Books Reading the Weird Don’t Put That Thing in Your Mouth: Nghi Vo’s “What the Dead Know” A woman posing as a medium who can channel the spirit world comes face to face with the truth… By Ruthanna Emrys, Anne M. Pillsworth | Published on July 2, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we cover Nghi Vo’s “What the Dead Know,” first published in 2022 as an Amazon Original. Spoilers ahead! Fogg River, Illinois, 1899: A train pulls into the station ahead of a winter storm, unceremoniously disgorging two passengers. Vasyl Janiv denies he won enough to have been booted as the cardsharp he is. Maryse Ly supposes she was the problem. This far north, people see few Vietnamese, but she certainly doesn’t pass as a white woman. The town’s main street is unpaved. From the station platform, the pair can see the river itself, swollen and furious. Maryse grew up by the Mississippi, hearing the murmurs of its drowned. Fogg River hosts its own dead, one of whom briefly flings an arm above the waves. There are water women everywhere. A buggy arrives, driven by a sharp-faced woman: Miss Nina Parley, from the Fogg River Seminary for Young Ladies, where they’ve been hired to perform as occultists. Snow starts falling as they enter the drive. Maryse gasps at “hearts snagged in the branches, red and dripping.” But they’re merely salt-dough holiday ornaments. Maryse fights her unease. If she and Vasyl bailed on every job that spooked her, she’d be back to selling dances. The Seminary is a dignified edifice. Well-dressed guests and servants crowd its foyer. Girls answer guests’ questions, like circus animals. Their heads are crowned by charmed fireflies. A man with a bristling mustache seizes Maryse’s elbow and speculates about her origins. She plays dumb, as she supposedly speaks no English. Vasyl rescues her. The headmistress, Nina’s mother, gives a speech: for fifty years the Seminary has formed girls into “diligent young women” fit to serve their husbands and communities. Not only do they learn household magic, they’re also taught to tend posthouses and send telegrams! Maryse and Vasyl prepare the school library for their performance. Maryse checks for traps planted to catch fakes, but no listening imps lurk. She changes into her costume: an extravagantly draped dress made from stolen bordello curtains. She tucks the contents of a chamois bag into her cheek, then lies corpse-like on a table. Guests gather as Vasyl warns that his companion, the priestess of a forbidden religion whom he purchased out of a Saigon market, “lies on the border between life and death.” They must be quiet, or she may slip away forever! Vasyl proves she’s in “the trance of her ancestors” by fake-needling her cheek while bursting a blood-red ink capsule. Now she can listen for the dead, and pass on their answers to the guests’ questions. Maryse works the audience, responding gutturally to some, ignoring others with moans and head-tosses. The mustached man asks how Hell looks, at which Maryse enacts a fit. “Ask anything else,” Vasyl cries. Headmistress Parley speaks up: “Where’s my daughter gone?” Maryse tenses her body, so she looks like she’s floating. The spirits are bringing her back, Vasyl explains, cueing Maryse to sit bolt upright, clutch her throat, then spit out the three amber stones from her cheek. On them, the pair have carved vague spirit-reassurances: Heaven, love, mercy. But a fourth stone sticks in Maryse’s throat, nearly suffocating her before she chokes it out. The next minute, Nina’s giving her sherry. Mrs. Parley reads the stones aloud: “Here. Here. Here.” As Maryse stares, the electric lights explode. Already-unnerved guests scream. The storm has caused the electrical failure. High snowdrifts cut off travel. Dorm rooms are found for married couples and Maryse, while the single men bed down in classrooms. A handful of fireflies serve for a night-light. Maryse is roused when someone tries her doorknob. The lock holds, the would-be intruder leaves, but Maryse knows she won’t be able to sleep again. She gathers the fireflies and searches out Vasyl. He’s not surprised when she crawls onto his pallet-bed. He says that earlier the town doctor shared whiskey and local gossip: Mrs. Parley’s older daughter, the telegraph teacher, ran off with some man that summer, hence the question from the performance. On her way back to her room, Maryse sees the mustached man slip into the corridor, a paper packet in his hands. He orders her to “Come here.” Maryse