'I might be trippin' but I think Justin Bieber just stopped to help'

'On the road to fascism'

News Stranger Things Stranger Things: What Happened to Will in the Upside Down? Even the Duffer Brothers Didn’t Know at First “Season one, to be honest, we were just shocked that we had a show… ” By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on November 20, 2025 Courtesy of Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Courtesy of Netflix Travel back with me to season one of Stranger Things, where the inciting incident was twelve-year-old Will (Noah Schnapp) disappearing into the Upside Down, an alternative version of Hawkins where things were dark, gray, and inhabited by Demogorgons. We didn’t get details as to what Will went through during his time there, in large part because the show’s creators, Ross and Matt Duffer, didn’t really think about it. “Season one, to be honest, we were just shocked that we had a show,” Matt said in an interview with Deadline. “We had no thought in our minds that it was going to be ongoing.” Once the show was picked up for a second season, however, the brothers put their thinking caps on and, as Ross told Deadline, “started talking about more of a sentient being behind all of this… that’s really where we started to build out most of the mythology, which became Vecna and Henry and One.” The opening scene for Stranger Things 5, which Netflix recently released, reveals what Will goes through, something that was news even for Schnapp. “The first five minutes was so gratifying for me,” he told Deadline. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I finally know what happened,’ but it’s helpful, honestly, to play and perform.” He added that he had some idea about what happened to Will when he talked to the Duffer brothers after season four, but that he didn’t really know the details until he read the script for season five’s first installment. And even after his discussions with the Duffers, the scene surprised him. “I mean, everyone thought he was very weak, and I thought he was hiding the whole time,” he said. “I didn’t know he was running and climbing a tree and shooting. It’s the setup for the season that he’s stronger than we may have believed, which helps in the performance as well, to know as much as I can.” Check out the opening scene yourself below. We can watch the rest of the episode when the first part of Stranger Things 5 starts streaming on Netflix on November 26, 2025.[end-mark] The post <i>Stranger Things</i>: What Happened to Will in the Upside Down? Even the Duffer Brothers Didn’t Know at First appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Some people find religion after a brush with mortality. Lindsey Graham found the Fourth Amendment after a brush with Jack Smith. The senator from South Carolina has spent the past two decades helping build the modern surveillance state, and now he’s furious that it turned its cold electronic eye on him. Federal prosecutors secretly subpoenaed his phone records without his knowledge as part of Special Counsel Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s alleged role in the events of January 6. Graham says it’s an outrage, a scandal. He’s demanding the impeachment of the federal judge who approved it and threatening to sue someone, though he hasn’t worked out who, for “tens of millions of dollars.” It’s the kind of melodrama that comes easily to a man who’s never been shy about using the power of the state when it suits him. This story started last month when FBI Director Kash Patel revealed that phone records of eight Republican senators, including Graham’s, were pulled as part of Smith’s “Arctic Frost” probe. The data covered January 4 to 7, 2021, and came with gag orders preventing telecom companies from telling the targets they were under the microscope. “They spied on my phone records as a senator and a private citizen,” Graham complained on Fox News. “I’m sick of it.” He’s not wrong to be angry. But there’s something deeply comic about Graham discovering his inner civil libertarian only after the dragnet landed on his number. Graham has been one of the most reliable defenders of the surveillance architecture that is now bothering him. In 2001, as a House member, he voted for the Patriot Act, the law that kicked open the door for mass data collection. When Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was collecting Americans’ phone records by the millions, Graham didn’t seem alarmed. “I’m a Verizon customer. It doesn’t bother me one bit for the NSA to have my phone number,” he famously said. “I’m glad the NSA is trying to find out what the terrorists are up to overseas and in our country.” He later voted to codify those surveillance powers into Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008 and backed every major reauthorization since. For most of his career, Graham treated Section 702 like a sacred text. Whenever colleagues raised the idea of tightening controls or adding warrants for Americans’ data, he waved them off. “We can’t handcuff our intelligence community every time someone