Regarding laws that control a man's body, Harris should look no further than Vietnam Vets

In a Sept. 27 post shared on X, President Joe Biden claimed guns are the number one killer of children in America. Guns are the #1 killer of children in America. It’s sick. And it’s sick if your response is “get over it” or it’s a “fact of life” as some of my colleagues across the […]

'They handed them 9% inflation for a protracted amount of time'

Multiple organizations are expected to receive financial aid

Books Backlist Bonanza Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books Set During WWII Encounter time travelers, parallel universes, and mysterious horrors… By Alex Brown | Published on October 7, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Been thinking a lot lately about resisting fascism, community organizing, and building coalitions. What do we do as a society and as an individual when confronted with impossible violence and a government that seems eager to destroy anyone and anything that doesn’t fit their narrow little boxes? In the spirit of working together to defeat the seemingly undefeatable, here are five fantasy and science fiction books set during World War II.  A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones If you look up the word “prolific” in the dictionary, the definition will just be a picture of Diana Wynne Jones. Out of all of her excellent middle grade and young adult novels, A Tale of Time City is up there as one of my favorites. Similar to the Narnia books, World War II takes place in the background yet underlines the tension. While evacuating London to avoid the bombings, Vivian is nabbed by two boys Jonathan and Sam, who mistake Vivian for the “Time Lady,” a woman a key figure in the founding of Time City, an important part in its future, and who also may be responsible for things in the timeline getting out of whack. There’s a mystery, a question, and some fun if stressful timeline chaos. It’s a little bit Doctor Who and a little bit Time Variance Authority but for the younger set. (William Morrow, 1987) Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis (Milkweed Triptych #1) The Milkweed Triptych does World War II, then the Cold War, then back to World War II, all with an alternate fantasy spin. There are superhumans, time travel, parallel universes, and eldritch horrors. Raybould Marsh, a British secret agent, uncovers a plot by a nazi scientist to create supersoldiers using dark magic. With the help of his black sheep lordling friend Will (who also happens to be a reluctant warlock), he tries to stop these new weapons from being unleashed. Two of those weapons, Klaus and Gretel, have plans of their own. The second book, The Coldest War, gets all alt history on the Cold War, while the third, Necessary Evil, dips back into World War II as an alternate alternate history. (Tor Books, 2010) The Shadow War by Lindsay Smith A group of queer and racially diverse teens wandering around Germany punching nazis is just as cathartic as you imagine. Liam, a queer physicist, figures out how to tap into dark energy from another universe. Of course, it being World War II, the baddies we all love to hate want to gain that power for themselves and use it to further their terrible agenda. The only thing standing in the way are Liam and his new friends: a pair of Jewish sibling assassins looking for revenge for the atrocities at the Łódź ghetto, a Black US army encryption specialist and tech expert, and an Algerian French Muslim bodyguard. Action and adventure in a young adult historical fantasy. I’ve seen this described as an alt history Stranger Things, and yeah, I can see that. (Philomel Books, 2021) Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson Set right around the time the US finally gets around to joining the rest of the world in the war that had already been raging for two years, this novel is Alaya Dawn Johnson doing what she does best. Phyllis has “saints’ hands,” powerful magic that drives her to kill. As a light-skinned Black woman doing wet work for a white gangster, her life is more complicated than not. Throughout the novel we follow her encounters friends, lovers, and enemies, including Dev, a mixed race Indian detective she can’t quit and Tamara, a Black dancer and card reader who can see the future. This is a world where racism is as powerful and dangerous as magic. Fans of mysteries, romance, and historical fantasy should find plenty to enjoy here. (Tor Books, 2020) The Fervor by Alma Katsu Despite being an American citizen with a husband fighting in the war, Meiko and her daughter Aiko are locked up in Minidoka, Idaho, a US-government sponsored concentration camp for people of Japanese descent. The women are trapped there along with the other 13,000 people of issei (Japanese immigrants) and nisei (second generation). That’s when the deaths start. One by one, people start falling into violent, hallucinogenic rages. Things get worse when the American scientists get involved. Fans of contagion horror, yōkai, historical fiction, and stories that dismantle the myth of American exceptionalism should definitely check this out. In a way, it reminds me of the second season of the television show The Terror, “Infamy,” which also takes place at a Japanese Concentration Camp. (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2022) [end-mark] The post Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books Set During WWII appeared first on Reactor.