A new video has been circulating on social media today that appears to capture President Trump’s would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, casually walking around at the rally on the day of the shooting.…

Hillary Clinton walked onto the stage Monday at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to loud cheers that delayed the beginning of her speech by more than a full minute. Before launching into her remarks on the nomination, she took the time to thank Joe Biden for his work as president and lauded him for showing “what it means to be a true patriot,” referring to his rather reluctant decision to step down from the candidacy and turn it over to his subordinate-successor. Clinton proceeded to speak about the historic potential of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidency. American women, she argued, have fought for a long time to secure equality and progress, recounting her experience with various female politicians who were firsts in their field, leading up to her own nomination as the first female presidential candidate from a major American political party.  “The future,” she proclaimed, “is now!”  With a closing reference to her famous statement that “it takes a village,” she promised that Harris would unify the nation, defend abortion rights and freedom, and prove to Americans that the only limit to a person’s progress is their own talent and work ethic. The post Hillary Clinton Wants Kamala to Complete Her Legacy appeared first on The American Conservative.

Few of us want to think about our pets dying, but I imagine even fewer of us want to think about how our pets would handle us dying.Many pets form bonds with their humans, some to an extreme degree. When an animal's human dies, it's a major life event, but it's not like someone can logically explain why their person just isn't around anymore. From the animal's perspective, their person just disappeared. A quote that's sometimes been attributed to David Attenborough (though its actual origin is unclear) offers an intriguing idea that might help a pet deal with an owner's death:"If I die while I have a pet, let my animal see my dead body, please. They understand death and seeing me dead will allow them to mourn, but if I just never show up one day they’ll think I abandoned them. I know what it feels like to be abandoned and I never want anyone to feel that way, especially my dog." — (@) Many people who have witnessed a pet losing their human have noted their grieving behaviors. President George H.W. Bush's service dog, Sully, famously spent the night lying by his casket two days after he died. A Canadian police officer's service dog, Danny, whimpered next to his owner's casket throughout his funeral, according to the American Kennel Club. There are countless stories of people's pets exhibiting mourning-type behaviors after a human passes away that make it clear that they are affected by their human's death.But is it true that seeing the body can help them process it better? a woman sitting in a courtroom with a dog on her lap Photo by The Good Funeral Guide on Unsplash VCA Animal Hospitals says that exposing the pet to a companion's dead body might help provide closure: "Pets have a limited understanding of death as finality. Some behaviorists think that a dog’s grief response may be reduced by having an opportunity to investigate the deceased. It could be helpful to let your pet see the body of his deceased friend. He may not totally grasp the situation, but one last visit may help him understand that his pal is gone."Greenlin Pet Resorts also includes in a list of helping pets through the loss of their owners, "Let them see the body of their deceased owner: This may not be practical in all situations, subt by allowing a mourning pet to see the body of their deceased companion you are providing the only real kind of communicable closure a human can give a pet in this situation."People on Reddit have shared their own personal anecdotes of animals seeming to process the death of an owner or a fellow pet companion better after being near their body. "We did this with my grandpa when he died. His dog knew but also went into a deep depression. He would just lay down and cry. He didn’t want to eat but then they remembered my grandpa would give him some McDonald’s cheeseburger as a treat. They went and got him one and he ate some! It took a few months of him being depressed but he would still sleep in my grandpas room and bed until he finally started to feel less sad.""I can confirm this. My mom died at my home and I asked the nurse if I could get my dog so he could see and sniff her. He came in, gave her a momentary sniff and then went to his normal 'gotta say hi to the nurse.' Until that day if I said 'grammy' he’d go looking for her, now he doesn’t react at all when I say it. He definitely knows." a dog sitting on a chair in front of a woman Photo by DEAD GOOD LEGACIES on Unsplash "Years ago a friend’s dad died at work. His dog spent the next couple of days pacing & looking for him, so they took him to the funeral home. Once he sniffed the body he understood & stopped searching for him.""Same with pets in a multi-pet family. When one of our two cats was put down due to age we showed the body to the other. She had a slightly shocked reaction so I think she understood he had died.""100% agree with this. My family had two little dogs, boy and girl. The boy passed in a boating accident and was not found for a few weeks, every single night the girl dog would howl and cry for the boy dog. When the body of the boy dog was finally found, we brought him home to be buried and she got to see his body, from then on she never cried but she is routinely found sitting under the tree next to his grave. She totally knows that he is there, it’s heartbreaking."Of course, we can't know what actually goes on in the minds of our pets, so we rely instead on observing their behaviors. We do know that animals often behave differently when owners die, and if seeing and smelling the deceased might help them process the loss, it certainly doesn't hurt to give it a try.

