How do voters know the prestige press is hopelessly partisan? For three weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris has been refusing all requests for interviews or press conferences, and that goes unpunished. Former President Donald Trump held a press conference, and he was absolutely punished. Taxpayer-funded National Public Radio demonstrated its ultraliberal tilt for the millionth time—at least that’s how it feels. NPR political director Domenico Montanaro organized a team to pore over Trump’s Aug. 8 press conference transcript and “found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes. That’s more than two a minute. It’s a stunning number for anyone—and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.” This scandalous figure had all that Glenn Kessler energy from The Washington Post. Remember when Kessler made a database that identified 30,573 “false or misleading claims” from Trump? When Joe Biden was elected, he proclaimed the database days were over. Kessler proclaimed on MSNBC, “I assume the Biden presidency will be a lot like the Obama presidency, and that they will be responsive, and will be able to quickly back up what they’re saying.” It must have pained The Washington Post’s “fact-checker,” Glenn Kessler, when the U.S. Senate acquitted then-President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment on Feb. 6, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) The crucial word there is “assume.” Democrat journalists assume Democrats tell the truth. This piece was eagerly shared on X by leftist die-hards, from movie star Mark Hamill to “comedian” Dean Obeidallah to MSNBC host Katie Phang. Let’s stipulate that some of these 162 statements were inaccurate: Trump overstated his support in polls, and there’s some trolling, Trumpian braggadocio, like suggesting his crowds are bigger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s. But NPR broke out the usual annoying habits of Democrat-defending “checkers.” Trump says if he loses, “You could end up in a Depression of the 1929 variety.” That’s not a factual statement at all. That’s a prediction. It’s like all the Democrat journalists in 1992 insisting it was a lie to say Bill Clinton wouldn’t raise taxes. He did. Trump said Harris is “a radical left person at a level that nobody’s seen.” NPR’s “fact” guy argued, “It’s debatable how liberal Harris is.” That’s not a fact-check. That’s just an emotional reaction. Trump said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee, is “a radical left man.” Montanaro replied, “Few, if any, reasonable people would say Walz is a ‘radical left man.’” He then claimed, without irony, that when Walz legalized pot and “protected” abortion, it wasn’t radical because it was supported by a majority of Minnesotans. Trump said Walz was “heavy into the transgender world.” Walz signed legislation making his state a “trans refuge” for “gender-affirming care,” but Montanaro just complained, “‘Heavy into the transgender world’ is vague and misleading.” The lamest entry was NPR legal reporter Carrie Johnson arguing it was wrong to say former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton deleted hundreds of government emails from her private server because she was facing a subpoena for them. “The FBI said there’s no evidence the messages were deleted with a subpoena in mind.” No, they were destroyed before the subpoena. So much better. When Biden gave a speech last month saying he wouldn’t run for reelection, NPR didn’t assemble a team to fact-check it. Montanaro offered “four takeaways.” The first takeaway compared Biden to George Washington and folded the alleged menace of Trump into words from Washington’s farewell address about how “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people.” The hard-earned dollars of nonliberal taxpayers help fund NPR launching emotional ramblings over how the Democrats aren’t radicals, and they won’t ruin the economy. As often happens, “fact-checking” is actually a lot of spin control and denial. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post NPR Proves It Despises Trump ‘at Least 162’ Times appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Judging by the Harlem Hamas Brouhaha Last Night I Don't Think There's a DNC Protest Truce in Place

A patient with ALS has been given his voice back thanks to a revolutionary brain-computer interface (BCI) that can decode his intended speech with about 97 percent accuracy – and with its inbuilt AI technology, it reads that speech aloud in his actual voice.Casey Harrell, a 45-year-old man with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) had been struggling with verbal communication after the muscle weakness caused by the progressive condition had left him with dysarthria. For patients like Harrell, BCIs offer the life-changing prospect of restoring their ability to interact with other people through speech. “Not being able to communicate is so frustrating and demoralizing. It is like you are trapped,” Harrell said in a statement.Harrell is one of a number of patients participating in the BrainGate clinical trial, testing cutting-edge BCIs that promise to restore their voices. In Harrell’s case, not only is his device achieving unprecedented accuracy, but with integrated AI it’s able to closely replicate his voice from the past.  