immediately flees. The man pursues. She gets out a window, but the drop to the snowy ground wrenches her knee, and she can only hobble to a building at the edge of the woods. She ducks inside and finds the school’s telegraph office. Its machine begins to clack without a visible operator. Her pursuer breaks in. The telegraph distracts him. In the light of a dozen fireflies, Maryse now sees a woman at the machine, her hair and dress soaked, smelling of rotting fish and mud. When the woman seizes the man by the throat, Maryse recognizes her from the library. It wasn’t Nina but Nina’s dead sister Emma, who twists the man’s head violently. As Emma drags the man’s corpse outside, Nina appears. “My sister,” she confirms numbly. Nina clutches the final stone that choked Maryse. The word on it is “Adley.” He was Emma’s faithless lover and murderer, come to this gathering to recover letters he’d written her. Nina gathers the telegraph tape and translates Emma’s message: “Here. Hate. Hate. Dead. Always dead. Dead forever. Pain. Cold. Cold. River. Cold. Hate. Hate. Hate you. Die. Die. Hate you.” When Nina wonders why Adley killed Emma, Maryse says there are as many reasons as there are women in the water. At the train station, Maryse thinks she sees a white hand waving again from the river. After five years as a medium, Maryse finally knows what the dead speak of. What’s Cyclopean: The Fogg river “bowed to the Mississippi, but it did not understand the sovereignty of bridges or trains.” The Degenerate Dutch: Maryse passes as an exotic priestess from an unnamed country that echoes “with the roars of man-eating lions.” This invites leers with varying levels of hazard, but no one seriously questions the story. Weirdbuilding: Harry Houdini, in our world, was a stage magician and skeptic who tried to disprove mediums because he so desperately wanted them to be real. In Maryse’s world, he may or may not be “descended from eighteen generations of Jewish magicians.” Note that Kabballah does not, generally speaking, have a ton of applications in escape artistry.  Ruthanna’s Commentary An effective con hinges on telling people what they want to believe. You’re smarter than everyone else. Here’s an easy way to make tons of money. Your beloved dead are safe and well in the afterlife, and want you to know that everything is okay. The danger of running a con is getting convinced that you’re smarter than everyone else, that you’ve found an easy way to make tons of money—and that the dead are never going to contradict you. Like poor Alison in Beyond Black, Maryse walks the line between comforting con and discomfiting actual mediumship. The similarity ends there, however. Maryse has a better balance with Vasyl than Alison with Colette, and thought—until this story—that she was entirely and safely on the “con” side of the line. This despite living in a world with drowned “water women” haunting every river, dinner guests who’ve sold their souls, and enchanted fireflies haloing the heads of schoolgirls. These details tantalize: what does it mean that a common etiquette quandary involves seating assignments for a clergyman and a servant of the devil? Why did you invite them both in the first place? I have a sneaking suspicion that the murderer-harasser who asks for intel on Hell… may have a personal interest in the answer. So perhaps you invited the soul-seller because you didn’t know his peccadillos. Why one would reveal such things at the dinner table remains a mystery to be answered by a very different sort of story. Which Vo, who’s elsewhere riffed on The Great Gatsby and stuck a storytelling archivist in a room with man-eating tigers (not lions), would also be well-qualified to write. The fireflies, too, are intriguing. The spell ultimately kills them, either by draining their energy or just keeping them from eating all night. It’s a piece of quiet cruelty masquerading as innocent charm. That seems appropriate, and fits well with a seminary school that would draw funders not only with its students’ domestic party tricks, but with imported table-knockers. Or perhaps the séance also had an ulterior motive: perhaps Mrs. Parley’s suspected Emma’s fate. The answer, like so many provided by the actual dead, is not comforting. Not only because Emma is dead, but because the dead know so little. No mercy preserved in this amber, only the hate and pain of a girl’s last moments. Only vengeance, and an answer—at least for one murderer—to the question about hell. Which