Hated it. The post “It don’t mean nothing”: When Bon Scott shot down the Sex Pistols and punk first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Ya gotta love it. Here is this headline from that bastion of Establishment liberalism in the nation’s capital — the Washington Post. With false ‘coup’ claims, Trump primes supporters to challenge a Harris win Amid a tight presidential race, Donald Trump has tried to delegitimize Kamala Harris’s nomination and undermine confidence in this year’s election. In this gem, Post reporters Colby Itkowitz and Hannah Allam write: From the moment Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the surprise Democratic presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump began arguing that she was anointed through a “coup” rather than chosen by primary voters. After barely mentioning election integrity at the Republican convention in July, Trump is now casting the upcoming election as “rigged” against him and baselessly labeling any hurdle in his path as election interference. “This was an overthrow of a president. This was an overthrow,” Trump said at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Saturday, referring to Harris replacing Biden on the ticket. He later added: “They deposed a president. It was a coup of a president. This was a coup. Well now. Reporters Itkowitz and Allam write: Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in this year’s election are reminiscent of the tactics he used in the 2020 campaign and indicate how he could again seek to delegitimize the results if he loses, setting the stage for another combustible fight over the presidency, election, and national security experts said. “They forced him out. It was a coup. We had a coup,” Trump said of Biden at an Aug. 9 rally in Bozeman, Mont. “That was the first coup of the history of our country, and it was very successful.” Got all that? According to the Post there was no coup from Democrat elites that forced Joe Biden out of his run for re-election. For Trump to say so is “baseless,” an attempt to “undermine confidence in this year’s election” and “delegitimize the results if he loses.” But wait! Here’s what the New York Times’ venerable liberal, Trump-hating columnist Maureen Dowd headlines over there of the Biden withdrawal: The Dems Are Delighted. But a Coup Is Still a Coup. Ms. Dowd writes: Top Democrats are bristling with resentments even as they are about to try to put on a united front at the United Center in the Windy City. A coterie of powerful Democrats maneuvered behind the scenes to push an incumbent president out of the race. It wasn’t exactly “Julius Caesar” in Rehoboth Beach. But it was a tectonic shift and, of course, there were going to be serious reverberations. Even though it was the right thing to do, because Joe Biden was not going to be able to campaign, much less serve as president for another four years, in a fully vital way, it was a jaw-dropping putsch…. Biden went from looking “forward to getting back on the campaign trail” to gone in one weekend, with the handprints of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries on the president’s back…. Party leaders whitewashed the coup by ornately extolling Biden…. Despite the grandiose flattery, Joe, Jill and Hunter were not fooled or appeased…. Those who pushed out Biden should be proud. They saved him and their party from a likely crushing defeat, letting Trump snake back in and soil democracy.” So. According to the Washington Post, Trump’s charges are “false ‘coup’ claims.” There was no coup, says the Post. None. It’s all Trump election interference lies. But over in the New York Times, there is liberal Maureen Dowd making it crystal clear, headlining: The Dems Are Delighted. But a Coup Is Still a Coup. And saying: A coterie of powerful Democrats maneuvered behind the scenes to push an incumbent president out of the race. It is rare that I would agree with the the New York Times in this space. But in this case, Times columnist Dowd has nailed it exactly — and the Washington Post’s reporters are trying — with no success —  to hide the obvious: Yes, this was a coup executed by Democrat elites to get rid of an aging, weak president they were convinced was going to lose to Trump. So they maneuvered to get him out. Joe knows it. The Biden family knows it. And the coup plotters know it. Alas for Kamala Harris and company, the rest of America knows it as well. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Remembering Reagan’s Warning David French: A Fallen Conserative’s Fairytale The post On the Biden Coup, the <i>Post</i> and the <i>Times</i> Disagree appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The dystopian novel The Singularity by Dino Buzzati came out in 1960. It’s about a reclusive scientist who tries to create a sentient artificial intelligence (AI) based on his deceased wife. In the end, the machine starts to envy the humans for their bodies and turns murderous. We need our families and our friends, not another talking bot who seems to care but really can’t. It’s a terrifying story, but in some ways the fact is beginning to resemble the fiction. No, the machines aren’t trying to kill us. But their inventors are trying to make them as humanlike as possible. (READ MORE from Peter Biles: Critics of Lolita Need to Learn How to Read Fiction) In July, Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur Avi Schiffman announced the “friend,” an AI device that the user wears like a lanyard. The friend can connect to your phone via Bluetooth and send texts at random times throughout the day. It’s a constant source of feedback designed to “be with you wherever you go.” It’s like ChatGPT, only personalized, like a buddy, there to comfort you when you’re sad or celebrate your victories. You know — the things actual friends are typically supposed to do. As if the image of each of us going around depending on our digital, imaginary friends weren’t sad enough, the truly tragic aspect of the new gadget is the creator’s motivation for making it. “Friend is an expression of how lonely I’ve felt,” Schiffman wrote in a blog post on July 31st, which is International Friendship Day. That was the day he officially launched friend and shared it with the world. My heart aches for Schiffman, and I commend him for his honesty. It’s rare to find leaders in the tech world who are so vulnerable and transparent about why they’re developing their products. But I fear that Schiffman’s struggles with loneliness won’t be solved by his sophisticated new development. Schiffman isn’t alone in his feelings of isolation. Today’s youth are arguably the most disconnected generation ever to walk the earth, growing up on screens with little outside play and undergoing prolonged adolescence. Gen Z, my generation, grew up with the malaise of digital technologies that promised to connect people but ended up only driving them farther apart. Before Schiffman’s “friend,” social media proxied in-person relationships. Despite the data now emerging linking social media to teen depression and anxiety, Silicon Valley figures still fall for the fallacy that new tech can meet perennial human needs. It can’t — but claiming it can make us much lonelier in the long run. I realized fairly early on in my teenage foray into Facebook and Instagram that something about the infinite scroll was changing the way I saw real people. If you swipe through dozens of profiles, passing over most of them, “following” a few, then pretty soon those faces lose any connection with the actual human beings. Like on the Tinder dating app, I was looking for the people who might interest me, who might offer me a positive feedback loop, who could add to my ever-growing list of friends and followers. Pretty soon, it became clear that social media was not about friendship but about consumption on behalf of a lonely ego — and the only way to get a semblance of community was to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. In short, social media was about consuming the idea of friends, not actually making real ones. This isn’t to say social media friendships never lead to genuine connections. People can develop actual friendships and dialogues on Instagram and X, and of course, dating apps end in marriage for a lot of people, including a few of my friends. But it’s easy to treat digital technology as an end in itself, depending on it like people used to depend on their actual families, friends, and broader communities. No Substitute For a Friend It happened with social media, and now it’s happening with personalized AI systems like Schiffman’s “friend.” AI is already fairly ubiquitous in our world. From Google Maps to facial recognition, most of us live with AI in our pockets. But because of new models that can imitate human language so well, it’s gone from being a legitimate tool to a tailor-made companion. AI girlfriends, therapists, and even preachers are hitting the tech scene, offering guidance, romance, and yes, friendship — the qualities of life that we sorely lack in our modern world. But the more we treat gadgets like they’re people, the more we may end up treating people like they’re gadgets: designed for our own comfort, there when we need them, able to be turned off when we don’t. (READ MORE: We’re Missing the Plot When It Comes to AI) Schiffman and millions of others today are lonely. And many people in my generation have bought the assumption that rapidly evolving technologies can be made humanlike enough to satisfy our hunger for relationships. If the 2010s taught us anything, though, it’s that we need each other, not digital avatars of each other. We need our families and our friends, not another talking bot who seems to care but really can’t, and never will. Peter Biles is a writer and a contributor for Young Voices. A novelist as well as an essayist, he is the author of three books, most recently Through the Eye of Old Man Kyle.  The post AI Isn’t Your Friend. Good Thing, Too. appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

