm shift in filmmaking due to its use of computer-generated special effects. What tends to get a little bit lost, however, is that the film didn’t set out to revolutionize anything. The plan was to make the best possible dinosaur movie using the best techniques at the time: a combination of life-size animatronics and stop-motion animation, with limited CGI to enhance the practical effects. For the animatronics, Spielberg enlisted special effects legend Stan Winston, whose work we’ve seen in The Thing (1982) and The Terminator (1984), and who by the early ’90s had won two Academy Awards for Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The Stan Winston School has a whole playlist of videos detailing every step of the process of creating the dinosaurs, with particular focus on the Tyrannosaurus rex, for anybody who wants to build a life-size dinosaur of their own. You’ll need a lot of space and several friends to help you drive it. According to concept artist Mark “Crash” McCreery, there were a number of dinosaur enthusiasts at Winston’s shop, and they were thrilled to get a chance to build dinosaurs. The dinosaurs started as drawings that reference the work of paleontologists like Jack Horner (upon whom Sam Neill’s character Alan Grant is based) and Robert Bakker (who is mentioned in the movie), and paleoartists like John Gurche, whose vibrant, action-packed paintings inspired a lot of the designs. The first construction step was to build one-fifth scale sculptures of the dinosaurs. Then, to get from one-fifth scale sculptures to the life-size animatronics, they cut the sculptures into dozens of slices and projected the slices onto plywood at the full-size scale. They mounted the full-size pieces onto the metal armatures and covered the whole structure with chicken wire and fiberglass, upon which they added the layers of clay for sculpting. It’s hard to explain in words, but it makes perfect sense when you see it in action. The next step was to use the full-size clay sculpture to mold the shell of the dinosaur that would hold the mechanical systems. They considered having the T. rex moved by non-mechanical puppeteers, but it was too big and would be impossible to maneuver on set. Then they considered using electric motors, but electric motors couldn’t move the creature fast enough. So they ended up constructing an amazingly complex hydraulic system, set within a welded steel frame and a core crafted from a continuous spiral to let the parts such as the neck and tail move realistically. The sculpted foam skin was sewn and glued into place over that core. Next came the challenge of actually controlling the animatronic in real-time. In a 1993 interview with Cinefantastique, Winston explains how the usual way of moving an animatronic—such as for large-scale creatures at amusement parks—would be to painstakingly program a computer with the motions of every hydraulic part and play it back exactly. That works just fine if your animatronic is supposed to do the same thing over and over again, but it doesn’t work if your animatronic is going to be on a movie set with the director, cinematographer, and actors all adjusting things on the fly. The solution Winston came up with was to build a performance-capturing system that would allow human controllers to “drive” the T. rex in real time, as the camera was rolling. They basically built a smaller, human-scale version of the T. rex’s interior hydraulics, and connected the two systems so that any movement of the small system would move the larger one. There were several people driving the T. rex every time it moved. Those scenes were all done on film sets in Hollywood. The only animatronic dinosaur filmed on location in Hawaii was the ailing Triceratops, which is immobile except for its breathing. All the other scenes with the animatronic dinosaurs—the T. rex, the Velociraptors, the Brachiosaurus head that munches on the tree where Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and the kids are sheltering, and that little fan-fringed spitting Dilophosaurus—were all filmed on sets back in Hollywood. It was fairly late in the process when Spielberg got the idea of setting the scene in which the T. rex attacks the vehicles during a rainstorm. This came as a surprise to Winston, who pointed out that nobody had told him and his crew that the T. rex would need to be waterproof. She was not, in fact, waterproof. She was covered with a thick layer of highly absorbent foam, and as soon as the rain turned on, the animatronic began soaking up water. Because water is very heavy, this unbalanced the hydraulics, so they had to keep stopping to dry the animatronic as best they could. There are hilarious behind-the-scenes clips of the operators frantically trying to towel off an enormous T. rex between takes, the same way hair and makeup staff might touch up an actor before their close-up. But of course, not all of the dinosaurs could be animatronics, nor were they ever planned to be. Some, such as the first glimpse we and the characters get of the Brachiosaurus, required a moving dinosaur that was simply too big to build. Others, such as the early panoramic view of dinosaur herds on a lake or the stampede of Gallimimus fleeing the T. rex, were going to have a whole lot of dinosaurs in a single shot. The initial plan for those scenes was stop-motion animation. Spielberg brought animator Phil Tippett onto the project very early in the pre-production. Tippett had worked on The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and several other films, but his most relevant experience was in animating the television documentary Dinosaur! (1985). It’s important to note that what Tippett was doing in the ’80s and ’90s was not quite the same as the traditional stop-motion animation we’ve seen from Willis O’Brien or Ray Harryhausen, nor was it the same as what the folks at Laika or Aardman are doing today. When he was working on the Star Wars films with George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Tippett and