Excerpts Fantasy Read an Excerpt From J. M. Miro’s Bringer of Dust In the second book in the Talents Trilogy, the world of the dead is closer than you think… By J. M. Miro | Published on August 28, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share the first chapter from J. M. Miro’s Bringer of Dust, the sequel to Ordinary Monsters and the second book in The Talents—out from Flatiron Books on September 17th. You can also listen to the same excerpt from the audiobook edition, read by Ben Onwukwe. Click here to jump straight to the audio excerpt! Agrigento, Sicily, 1883. With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only hope of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine—long-hidden, thought lost—which might not even exist.But when a body is discovered in the shadow of Cairndale, a body wreathed in the corrupted dust of the drughr, Charlie and the Talents realize there is even more at stake than they’d feared. For a new drughr has arisen, ferocious, horned, seemingly able to move in their world at will—and it is not alone. A malevolent figure, known only as the Abbess, desires the dust for her own ends. And deep in the world of the dead, a terrible evil stirs—an evil that the corrupted dust just might hold the secret to reviving or destroying forever.So the dark journey begun in Ordinary Monsters surges forward, from the sinister underworld of the London exiles, to the mysteries of a sunlit villa in nineteenth-century Sicily, to the deep catacombs hidden under Paris. Against bone witches, mud glyphics, and a house of twilight that exists in a netherworld all its own, the Talents must work together—if they are to have any hope of staving off the world of the dead, and saving their long-lost friend. Lights Were Going Out All Over the World—1883Chapter 1: Kindred Alice Quicke stood under a ragged plane tree in the gloom of Montparnasse, her hat brim dripping, the collar of her oilskin coat turned high against the rain. She was quiet, dark-eyed. She carried a finger-blade hidden in her sleeve, another at her ankle. In one hand she gripped a four-foot-long iron bar, like a cudgel. A fiacre rounded the corner, clattering and splashing past, its driver hidden, side-lanterns swaying. Otherwise Paris was dark. The rain was dark. She looked ordinary, to the ordinary eye. That was the thing about monsters: the real ones always did. She’d been in the city nearly a month, spreading a ripple of unease through any crowd. It wasn’t the clothes she wore, the trousers, the stained oilskin coat; in Paris, at least, a woman in a man’s clothes drew little interest. Though her knuckles were bigger than most men’s, and the backs of her wrists were scarred like a blacksmith’s, and there was clay clumped in her tangled yellow hair, none of that mattered. What mattered was the thin crescent of light in her eye, like a blade turned sideways, that warned off most inquiries. Four months ago she’d killed her partner and friend, shot him in the heart while looking into his eyes, and before that she’d seen horrors that belonged only in fairy tales, children afflicted with strange talents, and monsters too, real monsters, the kind she couldn’t stop seeing even after she’d shut her eyes. She’d been hurt badly by one of those monsters, impaled by a tendril of smoke on the roof of a speeding train. Whatever it was that had infected her then was in her still. In the mornings she’d awake in pain and press a hand to her ribs, to the old wound of it, imagining some monstrous thing uncoiling there, just under the skin, a part of her. Now a figure in a mud-spattered cloak turned onto the boulevard, walking fast in the rain. It was Ribs. She carried a bull’s-eye lantern clipped to a belt at her waist. Alice stepped out of the shadows and together they hurried to a manhole cover in the street. Alice pried it up with the iron bar, the rain foaming over the edge, over the rusted iron rungs, pouring down into the sudden blackness. Ribs clambered in. Alice followed. Buy the Book Bringer of Dust J. M. Miro Book 2 of The Talents Buy Book Bringer of Dust J. M. Miro Book 2 of The Talents Book 2 of The Talents Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget And then, clinging to the iron rungs, Alice reached up and dragged the heavy covering back into place, cutting off the rain. And in the darkness she followed her friend down, deep into the catacombs of Paris. “Jesus,” she muttered, when she felt her boots collide with the bottom. Her voice echoed back. “Some light here, maybe?” After a moment the shutter on the lantern opened. It was an old-fashioned candle lantern with a fish-eye lens, a beam of weak yellow light illuminating the gallery. Ribs had taken it off her belt and leaned it against the wall. Alice could see the girl drawing back her wet hood, smoothing her red hair. The air was cold, sour. Ribs was grinning, gap-toothed, at her. “Not Jesus. Just me.” Alice gave her a flat look. “What?” “I waited nearly an hour.” The girl winked. “It weren’t my fault you was there early. Anyway I got us lunch. I don’t reckon you remembered to?” “No one saw you?” “Saw me?” Ribs’s tone was wounded. She sniffed, opened her cloak to reveal a package in brown paper, tied off under one arm. “Look at this. A baguette an half a cheese. No reason we got to be all bones, just because everyone else down here is, right?” Alice suppressed a smile. Ribs was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old but there was something about her that made Alice think