leaves the water women, and their sister victims in other elements, no dramatically moral afterlife of their own. Only the thing that killed them, forever. Anne’s Commentary My search results for Vietnamese immigration to Louisiana prior to 1900 were mainly productive of redirection to the significant influx that followed the Vietnam War. However, in An Ethnic Geography of New Orleans, Richard Campanella provides these observations by nineteenth-century travelers: “No city perhaps on the globe,” wrote one visitor in 1816, “presents a greater contrast of national manners, language, and complexion, than does New Orleans.” Marveled another in 1835, “Truly does New-Orleans represent every other city and nation upon earth. I know of none where is congregated so great a variety of the human species.” “What a hubbub!” gushed another visitor, “what an assemblage of strange faces [and] distinct people!” So why couldn’t Maryse’s family have been part of the “assemblage”? Perhaps the Mississippi River’s Delta reminded them of the Mekong’s, only with alligators instead of Estuarine and Siamese crocodiles. A delta without crocodilians is like a day without orange juice, or something like that. A river without water women, likewise, would be no fun at all for lovers of weird tales. In Vietnamese folklore, the Mekong River is strongly associated with the ma da, the ghosts of people who have drowned in its waters, but as Maryse tells Vasyl, ma da can be found everywhere, in any body of water deep enough to claim victims. Drowning due to some act of violence may create especially angry and vengeful ma da. All are apparently trapped in the waters where they died; some lore has it that a ma da is enslaved to the lord or god of those waters, unable to pass on to the next plane of existence until it can lure another person to his or her drowning, thus “tagging” that fresh victim to take its place. Mrs. Parley needs a spirit medium in order to find her daughter, Emma. Emma needs a spirit medium to communicate with her family. Maryse has five years of experience to offer them. Too bad that experience is as a fake medium, working with a fake spiritualist. Maryse and Vasyl have polished their act to a highly convincing shine and learned how to avoid the skeptics’ traps, damn that Houdini, but the pair are still fakes. Or are they? Specifically, is Maryse a fake? It seems she needn’t be a fraud in Vo’s subtly tweaked world where ghosts are real, a seminary for young ladies can teach household magic without visitors raising their well-groomed eyebrows, and enchanted fireflies make both festive headwear and useful flashlights. Maryse may just need the right situation, the complementary need, to bloom her latent psi gift. Abused-by-men medium, meet man-murdered ghost: Now, channel Emma the energy to manifest on dry land and make payback hell for her killer. Emma’s faithless lover gets to die; you, Maryse, get to live on a wiser woman, if a sadder one—one who knows what the dead have to say. If Emma were a ma da of legend, she’d be free to move on now that she’s provided the river with a substitute haunt in Adley. Is the wave she gives Maryse from the flooding Fogg one of grateful farewell? Is it any salute at all, or just a random flail from a spirit still condemned to hate, pain, cold, dead, dead forever, only now with company in her misery? I don’t know the answer to that question. I do know this: Mediums! Do NOT put any objects in your mouth when you’re about to go into a trance and grunt-gabble answers to audience requests. This precaution goes double if you’re likely to do a lot of showy (or authentic) writhing and head-tossing! Those objects are DYING to pop out of your cheek pouch and lodge in your windpipe! Or if you insist on risking dry-land asphyxiation, make sure your partner has the Heimlich maneuver down pat. Don’t worry about ghost-provided mouth-projectiles. They’ll always pop out at the most dramatic moment. Next week, we explore just how much can be learned from a one-sentence chapter in Chapters 36-46 of The Night Guest.[end-mark] The post Don’t Put That Thing in Your Mouth: Nghi Vo’s “What the Dead Know” appeared first on Reactor.

Adam and Mike Schwartz explore issue 111 of Wizard featuring a TON of Stan Lee and Joe Quesada stories, Wizard’s picks for 80’s cartoon comic book dream teams, a Fantastic Four movie Casting Call by CONTINUE READING... The post WIZARDS The Podcast Guide To Comics | Episode 111 appeared first on The Retro Network.