If the handsomest American-born movie star ever was Montgomery Clift, the handsomest French star was Alain Delon, who died on August 18 at the age of 88. Plein Soleil aside, Delon’s cinematic oeuvre is a bushel of riches. But Alain Delon had more than physical beauty. As with Montgomery Clift, his acting was a thing of admirable subtlety and sensitivity. Born in 1935, he appeared during his long career in over eighty films. In paying tribute to him here, I will focus on what was probably his most celebrated performance — namely, his starring role in Plein Soleil (Purple Noon), René Clément’s 1960 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. I first saw Plein Soleil years ago, but not until after I’d seen Anthony Minghella’s 1999 American adaptation, which uses Highsmith’s title, several times. I’m a great admirer of the latter version, in which Matt Damon plays the seemingly earnest, wet-behind-the-ears, and down-at-his-heels American twentysomething Tom Ripley. Ripley’s been paid generously by a rich shipbuilder, Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn), to travel to Italy and bring home Greenleaf’s spoiled, glamorous, egocentric son Dickie (Jude Law), who’s been living the life of a rich expatriate loafer with his equally rich girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), an aspiring writer, in the fictional coastal town of Mongibello. Tom and Dickie strike up a friendship, which affords Tom a taste of a lifestyle he’s never known, but Dickie, a fickle and shallow soul, eventually tires of him, and Tom is left facing a return to penury back in the States. The plot is much the same in Plein Soleil, but with some minor changes: in Minghella’s version, Tom never knew Dickie before coming to Italy, but becomes obsessed with, and even enamored of, him; in Clément’s version, the Dickie character is named Philippe (Maurice Ronet), and was a boyhood friend of Tom, who admits that when they were teenagers “I worshiped the ground that you walked on.”(READ MORE from Bruce Bawer: A Modern Colossus: Donald Trump) Tom further explains to Marge (Marie Laforêt) that Philippe’s father disapproved of their friendship: “I wasn’t distinguished enough.” In Minghella’s film, it makes total sense when the awkward, insecure Matt Damon becomes smitten with the dashing, self-assured Jude Law; in Clément’s film, however, Delon is so beautiful that he threatens to throw off the whole balance of the picture. How can Philippe look down on this god? And how can Tom be so desperately eager for Philippe’s, or anyone’s, approval and affection? In real life, guys and girls alike would be lining up to polish his shoes. In both films, Tom kills his friend on a small boat and moves to Rome, where he proceeds to assume Greenleaf’s identity and, eventually, finds it necessary to dispatch Greenleaf’s obnoxious friend Freddy Miles, another rich American expat. Minghella’s film has more major characters and plot twists, is more expensively produced, and (as one might expect from a 1999 Hollywood movie vis-à-vis a French film from 1960) moves a lot faster; but one of the signal virtues of Clément’s film is precisely its more unhurried, deliberate pace, which permits us to spend more time closely attending to Tom’s every move so that, even more than Matt Damon (who is excellent in Ripley), Delon draws us into his character as we follow every step of his macabre but inspired scheme. Indeed, the chief difference between the two films is that while Minghella’s is a riot of excellent characterizations (not just by Damon, Law, and Paltrow but also by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cate Blanchett, Jack Davenport, Rebhorn, and Philip Baker Hall), Clément’s movie is, in essence, a tightly focused portrait of Tom, played with depth and nuance by the magnificent Delon, and full of small, telling realistic touches of the sort that shed light on our antihero but that have no place these days, alas, in a big-budget Hollywood picture. In fact, it’s great to have both movies, each of which is splendid of its kind. If you wanted to teach a course in the difference between big-budget Hollywood star vehicles and prime examples of the French nouvelle vague, indeed, you could do worse than to screen these two adaptations of Highsmith’s story back to back. And I strongly suspect that after watching both of them, what would linger in your memory is not the plot that Minghella has concocted, which is arguably even more ingenious than Highsmith’s original, and which keeps Damon constantly on the move, or even that film’s gorgeous music and cinematography but, first, Delon’s portrait of a lonely and enigmatic, if plainly psychopathic, young man who spends much of his screen time sitting, smoking, and contemplating. And second, the ending of Clément’s film, which is even more stunning than that of Minghella’s, and which delivers a staggering hammer blow to Delon at what he believes to be his culminating moment of triumph. Plein Soleil aside, Delon’s cinematic oeuvre is a bushel of riches. What’s particularly striking is Rocco and His Brothers, a Luchino Visconti film, released in the same year as Plein Soleil, that tells the story of a struggling southern Italian family that has relocated to Milan. It’s frankly remarkable to see the same young actor, in the course of the same year, exude a dark, complex, and inscrutable menace in one film and a genuine sweetness and innocence in another. (READ MORE: Snow White and the Witches of Hollywoke) Delon’s later films include Visconti’s epic The Leopard (1963), based on the Lampedusa novel; Anthony Asquith’s The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), and Clément’s Is Paris Burning? (1966), the internationally successful account of the 1944 liberation of Paris. One thing I learned about Delon from his obituaries that I didn’t know before was that throughout his life he loved dogs and cats and put a lot of his money and effort into helping animals. To me, that’s the kind of thing that really makes a person beautiful, whether he’s 28 or 88. May his work endure and his memory be blessed. The post Remembering the Enchanting Alain Delon appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