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in September that it would be reducing certain Medicare prescription drug premiums in what experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation called a ploy to buy votes before the November election. Enrollees in the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit are slated to have lower average monthly premiums for their pharmaceutical drugs next year due to the Biden-Harris administration pouring billions into subsidies for insurers, with premiums set to fall $7.45 from $53.95 in 2024 to $46.50 in 2025, according to a press release from the agency. The move by the Biden-Harris administration is a political bribe aimed at securing the votes of Americans aged 65 and over who have the highest voter turnout historically, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The $2,000 cap [on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs], as well as other Inflation Reduction Act provisions were slated to triple the cost of Part D,” said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “If millions of senior citizens see their premiums triple, they’d go to the polls and vote out those responsible. The Biden administration wanted to avert that.” Premiums were slated to rise in 2025, largely due to a $2,000 cap on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs enacted as part of provisions in President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that go into effect next year. To stave off the increase, the White House set up a “stabilization” demonstration program for 2025 that will offer Medicare Part D insurers $15 a month per enrollee in exchange for keeping premiums roughly stable, an initiative that is estimated to cost taxpayers $5 billion in 2025. “This is absolutely political,” Joel White, founder and CEO of health care consulting firm Horizon Government Affairs, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They are buying down premiums to buy votes.” Senior citizens have had the highest voter turnout of any demographic in every presidential election since 1996, with nearly 80% of adults 60 and over voting in 2020. The U.S. population of senior citizens is also growing faster than any other age group, and four key swing states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona—rank in the top 20 in the share of their population aged 65 and over. “[Democrats] are not lowering premiums. They’re hiding premiums,” Cannon said. “This ‘demonstration project’ is merely a vehicle for channeling $5 billion to Medicare Part D insurers in order to keep the amount enrollees have to pay toward their premiums below what it is this year. The White House isn’t lowering premiums by lowering costs, they are doing it by passing the cost on to taxpayers rather than enrollees … . That has been Democratic health care policy going all the way back to the [Harry] Truman administration: Hide the cost of health care by shipping it to taxpayers.” The Biden-Harris administration issued a press release Sept. 30 touting its record on prescription drug costs, saying, “While Big Pharma made record profits, Americans footed the bill for the industry’s price hikes. Not anymore. Thanks to my Inflation Reduction Act.” Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris’ “New Way Forward” economic plan stated that, “Harris, along with President Biden, took on Big Pharma and won.” “The [demonstration program] is a Band-Aid that does not address the underlying wound. The [Inflation Reduction Act] radically rewrote the law in ways that fundamentally destabilize the market,” White told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Biden-Harris administration has taken a number of actions aimed at reducing drug prices, including proposing new guidelines in 2023 that would give it the power to seize patents from drug companies, so long as the protected products’ prices are considered too high and have received funding from the federal government. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announcement comes roughly four years after Democratic lawmakers and the press attacked former President Donald Trump’s September 2020 proposal to provide $200 discount cards for prescription drugs to 33 million seniors, with The New York Times describing it as an “election-eve promise with dubious legal authority” and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., calling the move a “blatant political gambit.” “It’s all pretty transparently crooked, and yet you have The New York Times praising this sham demonstration program,” Cannon said. “This initiative is fundamentally antidemocratic and unconstitutional.” “The sudden decision is an attempt to curry favor with this particularly massive voting bloc,” said Peter Earle, senior economist at the American Institute for Economic Research. “Repeated efforts to eliminate or reduce student loan debt and the huge gift to climate activists dubbed the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ are other, earlier instances of the same type of conduct … . Politically motivated redistribution is a mainstay of Washington, D.C., of course, but as both the debt and deficits of the Biden administration testify, it has escalated dramatically over the past four years.” The White House and the Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post ‘Transparently Crooked’: Biden-Harris Admin Buying Votes With Medicare Changes, Experts Say appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact, a Meta fact-checking partner, has decided that the Biden-Harris administration is not engaged in censorship at an industrial scale. This claim made by vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is false, PolitiFact has asserted, because the Biden-Harris White House “contacting” (according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, they were contacted to be pressured) social media companies to flag content for removal “didn’t cross the line into coercion.” Not only that but pressuring these companies (yet allegedly never coercing) to censor online speech is not a threat to democracy, PolitiFact was told by a Colombia professor – if the censors decide that speech is disinformation about Covid or election results. The scale and nature of the way the US government leaned on tech companies to stifle speech that did not suit its political agenda is, to date, best revealed in the Twitter Files. One of the journalists who worked on publishing the internal documents, Michael Shellenberger, now examined this PolitiFact “verdict” and the arguments the organization used. He rejects the notion that suppressing voters’ free speech is somehow “not a threat to democracy.” Shellenberger was equally unimpressed by PolitiFact trying to explain its opinion regarding Vance’s claim by referring to the Supreme Court, which they said ruled it was not unconstitutional for the government to exert the kind of pressure it did. “But the Court did not consider the US government’s pressure of Meta or many other cases of government demands for censorship,” Shellenberger writes and notes that the ruling (in the Murthy v Missouri case) was based on the judges deciding there were no legal grounds to bring the case. To the question – as old as the rise of the fact-checking industry – why did a fact-checker (in this case, PolitiFact) get things wrong, the journalist suggests it’s more a case of “playing on the same team”. PolitiFact, he writes, is “part and parcel of the Censorship Industrial Complex.” Shellenberger goes into the many instances of those, either while they were in power, such as Hillary Clinton, or with a lot of power, like Bill Gates, openly advocating for censorship. As for how the US government, despite the country’s constitution, became prone to stifling speech and manipulating public opinion at home, the answer could be the “lesson learned” from decades of doing the same abroad. Namely, it works. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Fact-Checking or Fact-Shielding? Twitter Files Journalist Slams PolitiFact’s Defense of Government Pressure on Big Tech appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Brookings Institution, seems to believe it has solved the problem faced by those who would like to censor memes. The problem is that memes are a form of satire, and censoring them while claiming to be a democracy is a difficult task. But now, senior Brookings Institution fellow Nicol Turner Lee and Isabella Panico Hernandez, a project assistant, have revealed their thinking: AI memes should be treated as election disinformation “manifested” through satire. One could use a similar form of mental gymnastics to say that this kind of argument represents a call for censorship manifested through supposed concern about disinformation. Related: Court Blocks Newsom’s Unconstitutional Attempt to Muzzle Parody During Election Season The Brookings, meanwhile, is not just any foot soldier in the “war on memes”: it is a powerful think tank funded by the likes of Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, but also massive financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase (via its philanthropic foundation) and that of Mastercard, Impact Fund. Brookings speaks about memes, particularly those AI-generated (adding some AI panic into the mix can only help the cause), as an extremely dangerous phenomenon hidden behind humor, and perceived as humor by pretty much everyone. But the think tank, and others going after memes, present themselves as smarter and able to understand the true nature of this clearly humorous and often satirical imagery, which they say only “seem harmless” and “appear innocuous.” Instead, the authors of the article say memes can influence how voters perceive candidates and other election-related information, “could potentially lead to violence” – and are “globally perceived” as being capable to “fuel extremist behavior” – which is in contrast to the US, supposedly because of the lack of appropriate regulation. And so, less than a month before the presidential election, these according to the authors insidious messages use humor merely as a vehicle to spread dangerous influence, but are not properly tackled in the US. Brookings also doesn’t like the fact memes can spread quickly and presents this as yet another reason they are dangerous. Congress is criticized for not passing legislation to protect the copyright of large language models – the implication being, that AI-generated memes could be suppressed on copyright grounds. And they don’t like that Congress has left memes, humor, satire, and parody out of the DEEPFAKES Accountability Act because those fall under the freedom of expression category. But Brookings wants us to think that “the task of deciphering what is parody and what is deceptive can be very challenging.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post The Think Tank Campaigning to Censor Satire appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Kamala Harris Appears on 'Call Her Daddy' Podcast

On Friday, NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff made several appearances on MSNBC to promote an anti-Trump documentary he helped make based on a book he wrote about the 2018 policy of separating illegal immigrants from their children at the border. On Morning Joe, in the absence of Joe and Mika, Jonathan Lemire showed a trailer for the film and then introduced Soboroff and film maker Errol Morris as guests: That was a look at the powerful new documentary from NBC News Studio, titled Separated, based on the New  York Times bestselling book of the same title from NBC News national and political correspondent Jacob Soboroff and directed by Academy Award-Winning filmmaker Errol Morris. Without putting into context that the Trump administration was trying to keep illegal aliens incarcerated until they could be deported, which meant their children had to be separated from them, Soboroff claimed the purpose of the policy was to "hurt" people: "...- 5,500 kids were deliberately separated from their parents for no other reason than to harm them -- to hurt them -- to scare their people from coming to the United States." Soboroff seemed content with the Biden administration's disastrous -- and sometimes deadly -- handling of illegal immigration as he answered a followup question: WALTER ISAACSON: You just mentioned that it's part of a pattern of deterrence that's happened for two decades now. What is the alternative to that? SOBOROFF: The alternative is a system as the Biden administration had laid out when Alejandro Mayorkas came in as the Homeland Security secretary -- one that is orderly, humane and fair. I'm not an immigration policy expert -- I'm a journalist who witnessed this myself -- and what I can tell you is what happened in the summer of 2018 was not that. Morris soon declared that he was "scared" of Trump and that "I wish Donald Trump would deport himself." A few hours later, as afternoon host Katy Tur also spoke with Soboroff and Morris, she observed the timing of the film being released during the presidential election: "When you started this, Donald Trump wasn't running for office again. I think we could say that, right? Do you see it now as a warning?" Morris reiterated his fears: I think he was always running for office. He was always somewhere lurking in the shadows, and he's frightening. I can tell you, quite simply, he frightens me. It's a visceral reaction. I don't even think it's intellectual