'Why do they want the good people of DC living in violence?'

Books Teen Horror Time Machine When Art Imitates Death: Deadly Visions and The Face The line between art and murder is surprisingly fine. By Alissa Burger | Published on August 21, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Art has the power to move us, often with beautiful images that capture the imagination or present a new perspective. Every artist has their own unique vision of the world, an endless font of new possibilities and horizons, while no two viewers will see a piece of art in exactly the same way. As a result, considering a work of art is a bit like a conversation, a negotiation between the artist’s intent and the viewer’s interpretation. In Diane Hoh’s Nightmare Hall book Deadly Visions (1995) and R.L. Stine’s Fear Street book The Face (1996), these intersections between art, artist, and viewer reveal darker secrets, including murder.  In Hall’s Deadly Visions, Rachel Seaver finds herself at one of Salem University’s student art gallery openings not because she has any interest in or knowledge about art (she doesn’t) but because she has a crush on one of the artists, Aidan McKay. Aidan hardly seems worth the trouble and his first move is to tell Rachel she has no idea what she’s talking about, saying “I didn’t believe you when you said you didn’t know much about art, Rachel. Now, I think maybe you were telling the truth” (2). While this might be a joke-y, relatively innocuous comment, it becomes more problematic as the novel goes on, setting a pattern in which Aidan dismisses and demeans Rachel repeatedly when she starts seeing things in the art on display that no one else perceives. This is uncomfortably balanced with his demand that Rachel be a subject for his art, which happens to be life masks where he pours plaster over people’s faces, an idea that Rachel is not onboard with, though that doesn’t stop him from insistently pressuring her to do it even after she has clearly and repeatedly told him no. So Rachel is out of her depth in the art world, made fun of by the art students she hangs out with, and objectified by Aidan, who sees her more as a subject of his own inspiration rather than an actual person whose untrained thoughts about art might have some insight and value.  Rachel is drawn to a seascape oil painting that the other art students have all dismissed as poorly executed and unworthy of consideration. Aidan and Joseph prefer oil paint, Samantha specializes in pastels, and Paloma makes jewelry; they all have different artistic aesthetics, but the one thing they seem to agree on is that the seascape is bad. However, Rachel is certain she sees something they’re all missing: “She was absolutely convinced that amid the turquoise and kelly green and azure blue she saw a figure struggling in the storm-tossed waves … The arms were no more than blobs, flailing wildly above the water, the head an elongated dab of pinkish-colored paint, the eyes dark daubs, the mouth a slash of red … But the eyes were wild with fear, the mouth, if that was what it was, open in a scream of terror” (4). She tries to show the others what she sees, but no one believes her or shares in her vision. Rachel is insistent, saying “I may not know anything about art … but I know what I see, and what I see is someone drowning,” to which Aidan’s response is “No, you don’t” (5). (Seriously, what does Rachel see in this guy??). Everyone ignores Rachel and life goes on … except for Ted Leonides, who is pushed into a river while fishing near campus, goes over a waterfall, and drowns. It could all be a coincidence, though this theory starts to feel a lot less likely when Rachel returns to the gallery, looks at a watercolor of a vase of flowers, and sees a hidden image of someone falling down the stairs, and later that night, Milo Keith is pushed down the fire escape following a party at Nightmare Hall. But once again, no one else sees what Rachel sees and no one believes there’s any connection to her unconventional art appreciation and the terrible “accident” that puts Milo in a coma.  The two paintings that concealed hidden horrors did not have the artist’s name on them, and Rachel decides to check out the studios in the art building to see if she can find any clues that might indicate who made those pieces. She’s on a stack of piled boxes looking at some paintings on a shelf when an unseen assailant pushes her, she sustains a bloody head injury in the fall, and is then locked in the supply closet. There’s a dumbwaiter in the closet that the students use for ferrying supplies up to the tenth floor and her only way out is to cram herself in there and manually use the rope to lower herself down to the ground floor and the gallery below, where “A crowd of horrified spectators watched as out of the small doorway emerged a figure with a blood and tearstained face, a nasty gouge across her forehead, and bloody palms” (105). She tells them about her terrifying encounter and once again, THEY DON’T BELIEVE HER. Her friends’ explanation is that she must have hit her head, gotten confused, and