The BrainGate consortium’s device uses four microelectrode arrays implanted into the left precentral gyrus, a region of the brain that plays an important role in speech coordination. The arrays record brain activity detected by a total of 256 cortical electrodes. “We’re really detecting their attempt to move their muscles and talk,” explained co-principal investigator Dr Sergey Stavisky in another statement. The brain signals directed towards the muscles of the head and neck are translated into sound units called phonemes, which are then combined into the words the person is trying to say. Lead study author Dr Nicholas Card readies the BCI system for Harrell.Image credit: UC RegentsAs you might imagine, this process is highly complex, and previous BCI systems have been slow and error-prone. Researchers have worked to improve speeds and accuracy, and BCIs that can operate in two languages or in people who can no longer even attempt verbal speech have shown the impressive capabilities of these kinds of systems. But Harrell’s has achieved a level of accuracy that has never been seen before.Twenty-five days after the device was implanted, Harrell began the first of 84 data collection sessions over 32 weeks, a total of 248 hours of verbal communication. In that very first session, after just 30 minutes, the system was reaching 99.6 percent accuracy within a 50-word vocabulary. Later, that vocabulary was expanded to 125,000 words with an accuracy of 90.2 percent. After continual training, the BCI has maintained an accuracy of 97.5 percent, the best ever reported for a device like this.“At this point, we can decode what Casey is trying to say correctly about 97 percent of the time, which is better than many commercially available smartphone applications that try to interpret a person’s voice,” said co-principal investigator Dr David Brandman. “This technology is transformative because it provides hope for people who want to speak but can’t.”Maybe even more incredible is the fact that Harrell’s BCI is able to reproduce – as closely as possible – his very own voice.        Speech BCIs are often associated with tinny, robotic voices – perhaps most famously because of the device used by the late Professor Stephen Hawking, who also had ALS. For Harrell, a sophisticated AI model was trained on audio samples of his voice before he became ill, so that the output sounds just like he did then.In a world where so much of human life is documented on video, we might hope that such a thing will become even easier for future patients.Harrell’s experience, and the potential implications of BCI technology, might best be summed up by reflecting on his reaction when the device was switched on. “The first time we tried the system, he cried with joy as the words he was trying to say correctly appeared on-screen,” Stavisky recalls.“We all did.”The study is published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

New research suggests that around one in four patients who become unresponsive following a brain injury may in fact remain conscious, with the ability to understand and remember what is being said around them. While this phenomenon – known as cognitive motor dissociation – has been documented in the past, the latest study indicates that it may be considerably more common than previously assumed.A total of 241 comatose patients with severe brain injuries were included in the study, which was conducted at six different locations across the US, the UK, and Europe over a period of 15 years. None of the participants were capable of responding to a simple spoken command.To discover if this lack of visible activity reflected an absence of consciousness, the researchers used functional MRI (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor brain activity as patients heard instructions like “imagine opening and closing your hand,” followed 15 to 30 seconds later by “stop imagining opening and closing your hand.” Strikingly, 60 of the participants showed signs of following the commands in their heads, despite being unable to physically react.According to the researchers, cognitive motor dissociation occurs when a person’s thinking abilities become disconnected from their capacity to move their bodies. Such patients continue to understand language, remember instructions, and sustain attention, yet possess no motor function.                 “Some patients with severe brain injury do not appear to be processing their external world,” said study author Yelena Bodien in a statement. “However, when they are assessed with advanced techniques such as task-based fMRI and EEG, we can detect brain activity that suggests otherwise.” “These results bring up critical ethical, clinical, and scientific questions – such as how can we harness that unseen cognitive capacity to establish a system of communication and promote further recovery?”And while previous estimates have suggested that cognitive motor dissociation may be present in 15 to 20 percent of unresponsive patients, the present study found that the figure might actually be as high as 25 percent. According to the researchers, past studies may have missed a proportion of cases because they used either fMRI or EEG, rather than both in combination.Breaking down their findings, the authors found that 36 of the 60 cases of cognitive motor dissociation were detected when the two techniques were used together, suggesting that it may be necessary to employ more than one method of analysis in order to detect signs of consciousness in unresponsive patients.They also found that lingering signs of cognition were more common in younger patients and those