Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Nino Cipri’s Dead Girls Don’t Dream A young adult horror novel of recovery, healing, and finding your power. By Nino Cipri | Published on October 15, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Dead Girls Don’t Dream, a new young adult horror novel by Nino Cipri, out from Henry Holt on November 12th. There are rules for Voynich Woods: Always carry a whistle. Never go alone. Always come home before dark. And if anyone calls your name, don’t answer. Because everyone who wanders from the path is never seen again.Except for Riley Walcott.Riley knows better than to stray from the trail in the woods behind her uncle Toby’s house. But her little sister Sam breaks the rules in pursuit of a local legend, so Riley chases after her and discovers a knife-wielding figure and a waiting grave.Madelyn lives deep in the forest. Subject to her mother’s strict rules, she’s forbidden from leaving home or using her magic—but one night, she risks everything to help a stranger who’s lost in the woods.Riley is murdered in a strange ritual, Madelyn uses her magic to resurrect her, and their lives are immediately entwined in the gnarled history of Voynich Woods. Riley, who feels trapped in her small town but too afraid to leave, was never a believer, but now the evidence is taking root under her skin. Madelyn has the scars to prove how terrible magic can be, and longs for a life beyond her mother’s grasp. As the legends become all too real, Riley and Madelyn must confront their deepest fears to uncover the truth about Voynich Woods. On the day her mother disappeared five years ago, Riley woke up somehow knowing she was gone, that Mom had never come home. Her bed was neat and obviously undisturbed. There were no clothes on the floor, no scatter of loose change, no lingering smell of cigarette smoke or the perfume she used to cover it. It wasn’t the first time Riley had woken to her mother’s absence. She still remembered the first time, when she was eight and Sam was about one; she’d woken to Sam’s crying in the middle of the night, standing up in her crib and bawling. No Mom in sight. Riley had warmed up a bottle, then pulled her blankets into the other room and slept in her mother’s bed. Mom stumbled in a few hours later, loud enough to wake her, but at least Sam kept sleeping. Mom stood in the doorway watching Riley watch her, then turned and went to sleep on the couch. But that was before. Anna Walcott had promised her eldest daughter that this time she would stay sober if it killed her, and Riley had believed her. She’d needed to believe her. So despite the dread curdling in her stomach, she scrambled the one egg left in the empty fridge and gave it to Sam with some toast for breakfast. She said Mom had left early for work but would probably be home for lunch. At lunchtime, Riley used the last of the bread to make mayonnaise sandwiches for her and Sam, and told her that Mom must have gotten the time wrong, but she’d be home for dinner, probably with McDonald’s as a surprise. At seven, she decided to walk with Sam to McDonald’s and pay for dinner with the emergency cash that Toby had given her the last time she’d seen him. It wasn’t much, maybe sixty dollars, but she’d wanted to refuse it, to say, We won’t need it, she said this time it was for real. But having faith in her mom was new, so she took it and told herself she’d give it back to Toby at some point, since she’d never need it. The cash lived in an ugly box that Sam had made in kindergarten art class, decorated with cutout pictures from old magazines, beads, and smears of glitter that still shed on Riley’s hands. The kind of thing kids were supposed to bring home to their parents, but she’d brought it to Riley. Riley kept the money in there alongside the fancy art markers and pens that Toby had given her for Christmas, kept the whole thing tucked away between her mattress and the wall. Hiding money and anything valuable from her mom was a deeply ingrained habit. Buy the Book Dead Girls Don’t Dream Nino Cipri Buy Book Dead Girls Don't Dream Nino Cipri Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget But when Riley pulled out the box, there was only a ten-dollar bill and a handful of loose change rolling around next to the markers. Riley stared at the crease across Alexander Hamilton’s face and tried not to think about anything. Just squash every thought like a Whac-A-Mole game, so she wouldn’t have to wonder when her mother had found the emergency cash, or imagine what she’d bought with it. Ten dollars and change was still enough for dinner, and that was what mattered. At McDonald’s, Sam picked at her food, leaving a mess of half-chewed chicken nuggets and cold, crumpled fries that made Riley want to scream a little, thinking of their empty refrigerator. “When’s Mom coming home?” Sam asked. Beneath the table, Riley dug the tips of her nails into her palms. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Can we call Uncle Toby?” “No phone,” she said. Mom had had to cancel Riley’s phone plan when it got too expensive, though she’d promised it was temporary. The next paycheck had to go to rent and groceries, but the one after that— “We could ask to use someone’s here?” Sam said. A couple of weeks before, Mom had told Riley that she was on her last chance with her caseworker at the Department of Children and Family Services. “They’re looking for an excuse to take you and Sam from me,” she had said. “And I don’t know what’ll happen to the two of you if they find it.” “Nah. We’ll wait a little longer,” she told Sam. “It’ll be okay.” She braced herself for an argument, maybe even a full-blown tantrum. But Sam just nodded. They went home and they waited, rewatching movies they’d borrowed from the library until they both fell asleep on the couch. Riley blinked awake after midnight. Mom still hadn’t come home. That was it: She couldn’t negotiate with her mother’s absence anymore. Couldn’t keep waiting. She woke Sam up (“Mom’s back?” were her first words, and Riley had had to shake her head). Riley’s phone was still inactive and useless, so they’d have to walk to the all-night gas station a mile away. She bundled Sam into a winter coat, then lifted her on her back and tied an extra blanket around her, because the temperature was hovering around 25 degrees. Her sister’s weight sat heavy on Riley, bent her forward. She