Ketanji Brown Jackson is a justice seeking to establish her legacy. By some lights, her mere presence as the first black women on the Supreme Court is already a legacy-cementing fact. To her credit, she understands that status alone is not enough, and thus she has been enormously active as a questioner and opinion writer during her three-year tenure on the Court. But it is doubtful that her prolific and eccentric performance at the close of the 2024 term has helped her legacy.  First, a brief survey of her role this term. According to statistics from SCOTUSblog and Empirical SCOTUS, Jackson was in the majority less than any justice in the 2024 term (72%). That percentage drops to 51% in nonunanimous cases and 45% in “closely divided cases,” both the lowest of any justice. Those figures place her on the periphery of the current Court.   During oral arguments, however, she dwarfs her colleagues in the number of words spoken and the number of minutes used. She writes the shortest opinions, averaging 3,400 words. But that might be attributable in part to the fact that as the most junior justice, she is assigned majority opinions in the least controversial cases. Still, she creates additional opportunities to put her thoughts into writing. She wrote more dissents than any member of the Court (10), and when concurrences are factored in, she wrote 24 total opinions this term, trailing only Justice Clarence Thomas (29).  Probably Jackson’s most significant majority opinion this term was Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services, where a unanimous Court overturned lower court rulings that forced “majority group” members to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard to prove claims of workplace discrimination. Jackson dispatched Ohio’s contrary arguments in a brisk nine pages.    It is, however, Jackson’s dissents that have garnered the most critical attention. At the risk of missing important material, let us confine ourselves to a few among the notables.  Consider first her dissent in Medina v. Planned Parenthood, which Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor joined. If Jackson is looking to carve out her own jurisprudential niche, then perhaps her greatest sin here is her unoriginality. The case concerned South Carolina’s decision to exclude Planned Parenthood from the state’s approved Medicaid providers. The question before the Court was whether the federal Medicaid program allowed individual patients to sue the state over that decision. The majority said “no,” and the liberals disagreed. The irony was that the case most cited by the majority to support its reasoning was Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County v. Talevksi, a 2023 decision by (checks notes) … Jackson.  Of course, it was not enough for Jackson, et al. to disagree legally—the matter had to become a moral contest. The right of individuals to sue states traces back to a Reconstruction-Era statute now known as §1983. So, as if deciding that abortion alone did not make the stakes of the case high enough, Jackson decided to compare South Carolina’s present resistance to abortion to the state’s past denial of black equality. “A century and a half later,” she says, “the project of stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws continues.” In other words, old unreconstructed South Carolina is just up to its nullifying tricks again, trying to deny people fundamental rights like access to industrial-scale infanticide. It is a tired trope of the modern left to make a new civil rights movement out of every issue of autonomy, and it is a move that Jackson apparently could not resist.    Jackson delivered another mystifying dissent in Diamond Energy v. Environmental Protection Agency, a fuel industry challenge to California’s ability to impose more restrictive emissions standards than any other state. The question before the Court concerned only the threshold issue of standing, which requires plaintiffs to identify a concrete, redressable injury before asking a court to intervene. A seven-justice majority agreed that California’s push for electric vehicles would harm the fuel industry by decreasing sales.    Yet Jackson resisted that conclusion. Despite the facially reasonable connection between California’s regulations and decreased fuel sales, in a solo dissent, Jackson accused her colleagues of failing to approach the standing question “evenhandedly,” giving rise to the “the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens.”    Now, regarding inconsistency in the Court’s standing jurisprudence, Jackson has a point. Justice Samuel Alito made a similar point in 2023 when the Court (including Jackson) held that Texas, for all the burdens of illegal immigration that it bore, had no standing to challenge President Joe Biden’s effective nonenforcement of the nation’s immigration laws. Here, however, the Court did what it should have done in that case, i.e., acknowledge that injury in fact creates standing.  Jackson seemed to think that was inadequate because she was unfavorably disposed toward the “moneyed interests” bringing the case. That too is a kind of bias. At times she suggested that the controversy between the fuel industry and California was illusory because the Trump administration might at some future date withdraw the exemption that permits California’s unique standards. Begrudgingly, she conceded that the policy remains in place, and it was common sense to conclude that it is affecting fuel sales. But in her view, not too much weight could be placed on that state of affairs because “what counts as a ‘commonsense’ inference to the Justices on this Court may not be viewed as such by others.”  