his colleagues, including Dennis Muren, developed a technique called “go motion” as a way to reduce the jerkiness of traditional stop-motion. They built a motorized rod puppet inside the animated figures; then the animator would move the figure through the desired set of motions. A computer would record those motions and play them back, which allowed the figure to go through the whole movement of sequence on camera, rather than capturing still images of every sequential step. The motorized motions would often be combined with traditional stop-motion for the smaller details to create a smooth, continuous animation. You can see how this works in the YouTube video “Learning from Legends: An Intro to Go Motion,” which includes some clips of the tauntaun animations from The Empire Strikes Back. A combination of stop-motion and go motion animation was the original plan for several dinosaur scenes in Jurassic Park, and Tippett and his studio were well into the process before the plan changed. But there was one scene that nobody could quite figure out how to do with either animatronics or models: the Gallimimus stampede. For that, Spielberg turned to ILM animator Dennis Muren, who had recently worked wonders with CGI in creating the fluid metal T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Muren and his team were more than happy to take on the task of animating the Gallimimus stampede—in fact, they wanted to prove they could do more than that, even though Spielberg hadn’t asked them to. ILM animators Mark Dippé and Steven Williams really wanted to try creating the T. rex in digital animation, so they decided to just go for it. In a 1993 interview with American Cinematographer, Williams explained how he had his brother-in-law send him a complete schematic of a T. rex skeleton from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada. Williams scanned that skeleton schematic into the computer and had another ILM animator, Stefen Fangmeier, create a 3D render. With that render he animated a full T. rex walk cycle. The animation test was so good that Muren called up Jurassic Park producer Kathleen Kennedy to arrange for her and Spielberg to take a look. The skeleton animation blew their minds. Kennedy would later say, “…It caused five or six of us to literally leap to our feet ­because it was so extraordinary.” And Spielberg said, “The last time my jaw dropped like that was when George Lucas showed me the shot of the Imperial cruiser.” Cool as the test animation was, they obviously could not use a skeletal T. rex in the film. That would be appropriate in the film about the Eternal Dinosaur Skeleton War that I’m totally going to write one day (this is me calling dibs), but not in a film about a dinosaur wildlife park. The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are meant to be realistic and convincing as living, breathing animals. They needed musculature and skin. They needed weight and bulk. They needed personality. Luckily for them, the production already had some people hanging around who knew how to make that happen. Even though there weren’t going to be stop-motion dinosaurs in the film anymore, Tippett’s expertise as a dinosaur lover and dinosaur animator was still necessary. Working with Muren, he adapted the armature of the motorized go motion models to create what articles refer to as a “Digital Interface Device” (DID) and interviews refer to as a “Dinosaur Input Device.” (I assume the former is the official name and the latter is what everybody called it because it’s much more charming.) How this worked was Tippett and his animators would move the models equipped with the DID, and a computer would log these motions just as it would in go motion animation. But instead of playing it back to animate and film the model, as they would in go motion animation, the motions would be sent to the computer animators, who would then add the necessary skin and texture maps to complete the images. The visual elements were developed by scanning Winston’s one-fifth scale models to ensure the dinosaurs had the same anatomy and markings across all the different forms. The computer animators at ILM also brought in performance artist Leonard Pitt as a movement consultant to help them figure out things like where a creature’s center of gravity ought to be and how its weight would shift while it moved. There was also reference to living animals; the sprinting of the Gallimimus, for example, is modeled on the motion of ostriches. There is one more element that must be mentioned when it comes to putting the dinosaurs on screen. In the scene where the Velociraptors stalk the kids in the resort kitchen, there are some moments where the raptors are not CGI or stop-motion, nor are they animatronics. They are good old-fashioned men in dinosaur suits. They are, in fact, special effects supervisor John Rosengrant and concept artist Crash McCreery. Because even in film that showcases tremendous technological advancements, sometimes the best choice is to stick with the classics. The success of the digital animation allowed Spielberg to add a new scene rather late in the production, one that wasn’t in the book or the shooting script. The original plan for the final confrontation in the park’s visitor center initially featured only the Velociraptors. But Spielberg realized audiences would be disappointed if the T. rex didn’t make another appearance in a big showdown right at the end. They couldn’t use the animatronic; the whole contraption was 18 feet tall, 36 feet long, and weighed several tons. It could not simply be moved into a set that had not been built for it. So they decided to create the T. rex digitally, along with the unlucky Velociraptor the T. rex picks up and flings across the room. Looking back on it now, they were taking quite a risk. Not only is it the climax of the film, but it’s an incredibly complicated scene: the digital Tyrannosaurus had to crash into a room in which multiple humans, two Velociraptors, and a collapsing fossil are all moving