gets nervous about civil liberties,” he said in 2017, as if privacy itself were a form of weakness. In 2017, he supported a bill to make Section 702 permanent, with no sunset clauses or congressional review, a forever license to snoop. He brushed off critics. “You can’t live in a world where terrorists are trying to attack the country without some way to find out what they’re up to.” During the 2018 FISA Amendments reauthorization debate, Graham told colleagues, “You need to have the tools to find the terrorists before they hit us again.” He also took a particular interest in undermining encryption, the very technology that keeps ordinary citizens’ communications secure from government eyes. To those still wary about domestic abuse, he offered reassurance. “This is about foreign terrorists, not American citizens. It’s about stopping the next attack, not listening to your conversations.” Graham was already ignoring the fact that 702 was increasingly being used on American citizens, including members of Congress and judges. By 2020, when the powers came up for renewal once more, Graham was chairing the Judiciary Committee and still treating oversight like a nuisance. He blocked amendments that would have added warrant requirements and reminded everyone that, in his view, the stakes were existential. “Our intelligence professionals are the last line of defense between us and the next 9/11,” he said. “They need Section 702.” That was Lindsey Graham, who never imagined his own records could be pulled under those same authorities. Now, after years of helping build the panopticon, Graham is peering up from the inside of it. But his statements so far suggest a narrower goal: stopping his data from being collected, not anyone else’s. He’s still perfectly fine with government surveillance, just not when the target happens to have a Senate office. For years, Graham’s position on privacy was simple. If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s only now, after being reminded that “wrong” is defined by whoever’s holding the subpoena, that he’s learned what the rest of the country figured out long ago. When the machinery of surveillance turns on its makers, it rarely asks for permission. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Lindsey Graham Falls Prey to the Surveillance Monster He Championed appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. If you ever wanted to know what it looks like when the British political class comes together to publicly declare war on common sense, let me direct your attention to a recent little jamboree at Westminster. Nearly 200,000 citizens asked, politely, for Parliament to stop locking people up over tweets. The result was a torrent of pious grandstanding from MPs who seem to believe that sarcasm on X is a more pressing threat to national security than terrorism or a collapsing National Health Service. Let’s rewind. Rupert Lowe, Independent MP for Great Yarmouth, did something rather unfashionable in today’s Parliament. He listened to the public. He took up a petition that read, “Imprisoning individuals for posts on social media sets a dangerous precedent.” Clear, sane, and supported by many. Lowe went further. He brought Lucy Connolly, a British mother who was actually sent to prison for a social media post. She’s now out, but still under restrictions. Lowe said something most of his colleagues now seem incapable of understanding: “In Britain, nobody should ever be sent to prison for an offensive social media post. Full stop.” One by one, MPs rose to their feet to let the public know that their quaint little notions about “freedom of speech” were, in fact, dangerous. To these people, your right to open your mouth ends the moment someone else gets the slightest twinge of discomfort. Jamie Stone, Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, made a heroic attempt at logical gymnastics, insisting that the Online Safety Act “does not target content because it is unpopular, offensive or controversial, but whether, crucially, it violates criminal law.” Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 criminalizes sending a message that is “grossly offensive.” The Malicious Communications Act 1988 does the same. (Both acts are already an attack on free speech.) And now we’ve got the OSA’s shiny new “false communications” offense, where if your tweet causes someone “non-trivial psychological harm” and you can’t prove a “reasonable excuse,” you’re suddenly bunking with burglars. Saying the OSA only targets criminal content is circular because the Act creates new criminal content. It invents crimes out of previously legal speech, reclassifies harm as illegality, and then sits back smugly saying, “Well, we’re only punishing what’s criminal.” Emily Darlington, Labour MP for Milton Keynes Central, made the remarkable claim that the OSA is “ensuring that everybody has a voice.” Presumably, except for people who say things that get them prosecuted. She then called for UK election laws to be extended to online spaces, said “kids can’t buy a video game that is adult-only rated