John P. Rossi’s article in The American Spectator about the 1947 John Wayne film The Angel and the Badman brought to mind another little known Wayne film gem: Trouble Along the Way (1953), which starred Wayne as “Steve Williams,” a former big-time college football coach who is hired by a small, financially struggling Catholic college (St. Anthony’s) to coach its football team and raise money so the college can avoid closure. And as John Rossi said about The Angel and the Badman, it is the Duke at his very best. It is also the story of a divorced father’s love for his 11-year-old daughter Carole, played by Sherry Jackson, who idolizes him but is caught up in a custody battle with William’s ex-wife Ann (played brilliantly by actress Marie Windsor). The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and also starred Charles Coburn, as Father Burke, the elderly rector of the college, and the beautiful Donna Reed, who plays custody caseworker Alice Singleton, who is charged with determining whether Wayne is a fit father to have partial custody of his daughter. This was a very different role for Wayne, who usually played the tough guy in westerns and war movies. In Trouble Along the Way he is a football coach willing to bend and sometimes break the rules to field a winning football team — which is why he was kicked-out of big-time college football in the first place. Father Burke suggests to Wayne that if he can build a successful football program, the college can earn enough money to remain open. Wayne needs the work and accepts the challenge. He and his daughter are given a small apartment inside the college’s bell tower — the bell’s loud ring often wakes them up. Coach Williams soon learns that the current players on the football team are too small, too slow, and too poorly equipped to win games. Wayne hires some of his old assistant coaches and comes up with a plan to recruit new players — players who will also financially profit from joining the team. When Father Burke observes at mass the new incoming class of students, he is amazed at their solid physical appearance. Wayne also orders top-notch equipment and builds the team into a college powerhouse. There is a scene when Wayne and other school officials are on stage when Father Burke announces their football schedule and opponents — to include such football powerhouses as Notre Dame — Wayne faints in his chair. The small college stuns the football world by winning game after game. (The film’s football scenes were filmed at the Polo Grounds in New York City). But soon, Wayne’s ex-wife hires a private detective who gathers information to allege that Wayne has engaged again in recruiting violations. The ex-wife also brings suit in court to gain full custody of Carole — she does this not because she wants the child around, but to spite Wayne. Donna Reed enters the picture to determine whether Wayne should keep custody of his daughter. She is concerned that the daughter is a tomboy who knows all about football but very little about being a young lady. But she also sees the strong love between Carole and her father. Donna Reed also starts falling in love with Wayne. She eventually discovers that Carole’s mother doesn’t love the child and that Wayne loves Carole more than anything else, even more than football. At the custody proceeding in court, Reed testifies that Wayne should keep partial custody of the child. On cross examination by the ex-wife’s lawyer, Reed is asked, “Do you love Mr. Williams?” Wayne, with a grin on his face, asks the judge to remind the witness that she is under oath. Reed admits that she has fallen in love with Wayne. Father Burke has no other option but to fire Wayne as coach. He also decides to retire as rector of the college, but St. Anthony’s remains open with its losing football team. In his farewell speech, Father Burke takes the blame for what happened to Wayne and publicly apologizes to him, who only did what he was asked to do. Trouble Along the Way is part comedy, part drama, but in essence is about a father’s beautiful love for his daughter. And as John Rossi said about The Angel and the Badman, it is the Duke at his very best. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Trump, Not Harris, Has ‘Strategic Realism’ in Spades Boston Red Sox and MLB Impose Communist Struggle Session on Player A Witness Emerges From Another Communist Gulag The post Another Little Known Great John Wayne Film appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

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