Democrats were “panicked” by how likable Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) came off during the vice presidential debate, an NBC journalist revealed on Wednesday. “Meet The Press” moderator Kristen Welker said on the “Today” show that she received text messages from members of the party who expressed surprise at how well Vance was conducting himself against Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz after months of trying to paint the Republican as “weird” and a “threat” to democracy. NBC's Kristen Welker says she "was getting texts from Democrats PANICKED" last night over @JDVance's beatdown of Tampon Tim Walz on the debate stage pic.twitter.com/qwyTelOafB — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 2, 2024 “Vance knew his challenge was to deal with the likability factor,” Welker said. “The fact that in our poll, he’s the second-most disliked running mate in history. And so I was getting texts from Democrats — panicked, quite frankly — who were saying, ‘Wow, he’s really moderating himself on a lot of these issues. He’s the most likable he’s ever been.'” Welker also said Democrats will try to make Vance saying he wanted to focus on the future rather than dwell on issues related to the 2020 election into a “flash point” by turning it into an ad. She added, “They believe that is going to be a way to really try to appeal to that very small sliver that is still undecided, but moderate, independent suburban voters.” Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! Early surveys indicated Vance edged out Walz on Tuesday, though it remains to be seen how their performances could impact the 2024 election. Polls showed a close race leading up to the VP debate. Vance is former President Donald Trump’s VP pick and Walz is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. As of press time, it appears there will be no more debates in the presidential contest. “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie noted that Walz’s effort in the debate “wasn’t a disaster, but it certainly wasn’t a tour-de-force,” and asked what people are saying about how he did against Vance. Related: Walz Falls Flat In Debate, And Dems Pivot From ‘Consequential’ VP Kamala To ‘VPs CONTROL NOTHING’ NBC News senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson, who appeared on the show along with Welker, said she thinks Democrats “are frustrated that he wasn’t a little bit more the Tim Walz that Kamala Harris picked to be his vice presidential nominee because he is great on television in the eyes of the campaign,” but they saw promise in the “moment” he retorted against Vance over January 6.

A pilot trying to rescue victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina was threatened with arrest. Jordan Seidhom, a South Carolina pilot, told Queen City News that he successfully brought supplies to people in need and was able to use his helicopter to rescue people who had been stranded due to flooding. He was then inundated with requests for help, and planned another day of airlifting people to safety. Even though he had spoken to authorities at Charlotte-Douglas Airport and local authorities, on his second day of providing assistance, things changed. Seidhom and his son, who is also his copilot, were rescuing a couple from a precarious situation. Seidhom decided to rescue one person at a time, so he took the wife to safety and left his son with her husband. When he arrived with the wife at a parking lot near Lake Lure Flowering Bridge, he saw some first responders. “Once we landed where emergency personnel were, I was met by a fire chief or maybe a captain, and he asked me who I was. I told him who I was, who I was with, just a local volunteer,” Seidhom told the outlet. Seidhom, a volunteer firefighter, told the first responders his background and learned that they were also from out-of-state and helping with the rescue efforts. While the group was coordinating, a local fire official came up to the group and threatened to arrest him if he returned to help the remaining victims. “He originally asked me who I was. I gave him the same information, who I was with, my background experience, law enforcement, and firefighting. And his response was, if you have that kind of experience, you should know that you should be coordinating with us. And I said, I’ve been coordinating with everybody as I’ve been here just the day before, speaking with local law enforcement, other rescue personnel,” Seidhom told the News. Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! Seidhom told the official that he was going to get his son and the other victim and then would leave the area to avoid any further issues, but the official, according to Seidhom, told him to leave them. “I’m going back and getting my copilot,” Seidhom said he told the official. “He said, ‘If you turn around and go back up the mountain, you’re going to be arrested.’ I said, ‘Well, sir, I’m going back to get my copilot, I don’t know what to tell you.'” Fearing that he would be arrested, Seidhom said he flew back to get his son and had to leave the remaining victim behind after explaining the situation. Seidhom said that a temporary flight restriction was set up in the area he had just been in within half an hour of him being threatened with arrest. That restriction was lifted the next day and Seidhom resumed his rescue attempts. He told the outlet that he wishes he would have ignored the arrest threats to help more people. “I’m sorry, if I had to do it over again, I would have stopped and I would have rescued as many people until they decided they were going to arrest me,” Seidhom said.