without ID” but online they can access anything, and warned that ditching the OSA would be dangerous because those critics “are actually putting our free speech at risk.” Richard Quigley, Labour MP for Isle of Wight West, gave a performance worthy of a BBC drama, declaring that “offensive social media posts can have devastating effects” and that people “demanding the right to speak without restraint” are causing others “to lose their freedom to live without fear.” A stirring line, if you don’t think too hard about what “freedom to live without fear” might end up meaning when enforced by law. Luke Taylor, Liberal Democrat MP for Sutton and Cheam, gave the most turbocharged rant of the day. He seemed less worried about Lucy Connolly’s jail sentence and more terrified that young people might be getting their news online. He warned, “Social media posts take seconds to write and publish, and then they are everywhere. They are seen by our parents, grandparents, and kids, with no fact-check and no filter. Terrifyingly, a 2025 Ofcom study found that three-fourths of 18 to 24-year-olds use digital platforms and social media to get their news. The sort of reach once available only to professional journalists, filtered through editors and media owners, is now available to anyone with a phone. We can post with a moment’s thought during our morning coffee break, with the same ease as world leaders with armies of speechwriters, fact checkers and lawyers to craft their statements. One impulsive tap on an app can land in the timelines of tens, thousands, or millions of people.” He then insisted that “There is free speech, but not without consequences.” A chilling phrase, especially when consequences mean handcuffs. Oh, and he accused Elon Musk of “treason.” Jake Richards, Labour MP for Rother Valley and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, chimed in to remind everyone that “freedom of expression is not an absolute right; it carries a responsibility to use that freedom honestly and decently.” He lavished praise on the OSA and its new “false communications” offense, which criminalizes sending a message that “conveys information that the person knows to be false” with the intent of causing “non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience” and where there’s “no reasonable excuse for sending the message.” The penalty? Up to 51 weeks in prison and an unlimited fine. Lowe pushed back. He pointed out something crucial: the British state now punishes “speech crimes” more harshly than some violent offenses. He said: “The British state is now more willing to imprison somebody for a social media post than for a rape.” He closed with a statement: “We need clearer thresholds in law, a robust statutory requirement that prosecutorial decisions consider freedom of expression, and a prohibition on custodial sentences for pure speech cases.” You get the impression, watching the current crop of MPs fluff their feathers during these censorship debates, that they genuinely think freedom of speech is a bit outdated. A dusty relic. Something to be politely nodded at in a citizenship class, before being buried beneath 500 pages of regulatory sludge and feelings-based legislation. And what makes this new generation of politicians truly alarming isn’t just their hunger for control. It’s their complete, jaw-dropping ignorance of the principles they’re dismantling. The liberty we’re talking about wasn’t handed down by fairy godmothers in wigs. It was wrestled from the jaws of kings, tyrants, censors, and lunatics by people who bled for it. Literally. From the Putney Debates to the Bill of Rights to the trial of John Wilkes, this country built its identity on the idea that people could speak their mind without being thrown in the Tower or dragged off by men in tights and powdered wigs. Fast forward to today, and you’ve got MPs who think posting a bad joke on Twitter should land you in a holding cell. Politicians now talk about “consequences” for speech with the smirking menace. And they say it with pride. As if locking people up for being offensive makes them moral giants rather than bureaucratic toddlers with power issues. These people do not understand liberty. They think it’s just one of many “competing values,” right up there with “not being upset,” “feeling safe online,” or “maintaining social cohesion,” whatever the hell that means this week. They do not grasp that liberty means letting people say what they think, even when it’s wrong, rude, or makes you clutch your pearls so hard they turn to dust. They are not defenders of liberty. They are its awkward, terrified, clipboard-wielding saboteurs. They don’t understand the danger of letting the state define what’s “harmful,” “false,” or “dangerous.” Because they assume the state will always be people like them. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Britain’s Lawmakers Who Love Censorship and Hate Freedom appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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There used to be more than the 8 planets we know today.