Who might these common-sense-impaired others be? The New York Times, apparently, which was her primary citation for the worry “that the fuel industry’s gain comes at a reputational cost for this Court, which is already viewed by many as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests.” Seldom has a fear of niche newsroom opinions done so much work in judicial reasoning.   But if that was not convincing, Jackson had another emotional appeal: the civil rights movement again. What has that to do with anything? Well, Jackson found it “striking” how the majority found standing for the fuel industry “especially when compared to the Court’s approach to Article III standing in cases involving civil rights,” where the Court supposedly makes things tougher. There you have it. Another culpable judicial failure to support the meta-value of equality. But when your harangues over injustice have lost fellow liberal stalwart Kagan, then perhaps you protest too much.  Last is another solo Jackson dissent in Trump v. CASA, Inc., the birth-right-citizenship case that at this stage of the litigation asked only whether lower courts had the power to impose “universal” or “nationwide” injunctions that barred the president from enforcing his policies anywhere in the country. Six justices, led by Amy Coney Barrett, concluded that the late-developing practice of universal injunctions was inconsistent with the scope of the judiciary’s historically understood power to give relief only to the parties before the court.  Again, Jackson did not simply disagree. Instead, she summoned up a level of melodrama better suited to her side gig on the stage and declared the majority opinion “an existential threat to the rule of law.” The emotional register of her dissent verges on the theatrical. She dismisses the majority’s concern for historic limits on judicial power as “mind-numbingly technical,” “legalese,” and a “smokescreen” all in one paragraph. The end of a judicial practice dating to the 1960s she attributes to her colleagues’ “culture of disdain” for the law, which will put our Constitution and “our beloved constitutional Republic” into “grave jeopardy.” She then closed by dissenting “with deep disillusionment.” Perhaps she has plans to convert that dissent into a Broadway libretto.  As critiques go, it would be hard to outdo Barrett’s. Jackson, she explains, “decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.” Her basis for doing so is “at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself.” Although the president must follow the law, contra Jackson, “the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation—in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so.”  Critiques of Jackson’s overwrought CASA performance have come from places other than her conservative colleagues. Even highly regarded liberal legal scholars have said that Jackson’s forecasts of constitutional doom are unwarranted not least because the practice of universal injunctions has long enabled “politically motivated litigants and judges [to] short-circuit a process in which multiple judges address hard legal questions.”  Of course, Jackson is not wrong when she invokes the architects of our Constitution to show that courts have an important role to play in checking the political branches. But as conservatives have had to learn in some recent separation-of-powers cases, resort to first principles can take you only so far in answering questions about specific constitutional restraints on another branch. History must play its role too.  Jackson has not been a judge, let alone a Supreme Court Justice, very long. At age 54, she has a lot of time to adapt to her role and cultivate a judicial philosophy. She has at times shown an ability to treat subjects with greater nuance and insight than her older colleagues. Her performance in the NetChoice cases last term comes to mind. Going forward, one would hope to see more of that approach and less of the dramatics on which the curtains of the 2024 term closed. The post Consider the Dissenter: Justice Jackson’s Troubled Close to the 2024 Term appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Border czar Tom Homan is praising the “Trump effect” after another drop in illegal-alien encounters at the southern border in June.   “Total Border Patrol encounters for the entire month of June 2025 was 6,070,” Homan wrote on X. “That is less than a single day under [President Joe Biden]. As a matter of fact, the total number of encounters is less than half of a single day under Biden on many days.”  In June 2022, for comparison, the Border Patrol encountered 6,413 illegal aliens a day on average between ports of entry along the southern border, according to Customs and Border Protection. In addition to the low encounter numbers, none of the 6,070 illegal aliens encountered at the border in June were released into the U.S., according to Homan.   More than 10 million illegal aliens were released into the interior of the U.S. under the four years of the Biden administration, according to CBP.   “President [Donald] Trump has created the most secure border in the history of the nation, and the data proves it,” Homan said. “We have never seen numbers this low. Never. God bless the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol, and God bless the men and women of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement].”  “The interior arrests and consequences help to drive down illegal immigration,” according to Homan. “The Trump effect keeps America winning.”  THE TRUMP EFFECT – Total Border Patrol encounters for the entire month of June 2025 was 6,070. That is less than a single day under Biden. As a matter of fact, the total number of encounters is less than half of a single day under Bidenon many days. Also, none of the 6,070 were…— Thomas D. Homan (@RealTomHoman) July 1, 2025 Homan, together with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has spearheaded Trump’s immigration agenda.   Since Trump took office, ICE agents have arrested and deported thousands of illegal immigrants, with a specific focus on apprehending and removing criminal illegal aliens.   However, the Trump administration’s aggressive campaign to remove illegal aliens from the U.S. has led to a nearly 700% increase in assaults on ICE agents, according to Noem. Our heroic ICE law enforcement officers are facing a nearly 700% increase in assaults against them.If you obstruct or assault our law enforcement, this administration will hunt you down and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. pic.twitter.com/VeeoeyP1Ze— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) July 2, 2025 “If you obstruct or assault our law enforcement, this administration will hunt you down, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Noem warned in a post on the social media platform X on Monday.   In light of the uptick in assaults on ICE agents, Noem sharply criticized CNN for reporting on a mobile application that allows users to note and view the location of ICE officers.   “This sure looks like obstruction of justice,” Noem said on X in a post sharing CNN’s reporting.   During a tour of a new illegal-alien detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades on Tuesday, Noem was asked to respond to claims that CNN should be prosecuted for its reporting on the mobile application.   “We’re working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them for that,” Noem told press. “Because what they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities, operations, and we’re going to actually go after them and prosecute with the partnership of [Attorney General Pam Bondi] if we can, because what they are doing, we believe, is illegal.”   CNN is defending its reporting, stating: “There is nothing illegal about reporting the existence of this or any other app, nor does such reporting constitute promotion or other endorsement of the app by CNN.”  >> @CNNPR's response: "This is an app that is publicly available to any iPhone user who wants to download it. There is nothing illegal about reporting the existence of this or any other app, nor does such reporting constitute promotion or other endorsement of the app by CNN." https://t.co/VLrXqOMZUb— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 1, 2025 The post Border Czar Homan Credits ‘Trump Effect’ for June’s Low Illegal-Alien Encounter Numbers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Australia’s Administrative Review Tribunal has ruled against the eSafety Commissioner’s directive that sought to block a post by Canadian activist Chris “Billboard Chris” Elston. The decision marks a big moment for supporters of free expression, striking down the government’s effort to censor content on social media platform X. The controversy began in February 2024 when Elston posted a message criticizing transgender activist Teddy Cook’s appointment to a World Health Organization panel. Referencing a Daily Mail article, Elston used biologically accurate pronouns, prompting the eSafety Commissioner to label the post as cyber abuse under the 2021 Online Safety Act. X faced the threat of a fine amounting to $514,630 if it failed to comply. Although the company initially resisted removing the content, it later applied a geoblock that restricted access to the post within Australia. Elston and X launched a legal challenge, arguing the censorship breached the fundamental right to free speech. More: US State Department Condemns Australian Government for Social Media Censorship The case was supported by ADF International and the Human Rights Law Alliance, with legal representation from media lawyer Justin Quill of Thomson Geer. A week-long hearing took place in Melbourne beginning on March 31, 2025. The Tribunal ultimately concluded that the eSafety Commissioner’s determination had been incorrect. The order to remove the post was overturned. Paul Coleman, Executive Director of ADF International, described the outcome as a critical victory for free expression. He stated, “This is a decisive win for free speech and sets an important precedent in the growing global debate over online censorship. In this case, the Australian government alarmingly censored the peaceful expression of a Canadian citizen on an American-owned platform, evidence of the expansive reach of censorial forces, even beyond national borders. Today, free speech has prevailed.” He added, “This is a victory not just for Billboard Chris, but for every Australian and indeed every citizen who values the fundamental right to free speech.” Elston also welcomed the ruling, saying, “I’m grateful that truth and common sense have prevailed. “This decision sends a clear message that the government does not have authority to silence peaceful expression. My mission is to speak the truth about gender ideology, protecting children across the world from its dangers. “With this ruling, the court has upheld my right to voice my convictions, a right that belongs to every one of us. My post should never have been censored in Australia, but my hope is that authorities will now think twice before resorting to censorship.