thought of pictures she’d seen of child workers and war refugees. It never occurred to her to leave Sam behind. Riley knew that she couldn’t think too much. She couldn’t think about what would happen to her and Sam, and she absolutely could not think about what had happened to her mother. If she started to think, she would panic. If she started to panic, she wouldn’t stop. She could only think about putting one foot down after the other. She locked the door behind her and turned to start her slow, laborious journey. But instead of the county highway on the outskirts of Roscoe, Riley found herself among the tall, gaunt tree trunks in Voynich Woods. Oh. Oh. This was a dream, and a familiar one: having to relive the whole stupid day when her mother left them, only something would go wrong. She’d talked this out in therapy years ago; the dream was her brain returning to an important moment in an attempt to integrate trauma, blah blah blah. The only thing to do was walk, just like in real life. The only way out of this particular nightmare was through it. She hadn’t been walking for long when someone spoke her name. “Riley,” her mother whispered behind her. She hadn’t heard anyone approach. There was nothing, and then there was her mother’s voice, which she hadn’t heard in… Two versions of herself were laid over each other: Riley at twelve, whose mother had been gone twenty-four hours, anger and fear tangled together into a knot in her throat. But she was also seventeen, hadn’t seen her mother in five years. The anger and fear had calcified, a stone she had to keep swallowing. Because her mother was dead. Wasn’t she? That was the thing she could never say to Sam. Anna Walcott had been a broke single mom on welfare, with probation and court-ordered therapy for addiction; fifty dollars stolen from her oldest daughter might get her a bus ticket to Boston, maybe New York City, but it wouldn’t buy her a whole new life. The local cops didn’t have a great track record for solving cold cases, but if there’d been something to find, they would’ve found it by now, right?  “I missed you, Riley. Turn around and let me look at you.” She shifted her weight to turn, then stopped herself. She didn’t want to look at her mother. She didn’t want to pretend that this was real, because when she woke up, she’d be left with all the rage and sadness and none of the momentary happiness. Toby had some videos of Anna, old low-res ones taken on a digital camera when Riley’s mother was still a young woman in search of a good time—not happy, exactly, but not worn thin and threadbare by years of struggle. Early after her mother’s disappearance, Riley would watch those videos sometimes, try to melt the stone in her chest just enough to breathe around it again. She’d stopped at some point; the old videos had lost their magic. They made her feel worse instead of better. Numb. She pulled that numbness around her now. Armor. Dug around until she found her anger and pulled that close to her as well. “Then you shouldn’t have left,” Riley hissed. “And if you wanted to come back, you should do it in the real world. Not a stupid-ass dream.” Then she forced herself to start walking again. Luckily, she was on a wide path in the woods, level and packed. Sam was still sleeping on her shoulders, and Riley tried to shift her weight into a more comfortable position. “Is that what you want?” her mother’s voice said. “A life where I stayed? Where you had the family you should have had?” A few months before she disappeared, Mom had picked her up from school in a Jeep Wrangler that Riley had never seen before, Sam in a booster seat in the back, and punk music blaring from the speakers. Mom had told her it was a new holiday: Mermaid Day. You celebrated by driving to the ocean and spending the night on the beach. She’d bought them junk food for the hours-long drive to Portsmouth. They’d made a bonfire and ate s’mores for dinner, had a three-person mosh pit to the Distillers as the sun set, and then bedded down in the car, exhausted from a beautiful day. But something had shifted during the night: The breeze coming off the water was cold and smelled oily, and Riley’s stomach hurt from all the sugar she’d eaten. She and Sam had slept badly, the air in the car was cold and damp, condensation fogging the windows. Sam had a nightmare that was so bad that she’d peed in her sleeping bag, and Mom had broken into tears while cleaning her up. And then— Riley shied away from the memory, angry at her mom for making her think about it. What did Riley want? She wanted to be left the fuck alone. What came out was, “I want to go home.” She heard someone take slow, considerate steps toward her. “Do you? Everything in the universe that you could wish for, and that’s what you want?” The voice… didn’t sound like her mother anymore. “Where is home?” the voice asked. “Your uncle’s house, where you were taken in like a stray cat? The moldy apartment where your mother abandoned you? Why can’t this be home?” The thing behind her now felt as tall as the trees around it, as wide as the side of a barn. Riley had stopped walking. She was still carrying Sam, gripping her sister’s legs around her waist tightly. What would Sam do if she woke up? “You’re carrying your home with you, Riley,” the creature behind her said. It was closer to her now, close enough that she could feel its breath against her neck, smell loam and rot wafting from it. “A heavier burden than you’ll ever admit to yourself, isn’t it? What would you do if you could put it down?” Riley shut her eyes, trying to remember how she’d gotten here. This was a dream, but she couldn’t wake herself out of it. She tried to retrace her steps— “Riley,” the sly voice whispered to her. It drew her name out like a caress. “I could give everything you’ve dreamed of, if you just tell me what that is. Freedom, right? Escape? A place in the world where nobody knows you, nobody looks at you and sees your mother.” Riley saw it, as clear as she saw the trees surrounding them: herself, a couple of years older, moving confidently through a busy city street. Tattoos printed up her arms and over her exposed chest like armor. Nobody looking at her like she was just another exhibit of tragedy or monstrosity in Toby’s barn. Distant, removed, and untouchable. “I can give you that,” the voice promised. “Just set your burden down.” Riley hissed through