shut herself in the closet; they’re not even entirely willing to concede that Rachel was locked in the closet at all, because when they go up to the tenth floor, the closet door is unlocked and open. After the attack that nearly kills Milo, Rachel receives an anonymous gift left outside her dorm room: another painting of flowers, this one with a hidden image of terrified girl with her face covered with a death mask, accompanied by a note that says “YOU WILL NEVER SEE ANOTHER MONDAY” (129). Even if the others still can’t see what Rachel sees in the painting (they can’t), the death threat is pretty straightforward and they have to believe Rachel’s in danger now, right? Nope. Probably just a prank, they argue; nothing to worry about. Let’s go to the mall.  But of course it isn’t a prank and Rachel is nearly killed by a falling potted plant outside the mall, and is then stalked down the dark stairwell of her residence hall. Against what should be her better judgment, Rachel goes back to the art building, is knocked unconscious, and wakes up with her hands tied, her ears and eyes covered with cotton, and about to be the model for a life (or death) mask, whether she likes it or not. Rachel has just about come to terms with the realization that the killer might actually be mask-obsessed Aidan—who she has suspected and then talked herself out of multiple times throughout the terrifying course of events with variations of “he’s cute, I bet it’s not him”—but when Rachel fights her way free, she is shocked to find that her would-be killer is Samantha, who has been the least obnoxious of her new art friends. Unlike the others, Samantha hasn’t repeatedly told Rachel that she doesn’t know a thing about art or that her perceptions of what she sees are invalid. There’s a clear sense of empathy and connection here, because like Rachel, Samantha has been the butt of the others’ jokes and on the receiving end of their abuse. As Samantha tells Rachel, “No one appreciated my work! They all said it was weak. ‘Wishy-washy pastels,’ Joseph called them” (201). If she can’t impress them with her art itself, Samantha decides she will force them to at least respect what her art can accomplish, painting scenes of death into her work and then making them come true: “I showed them, didn’t I? … Weak? Weak? When I can paint something and then make it happen? They can’t do that, none of them. I’m the only one who can. I’m the one with all the power” (201, emphasis original). Samantha chose Ted and Milo at random, a matter of convenience and opportunity, but when she realized that Rachel was the only one who could see the truth behind her art, Rachel became Samantha’s main target. Rachel fights back against Samantha, knocks her unconscious, and saves herself, but even with the truth unquestionably revealed, Rachel knows she will still have to contend with her friends’ doubts: “They wouldn’t understand about her dreams and her ability to see in Samantha’s paintings what no one else had, but that didn’t matter. Not really” (208). But maybe it should. No one believed Rachel and in the book’s final lines, she decides that “Monday seemed like a good day to begin learning about art” (208), determined to make herself into a person her friends will like rather than worrying about why she can’t get those friends to believe her when she tells them someone’s trying to kill her.  While Rachel sees the hidden truth in Rachel’s paintings, in Stine’s The Face, Martha Powell is both artist and viewer, finding herself drawing the same face over and over again, with no idea of what it means. Something terrible happened, but Martha can’t remember what: she has lost her memories of a trip she and her friends took to a cabin last winter and her psychiatrist Dr. Sayles is insistent that the memories come back on their own. Her friends Justine, Laura, and Adriana, Adriana’s brother Ivan, and Martha’s boyfriend Aaron were all there at the cabin, but none of them will tell her what happened. They’re all keeping a close eye on Martha, and saying ominous things about how horrible it’s going to be for her when she remembers what happened, but they keep the truth to themselves. Then one afternoon when Martha sits down to work on some sketches for an art portfolio she needs to submit soon for a summer program and she draws a young man’s face, with dark hair and eyes and a thin scar running through one eyebrow. Martha is puzzled, thinking “He didn’t look at all familiar” (30), but knowing his likeness had to come from somewhere. From that point forward, no matter what she tries to draw—a self-portrait, her cat—all that appears on her paper is this boy’s face.  