independently, and the dinosaur-on-dinosaur violence was going to be shown by a roving camera at very close range, in bright light, and totally unobscured. There was no rain or darkness or jungle foliage to hide behind. It worked. Of course it worked! It ended up becoming a fantastic, instantly iconic scene, the kind of movie climax that still gets cheers when people watch. In that 1993 American Cinematographer interview, Muren said of Jurassic Park’s digital effects, “I’m not sure how this stuff is going to age, because we’re starting out with something that’s so strong.” It was a valid question at the time, but the truth is that it’s aged beautifully. More than thirty years later, the special effects in Jurassic Park still set a remarkably high cinematic standard. The dinosaurs still look better than a lot of creature effects that came after. There is a tendency, in this most cynical age, to claim that this is because we were awed by their novelty at the time or are blinded by our nostalgia bias now. We were indeed awed by the novelty at the time, but nostalgia bias is not why the movie still looks great. It looks great because it looks great, full stop. Even though I’ve seen this movie many times, and I’ve watched countless behind-the-scenes features about the visual effects, I still find the combination of different techniques to be essentially seamless. Sure, if we study individual frames or scenes hard enough, we can figure out where the animatronic T. rex moves out of scene and the digital T. rex moves in, but it’s done so smoothly, with such clever editing, that it never disrupts the movie. And that, I think, is the key to Jurassic Park’s movie magic: it is a movie that is always inviting us in, never forcing us out. We want Jurassic Park to be real, and the movie understands that. The fact that the dinosaurs are very scary as they try to eat the characters does not take away from the fact that they are also magnificent. The film is nerdy but accessible, both skillfully made and a great deal of fun, with a cast that fully commits to wide-eyed excitement, but most of all it’s immersive. We want so very badly to see dinosaurs alive, and the movie is not mocking us for that childlike yearning. It welcomes our enthusiasm instead and uses it to provoke awe and terror in equal measure, and in doing so it very much earns its place in film history. So, would you go to Jurassic Park? What do you think of the film after all these years? Or the book? I confess I’ve only seen the beginning of Jurassic World, so I have no real opinion on the many sequels. I just love this movie so much I’ve never felt the need for more, but if any of them are any good, let me know![end-mark] We’re All Mad Here… Obviously we should bring dinosaurs back from the dead if we can figure out how, but I can’t say the same about other mad science endeavors portrayed in film throughout the years. In September we’re going to watch some horror movies about mad scientists whose projects tend to go, ah, maybe a little not great. September 2 — Frankenstein (1931), directed by James Whale The moody, pre-Code Boris Karloff classic that defined a genre. Find it online. View the trailer. September 9 — Island of Lost Souls (1932), directed by Erle C. Kenton Let’s find out why H.G. Wells hated this adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau. Find it online. View the trailer. September 16 — Eyes Without a Face (1960), directed by Georges Franju The classic surreal French horror about questionable medical experiments and bad parenting. Find it online. View the trailer. September 23 — Re-Animator (1985), directed by Stuart Gordon Honestly, this is just what medical students do in their free time. Find it online. View the trailer. September 30 — The Fly (1958), directed by Kurt Neumann, and The Fly (1986), directed by David Cronenberg I want to watch both versions, so we’re doing a doubleheader of unwise teleportation experiments. Find both movies online: 1958 and 1986. View the 1958 trailer and the 1986 trailer. The post <i>Jurassic Park</i>: I’m Still Rooting for the Dinosaurs appeared first on Reactor.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Six months after President Donald Trump mandated foreigners pay extra to enter popular national parks, the Department of the Interior has raised more than $20 million in new funding. After Trump signed an executive order titled “Making America Beautiful Again by Improving our National Parks,” the Department of Interior introduced a new non-resident pass for foreign tourists. In November 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced that U.S. residents will continue to face affordable prices, while nonresidents are asked to pay a higher rate to support the care and maintenance of the parks. As of Jan. 1, 2026, the Annual Pass costs $80 for U.S. residents and $250 for nonresidents. Nonresidents without an annual pass must pay a $100 per person fee to enter 11 of the most visited national parks, in addition to the standard entrance fee. Since the policy was instituted, the Department of the Interior has raised a total of $22,531,075 from National Park visitors claiming to be non-residents in the United States. In total, the National Park Service has raised 46% more funds from park fees in 2026 compared to this time last year, and 53.1% more than the last year of the Biden administration. “President Trump has created a sustainable funding stream that has already generated significant revenue for the National Park System and will continue to support our parks for generations to come,” Burgum told the Daily Signal. “These policies ensure that U.S. taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share.” “This America-First pricing is providing our parks with the resources they need to fund critical improvements and enhance visitor experiences across the country,” he added. So far in 2026, the Department of the Interior has raised $61,393,015 to support National Parks and other beautification projects across the country.