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Australia Tribunal Overturns eSafety Ruling in Free Speech Win appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Apple is facing intensified legal pressure in the United States, as Proton, the Swiss provider of encrypted communications services, has joined a lawsuit accusing the tech giant of stifling competition and undermining consumer privacy. The legal action, filed with the US District Court for Northern California, claims Apple exploits its dominance over iOS and the App Store, creating an uneven playing field for developers and limiting consumer choice. We obtained a copy of the filing for you here. In a statement shared through its blog, Proton asserted, “We believe that Apple’s conduct, as detailed in the complaint we filed, constitutes further violations of US antitrust law.” The company warned that unless the courts intervene, Apple could continue practices in the US that have already been curtailed in Europe, leading to “higher prices for fewer choices” for American users and app makers. Proton is urging the court to compel Apple to open iOS to alternative app stores, provide visibility to these stores within the App Store, let developers disable Apple’s in-app payment system, and grant full access to Apple’s APIs. The aim, according to Proton’s filing, is to ensure fairer conditions that would allow developers to reach customers directly without Apple’s restrictive gatekeeping. The antitrust challenges Apple now faces in the US mirror its regulatory struggles in Europe, where authorities have required the company to permit third-party app stores for iOS. This shift has been driven by concerns that Apple’s control over app distribution and payments disadvantages both consumers and competitors. Proton’s complaint echoes themes seen in earlier legal fights, such as Epic Games’ 2020 case against Apple. Though Apple largely prevailed in that instance, it was ordered to allow developers to notify users about alternative payment options; a ruling that remains under scrutiny, with a judge recently questioning Apple’s compliance. Beyond antitrust issues, Proton’s filing brings a privacy dimension to the argument. The Swiss firm also pointed to its own experience in 2020, when Apple initially blocked an update to Proton’s VPN app after the company highlighted its ability to “unblock censored web sites.” Although Apple eventually approved the update, Proton argues the incident exemplifies how Apple prioritizes profit over privacy. The blog post added, “We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Apple Hit with New Antitrust Lawsuit by Proton Over iOS Monopoly appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

FBI Covered Up Chris Wray's Perjury

Guess Who's Coming to Salem?

As we prepare to note the 249th anniversary of our country, getting ready for the great celebration next year of America’s 250th, Gallup serves up sobering data. Per polling just released by Gallup, only 58% of Americans now say they are “extremely proud” or “very proud” to be an American. When Gallup first asked this question in 2001, 87% said they were “extremely proud” or “very proud” to be American. Digging deeper, we see that most of this precipitous drop in pride in our country is attributable to those identifying as Democrats. In 2001, 90% of Republicans said they were “extremely proud” or “very proud” to be an American. In 2025, 92% of Republicans say they are “extremely proud” or very “proud.” In 2001, 87% of Democrats said they were either “extremely” or “very” proud. But in 2025, only 36% of Democrats say they are “extremely” or “very” proud of their country. Worth noting is that over the last 25 years, the Republican percentage saying they are “extremely” or “very” proud barely moved. Republican pride in the country stayed strong regardless of the party in power, never ever dropping below 84%. However, Democrat pride moved with the party in power. During Democrat administrations, Democrat pride in the country increased. During Republican administrations, it dropped. What this tells me is that Republicans see the country in terms of its principles. Democrats see everything through the lens of politics. Let’s look at one issue that is about principles -- abortion. Abortion is an issue that touches our core values. It’s like the issue of slavery that once so deeply divided the country. How abortion is viewed, like how slavery was viewed, speaks to how we see and value human life. Abortion is also an issue in which the country is deeply divided along partisan lines. Among Republicans, 77% identify as pro-life and 16% as pro-choice. Among Democrats, 83% identify as pro-choice and 12% pro-life. Regarding the question of the morality of abortion, 23% of Republicans/lean-Republicans view abortion as “morally acceptable,” and 64% view it as “morally wrong.” Among Democrats/lean-Democrats, 78% view abortion as “morally acceptable” and 15% view it as “morally wrong.” Among those attending church weekly, 18% see abortion as “morally acceptable” and 71% as “morally wrong.” Of those whose church attendance is seldom/never, 65% see abortion as “morally acceptable” and 