her teeth. “That’s my sister. She’s not—” “You’ll have to leave her behind eventually,” the thing said. “I’m just offering a way to skip all the dramatics. Just let go.” Riley wasn’t stupid. This had to be a trap of some kind. “What happened to me?” she asked. “How did I… I was in the woods. I saw—” Her gaze searched through the trees around her, hoping she’d spot an escape. Instead, she found another pair of eyes staring back at her. A child, younger than Sam, staring at her from behind a tree. Wide-eyed, with dark, tangled hair. Fear in her eyes, looking at whatever stood behind Riley. The child shifted, and Riley could see two long, deep wounds that lay over her front. One ripped open her throat, while the other tore down the center of her chest. All around the edges of that terrible wound grew tiny white flowers. Riley put a hand to her chest to pull her whistle out of her shirt. Three short blasts meant, Come find me. Come save me. She felt something else instead, flat where the whistle was round, engraved instead of smooth. She was wearing a locket shaped like a heart, finely engraved with a pattern of flowers and vines, but old and tarnished, grimy against her fingers. When she looked up again, the child was closer. She was staring at Riley with deep, fathomless eyes. “Riley,” the voice said. “We’re running out of time. She’s found you. I’ve made this offer twice, and I’ll make it once more. What do you want?” It would be so easy, she thought. To let go. To stop struggling toward an uncertain dream, to have it gifted to her instead. “I want to go home,” Riley said again. Even though it was true, it hurt to say it. The creature, when it spoke again, sounded as if it were smiling. “The old covenant, then. A wish, a secret, and a boon.” “What? What’s a coven—” “Because if you don’t want to set your burden down, maybe you wouldn’t mind if it became just a tiny bit heavier? A fair exchange to get what you want. A way home.” The voice was her mother’s again, warm and rough from a decades-long smoking habit. She spoke in Riley’s ear, and she smelled like tobacco and amber perfume and sweat, the way she would after a long shift. There was no slur in her voice, no brittle anger, no stress. It promised adventure, the same way she’d declared it Mermaid Day on the way to the beach. We’re getting out of here, her mother had said. Nobody’s gonna stop us. The locket was still in her hand. Riley squeezed it against her palm and nodded. “Take me home.” Excerpted from Dead Girls Don’t Dream, copyright © 2024 by Nino Cipri. The post Read an Excerpt From Nino Cipri’s <i>Dead Girls Don’t Dream</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Over the past nearly four years, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration have created more crises than I can count. Because it’s an election year, they are running around like firemen desperately trying to put out a fire. The only problem is, they’re the ones who lit the match.  Now, less than a month out from the election, Harris is attempting to distance herself from the Biden dumpster fire, despite the fact that she was the tiebreaking vote on many of Biden’s signature bills. While Harris’ campaign tries to reinvent her, she struggles explaining how she’d be any different from President Joe Biden on shows like “The View” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” Harris’ pitch to Americans? “Well, I’m obviously not Joe Biden.” Don’t be fooled. Harris isn’t doing this song and dance because she had a change of heart. It’s not because she’s wised-up on her bad policy positions. No. It’s because Harris and the Democratic Party machine are willing to do—and say—anything to gain power. They are willing to steamroll anyone—including their own voters—to achieve it. They don’t care who is hurt in the process. America, Harris doesn’t care about you. Take the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, the deadliest storm since Hurricane Katrina. Helene devastated many southeastern communities. What was Harris doing while disaster struck? She was out fundraising and campaigning on the West Coast. Meanwhile, it took days for the federal government to adequately respond. In the wake of the devastation, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that Federal Emergency Management Agency funds needed to help affected communities were depleted. How is that possible? Well, we know the Biden-Harris administration spent $641 million in taxpayer dollars helping nongovernmental organizations house illegal immigrants in the interior of our country. Billions more taxpayer dollars are being used to make sure illegal aliens have prepaid debit cards, cellphones, hotels, housing assistance, health care, food stamps, and leftover COVID-19 relief funds. Since 2021, Harris has consistently prioritized illegal aliens over American citizens. Does this sound like someone who cares about Americans? And that’s just the most recent example of Harris’ contempt for Americans. She has consistently prioritized sending taxpayer dollars overseas instead of using them to protect American citizens. Harris has supported sending billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to prolong the devastating conflict in Ukraine. In total, the administration has approved roughly $175 billion to support Ukraine. But just five years ago, Democrats wouldn’t even approve $5.7 billion (3.3% of Ukraine funding) to secure our own country with a border wall because it was too “expensive.”   