whose condition was caused by a traumatic brain injury rather than a stroke or heart attack.Summarizing the team’s findings, study author Nicholas Schiff explained that “this kind of sharp dissociation of retained cognitive capabilities and no behavioral evidence of them is not uncommon.” “I think we now have an ethical obligation to engage with these patients, to try to help them connect to the world,” he said.The study is published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Solar flares are dramatic releases of energy from the Sun. They are associated with sunspots and their magnetic fields, and when the Sun is at its most active during its 11-year-long cycle, we get a lot of them at high energy. The emission of powerful solar flares can create radio blackouts and damage satellites and living organisms. Luckily, our atmosphere and magnetic field keep us safe.Stars too have flares, and researchers over the last decade or so have found evidence that some of these flares can be up to hundreds of times more energetic than what has been recorded from the Sun. The obvious question is, if it’s happening elsewhere in the galaxy, can it also happen to the Sun? The answer is a strong maybe.NASA’s planet-hunting telescope Kepler has observed many tens of thousands of stars, precisely measuring their brightness. Professor Kazunari Shibata from Kyoto University and his team were interested in seeing if they could spot changes in brightness from some of these stars. A bright flare from the Sun would increase its luminosity by maybe a fraction of a percent – but the flares from these objects were making the stars up to 1.5 percent.Members of the team did not originally believe such flares were possible. Theoretical considerations said yes, but observations up to about the early 2010s did not. Those team members set out to disprove the findings but without success.I encourage many theorists to really study whether this is correct or not.Professor Kazunari Shibata“Doctor Maehara was a postdoc of my group and he didn't believe in such superflares from Sun-like stars,” laughs Professor Shibata as he told us about the beginning of the work. “He was very careful and a very strict analyzer. He tried to reject all the discoveries but some of them remained. They couldn’t be rejected.”More recently, the team has measured what they believe to be coronal mass ejections and filaments from Sun-like stars, also in the context of events that are more powerful than what we are used to from our own Sun.Based on the many aspects of this research and a simple model of the formation of these stellar flares, the team expects that one of these events happens on certain Sun-like stars with a frequency of once every 6,000 years. That's rare by human standards, but certainly not rare when it comes to the history of a star.   The simplistic model applied to the Sun suggests that a superflare 100 times more powerful than what we have measured is possible but unlikely. Such an event would require about eight years of build-up and the formation of an enormous sunspot. But Professor Shibata stresses how simple the model they used is and it is up to the theorists to work out if solar superflares are a realistic possibility.“From even this simple calculation, I suggested [the superflares] as a possibility. And of course, this is a big challenge I put to Solar Dynamo theorists. And I encourage many theorists to really study whether this is correct or not,” Professor Shibata told IFLScience.Shibata presented his and his team's work at the 32nd General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union which took place in South Africa.

Minouche Shafik has resigned as president of Columbia University just a few months after radicals set up an encampment and eventually barricaded themselves inside a building to protest ongoing hostilities in Gaza and the school's ties to Israel.On Wednesday, Shafik released a letter announcing her resignation, and she made very clear that the disruptive protests on campus last spring prompted it."Tension, division, and politicization have disrupted our campus over the last year," she wrote, leading to "turmoil" that has precluded open dialogue.Though she denounced all forms of discrimination, Shafik also championed the importance of "free speech" and "openness to new ideas" and claimed that educating future leaders while still holding fast to core academic principles was Columbia's "North Star.""I have tried to navigate a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion," she insisted.On Thursday, Speaker Johnson celebrated the news of Shafik's resignation, calling it 'long overdue.'Despite her alleged efforts at promoting these traditional values, Shafik said she and the students and faculty of like mind were "the subject of threats and abuse" and that the campus protests took "a considerable toll" on her family.Tensions on campuses around the country had been simmering for months following the attacks on Israelis on October 7, but they escalated significantly in April. At that point, pro-Hamas protesters established an encampment in the center of Columbia's campus, harassed Jewish students and faculty, and demanded that Columbia leaders divest the school from Israel.The situation at Columbia became so untenable that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) met with Shafik in late April and afterward called for her resignation. A few days later, Shafik authorized the NYPD to arrest participants