25% as “morally wrong.” Per a Gallup survey from 2021 to 2023, among Americans who say they have no religion, 63% are Democrats and 26% are Republicans. So, again, Republicans are about principles, and Democrats are about politics. Whether we’re talking about pride in our country, appreciating the sanctity of life, or adherence to the eternal principles of faith, Republicans and Democrats are opposites. As Democrats lick their wounds and soul-search about their defeat in 2024, we see aggressive young Democrats wanting to push their party even further left. Listen to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or the young socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is now the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. There is a reason why the ultrasound became such an effective tool in dissuading women from thinking about abortion. When the mother sees the mystery and miracle of life inside of her, she is struck by awe and humility and takes responsibility for the gift of life given to her. Socialism is the opposite. It is what the great Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek called the Fatal Conceit. Man stepping up to play God. In 1965, 70% of the country said “religion is very important” in their life. By 2023, this was down to 45%. In 1965, federal spending consumed 16% of our GDP. By 2023, it was up to 22%. Less God, more government. As we move to America’s 250th anniversary, let’s pray for a great national awakening, restoring the awe of life and personal responsibility that are the hallmarks of a free nation under God. Star Parker is founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Her recent book, “What Is the CURE for America?” is available now. 

As if the streets of New York City were not already dangerous and crowded enough, illegal Chinese immigrants with few English-speaking or driving skills may be cruising about with a valid license, thanks to a potentially massive scheme allegedly involving a driving school and some corrupt DMV personnel.On Tuesday, District Attorney Michael McMahon of Richmond County; George Ioannidis, assistant special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations; and a host of other state and federal officials held a press conference to announce some arrests made in connection with an investigation dubbed Operation Road Test.'Regardless of immigration status, language, and even their ability to actually operate a vehicle.'According to authorities, T&E Driving School in Queens took to social media to identify residents who speak Fujianese for marketing purposes. Its clients, most of whom are Chinese noncitizens, would then pay anywhere from $1,600 to $2,000 for a driver's license and/or learner's permit.Staff at the driving school would then allegedly take the required driver's test on behalf of the client. The school also allegedly paid off DMV employees to issue documents and fudge the database.RELATED: NYC comptroller locks arms with man to prevent ICE arrest: 'Show me your warrant!' Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images"As alleged, the defendants utilized deceptive social media practices and strategic advertising that targeted and exploited members of the Chinese community and guaranteed individuals driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status, language, and even their ability to actually operate a vehicle," said Homeland Security Investigations New York Special Agent in Charge Ricky Patel, according to SILive.com."Our investigation found that T&E Driving School blatantly flouted the laws and procedures that are necessary to ensure the public safety on the road," Ioannidis added.RELATED: Illegal alien child-rapist remains at large thanks to anti-ICE group: DHS Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty ImagesThus far, two dozen suspects associated with Operation Road Test are in custody, and T&E owner Weixan Tan, 38; T&E secretary Weiwan Tan, 40; and another T&E employee, Winnie Yang, 36, have all been charged.Others named in the indictment include: Wenfeng Yang, 38, who allegedly took driving tests on behalf of T&E clients; and Edward Tarik Queen, 40; Aji Idicula, 43; and Tianna Rose Andolina, 30, all from the DMV."The state employees indicted here sold out not just the safety of their fellow New Yorkers, but they sold out their oaths of office," claimed New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang.The scandal was apparently uncovered after NYPD received a tip, prompting a sting operation involving an undercover officer who speaks Fujianese. After working with T&E, the officer reportedly received a New York driver's license without ever having taken a scheduled road test.Officials fear the corrupt scheme — and others like it — may spread far and wide."The numbers, as we go through this investigation, as we go through the materials that have been seized, we think that we are going to find hundreds if not thousands of people that have been part of this scam," McMahon said, according to the New York Post.In addition to the obvious peril posed by untrained drivers who don't speak English, issuing unearned licenses threatens the American public in other ways. Bogus driver's licenses compromise the safety of airports and other high-security buildings that require state-issued IDs to enter, as well as the integrity of U.S. elections."We think this is just the tip of the iceberg, to put it simply," McMahon added.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!