Netflix’s thriller "A House of Dynamite" very much wants to teach us something about the folly of waging war with civilization-ending weapons. The lesson it ends up imparting, however, has more to do with the state of contemporary storytelling.The film revolves around a high-stakes crisis: an unexpected nuclear missile launched from an unspecified enemy and aimed directly at Big City USA. We get to see America's defense apparatus deal with impending apocalypse in real time.It seems the best Ms. Bigelow, Mr. Oppenheim, and the team at Netflix can offer up is a lukewarm 'nukes are bad, mmkay?'Triple threat“Revolves” is the operative word here. The movie tells the same story three times from three different vantage points — each in its own 40-minute segment. From first detection to the final seconds before detonation, we watch a bevy of government elites on one interminable red-alert FaceTime, working out how to respond to the strike.This is the aptly named screenwriter Noah Oppenheim's second disaster outing for the streamer; he recently co-created miniseries "Zero Day," which features Robert De Niro investigating a nationwide cyberattack.That series unspooled a complicated and convoluted conspiracy in the vein of "24." "A House of Dynamite" clearly aims for something more grounded, which would seem to make accomplished Kathryn Bigelow perfect for the job.And for the film's first half-hour she delivers, embedding the viewer with the military officers, government officials, and regular working stiffs for whom being the last line of America's defense is just another day at the office ... until suddenly it isn't. The dawning horror of their situation is as gripping as anything in "The Hurt Locker" or "Zero Dark Thirty."Then it happens two more times.On repeatIn Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night," Duke Orsino laments a repetitive song growing stale: “Naught enters there of what validity and pitch soe'er, but falls into abatement and low price.”Or put another way, the tune, not realizing its simple beauty, sings itself straight into worthlessness.And somehow, this manages to be only part of what makes "A House of Dynamite" so unappealing. Our main characters — including head of the White House Situation Room (Rebecca Ferguson), general in charge of the United States Northern Command (Tracy Letts), and the secretary of defense (Jared Harris) — offer no semblance of perspicacity, stopping frequently to take others’ feelings into account before making decisions, all while an ICBM races toward Chicago. From liftoff to impact in 16 minutes or less, or your order free.Missile defensiveSo thorough is this picture of incompetence that the Pentagon felt compelled to issue an internal memo preparing Missile Defense Agency staff to “address false assumptions” about defense capability.One can hardly blame officials when, in the twilight of the film, we’re shown yet another big-screen Obama facsimile (played by British actor Idris Elba) putting his cadre of sweating advisers on hold to ring Michelle, looking for advice on whether his course of action should be to nuke the whole planet or do nothing. The connection drops — she is in Africa, after all, and her safari-chic philanthropy outfit doesn’t make the satellite signal any stronger. He puts the phone down and continues to look over his black book of options ranging "from rare to well done,” as his nuclear briefcase handler puts it.And then the movie ends. The repetitive storylines have no resolution, and their participants face no consequences. The single ground missile the U.S. arsenal managed to muster up — between montages of sergeants falling to their knees at the thought of having to do their job — has missed its target.Designated survivors — with the exception of one high-ranking official who finds suicide preferable — rush to their bunkers. The screen fades to black, over a melancholy overture. Is it any wonder that audiences felt cheated? After sitting through nearly two hours of dithering bureaucrats wasting time, their own time had been wasted by a director who clearly thinks endings are passé.No ending for youIf you find yourself among the unsatisfied, Bigelow has some words for you. In an interview with Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, she justified her film's lack of a payoff thusly:I felt like the fact that the bomb didn’t go off was an opportunity to start a conversation. With an explosion at the end, it would have been kind of all wrapped up neat, and you could point your finger [and say] "it’s bad that happened." But it would sort of absolve us, the human race, of responsibility. And in fact, no, we are responsible for having created these weapons and — in a perfect world — getting rid of them.Holy Kamala word salad.RELATED: Phones and