Harris herself said that “billions of dollars for a border wall is a waste of money.” “American taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill for the president’s vanity project. We simply don’t need it,” she said. According to Harris, foreign countries are more deserving of Americans’ money than Americans themselves and foreign borders more important than our own borders. What has the porous southern border resulted in? It has unleashed waves of illegal immigrants stealing American jobs. It has lowered Americans’ wages, increased the cost of homes, and strained our health care system. Border czar Harris’ weak position on the border has emboldened Mexican cartels to flood our communities with fentanyl, killing Americans at record rates. Human traffickers are more emboldened than ever. Violent crime at the hands of people who shouldn’t be in the country is surging. Ask yourself: Would she allow this to happen if she cared about the safety and security of Americans? Harris and the Democratic Party machine also continuously show a callous disregard for young, vulnerable Americans—the future generations of our country. Harris has no issue with minors undergoing sex changes, or with confusing children’s impressionable minds with radical gender ideology in the classroom. She isn’t concerned about the harms associated with boys competing in girls’ sports or boys using girls’ locker rooms. Is Harris someone who has the best interest of American children in mind? The list goes on. From failing to support our veterans at home, letting our farmers go under financially, or spending our country into oblivion leading to record-high inflation and prices, what has Kamala Harris done to show she cares about Americans? The answer is nothing, because she doesn’t. Throughout her career, Harris has said and done whatever it took to climb the next rung on the political ladder. Now, she’s flip-flopping on issues to conceal her record, all in an effort to win the White House. She doesn’t care about the people she will represent, just the power and prestige of holding office. Instead, my vote is for the man who took a bullet for this country then raised his fist encouraging us to fight, the same man who has put his name on the line and risked his personal fortune by entering the arena. That would be Donald Trump, the man who had everything to lose eight years ago and still does today. Trump cares about Americans so much that he’s willing to risk everything. Unlike Harris, Trump wants to lift up all Americans—not the ladder behind him. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Kamala Harris Doesn’t Care About You, Only Herself, Senator Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It is a truism that the West was formed by Athens and Jerusalem—meaning the rational thinking introduced by Greece and the moral and religious thought introduced by Israel. Of the two, Jerusalem’s contribution was the more enduring. Relatively few Westerners read Aristotle and Plato. Virtually every citizen of the West—even the illiterate—until the last generation or two, was familiar with the Bible. Europe was Westernized by the Catholic Church in the name of the Bible, not Homer. Were it not for the Jews and their Bible, there would be no Christianity—and therefore no Western civilization. The abolition of slavery was led by Bible-believing Christians. The Bible, not Aristotle, was their moral inspiration. With regard to America, its Founders, even the less religious ones, were rooted in biblical morality. Two of the least religious, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, designed a Great Seal of the United States that depicted the Jews leaving Egypt. The only inscription on the symbol of American Liberty, the Liberty Bell, is a verse from the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). The insignia of Yale University is in Hebrew, and it, too, is taken from the Torah. The Princeton University seal features an open Bible. Until about 1800, students at Yale, Harvard, and other universities were required to study Hebrew. Many American Founders described America as a “Second Israel.” In the words of Eran Shalev, a Fulbright scholar who became a professor of history at Haifa University: So prevalent was the Old Testament in the early culture of the United States that for decades after the start of the nineteenth century it was, in the words of Perry Miller (a Harvard professor regarded as the cofounder of the field of American studies) as ‘omnipresent … as … the air that people breathed.’ The American Founders’ attitude toward the Jews is summed up in these words of John Adams, second president of the United States: I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. … The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more, and more happily, than any other nation, ancient or modern. As Israel once made the West, now it is saving the West. This was eloquently stated a few weeks ago by Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker in a column titled, “Israel Defends Itself—and May Save Western Civilization”: How will we ever repay the debt we owe Israel? What the Jewish state has done in the past year—for its own defense, but in the process and not coincidentally for the security of all of us—will rank among the most important contributions to the defense of Western civilization in the past three-quarters of a century. Israel has in 12 months done nothing less than redraw the balance of global security, not just in the region, but in the wider world. It has eliminated thousands of the terrorists whose commitment to a savage theocratic ideology has claimed so many lives across the region and the world for decades. Above all, it has provided an unexpected but crucial reminder to our enemies that there are at least some willing and able to pursue and defeat them, whatever the risk to our own lives and resources. The only appropriate responses to Israel’s gallantry, fortitude and skill from us—its nominal allies, especially in the U.S.—are ‘thank you’ and ‘how can we help?’ Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few, Winston Churchill said of the men of the Royal Air Force after they had repelled Hitler’s Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. We should echo those words today as we watch in awe what a country smaller in area than New Jersey, with a population less than North Carolina’s and an economy smaller than that of Washington state, has done for all of us. Baker is not alone in understanding that Israel’s war is a war for the West. On the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres, Brendan O’Neill, former editor of the British libertarian magazine Spiked, wrote: The West’s moral failures in the aftermath of 7 October were of an entirely new order. They exceeded even my grim fears. They shone a harsh, inescapable light on the retreat from reason and abandonment of Enlightenment many of us have warned of for years. … The delirium of our post-civilizational era emerged into broad daylight. It was undeniable now: The West is in the stranglehold of a profound moral crisis. … The sympathy for Hamas on our campuses and streets is fundamentally an extension of the West’s own crisis of meaning, of our denial of our own insights, of our betrayal of our history. A war for the soul of humanity must now be fought. On two fronts. On the physical front of Israel’s borders … and on the intellectual front here at home. … Only a full-throated defense of the virtues and wonders of Western civilisation might see off the moral derangement of our times and the Jew hatred it has nurtured. If you care about Western civilization, you need to care about ancient Israel and Israel today. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Israel Made the West. Israel Is Saving the West. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Celebrating Fat Tuesday on your homestead this year? If you need some homemade recipes or DIY party ideas, I have you covered. 23 Festive Fat Tuesday Ideas | Mardi Gras Party Celebrating Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is so much fun. I remember the time when we went to New Orleans and we sure had the time of our lives. As much as I wish I could be where the action happens on a yearly basis, I decided to start celebrating it on our homestead with family and friends. So if you also want to throw a Mardi Gras party in your homestead, here are some ideas that will ensure everyone has a blast!   1. Mardi Gras Wreath Start your decorations and make this stunning DIY Mardi Gras wreath. Complete with Mardi Gras colors purple, gold, and green, it makes a beautiful festive greeting on your front door. 2. Fat Tuesday Centerpiece Organize your Mardi Gras table setting with this Fat Tuesday centerpiece and bring out the New Orleans atmosphere to WOW your guests. They’ll surely love the Mardi Gras colors! 3. 7 DIY Mardi Gras Mask | Whether if you're in New Orleans or not, you can definitely have the Mardi Gras spirit by sprucing up, eating king cakes and creating your own DIY Mardi Gras mask! If you want some inspiration, these 7 DIY Mardi Gras ideas will ignite your creativity. 4. DIY Mardi Gras Mask Printable Or if you're running out of time but still want that Mardi Gras spirit, this DIY Mardi Gras mask printable will surely give you what you need in half the time. 5. Statement Necklace For Fat Tuesday And if you don’t want to settle for just the regular beads, turn it into a statement necklace instead and spruce up your ordinary Mardi Gras outfit! 6. Mardi Gras Makeup | Don’t forget the makeup! The Mardi Gras celebration is never complete without some dazzling Mardi Gras makeup! Be ready to dazzle and be the center of attention! 7. DIY Flower Crown image via DIY Projects A perfect Mardi Gras hair accessory: a DIY flower crown. Wear your own handmade crown and let out your inner child during the Mardi Gras celebration. 8. Fat Tuesday Cute Flower Hair Accessories image via DIY Projects Or if the flower crown is too much, try these DIY flower hair accessories! An adorable flower craft to make every girl shine.   Now For The Fat Tuesday Food! 9. Homemade Beignets For Fat Tuesday These homemade beignets for Fat Tuesday are not that hard to make and they're super delicious. All your effort will be worth it. It can be enjoyed as a dessert, perfect for breakfast, or as a snack paired with your favorite cup of coffee. 10. New Orleans’ Style Gumbo | Make a big pot of gumbo that’s totally authentic. This scrumptious New Orleans' style gumbo will surely bring the Mardi Gras vibe into your home. 11. Mardi Gras King Cake For Fat Tuesday   A Mardi Gras celebration is never complete without a brilliant king cake. Make your celebration festive with this colorful Mardi Gras king cake that is bound to become the star of your Mardi Gras table. 12. King Cake Cheese Ball Super easy to make, and it just takes 15 minutes. This delicious king cake cheese ball will give you more reason and time to celebrate the Mardi Gras festivity. 13. Fat Tuesday Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo This Fat Tuesday shrimp and sausage gumbo dish is one of our favorites. I've made it with turkey sausage and all shrimp, and it's just as delicious.   How do you like them (heirloom) apples? ???????????? https://t.co/0pf7koJ5Iq #YUM pic.twitter.com/M3PPWOMA2A — Homesteading (@HomesteadingUSA) February 21, 2017   14. King Cake Dip Why just have cake when you can turn it into a dip? This king cake dip will set the mood right for something delectably sweet. This simple dip really hits the spot. 15. Cajun Shrimp Po’Boy Doesn’t this look appetizing? I bet someone out there is just as emotional as I am looking at this Cajun shrimp po'boy. This is my husband's favorite and any dish I prepare that makes him happy makes me a super proud wife. 16. Copycat Mardi Gras Wings Good wings are always welcome at any celebration especially here in my homestead which is known for its chicken wings, and these are the best I've ever tasted. They make perfect appetizers to kick off the festivity.   Don’t Forget The Mardi Gras Drinks 17. Classic New Orleans Brandy Milk Punch This wonderful drink tempts at breakfast with brandy and velvety vanilla tones and continues rolling throughout the day. But don't be wary of a crazy hangover–this Brandy Milk Punch is smooth and easy to handle. 18. Passion Fruit Fat Tuesday Hurricane Sweet and boozy, just kick back and have a good time. I'm aching to try this version of passion fruit hurricane. Nothing compares to a homemade hurricane as you can play with flavor and make it even more yummier. 19. Red Grapefruit Hurricane Adding a tangy twist to the classic cocktail is what makes this grapefruit hurricane a sure winner. Perfect for any celebration or a relaxing afternoon with family and friends. 20. Skinny Hurricane Cocktail Want to make it skinny? Well, it’s the healthier take on the traditional Mardi Gras drink. Packed with cranberry and orange juice and topped off with light rum, that one unique rejuvenating cocktail. 21. Cajun Bloody Mary For Fat Tuesday Spicy and flavorful! What more could you ask for from this Cajun Bloody Mary? This is a next-level Bloody Mary right here! 22. King Cake Cocktail Can’t get enough of king cake? Turn it into a cocktail perfect for the Mardi Gras celebration. This king cake cocktail will gather compliments every time you serve it. 23. Mardi Gras Smoothies Not in the mood for anything boozy? Grab this smoothie recipe and make your Mardi Gras drink a little bit hearty to make up with all the unhealthy food you can take during the celebration. I bet you'd love to have this smoothie even without any celebration.   Looking for some tips on hosting your own Fat Tuesday? Check out this video from Shindigz:  When it comes to any celebration it's always great to have the perfect decoration to highlight the occasion, good food, and refreshing drinks to feast with. These Fat Tuesday party ideas for Mardi Gras are just simple takes for you to get inspired and get in the spirit of the holiday! So my fellow homesteaders, enjoy and make every moment of your Mardi Gras celebration count! Do you think you’ll try these ideas? Let us know below and how your party went in the comments section below! Can't get enough of Fat Tuesday? Here are 17 King Cake Recipes perfect for your Fat Tuesday celebration! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter! This post was originally published in February 2016 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