anymore. Soboroff hit Democrats from the left as he complained that they also in past administrations have pushed a policy of "deterrence" against illegal immigrants. And, when the duo appeared again on Deadline: White House, host Nicolle Wallace recalled that children were kept in cages during the Trump administration without mentioning that the cage-like structures were built by the Obama administration for practical reasons to help protect women and children. Transcripts follow: MSNBC's Morning Joe October 4, 2024 9:41 a.m. Eastern JONATHAN LEMIRE: That was a look at the powerful new documentary from NBC News Studio, titled Separated, based on the New  York Times bestselling book of the same title from NBC News national and political correspondent Jacob Soboroff and directed by Academy Award-Winning filmmaker Errol Morris. The film describes the impact of the Trump administration's family separation policy at the southern border. And both Jacob and Errol join us now. ... So this is a story that obviously you have been covering for a long time. Viewers of this network will feel like they know it, but tell us why this film is so important. JACOB SOBOROFF: Well, I mean, don't take my word for it. Listen to what the George W. Bush-appointed judge in the Southern District of New York who stopped this policy said about it. He said it was "one of the most shameful chapters in the history of this country." Not my words -- Dana Sabraw's words, Republican-appointed judge -- 5,500 kids were deliberately separated from their parents for no other reason than to harm them -- to hurt them -- to scare their people from coming to the United States. It's part of a pattern of immigration policy in the United States that is bipartisan that revolves around deterrence and scaring people from coming here by hurting them and most profoundly obviously with this famous example of the Trump family separation policy. And there is still questions about why this happened, how it could have happened, how the nation let it happen, and that's why Errol and I decided to get together to make what Errol has done -- a spectacularly beautiful film that only Errol Morris can make. WALTER ISAACSON: You just mentioned that it's part of a pattern of deterrence that's happened for two decades now. What is the alternative to that? SOBOROFF: The alternative is a system as the Biden administration had laid out when Alejandro Mayorkas came in as the Homeland Security secretary -- one that is orderly, humane and fair. I'm not an immigration policy expert -- I'm a journalist who witnessed this myself -- and what I can tell you is what happened in the summer of 2018 was not that. (...) He (Trump) wanted to reinstate it, and he still has not said whether or not he would reinstate it. And that's why there are, you know, that's why I think the film is so important -- what Errol has done -- is so important -- to answer questions about what the future holds as much as it does in the past, including what the Biden administration has promised but hasn't done, which is have a wholesale radical departure from an immigration system based on deterrence and cruelty (?). LEMIRE: So, Errol, there's also of course a timeliness to this film because it's not just that Donald Trump was President. He is the Republican nominee for President. He stands about a one in two chance of being President again. And some of his policies, including forced deportation of immigrants including some who are here legally, is what he is saying, very much your film has a timeliness here. Talk to me about why you think it was so important to come out now and your, frankly, fears of what the next Trump term will look like. ERROL MORRIS, FILM MAKER: I'm scared. I wish Donald Trump would deport himself. LEMIRE: Fair enough. And with that, we'll leave it right there perfectly and briefly said with some real brevity. (...) MSNBC's Katy Tur Reports October 4, 2024 3:59 p.m. KATY TUR: When you started this, Donald Trump wasn't running for office again. I think we could say that, right? Do you see it now as a warning? ERROL MORRIS: I think he was always running for office. He was always somewhere lurking in the shadows, and he's frightening. I can tell you, quite simply, he frightens me. It's a visceral reaction. I don't even think it's intellectual anymore. (...) SOBOROFF: He's put it in the context -- Errol has the way only Errol can as a film maker -- of decades of bipartisan deterrence-based policy. What Donald Trump did wouldn't have been possible were it not for Democratic administrations creating -- its treating immigration as a deterrence policy -- something to punish and harm people for coming to the United States to do, and that's how we ended up with the separation policy -- how we ended up where we are today. (...) MSNBC's Deadline: White House October 4, 2024 5:45 p.m. NICOLLE WALLACE: Earlier this week at the vice presidential debate, J.D. Vance opened the door to returning to one of the darkest periods in our country's history, and that was Donald Trump's policy of forcibly separating children from their parents who were trying to immigrate to the country. Thousands of children were taken from their parents under this policy -- some as young as four months old -- and kept in wire cages. (...) JACOB SOBOROFF: We're looking down the barrel of the exact same policy potentially happening again in this moment, and they're employing some of the same rhetoric. And I do want to point out, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't -- and part of the reason that we wanted to tell the story is we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the bipartisan deterrence-based nature of immigration policy in the U.S. The Biden administration just put forward one of the most conservative immigration bills in the history of the country. But nobody has ever done what the Trump administration did, and nobody has used it, employed it, deployed it in the campaign in the way they're continuing to do. ERROL MORRIS: We hear arguments that this has been done before, that this is no different from what was done in the Obama administration, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration. Did they have immigration policies that were draconian -- that were filled with, I would say cruel policies, but nothing on this level.