Martha’s memory begins to come back in fragmentary pieces, first of a snowball fight at the cabin that turned unexpectedly hostile and later, of this mysterious boy kissing her, but the meaning of these images continues to evade her. Now that she has seen the boy’s face, his presence is inescapable: Martha worries that she’s starting to lose her grip on reality when she sees his face everywhere she looks, including on the faces of the entire basketball team during a game she goes to with Adriana and Laura. Out of nowhere she remembers that his name was Sean and he was with them at the cabin when whatever horrific thing that happened happened. But still, no one’s telling, aside from an anonymous message on Martha’s answering machine that “You keep drawing him because you killed him” (101, emphasis original). When Martha does finally remember what happened, it’s plenty horrible but still a mystery. She and her friends went to the cabin and Sean came along with Ivan. The girls all thought Sean was cute, which resulted in some not-so-friendly competition, as well as some serious relationship stress: Ivan and Laura are dating but she breaks up with him so she can go out with Sean, and Martha can’t quite figure out why she has that fragmentary memory of kissing Sean when she was dating Aaron. After the snowball fight that got a little too aggressive, the group decided to do a bit of skiing on the hill near the cabin, and while Adriana encouraged Martha to go first, Sean took the lead while Martha struggled with her skis, and halfway down the hill, he was decapitated by a wire strung between two trees. Everyone is understandably traumatized and while the police come to investigate, there are a lot more questions than answers, and Sean’s death has thus far remained an unsolved crime.  Martha remembers kissing Sean, but as that weekend comes back to her in greater detail she also remembers pushing him away and fighting with him, in what turned out to be an assault rather than a romantic rendezvous. When she remembers his gruesome death, she figures there must be a connection, thinking “I had a fight with Sean—and then he died” (123). She decides this fight must have been her motive for murder and furthermore, since she’s the only one who lost her memory of that weekend, that she must be the only one with something to hide. Martha hastily connects these dots and though she still has no idea why or how she would have done so, she believes she murdered Sean. She calls Adriana for help and like a good friend, Adriana comes right over and affirms Martha’s most terrifying suspicions, though Martha’s confession is complicated when Ivan shows up and tells the girls that he’s the one who murdered Sean. Sean found out Ivan had stolen a car and never gotten caught and Sean blackmailed him, demanding money in exchange for not turning Ivan in. When Ivan decided that he had had enough, he strung the wire between two trees—though he only strung it at about ankle height, with the intent to trip Sean up and teach him a lesson, saying “I only wanted to knock him down. Maybe hurt him a little” (137). While Ivan never meant to kill Sean, his assumption is that the wind picked up and the snow shifted, tragically changing the height of the wire in relation to the slope, though he still holds himself responsible for what happened. But much like Martha’s returning memories, there’s more than meets the eye: both Martha and Ivan are ready to claim responsibility for Sean’s death, but it turns out it was Adriana who killed him, though she intended the bloody death for Martha herself, to eliminate her as perceived competition for Sean’s affections. In the aftermath of the accident, Adriana has also been hypnotizing Martha without her friend’s knowledge or consent, trying to make sure her real memories of what happened at the cabin stay buried, until Martha remembers just enough to confess. While Martha and Ivan blamed themselves, as the actual murderer, Adriana refuses to claim responsibility, telling Martha “The wrong person died … Because of you, the wrong person died” (145).  In both Deadly Visions and The Face, art hides deeper truths, concealing premonitions of Samantha’s violence and serving as a persistent symbol of Martha’s lost memories. But just as art itself is open to interpretation, Rachel and Martha’s experiences and their attempts to discuss them with others are contentious and a constant process of negotiation, meaning-making, and doubt. In Deadly Visions, no one believes what Rachel sees because they can’t see it themselves, and even when people start getting hurt and dying, their doubts still linger, forcing Rachel to find the truth on her own. In The Face, Adriana is actively trying to shape what Martha remembers and the narrative Martha constructs from the fragmentary memories she recovers, and while Martha can trust that the face she keeps drawing is one she has seen and a boy she knows, Adriana manipulates Martha’s perceptions of what that face means and the events that led to his death. In both cases, Rachel and Martha have to fight to prove the validity of what they know to be true and reveal the horrors behind the brush strokes and pencil lines. In the end, these young women’s real masterpieces are their reliance on their own memories despite those who are constantly questioning and doubting them and the self-efficacy that allows them to realize the truth.[end-mark] The post When Art Imitates Death: <em>Deadly Visions</em> and <em>The Face</em> appeared first on Reactor.