Israel Needs Victory, Not a Ceasefire

Don Lemon returned to CNN on Tuesday to promote his new book, I Once Was Lost, but despite the obvious allusion to “Amazing Grace,” Lemon insisted on Inside Politics that today’s white Evangelicals are no different than the slave owners of previous eras who twisted the Bible for their own purposes. What made Lemon’s comparison even more outrageous is that he and host Dana Bash were discussing why Donald Trump is appealing to black men with ads about Kamala Harris being in favor of taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for prisoners. As Bash switched topics to the book, Lemon added, “The black community is also very conservative, especially when it comes to LGBTQ issues.”     Bash proceeded to read from the book, “So, you just lead right into the first quote I want to use from your book, I One Was Lost, which is just a terrific book. You write, ‘As a gay black boy in the Deep South attending Baptist churches and Catholic school, I heard homosexuality defined as an ‘abomination’... I prayed as hard as a child could pray: Please, Lord, make me not be gay.’ That's tough.” She then urged him to “connect what you just said before to this.” Lemon claimed, “It's tough because people automatically think that African Americans are liberal, right? And many times they can be socially conservative, right? And accepting in ways that are not seen in public.” He continued: I think that it's tough because, and it's not just the African-American community, because you can have in the larger culture, white folks, you know, denigrate LGBTQ community, but as a child growing up because of how people and especially Evangelicals, which is why I wrote the book, how they take scripture and the Bible out of context and they interpret that scripture in ways that they want to, they used the same scripture to subjugate women. They used the same scripture to enslave people of color, and so, then they use the same scripture to denigrate the LGBTQ community, to denigrate gay people, and so growing up, it was tough. Lemon acknowledged that conservative sexual ethics are prevalent in Catholicism and African American circles as well, but the fact that such a consensus exists doesn’t matter to him. Only the ability to attack Evangelical conservatives matters. As it was, Lemon added, “So, I thought having a belief in God, especially when I was going to be born again, right, from being baptized, that I could pray it away. It was magical thinking. And then the older you get and you start to think critically and you start to realize around the time Santa Claus and the whole realization, I won't say here, because people may be watching, then you realize that that's actually not what faith in God’s all about.” What is faith in God really about? Lemon didn’t say, but to any kids out there who happened to stumble across the noon hour of CNN, ignore Don Lemon and rest assured that Santa Claus is real. Here is a transcript for the October 15 show: CNN Inside Politics with Dana Bash 10/15/2024 12:40 AM ET DANA BASH: I want to talk a little bit about your book— DON LEMON: The black community is also very conservative, especially when it comes to LGBTQ issues. BASH: — Well, that's, okay, so, you just lead right into the first quote I want to use from your book, I One Was Lost, which is just a terrific book. You write, “As a gay black boy in the Deep South attending Baptist churches and Catholic school, I heard homosexuality defined as an ‘abomination’… I prayed as hard as a child could pray: Please, Lord, make me not be gay.” LEMON: I did. BASH: That's tough. LEMON: It is tough. BASH: But it, connect what you just said before to this. LEMON: It's tough because people automatically think that African Americans are liberal, right? And many times they can be socially conservative, right? And accepting in ways that are not seen in public. But I think that it's tough because, and it's not just the African-American community, because you can have in the larger culture, white folks, you know, denigrate LGBTQ community, but as a child growing up because of how people and especially Evangelicals, which is why I wrote the book, how they take scripture and the Bible out of context and they interpret that scripture in ways that they want to, they used the same scripture to subjugate women. They used the same scripture to enslave people of color, and so, then they use the same scripture to denigrate the LGBTQ community, to denigrate gay people, and so growing up, it was tough. So, I thought having a belief in God especially when I was going to be born again, right, from being baptized, that I could pray it away. It was magical thinking. And then the older you get and you start to think critically and you start to realize around the time Santa Claus and the whole realization, I won't say here, because people may be watching, then you realize that that's actually not what faith in God’s all about.