she’d never been a kid, not really. And something else that made her think she’d never quite be a grown-up. The catacombs were thick with silence. Three tunnels branched off in different directions, tall and arched. Alice closed her eyes, and the dark ache bloomed in her side. They were seeking the second orsine, a door between worlds, a way to cross into the land of the dead and find a living boy trapped within. It was somewhere under Paris. Dr. Berghast had told Alice as much, in his sunlit greenhouse at Cairndale long months ago, a bonebird clicking weirdly at his wrist, his eyes cold and dead. And almost as soon as she’d arrived in Paris she’d felt it, an ache radiating up out of the old wound in her side, a coldness that seeped down her left arm into her fingertips. It was as if the infected dust that Jacob Marber—corrupted talent, servant of an evil more terrible than anything Alice had imagined—had left in her was stirring, waking up. As if it knew an orsine was near. And like a hook in her side, tugging at her, it had led her forward, first through the crowded lanes and boulevards, across the bridges, then down into the maze of the ossuaries. Ribs, who’d come with her, could only trail along, watchful. Alice, for her part, just went where it hurt worst. But they weren’t in the ossuaries now. There were miles of ancient quarries under Paris, tunnels and stairs carved out of the limestone, submerged chambers, wells hidden in the absolute darkness. Only a small part of it was known. There were stories of things living deep in the underground, pale creatures, vengeful spirits. Cutthroats and pickpockets. Stories of servants lost in the black when their lanterns extinguished, their bodies only found years later. Stories of sudden drops, of dead ends, of ceiling collapses. Maybe some of it was even true. But Alice, for her part, figured probably the worst thing in that darkness was her own self and the thing that was inside her. Ribs was looking at her funny. “So? Which way, then?” Alice grimaced. She started down the left-hand tunnel, retracing their steps from the night before, following the line of red chalk they’d slowly been adding to. Ribs came along behind. The tunnels were wide at first, dry. The lantern’s beam was weak and wobbled as Ribs walked. They could see a few feet ahead, nothing more. The tunnel turned and turned again, then they descended an iron staircase put in sometime in the last century, and crept past a well and through a fissure in the limestone. All the while they watched for the line of red chalk that marked their way. They came out in a long gallery, the ceiling supported by pillars, their shadows crooked and silent in the black. The air was colder. They hurried on. They’d stop now and then for a sip of water or a twist of bread but they did not linger long. Ribs would climb up onto a block of limestone and sprawl out with her arms dangling, or flop down onto the ground if it was dry, and she’d breathe wearily in the bad air. It was during one such rest that Ribs mentioned their friend, the dustworker Komako. She’d gone to Spain in search of an ancient glyphic, and its secrets about the second orsine. She’d insisted on going alone. “So bloody stubborn. Je-sus. I guess she’s probably all right, though?” “That girl can handle herself,” Alice murmured. “It’s the glyphic I’d be worried for.” She heard Ribs snort. The darkness seemed to lean in, muffling their voices. Alice didn’t like the new tiredness she heard in her friend. She said, “We’re going to find this second orsine. You know that, right?” The girl was quiet. “Ribs?” “Sure,” Ribs said at last. “But it’s after we find it what worries me.” “After, we’ll get Marlowe out. That’s what’ll happen.” Ribs rolled onto her side, raised her face. In the glow of the lantern it looked unearthly and pale. “It’s what else gets out I don’t like to imagine. Charlie was awful scared when he come out, back at Cairndale. I remember it.” The damp turned suddenly colder in the gallery. “I keep thinking bout him, like. At night. When I try an sleep.” “Charlie?” “Not Charlie.” But Alice knew who Ribs meant. They didn’t talk about Marlowe, not often. She thought of the little boy she’d known, the calm certainty in his face, the way he’d chosen to believe in her goodness despite everything, the strange power that had been in him. It felt like a lifetime ago. That night she’d first seen his talent, the blue shine in that sideshow tent outside Remington. The rough men watching him with tears in their eyes. She wasn’t sure what to say. Ribs had sat up now and was pushing the tallow higher into the lantern, then taking out the spare candle she’d brought. “You go into the dark because it’s where the bad things are,” Ribs murmured. “Because it’s the only way to fight them. I get it. But in the dark, it’s easy to start thinking evil is stronger than it is.” Alice was quiet. Ribs surprised her sometimes. She could feel the little blade strapped to her wrist, the consolation of it. Sometimes, she thought, the bad things weren’t in the dark at all. They were right in front of you, in the light, the whole time. She got to her feet. The rock overhead felt heavy, crushing. Beyond the candlelight, the dark seemed to go on forever. “We should keep going,” she said softly. Excerpted from Bringer of Dust. Copyright © 2024 by Ides of March Creative Inc. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. The post Read an Excerpt From J. M. Miro’s <i>Bringer of Dust</i> appeared first on Reactor.