A “social justice academy” run by a California school district teaches elementary school kids to disavow “whiteness” and embrace transgender ideology, lesson plans shared with The Daily Wire show. Every summer since 2021, the New Haven Unified School District in San Francisco has trained rising 3rd-6th graders in leftist gender and racial politics during its annual “social justice academy.” Specific details about the academy’s curriculum were revealed in documents recently obtained from the school by Parents Defending Education through a public records request.  “Scholars will define and critically think about Social Justice, identify social injustices in the community, and create opportunities for activism through writing, action, art,” according to a plan from 2023 for the academy, which operates in deep blue Alameda County.  The three-week academy, which costs the district around $20,000, was formed, in part, due to an Alameda County resolution that instructs educators to “help our children understand and react to racial differences, and to teach our youth how to speak up against injustice, racism and inequality.”  Throughout the three-week course, students are taught the full gambit of leftist positions from “womxn rights” to Black Lives Matter and transgender ideology. The course comes as test scores show that under half of elementary students in the district are proficient in math while only half are proficient in reading.  A lesson plan from week one shows that the academy focuses on issues of racial and sexual identity while reading from the book “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness.” The book says that “whiteness is a bad deal. It always was” and that “you can be white without signing on to whiteness.”  The students are also taught that it is “white supremacy” that the 10 richest Americans are white and that governors were 96% white based on 2016-era statistics, according to planning materials for the academy from 2024.  In another exercise, students were taught about stereotypes by being forced to fire people from a list of names, before gradually learning more about them, including their sexual identities and disabilities.  In week two of the academy, students are taught about Black Lives Matter, defunding the police, and taught to compare former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. The comparison between Trump and Hitler happens during a section on “dehumanizing language,” where students are shown an image of the two men with quotes. However, the quote attributed to Trump is completely fabricated.  Trump is quoted in the image as saying “Undocumented immigrants are not human; they are animals.” While Trump has referred to violent gang members and murderers as “animals,” he never said all illegal immigrants are animals in a blanket manner.  The course also takes a pro-Palestinian bent, accusing Israel of being a colonialist power and pointing students to a video from the leftist outlet The Root called “Why Black people should care about Palestinian Liberation.” Also during the second week, students are taught about “defunding the police,” the history of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the “criminalization of BIPOC.” The course materials argue that school disciplinary practices create a “school-to-prison” pipeline that disproportionately impacts black students.   Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! During week three of the social justice academy, students read from two books pushing transgender ideology. One book, “I Am Jazz,” is based on Jazz Jennings, a man who identifies as a woman. Jennings’ parents moved him towards “gender-transition” at age 3, and he quickly became the star of a reality TV show that highlighted transgenderism.  Students are taught that being “transgender is not a choice” and how to be an “LGBTQIA+ Ally.” Course materials list “transgender rights” as things like “access to medical care” and “all gender bathrooms.”  Students are also taught about a Florida law that prohibited discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation for young children in classrooms. The legislation was derisively referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by the Left.  New Haven Unified School District did not respond to requests for comment. Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, said that the academy should be shut down.  “This summer program should have been advertised as an indoctrination camp where ideologues who spell the word ‘women’ with an x feed students propaganda about defunding the police, transgenderism, and oppression,” she told The Daily Wire. “At the same time that they lie to kids about book bans, the curriculum includes a children’s book that calls whiteness bad and equates it with the devil.”