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) has come out against a sweeping censorship bill which could imperil the future of free speech on the internet. Johnson slammed the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety Act (“KOSA”) as “very problematic” and indicated he would not bring it for a vote. The upper chamber’s version of KOSA would create a nebulous “duty of care” for tech platforms, which critics warn would incentivize censorship of speech critical of the authoritarian left. MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider praised Speaker Johnson’s decision in an X post, calling him “the best Speaker in my lifetime.” Schneider added, “We can protect kids from voracious tech oligarchs while also protecting free speech rights. He gets it.” Johnson’s new comments on KOSA were made in an interview with Punchbowl News. Punchbowl reported that the statement by Johnson “likely spell[s] doom this year for the bill,” as the Speaker indicated he was not amenable to changing his position, “at least not on the version that passed the Senate in July.” The Senate version of KOSA, which was authored by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would make tech companies liable if the content shared on their platforms causes a child “psychological distress” or “anxiety.” The upper chamber passed the bill last July over the vociferous objection of Senators Mike Lee (R-UT)  and Rand Paul (R-KY).  At the time, Paul warned: “this bill opens the door to nearly limitless content moderation, as people can and will argue that almost any form of content could contribute to some form of mental health disorder.”   Punchbowl also reported that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) had urged the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee to craft its own version of KOSA rather than approve the one that passed in the Senate.  The KOSA version which the Energy & Commerce Committee then passed was drastically different from its Senate counterpart. The House edition changed the “duty of care” measures Paul had objected to, instead focusing on combating the criminal exploitation of children by internet predators. Johnson and Scalise’s positions mirror those of Media Research Center Founder & President Brent Bozell. In a Sept. 25 statement, Bozell cautioned: "Protecting children is extremely important, but we should not fall into the trap of allowing Big Tech to censor us, which we know will happen on issues like gender ideology and abortion. I support the current House bill. If the Senate’s censorship provisions are added to the bill under the cloak of darkness, conservatives will have to oppose it.” Johnson previously proclaimed: “Big Tech has an overt bias for the Left. Their censorship is an assault on free speech.”   Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand they not cave to Senator Blumenthal’s demand for censorship. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

While Kamala Harris continues to avoid any interview with The New York Times, J.D. Vance again entered hostile territory to be grilled on their podcast "The Interview" with NPR refugee Lourdes Garcia-Navarro. This woman is so far to the Left that relayed in 2016 that being kissed by one of Fidel Castro's two brothers in Cuba was like being "getting the blessing of the Holy Trinity."  The Times put the whole interview on YouTube, but highlighted what they liked the most, which of course included hectoring Vance about accepting that Donald Trump lost in 2020. Vance never concedes the point (it might have been required for the Veep slot), so what is the point? The liberals think this shows all the Republicans can't handle Reality. So here's how it went, with the question thrown FOUR times.  GARCIA-NAVARRO: In the debate you were asked to clarify if you believe Trump lost the 2020 election. do you believe he lost the 2020 election? VANCE: I think that Donald Trump and I have both raised a number of issues with the 2020 election, but we're focused on the future. I think there's an obsession here with focusing on 2020. I'm much more worried about what happened after 2020 which is a wide open border, groceries that are unaffordable and look-- GARCIA-NAVARRO: Senator, yes or no: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 elections? VANCE: Let me ask you a question. Is it okay that big technology companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, which independent analysis of said, cost Donald Trump millions of votes? GARCIA-NAVARRO: Senator Vance, I'm going to ask you again. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020? VANCE: Did big technology companies censor a story that independent studies have suggested would have cost Trump millions of votes? [That is the MRC Poll.] That is the question. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Senator Vance, I’m going to ask you again, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? VANCE: I have answered your question with another question. You answer my question and I’ll answer yours. NBC's fake-news skit on Saturday Night Live mocked that "answer with a question" response. But when they hammer on a point like this, it seems designed to torture the guest into a surrender. If Trump lost the 2020 election due to losing battleground states --  and just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College -- then censoring stories damaging to Biden could have made the difference. That's what our poll found.  Then she changed the question to whether Vance would have voted to certify the election, knowing full well his answer has been No, and then if there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January. Others picked up on the exchange on illegal immigration, and how Vance was "brilliant" on how massive immigration has driven up the price of houses.  BRILLIANT: JD Vance educates NYT's Lulu Garcia-Navarro on LABOR FORCE participation, countering her defense of illegal labor. He notes 7 million men have left the workforce and criticizes reliance on immigrants over reengaging struggling AMERICANS. ?pic.twitter.com/2FwlK4PL6X — Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 12, 2024 Garcia-Navarro pointed out a third of construction workers are Hispanic and "a large proportion are undocumented… So how do you propose to build all the housing necessary that we need in this country by removing all the people who are working in construction?"  "Well, I think it’s a fair question because we know that back in the 1960s, when we had very low levels of illegal immigration, Americans didn’t build houses. But, of course they did. And I’m being sarcastic in service of a point," Vance responded. He added: “People say, ‘Well, Americans won’t do those jobs,'” Vance acknowledged, before refuting that common argument. “Americans won’t do those jobs for below-the-table wages. They won’t do those jobs for non-living wages, but people will do those jobs.”