It’s not often that I find myself feeling sorry for Hakeem Jeffries. The embattled Democrat met with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, and now his ascent to the House speakership appears to be in jeopardy. Simply talking is a bridge too far for today’s left-wing Democrat revolutionaries. What was the offense? Kushner asked for a meeting. Jeffries took it. Look Who’s Talking The two discussed housing, immigration and the cost of living, according to The New York Times, which broke the story Sunday. Kushner suggested Jeffries also meet with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. That’s the scandal: a conversation about housing costs and grocery bills, the very issues Democrats say will help them retake the House in November. Jeffries and Kushner are not strangers, having previously worked together on criminal justice reform during Trump’s first term. These kinds of relationships used to be considered an asset for a congressional leader. Apparently not anymore, especially if that someone is connected to Trump. Hakeem Jeffries Tries to Explain In the days since the Times revealed the meeting, Democrats have not been kind to their leader. Jeffries, responding to the growing backlash, released a video that had the unmistakable feel of a political damage-control exercise. No one from the Trump Cartel is getting a pass. pic.twitter.com/QA0yxs0mTO— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) August 25, 2026 “I want to give y’all a little real talk on this Jared Kushner situation,” Jeffries said “He asked for a meeting, and I took it to discuss the affordability crisis that exists. That is not a hoax.” The explanation didn’t satisfy his critics, who were already at odds with Jeffries over his failure to fully embrace the far Left’s policy agenda. Democrats Turn on Their Leader Justice Democrats spokesman Usamah Andrabi told Axios that “opposing Medicare for All and having secret meetings with Donald Trump’s son-in-law sounds more like the leadership of the Republican Party than the fighters Democratic voters are demanding in Congress.” Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, added that the meeting “reinforces the worry from our base that Jeffries’ instinct is to negotiate with the Trump power structure rather than draw lines and fight it.” Tommy Vietor, the former Obama aide who co-hosts “Pod Save America,” argued the only appropriate way to engage Kushner is through demands for documents and subpoenas. Jared Kushner has no actual government job he just uses his family connections to get money from gulf autocrats and fund corrupt deals. The only way @RepJeffries should work with him is with demands for documents and subpoenas. https://t.co/5dBHVHW0CT— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) August 23, 2026 Mehdi Hasan, CEO of Zeteo, wrote that the only meeting Jeffries should take with Kushner is one where he informs him he’ll be subpoenaed by a Democratic-controlled House. Hasan called it “pathetic stuff from the House Dem leader.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he’s fine with people meeting whomever they want—before adding a caveat that “it’s one thing to have a meeting. It’s another thing to see something real come out of that.” House Democrats speaking anonymously to Axios were even more revealing. “Of all the people he could meet with, this strikes me as odd,” one lawmaker said. Others noted that Jeffries has offered no explanation to his fellow House Democrats. One aide, quoted by Semafor, dismissed the whole thing with a two-word profanity. What Did Jeffries Do Wrong? The striking thing about the backlash is not that Democrats disagreed with Jeffries. It’s that so few seemed willing to say outright that talking to political opponents is a normal part of governing. In the video posted Monday night, Jeffries did his best to strike a balance between defending his actions and presenting a tough-guy image. “No one is going to get a pass,” he said. “We’re going to hold every single member of the Trump cartel accountable, beginning on day one.” He ran through the scalps Democrats claim to have already taken—Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem—and promised more. A day later, Jeffries turned to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to explain his thinking. “The American people want us in Washington to solve problems,” he said. “And I’m not simply here to make a point, but I’m also here to make a difference.” .@danturrentine and @seanspicer break down @RepJeffries interview on CNN, neither think it was a win for him. pic.twitter.com/y32Bf20crp— The Huddle (@theDChuddle) August 26, 2026 The man who hopes to wield the speaker’s gavel in January took a single meeting about the cost of living and spent the past 48 hours explaining why. Brent Buchanan, founder and CEO of Cygnal, believes the backlash speaks to a deeper political problem for Democrats. “Republicans should make sure every Democratic voter, especially in vulnerable districts, knows Jeffries sat down with Kushner to look for common ground,” Buchanan told the Daily Signal. “Democrats’ moderate wing is no longer voting for something; it is voting against Donald Trump. But when their own House leader negotiates with Trump’s son-in-law, he punctures the ’emergency’ they have spent two years inflating to midterm voters. Without that emergency, the anger that drives turnout fades and so does their motivation.” The Far Left Doesn’t Want Common Ground The reaction to Jeffries