who had ignored orders to disperse, locked themselves inside Hamilton Hall, and proceeded to deface the building by breaking windows and scrawling anti-Semitic messages.On Thursday, Speaker Johnson celebrated the news of Shafik's resignation, calling it "long overdue."Shafik's resignation took effect immediately, just as students are set to return to campus for the fall semester. She was just one year into her term as president.Katrina Armstrong, CEO of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, is expected to serve as interim president until a permanent replacement can be found.Shafik, who was born in Egypt and earned a D.Phil. in economics at Oxford, claimed she has accepted a position with the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom."I am very pleased and appreciative that this will afford me the opportunity to return to work on fighting global poverty and promoting sustainable development, areas of lifelong interest to me. It also enables me to return to the House of Lords to re-engage with the important legislative agenda put forth by the new U.K. government," she said.Shafik's resignation marks the third resignation of a female Ivy League president in the last nine months. Liz Magill stepped down from her role as president at the University of Pennsylvania last December, and Claudine Gay resigned from Harvard in early January.Both Magill and Gay struggled with pro-Hamas protests at their universities as well and were grilled by members of Congress for apparently permitting anti-Semitism to run rampant on campus on their watch. The final weeks of Gay's tenure were also marred by accusations of plagiarism and academic misconduct.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

College sports broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit said that he is done dealing with "two different sets of rules" when it comes to expressing his opinion.The former Ohio State University quarterback was asked online by a fan how he felt about men, or presumably men who identify as women, participating in women's sports."Do men belong in women's sports? Time for influential men in sports media to stand up, Kirk," a fan asked him on X."Of course not. Ridiculous question," Herbstreit replied.'I didn't give a s**t. I don't really give a s**t, at all.'The broadcaster has been a mainstay on ESPN's "College Gameday" for decades and even has a special place in the hearts of video game fans for lending his voice to college football games.A week after his straightforward response, Herbstreit was questioned by OutKick's Dan Dakich about why he decided to answer the question in that manner."I've been biting my tongue on a lot of topics for three years," Herbstreit said. "I happened to see somebody say what he said, and he said 'should men be able to play in women's sports,' and I just said 'ridiculous question, of course not.' I didn't dwell on it, I didn't give a long answer, that was it. There was way more positive [reaction] than negative, I'm sure people were upset, but I think it's kind of a no-brainer."The announcer said that although he has four sons, if he had a daughter he would likely be "way more outspoken" on the topic. — (@) 'It's almost like there are two different sets of rules.'Dakich pressed Herbstreit about the idea that he didn't know he'd be drumming up controversy with the comments, given his massive platform. Herbstreit didn't back off and replied by saying he's had enough of walking on eggshells when it comes to his opinion."I didn't give a s**t. I don't really give a s**t, at all. I'm done giving any s**ts, at all, about any of it," the 54-year-old said. Herbstreit then pointed to a two-tier system about how the opinions of Christians are treated in the media:"It's almost like there are two different sets of rules, and if you have a view that is a little bit more traditional, and you know I'm a Christian guy, it's like there's a different set of rules from that viewpoint. It's hard to turn the cheek time after time after time, so yeah, I didn't really care and don't care at all."The football analyst also mocked the idea of getting canceled and reiterated that he has no energy to give in that regard."I think [not caring] is a good thing ... compared to 'oh gosh, I don't want to get canceled, don't want to get people upset,' I just don't give a s**t."College football returns for the 2024 season on August 24. Herbstreit is set to appear on ESPN's kickoff show that will air in Dublin, showcasing a matchup between Florida State and Georgia Tech.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Taliban took to the streets of Kabul Wednesday to celebrate the third anniversary of the Biden-Harris administration's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Adding insult to injury, the Islamic extremists paraded around the former U.S. Bagram Air Base with the expensive U.S. weaponry and vehicles that were abandoned along with American citizens during the rushed exit — an exit Kamala Harris once boasted cosigning and President Joe Biden deemed an "extraordinary success." Joined by Iranian and communist Chinese diplomats, Taliban officials who have yet to be recognized internationally gave speeches about the significance of their Aug. 15, 2021, reconquest of Kabul, bragging both about advancing Islamic law and about developing "peace and security" by means of a burgeoning military system, reported the Associated Press. "The Islamic Emirate eliminated internal differences