News Percy Jackson and the Olympians Percy Jackson and the Olympians Adds Artemis and Zoë Nightshade Actors to Season 3 Cast Ahead of Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ season 2 premiere, the showrunners add two notable names to the season 3 cast. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on August 21, 2025 Credit: Disney+ Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Disney+ The second season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians hasn’t aired yet on Disney+, but we already have casting news for season three, which is currently in production in Vancouver. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dafne Keen (His Dark Materials, Deadpool & Wolverine) and Saara Chaudry (The Mysterious Benedict Society) have joined the series. Keen will play Artemis, the goddess of the moon and the hunt, while Chaudry takes on the role of Zoë Nightshade, Artemis’ immortal lieutenant. They join fellow newcomers on the season three call sheet, Levi Chrisopulos and Olive Abercrombie, who are playing Leo and Bianca di Angelo. The third season largely follows the events from the third book in Rick Riordan’s series, The Titan’s Curse, though elements of that book (as well as books four and five) will reportedly find their way into the upcoming season two. According to Disney+’s marketing material, Artemis “prefers the freedom of the outdoors to the politics and formality of Olympus. Her immortal hunters are her constant companions, and she has little contact with mortals, making her a bit out of touch with modern human culture. She is regal and an honorable fighter who will stand up to grave challenges.” Zoë Nightshade, on the other hand, is the “loyal lieutenant to Artemis and first among the immortal hunters. She has been at Artemis’ side for more than 2,000 years. She is a strong warrior and sometimes overly serious in ways that amuse the demigods, but she is also a crucial quest member, willing to strive and sacrifice for the good of all.” We’ll have to wait a bit to see these actors in action, however, as season two still has to air before we get to season three. That second season premieres on December 10, 2025, so we definitely won’t see season three until 2026, and possibly even early 2027. [end-mark] The post <i>Percy Jackson and the Olympians</i> Adds Artemis and Zoë Nightshade Actors to Season 3 Cast appeared first on Reactor.

Liberal media bias and hypocrisy are on full display in Virginia. Winsome Sears, the current lieutenant governor of Virginia, is the Republican nominee for governor. It’s impossible to find a starker compare-and-contrast between the media and cultural “elites”’ treatment of Sears and Stacey Abrams, who shares key similarities with Sears.  Both are black women from battleground states (Abrams from Georgia), who earned their respective party’s nomination for governor in America’s South. The difference: Abrams is a Democrat, and thus worthy of expansive, fawning media coverage—though Abrams checks fewer of the Left’s prized identity boxes than Sears, a Jamaican immigrant. The Left claims to lionize and promote black women and immigrants—but only when they fall in line with leftist ideology.  Abrams was feted on the cover of Time magazine for its issue on “The American South” with the headline of “The Unlikely Rise of Stacey Abrams.” This came in July 2018, while Abrams ran for governor—the first time. She lost twice, blowing millions of dollars in the process. To this day, Abrams still doesn’t concede her first loss to Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018, before losing to him again in a 2022 rematch by an even wider margin. In contrast to Sears, Abrams has never been a lieutenant governor or held statewide elected office (she was a representative in the state House, where she served as minority leader), lost a governors’ race twice, and her organization was fined $300,000 for campaign finance law violations—the largest in Georgia’s history. Sears, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who rose from working class roots, is a historic figure: a black woman, an immigrant and the first woman of any race to hold this office in the former capital of the Confederacy. Sears is the first woman of color to hold statewide office in Virginia, and in November 2001, Sears toppled 20-year Democrat incumbent Billy Robinson for the 90th district seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates, making her the first black female Republican, first female veteran, and first naturalized citizen to serve in that elected body. A spokeswoman for Time did not respond to request for comment from Daily Signal about whether it would run a cover of Sears with similar glowing language or any response to conservatives believing Time magazine has not covered Sears with the same level of fairness—or dare we say, equity—as Abrams. Time is far from the only media outlet to largely or completely ignore Sears and boost Abrams, who also landed the cover of Variety, as well as New York Magazine’s The Cut, along with covers of Newsweek, Essence Magazine and Marie Claire. Abrams spent millions of dollars losing the first time to Kemp, yet she was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey for both her candidacies. People magazine ran a hagiographic profile about Abrams’ Essence magazine cover and gave yet more positive coverage for Abrams’ eight romance novels and the political thriller she’s authored, as Abrams cashes in on her political celebrity for her own personal gain. Abrams admitted during her 2018 run she owed more than $50,000 to the IRS in unpaid taxes—hypocrisy for someone whose ideology badgers honest business leaders to pay their “fair share” in taxes. Abrams also said she owed more than $170,000 in credit card and student loan debt. Yet after her first governor bid, Abrams exploited her public service very quickly to pivot and report a net worth of nearly $3.2 million during her second gubernatorial run just four years later. In her financial disclosure for lieutenant governor, Sears reported a net worth of less than $300,000. Isn’t the Left supposed to favor people of more modest means? Meanwhile, Sears’ opponent, Abigail Spanberger, a white Democrat, is campaigning with former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam—another white Democrat who faced calls to resign after a medical school yearbook showed him smiling while wearing blackface and standing next to a hooded person dressed in a white Ku Klux Klan robe. Blackface is deemed racist by many black Americans. Yet the legacy media—is silent about this double standard. New: Winsome Earle-Sears is closing the gap with Abigail Spanberger, according to a Roanoke College poll, which now has Spanberger leading by 7 points. The poll in May had Spanberger leading by 17 points. The latest poll was conducted Aug. 11-15.— Nick Minock (@NickMinock) August 19, 2025 Despite media bias against Sears, Nick Minock, reporter for WJLA, the D.C.-area ABC affiliate, noted Sears has narrowed the gap with Spanberger. Roanoke College polling now shows Spanberger leading by 7 points, In May, Spanberger was leading by 17 points. The latest poll was conducted Aug. 11-15 and could indicate Sears’ leadership shake-up is working. Last month, the Sears campaign removed its former campaign manager, Will Archer from the top role and replaced him with Corey Barsky. Sears is an inspiring historical figure who spent her younger life as a Democrat and switched sides after realizing the Left did not represent her values. It’s a shame the national media ignores this powerful, freethinking black woman because she doesn’t fit their mold. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post A Tale of Two Black Women: Legacy Media Ignores Conservative Winsome Sears but Promotes Liberal Stacey Abrams appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For most of its life, the Domain Name System has been the equivalent of the plumbing behind your toilet: you know it’s there, you know it works, and you only think about it when it breaks. It was designed to be dull. Type “cats.com” and DNS figures out which machine somewhere in Nebraska is actually serving you the endless parade of whiskered memes. Become a Member and Keep Reading… Reclaim your digital freedom. Get the latest on censorship, cancel culture, and surveillance, and learn how to fight back. Email Subscribe Already a supporter? Sign In. The post DNS Becomes a Tool of Digital Rebellion: From Internet Infrastructure to Privacy Weapon appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. NextDNS has launched a new privacy-centric feature designed to help users avoid age verification requirements on certain websites, without the need to upload identification. As more countries like the UK, US, and others across Europe roll out regulations demanding stricter digital ID checks, this update offers a possible route for those wary of giving up personal information online. Popular platforms such as Reddit, X, and YouTube have begun asking users to confirm they are over 18 by providing some form of ID. More: DNS Becomes a Tool of Digital Rebellion: From Internet Infrastructure to Privacy Weapon These steps are largely being introduced in response to legislation like the UK’s Online Safety Bill, aimed at shielding minors from adult content. But for many, the push to upload government IDs, selfies, or phone numbers to access digital spaces raises serious privacy red flags. VPNs have long been used to mask location and avoid such restrictions. NextDNS now offers a similar capability through DNS-level geo spoofing. Instead of rerouting all internet activity, this feature specifically intercepts DNS requests and forwards them through a proxy server in a country where ID-based age checks are not required. This makes it appear as though the user is connecting from a more permissive region. Anyone using the free or paid version of NextDNS can turn the feature on. To do so, users need to log into their account at my.nextdns.io, navigate to the Settings tab, scroll down, and toggle the “Bypass Age Verification” option. The company notes that by enabling it, users confirm they are of legal age to access restricted content. The results so far are mixed. The feature remains in beta and does not work reliably across all platforms. Services like Reddit and X are still blocking some users, even with the setting active. Attempts to view age-restricted YouTube videos have also failed, likely because YouTube requires account sign-ins and has started experimenting with AI-driven age estimation in the US. There is also uncertainty around how the feature will interact with services tied to region-locked user data or localized billing systems. More: DNS Becomes a Tool of Digital Rebellion: From Internet Infrastructure to Privacy Weapon As more online services introduce stricter access rules, tools like this could become increasingly relevant to those looking for alternatives to handing over personal documents. The effectiveness of the bypass remains to be seen, but it reflects a growing demand for privacy-preserving solutions in a digital landscape that is shifting toward mandatory identification. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post NextDNS Launches DNS-Based Age Verification Bypass to Protect User Privacy Amid Online ID Laws appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

This NY Times Discussion of Crime in DC is Exasperating

Sanctimonious TX Preacher Dem Berating Billionaires on One Hand While Other Hand Is Out

Lawrence O’Donnell often tries to wax poetic on his MSNBC show, The Last Word, but he’s really just an unserious person speaking in a solemn tone. On Wednesday, O’Donnell tried to claim that Union Station in Washington, D.C. doesn’t have a crime problem and cited a movie released in 1939 and a man who hasn’t been a senator since January 2009 to make his point. As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Vice President JD Vance went to Union Station to thank the National Guard troops for their service and confronted protesters along the way, O’Donnell looked back: The iconic Amtrak railroad station through whose glass doors Jimmy Stewart first saw the Capitol Dome when he arrived in Washington. In Frank Capra's classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there were no soldiers in the shot when Jimmy Stewart's character, the newly appointed Senator Jefferson Smith, arrived at Union Station. And there have never been troops at Union Station. In the decades of both the 20th and 21st century that I've been arriving at and departing from Union Station in Washington, D.C.      O’Donnell then got personal, “I've never once seen a crime committed there. I've never once felt even slightly at risk there. I don't know anyone who has.” Maybe that means O’Donnell needs to meet more people. In February, a man was murdered in the Union Station parking garage. In March, a group of six juvenile girls was arrested for assaulting a woman. If O’Donnell wants to move the goalposts and say those are anecdotal, consider this lead from a December 2022 Axios article, “Vacant shops and rising crime are just a few reasons that an increasing number of Washingtonians steer clear of Union Station except to catch a train.” While some try to claim the situation has improved, according to crimedatadc.com, the Union Station neighborhood is the worst in the city for vehicle theft.  Nevertheless, O’Donnell then added: Before jet travel. Most United States Senators arrived in Washington at Union Station and departed from Washington at Union Station. One United States Senator whose career crossed from the 20th century into the 21st century passed through Union Station to and from work every Senate work day of his 36-year career as a senator. Senator Joe Biden was in a position to have security at Union Station strengthened if he thought it was necessary. For 36 years, Senator Joe Biden walked through Union Station alone, to and from the Amtrak train that delivered him home to his children in Delaware every night. O’Donnell also doubted Republicans actually care: Union Station is safer than the elementary schools of this country where our children go to school every day. It's safer than the high schools of this country, where our children go to schools every day and where children are subjected to the assault weapon fire of mass murderers every year in our schools with body counts that should be a call to action for anyone working in government, but not one Republican elected official in Washington has ever tried to stop mass murderers in our elementary schools and our high schools and colleges. Of course, O’Donnell just means Republicans don’t support gun control. Meanwhile, O’Donnell literally said he is unaware of any crimes being committed at Union Station when a simple Google search reveals plenty. Who is the one that is in denial? Here is a transcript for the August 20 show: MSNBC The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell 8/20/2025 10:04 PM ET LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: The iconic Amtrak railroad station through whose glass doors Jimmy Stewart first saw the Capitol Dome when he arrived in Washington. In Frank Capra's classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there were no soldiers in the shot when Jimmy Stewart's character, the newly appointed Senator Jefferson Smith, arrived at Union Station. And there have never been troops at Union Station. In the decades of both the 20th and 21st century that I've been arriving at and departing from Union Station in Washington, D.C.  