drones expose the cracks in America’s defenses Photo by dikushin via Getty ImagesBigelow-erFor much of her career, director Kathryn Bigelow has told real stories in interesting ways that — while not always being the full truth and nothing but the truth — were entertaining, well shot, and depicted Americans fulfilling their manifest destiny of being awesome.That changed with Bigelow's last film, 2017's "Detroit," a progressive, self-flagellating depiction of the 1967 Detroit race riots (final tally: 43 deaths, 1,189 injured) through the eyes of some mostly peaceful black teens and the devil-spawn deputy cop who torments them. "A House of Dynamite" continues this project of national critique.But what, exactly, is the point? It seems the best Ms. Bigelow, Mr. Oppenheim, and the team at Netflix can offer up is a lukewarm “nukes are bad, mmkay?” This is a lecture on warfare with the subtlety of a John Lennon song, set in a world where the fragile men in charge must seek out the strong embrace of their nearest girlboss. It’s no secret that 2025 carries a distinct “end times” energy — a year thick with existential threats. AI run amok, political fracture edging toward civil conflict, nuclear brinkmanship, even the occasional UFO headline — pick your poison. And it’s equally obvious that the internet, not the cinema, has become the primary arena where Americans now go to see those anxieties mirrored back at them."A House of Dynamite" is unlikely to reverse this trend. If this is the best Hollywood's elite can come up with after gazing into the void, it's time to move the movie industry to DEFCON 1.

A woman found with hateful political messages written on her body with gruesome injuries was not a victim of a heinous attack, but she plotted the hoax herself, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Twenty-six-year-old Natalie Greene was found bound up with zip ties with numerous slashes and "Trump whore" written on her stomach on the night of July 23, according to a press release. The Rutgers student was working for Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey at the time. They also obtained a photograph of the design for the body modification that Greene requested from the scarification artist. They matched the wounds photographed by an officer. Greene allegedly told investigators that she and a friend were attacked by three armed men on a trail at the Egg Harbor Township Nature Reserve in New Jersey. When police arrived, they found her yelling, "He has a gun! He has a gun!" and crying loudly. She was also found with the message "Van Drew is a racist" written in marker on her body. Greene was transported to a hospital for treatment, where officers took photographs that were included in the criminal complaint. Investigators grew suspicious when Greene's friend appeared agitated when asked to provide keys to the car they drove to the nature reserve, a Maserati sport utility vehicle. After gaining access to the car, they found black zip ties as well as duct tape inside. RELATED: Dem who blamed Trump for 'Hinduphobic' messages has been arrested for alleged race hoax Image source: U.S. Dept. of Justice press release screenshot compositePolice then obtained cellphone data from the pair and saw that Greene had driven to the studio of a "scarification artist" in Pennsylvania just before the reported assault. After obtaining data from their phones, investigators saw that someone had googled "zip ties near me" from her friend's phone as well. They were able to garner evidence that she purchased the zip ties on the day of the alleged attack at a Dollar General store. Investigators said they obtained evidence from the scarification studio that showed Greene paid $500 for body modifications just hours before the alleged attack. The studio requires clients to provide identification and sign a consent form prior to services performed. They also obtained a photograph of the design for the body modification that Greene requested from the scarification artist. They matched the wounds photographed by an officer. Drew's office released a statement about Greene to the New Jersey Globe. "While Natalie is no longer associated with the congressman’s government office, our thoughts and prayers are with her and hope she’s getting the care she needs," the statement read. RELATED: Activists blame Trump for 'kidnapping' of mom for deportation — feds say it was a hoax Image source: U.S. Dept. of Justice press release screenshot Greene was charged with conspiracy to convey false statements and hoaxes and making false statements to federal law enforcement. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release. She was released on a $200,000 unsecured bond after her arraignment on Wednesday. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!