The trial for the man accused of attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump last month has been set for November. Federal judge Aileen Cannon scheduled the trial for November 18 to take place in Fort Pierce, Florida, according to Reuters. Cannon announced the trial date on Wednesday, the day after 58-year-old Ryan Routh pleaded not guilty to attempted assassination and four other charges. The latest slate of charges came in addition to two earlier gun charges filed against Routh. Routh pleaded not guilty to five federal charges on Tuesday: attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He could face a maximum penalty of life in prison if found guilty. “Routh is charged with attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, which strikes at the very heart of our democratic system,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement when the charges were announced. “The FBI is continuing our investigation into this alleged plot and will use the full weight and resources of the FBI to uncover and provide as much information as possible about what led to the events in West Palm Beach. In our country, we have to hold accountable people who resort to violence.” Routh was arrested on September 15 after a Secret Service agent saw a rifle barrel sticking out of a bush on the border of Trump’s Florida golf club. The former president was golfing at the time, but had not yet made it as far as the snipers nest on the course. Secret Service agents opened fire on the gunman, causing him to flee. Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! Routh was apprehended by law enforcement after a witness saw him take off in a black Nissan Xterra, prosecutors said. Law enforcement searched Routh’s vehicle and found “a handwritten list of dates in August, September, and October and venues where the former President had appeared or was expected to be present,” according to the Department of Justice. In a box Routh left with a “civilian witness,” Routh wrote a handwritten letter addressed to “Dear World,” which stated, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you,” prosecutors said. Cannon has also overseen another high-profile case involving the former president: the classified documents case prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith. Cannon dismissed the case in July after finding that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Smith violated constitutional procedures for special prosecutors. Smith has appealed Cannon’s ruling, arguing in an August filing that Cannon misinterpreted the historical record.

In a tense military incident, a Russian fighter jet came within just 50 feet of a U.S. Air Force F-16 off the coast of Alaska. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) confirmed that on September 23, 2024, Russian aircraft entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), an area where all aircraft must identify themselves to avoid interception. U.S. forces intercepted two Russian Tu-95 bombers escorted by two Su-35 fighter jets. The Su-35, one of Russia’s most advanced fighters, engaged in aggressive and unprofessional maneuvers, nearly colliding with the American F-16. Video footage released by NORAD shows the Russian jet closing in at high speed before rolling to one side and flying past the nose of the U.S. fighter. The close proximity caused the F-16 to wobble as it flew through the Russian jet’s wake, a dangerous situation that could have led to disaster. NORAD’s top commander, General Gregory Guillot, condemned the Russian pilot's conduct, calling it "unsafe and unprofessional"​. Vladimir Putin just endorsed Kamala Harris. Democrats try their best to show it's Trump who's backed by Putin but end up failing on a daily basis. Kamala might just end up sending F-16s to Russia. Never trust a democrat. pic.twitter.com/jssNi6oFuR — Voice Unchained (@VocUnchained) September 26, 2024 This incident is part of a broader pattern of Russian military activity in the ADIZ, with multiple interceptions occurring over recent weeks. While the Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not violate U.S. or Canadian territory, their provocative actions have drawn sharp criticism from U.S. military officials. NORAD regularly monitors the ADIZ, which extends 150 miles from Alaska’s coastline, and intercepts any aircraft that do not comply with identification protocols. The Kremlin’s increased military activity in this region is seen as part of a broader strategy to test U.S. defenses and assert its presence near North America. Although such encounters have occurred before, the proximity and behavior of the Russian Su-35 in this case were particularly alarming. Don't say the Russians didn't warn you Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement today, with the following paragraph on F-16 supplies to Ukraine: "In the near future, multifunctional American-made F-16 aircraft are expected to appear on the pic.twitter.com/5t98k5Q45E — Djole (@onlydjole) May 6, 2024 The U.S. military routinely conducts intercepts when foreign aircraft enter the ADIZ, but this particular incident stood out due to the Russian pilot’s erratic flying, which posed a serious threat to both American and Russian forces involved​. Despite the dangerous nature of the encounter, the Russian aircraft eventually departed the ADIZ without further escalation. The U.S. military emphasized that while such activity is not uncommon, the increasingly aggressive tactics used by Russian pilots in recent years have raised concerns about potential miscalculations that could lead to unintended conflict​. This is not the first time Russian aircraft have been intercepted in the region. NORAD regularly tracks Russian bombers and fighters flying near Alaska, often during military exercises or long-range patrols. However, the increasingly bold maneuvers and close calls have heightened tensions, especially as U.S.-Russia relations remain strained due to ongoing geopolitical conflicts​. The video released by NORAD has sparked discussions about the risks of these encounters escalating into more serious confrontations. Military analysts note that while both sides generally seek to avoid direct conflict, incidents like this highlight the dangerous game of brinkmanship being played in international airspace. With Russian aircraft continuing to probe U.S. defenses, the potential for a misstep grows, further complicating the already delicate relationship between the two nations. The post Russian Fighter Jet Buzzes U.S. F-16 in Dangerous Encounter off Alaska Coast appeared first on The Conservative Brief.