illustrates a broader problem on the modern Left: treating engagement itself as a form of compromise. Victor Davis Hanson discussed the stark contrast in his most recent Daily Signal video. In Hanson’s view, the activist Left increasingly sees political opponents as wrong, illegitimate, and dangerous enemies. The radical Left, Hanson argued, operates on a logic that defies American traditions. Its adherents believe their ends are “morally and intellectually superior to those on the conservative side,” and therefore, Hanson explained, “we’re allowed to use any means necessary.” That logic has no off switch. It does not distinguish between political adversaries and insufficiently zealous allies, which is why a movement that spends its days attacking Trump turned on Jeffries. Hanson warned of the consequences for America, noting “a huge chasm between what the Democratic Socialists are advocating and what traditional conservatives are trying to maintain.” No Room for Negotiation For the Left, there is no tolerance for civility or negotiation, because that would concede the other side has something legitimate to offer. The Jeffries episode is just one data point. But it’s a clarifying one. Jeffries shouldn’t have had to defend himself for taking the Kushner meeting. Yet within hours of its disclosure, he was effectively forced to do exactly that. Whether he can repair his standing on the Left is a question that won’t be answered until after November. What we already know is that his own coalition treated a conversation with Kushner as a betrayal. Whatever they discussed behind closed doors, the reaction tells us something important about today’s Democrat coalition: for many activists, talking to the other side is becoming its own offense.

Rep. Chip Roy has sent a letter to several high-ranking federal officials to voice his concerns about a planned Islamic development being built near a U.S. military training base in San Antonio.  Roy, a Republican from Texas, is requesting that members of Trump’s Cabinet look into the Islamic center’s planned community and “examine whether any criminal, civil, financial, or immigration statutes have been violated in its effort to fulfill its campus expansion project.” The letter, obtained by the Daily Signal, was sent to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.   Roy learned of the San Antonio development after the RAIR Foundation released a report two weeks ago warning that the Northside Islamic Center of San Antonio is nearing completion of a 7.25-acre campus less than 20 miles from Camp Bullis Military Training Reservation in Bexar County.  According to the RAIR Foundation report, the development will include a mosque, housing developments, K-12 educational institutions, businesses, and Sharia-compliant separate prayer areas for men, women, and children.  Notably, the report alleges that NICSA Islamic leaders have partnered with Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations to raise funds for the Islamic center’s expansion project and solicited donations from unknown international sources that some say could be potential bad actors or organizations.  Roy’s letter also cites videos included in the RAIR Foundation’s report.  In one video posted by the RAIR Foundation, NICSA’s main imam, AbdulRahman Kattab, an Egyptian national who is suspected to be in the U.S. on a visa, discussed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel.  Kattab described the attacks, which killed nearly 1,200 people, as “a day of remembrance” for Muslims and said the attackers had revived the Ummah by demonstrating the teachings of the Quran. RAIR also reported that Kattab concluded his sermon by praying for their victory.   In another clip from the same video, Kattab can allegedly be heard referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as “the Persians.”  Roy’s letter states that the views expressed in the videos could be interpreted as “showing sympathy toward the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s military force,” after the IRGC agreed to join the Iranian Memorandum of Understanding aimed at ending the armed conflict in Iran.  NICSA’s constitution and bylaws state that “terrorism is not a religious identity, rather it is a horrific behavior often justified by misapplied religious dogma.”  The documents also state that the center condemns acts of terrorism.  However, Roy says Kattab’s statements conflict with the Islamic center’s constitution and bylaws.  Roy also raised concerns about the implementation of Sharia-compliant sections of the development. Sharia law is a system of Islamic religious law that guides personal behavior and civil and criminal justice.  He claims Sharia law subjugates women, children, and non-Muslims to second-class citizenship and includes varying punishments and penalties for those who oppose Islam.  “Under no circumstances should Sharia, or any foreign legal code, be practiced on U.S. soil, including community developments,” Roy’s letter reads. “As a congressional representative who has the privilege of representing those who honorably serve in our armed forces and fulfill their duties at Camp Bullis, I have an obligation to ensure their safety and the safety of my constituents in the surrounding area.”  The Daily Signal contacted the Northside Islamic Center of San Antonio for comment from the organization and Kattab but did not receive a response before publication.

PA Measles Outbreak Sparking Predictable Virulent Outbreak of TDS