I've never once seen a crime committed there. I've never once felt even slightly at risk there. I don't know anyone who has. Before jet travel. Most United States Senators arrived in Washington at Union Station and departed from Washington at Union Station. One United States Senator whose career crossed from the 20th century into the 21st century, passed through Union Station to and from work every Senate work day of his 36-year career as a senator. Senator Joe Biden was in a position to have security at Union Station strengthened if he thought it was necessary. For 36 years, Senator Joe Biden walked through Union Station alone, to and from the Amtrak train that delivered him home to his children in Delaware every night. That Amtrak station is one of the jewels of the Amtrak system. It is the home of 56 stores and restaurants, including the eyeglass shop Warby Parker, where I got these, and other shopping mall chains. It now has a Shake Shack, the fast food chain that has been surging in the Northeast in recent years. Companies like Warby Parker and Shake Shack do not locate their stores in high crime areas.  They prefer to locate their stores in zero crime areas like shopping malls, and Union Station is basically a shopping mall with train tracks. Union Station is safer than the elementary schools of this country where our children go to school every day. It's safer than the high schools of this country, where our children go to schools every day and where children are subjected to the assault weapon fire of mass murderers every year in our schools with body counts that should be a call to action for anyone working in government, but not one Republican elected official in Washington has ever tried to stop mass murderers in our elementary schools and our high schools and colleges.

A top adviser and former aide to New York City Mayor Eric Adams (I) struggled to explain why she handed a reporter a bag of chips stuffed with cash.The City reported on Wednesday that Winnie Greco, a longtime Adams ally, requested to meet with its reporter Katie Honan across the street from Adams' newest campaign office. The two walked to a nearby Whole Foods, where Greco handed Honan an open bag of chips with the top folded closed.'In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude.'Greco reportedly insisted Honan take the bag, despite the reporter stating she could not accept it. After parting ways, Honan opened the bag and discovered that it contained a red envelope with over $100 in cash. The City reported that Honan called Greco to tell her that she could not accept the money and tried to arrange its return.Greco later spoke with the news outlet, apologizing profusely for her actions and insisting that it was a simple cultural misunderstanding."I make a mistake," Greco told the City. "I'm so sorry. It's a culture thing. I don't know. I don't understand. I'm so sorry. I feel so bad right now. I'm so sorry, honey."Adams is locked in a hard re-election campaign. He declined to run in the Democratic campaign and instead is running as an independent. He is trailing the Democratic candidate, socialist Zohran Mamdani, as well as former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is also running as an independent. Recent polls even show him behind the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels. RELATED: FBI raids homes of another top aide to NYC Mayor Adams Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesDuring a later phone call with the City, Greco advised the news outlet to contact her attorney, Steven Brill."Can we forget about this? I try to be a good person. Please. Please. Please don't do in the news nothing about me," Greco said. "I just wanted to be her friend," she continued. "I just wanted to have one good friend. It's nothing."Greco and Brill rejected claims that the money exchange was a failed payoff attempt. Brill told the City, "I can see how this looks strange.""But I assure you that Winnie's intent was purely innocent," he declared. "In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. Winnie is apologetic and embarrassed by any negative impression or confusion this may have caused."RELATED: FBI raids home of former NY chief diversity officer who also worked for Gov. Hochul Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty ImagesThe City alerted the Adams campaign and the city's Department of Investigation about Honan's exchange with Greco.Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams' office, told the news outlet, "We are shocked by these reports.""Winnie Grecco [sic] holds no position in this campaign and has been suspended from all volunteer campaign-related activities," Shapiro stated. "Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter. He has always demanded the highest ethical and legal standards, and his sole focus remains on serving the people of New York City with integrity."Diane Struzzi, DOI spokesperson, told the City, "DOI received allegations from the City and declines further comment."The FBI raided Greco's Bronx residences last year amid a DOI investigation for allegedly improperly using her former government position for personal benefit. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!