and expanded the scope of unity and cooperation in the country," said Mohammed Abdul Kabir, a senior Taliban military official now serving as the acting third deputy prime minister for political affairs. "No one will be allowed to interfere in internal affairs, and Afghan soil will not be used against any country." Whereas the Islamic extremists suggested Afghanistan has thrived in recent years, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan noted Wednesday that religious minorities, women, journalists, former government security officials, and other groups have been subjected over these past three years to "serious and targeted human rights violations by the Taliban. These include arbitrary arrests and detentions, unlawful killings, acts tantamount to enforced disappearance, rape and other crimes of sexual violence, and torture and ill-treatment." House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) noted that footage of a Taliban military parade involving American equipment serves as a "stark reminder that the Biden-Harris Administration chose to arm the Taliban and leave behind American soldiers." "We will never forget the devastating consequences of the White House's reckless withdrawal from Afghanistan," added Johnson. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote, "Infuriating. This was Kamala Harris's gift to the Taliban." The Pentagon confirmed that over $7 billion worth of military equipment was effectively left behind for the Taliban. 'Kamala Harris was the last person in the room with Joe Biden when he made the disastrous decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.' Blaze News previously reported that one intelligence assessment estimated that 2,000 armored vehicles and 40 aircraft including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones were left behind for the Taliban. Last year, the House Budget Committee noted that an additional 181,640 air-to-ground munitions and 50,150 practice munitions were left behind along with 9,200 guidance, control, assemblies, fuses, or launchers; "'nearly all' night vision, surveillance, 'biometric and positioning equipment' totaling nearly 42,000 pieces of specialized equipment"; and "'nearly all' of the communications equipment, including base-station, mobile, man-portable and hand-held commercial and military radio systems, and associated transmitters and encryption devices." These figures don't include all of the American weapons the Taliban inevitably lifted from those Afghan forces that were ultimately left at the mercy of the extremists. The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction revealed that from 2017 to 2019, the U.S. gave Afghan forces over 7,000 machine guns, 4,702 Humvees, 20,040 hand grenades, 2,520 bombs, and 1,394 grenade launchers. Ahead of the withdrawal, the U.S. also supplied Afghan forces with 211 aircraft. Far more was lost than weapons during the Biden-Harris withdrawal. Amid the confusion, an Islamic terrorist — who reportedly had been released amid the chaos just days earlier from the Parwan prison at Bagram Air Base — detonated a suicide bomb on Aug. 26, 2021, at Abbey Gate, the last route open for Afghans into the Hamid Karzai International Airport. The ISIS-Khorasan suicide bombing killed 11 Marines, a solider, and a sailor: Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui; Marine Lance Cpl. David Lee Espinoza; Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee; Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover; Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss; Marine Cpl. Hunter Lopez; Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum; Marine Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola; Marine Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo; Marine Cpl. Humberto Sanchez; Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz; Navy Hospitalman Maxton Soviak; and Marine Cpl. Daegan William-Tyeler Page. The attack also left 45 other service members wounded and killed at least 170 Afghan civilians. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a Thursday statement, "Today marks three years since the Biden-Harris Administration's colossal failure in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Americans must never forget the 13 service members who lost their lives and the Gold Star families they left behind in this completely preventable tragedy. We honor their lives and their sacrifices, and we must continue to demand answers, transparency, and accountability." Stefanik noted further that "Kamala Harris was the last person in the room with Joe Biden when he made the disastrous decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. Kamala Harris owns this catastrophic withdrawal and proves just how incompetent, incapable, and dangerous she would be as our nation's commander in chief." Harris confirmed to CNN in April 2021 that she was the last person in the room after Biden decided on his particular withdrawal scheme and noted she felt comfortable with the decision. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted Thursday, "Three years ago today, Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban. Kamala Harris needs to answer questions about her role in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Minnesota governor’s ‘aw shucks’ demeanor can’t hide the fact that he abandoned his city to riots and walked out on his battalion before it deployed.

Trump Legal Team Asks for Sentencing Delay in New York Case