A Kentucky woman is accused of murdering her own mother, dismembering her body, then cooking the remains in a pot until they were "charred," according to authorities. Kentucky State Police arrested 32-year-old Torilena May Fields, of Mount Olivet, on Oct. 10. 'Whatever witchcraft is, but I heard she was into it.' Fields initially was charged with obstructing governmental operations, tampering with physical evidence, and abuse of a corpse. However, a grand jury added charges of murder and animal torture Monday. The suspect is being detained at the Bourbon County Detention Center. Fields' bond was set at $1.5 million. WOLF-TV reported Fields shot her mother — Trudy Fields — in the head, then stabbed her multiple times between Oct. 8 and Oct. 9, according to the indictment. Fields is accused of “decapitating, dismembering, eviscerating her mother’s corpse, and placing her head, feet, and forearms in a pot in the oven and heating them until they were charred,” the indictment reads, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. The victim reportedly hired men to do work on her property, but nobody answered when they knocked on the front door. The contractors then walked around the property in an effort to find the owner, but instead they stumbled upon a gruesome crime scene, according to court documents. The workers followed drag marks to the back of the house and found a dismembered body, the citation states. State troopers discovered the dismembered female body near a pile of hair, a “blood-stained mattress,” “blood on the back porch,” and blood on the “threshold of the back door,” according to the citation. A second mattress was reportedly found in the back yard — it was folded in half and contained multiple severed body parts and organs. Police said the arms, legs, and head had been removed from the body. Authorities said the suspect refused to come out of the house, and police reportedly had a standoff with the suspect that ended around 11 p.m. after officers used tear gas and a police robot. Fields emerged from the house covered in blood, according to authorities. The interior of the house was just as ghastly. According to the indictment, troopers discovered a severed head as well as severed hands, feet, and a forearm that “appeared to have been cooked” in a steel pot inside the oven. The officers noted that the pot was still “warm to the touch.” The contractors told police they had been to the property the day before, during which they encountered the suspect “casting spells on them and being confrontational,” according to the arrest citation. Family member Todd Brock told WCPO-TV, "Witchcraft, fingernails, and just do different stuff. Whatever witchcraft is, but I heard she was into it. I think somebody lost control of their mind. Had to have something planned out or satanism or had their brain washed." Olivia Brock, another family member, told WOLF-TV, "You can imagine, it’s one thing to find out your family member’s been murdered, but I mean, it’s a whole other thing for the details and stuff; I mean, it’s literally unimaginable, unimaginable. All of us have been experiencing shock for the first time, I guess you could say. That’s a whole different — grief and shock are two different ballgames." Fields also is accused of torturing and murdering a dog. Olivia Brock said the suspect had suffered a severe brain injury in a motorcycle crash a few months ago and as a result couldn't remember her name or even know where she was. The victim's sister, Diana Brock, said the family is Christian and will "never stop loving" Torilena Fields despite the diabolical accusations. "We don't disown people, no matter what you've done. We love, and that's what God says," Diana said. "You know you love no matter what, unconditionally, and we just support the family, and that's what we're trying to do." The Commonwealth claimed that Fields was not acting under the influence of “extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse.” However, the arrest report did note that Fields appeared to be under the influence of drugs at the time of her arrest. According to the Monday indictment, Fields also is accused of torturing and murdering a dog. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 23. You can view a video report here about the case. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tim Walz is not doing a great job of proving himself worthy of such an important position as he flip-flops on issues like the Electoral College. In a recent interview with Michael Strahan on ABC, he couldn’t hide from his mistake. “You said, ‘I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,’” Strahan said to Walz, adding, “But the campaign came out later that night and they said that’s not their stance.” “Well, it’s not the campaign’s position, and the point I’m trying to make is that there’s folks that feel every vote must count in every state, and I think some folks feel that’s not the case. Our campaign does that, and the point I’m saying is, I mean, five states in two days, we’re out there making the case that the campaign’s position is clear,” Walz rambled. “Their position and my position is to make sure that everybody understands their vote, no matter what state they’re in, matters,” he added. “So is that something that you and Vice President Harris disagree on?” Strahan followed up. “I have spoken about it in the past that she’s been very clear on this, and the campaign and my position is the campaign’s position,” Walz responded. Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” is not amused. “The doublespeak and the backtrack,” Gray says, shocked, noting that Walz also made some strange comments regarding immigration recently. “I think voters focusing on immigration helps, because I think what they’ve seen is that we’re leaning into it, we’re talking about what the solution is. And again I think these folks saw it, Donald Trump wasn’t doing anything about it. He certainly didn’t build his wall, he didn’t have Mexico pay for it,” Walz said in another interview. “Again, astounding,” Gray comments. “You’re actually babbling that nonsense. Donald Trump tried to build the wall, he didn’t get enough funding for it.” “It’s incredible just how stupid they think we are,” he adds. “And maybe we are, I don’t know, we’ll see on November 6.” Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.