'confident'

They'll never have more acute political leverage to secure their long-term interests.

News Carved Pumpkins Are Ripe for Revenge in Carved Trailer We’ve carved one too many… By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on October 2, 2024 Credit: Hulu Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Hulu This Halloween, pumpkins are full of vengeance. You would be too, most likely, if every October someone gouged out your face and scooped out your insides. That’s the premise of the horror comedy Carved, and based on the trailer released today, pumpkins are taking no prisoners. Evil, sentient pumpkins also sound quite juicy when they wrap their vines around the necks of various victims, again at least according to today’s trailer. Here’s the official synopsis: When a heartbroken teenage playwright, her younger brother, and a disparate group of survivors become trapped in a historical reenactment village on Halloween night, they must band together to survive a relentless assault by a sentient and vengeful pumpkin. Carved is based on a short film of the same name. It stars Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Corey Fogelmanis, Wyatt Lindner, Carla Jimenez, Sasha Mason, Jonah Lees, DJ Qualls, Marc-Sully Saint-Fleur, Elvis Nolasco, Matty Cardarople, Jackson Kelly, and Chris Elliott. Justin Harding, who directed the short, also directs the full-length feature, which he co-wrote with Cheryl Meyer. Producers include David Brooks, Debbie Liebling, Arbi Pedrossian, and Jenna Cavelle of WorthenBrooks. Carved—a Huluween Original and a “future Halloween camp classic,” according to the streamer—premieres on Hulu on October 21, 2024. Serve yourself a big slice of pumpkin pie and check out the trailer below. [end-mark] The post Pumpkins Are Ripe for Revenge in <i>Carved</i> Trailer appeared first on Reactor.

News Companion Love Ain’t What It Used to Be in Companion Teaser Trailer It’s nothing like The Notebook, in fact By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on October 2, 2024 Screenshot: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. On the surface, the marketing for New Line’s Companion suggests that the film is romance in the vein of The Notebook. If you watch beyond the first few seconds of the teaser trailer released today, however, it’s very clear that the relationship between the characters played by Jack Quaid (The Boys, Star Trek: Lower Decks) and Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets, The Boogeyman) is far from consensual. Thatcher’s character, in fact, is handcuffed and held at gunpoint by Quaid’s. She’s also apparently drugged in certain scenes, so much so that she can’t move away from an open flame that is slowly cooking her hand to a crisp. And if that wasn’t enough, we see her trapped inside a car at least once, and more than one person getting violently murdered. That’s a lot for a seventy-nine-second trailer. Romance! The disturbing twist is less surprising when you find out that the movie is backed by the filmmakers behind Barbarian—Raphael Margules, J.D. Lifshitz, Zach Cregger, and Roy Lee. In addition to Quaid and Thatcher, Companion stars Lukas Gage (Smile 2, Dead Boy Detectives), Megan Suri (Never Have I Ever, It Lives Inside), Harvey Guillén (What We Do in the Shadows, Blue Beetle), and Rupert Friend (High Desert, Asteroid City). It’s written and directed by Drew Hancock (My Dead Ex, Suburgatory). Companion premieres in theaters on January 10, 2025. Check out the teaser trailer below. [end-mark] The post Love Ain’t What It Used to Be in <i>Companion</i> Teaser Trailer appeared first on Reactor.

Russia Captures Key Eastern Ukrainian Town