To call the past eight weeks in presidential politics unprecedented would be a wild understatement. It was just over two months ago when President Joe Biden—a man deemed highly successful and mentally sharp by our legacy media—took to the stage to debate his predecessor, Donald Trump, and promptly expired. It took another month for Biden to drop out of the race, prompted by the backstabbing Democratic cadre of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; and, most importantly, former President Barack Obama, all of whom wheedled donors and cudgeled Biden into submission. It then took promptly one day to solidify Vice President Kamala Harris in Biden’s stead. It has been more than a month since Biden was defenestrated in favor of Harris. Since then, Harris has answered precisely zero difficult questions from the media. She has spent the intervening weeks being “brat”—that is, social media-friendly and utterly vacuous. We know that she likes Doritos, that she enjoys cooking, that she supposedly makes a mean brisket, that she wears Chuck Taylors. When asked outside Air Force Two what she will do next this week, she answered, “We’re going to walk up those stairs.” Deep stuff. And yet there are less than 70 days to the election. Republics are predicated on the idea that the voters deserve to know something about the candidates for whom they vote. Voters already know everything there is to know about Trump. He’s the most overexposed political figure in history, and we’ve already seen what his presidency looks like. But voters have been shielded from Harris. According to the legacy media, her 2019 presidential campaign policy positions are completely irrelevant: She’s now sent out surrogates to disown her own position on decriminalizing border crossings (she was in favor), electric vehicle mandates (she was in favor), private health insurance (she was against), “reimagining public safety” or defunding the police (she was in favor), and fracking (she was against), among others. All of that in the last month alone. Yet the media apparently have zero questions. Meanwhile, we’ve been told that she’s not even tied to the administration in which she is currently the vice president. This week, Politico headlined, “Vance tries to tether Harris to Biden during Michigan rally.” Tries to? She’s the sitting vice president! Her boss—the same person she shivved to steal his nomination—is currently still the president. Sam Stein of The Bulwark and MSNBC headlined, “Dems spent four days in Chicago castigating, belittling, and demonizing Donald Trump. And then they did something even more vicious: They turned him into the incumbent.” Trump the incumbent? She’s the sitting vice president of the United States! All of this is why Harris must avoid scrutiny. She’s obviously squirrelly on debating Trump: First, she tried to bully Trump into accepting the same debate rules he’d accepted against Biden. Then she denied him extra debates. Then she tried to switch the rules. Her campaign has gone through Talmudic discussions internally to determine if and when she ought to be interviewed. Their verdict: OK, fine, but only if pretaped while joined by happy but cloddish sitcom dad running mate Tim Walz. This entire charade smacks of disdain for the American people. Rig the nomination process in favor of Biden; throw Biden off a cliff in favor of Harris; hide Harris behind an Instagram filter while she dances and calls herself “Momala” for the duration of the campaign. At no point do Democrats want Americans to understand just what Harris will do as president, or to connect her to what she’s already done as vice president. Perhaps it will work. If so, Americans will only have proved H.L. Mencken’s cynical theory: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” 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 Hiding Harris: Will Naked Political Ploy Succeed? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. As streaming platforms continue to shape how we consume entertainment, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) recently unveiled Truth+, a streaming service that stands as a defiant countermeasure to the current market. This platform positions itself as an “uncancellable” sanctuary, diverging sharply from mainstream offerings. Truth+ aims to revitalize viewer choice by ensuring a breadth of diverse and often underrepresented content, providing a robust alternative for those seeking freedom from the constraints typically imposed by larger media corporations. This new platform, stemming from the same crew as the social media platform Truth Social, and spearheaded by President Donald Trump and CEO and former Congressman Devin Nunes, seeks to carve a unique niche in a competitive market. Content Aiming to Fill Gaps A new Truth+ tab has been added to the Truth Social app. At launch, the platform boasts a variety of channels encompassing news, commentary, weather, and lifestyle and entertainment content. But TMTG doesn’t plan to stop there. The future roadmap includes the integration of Christian content and family-friendly programming, aiming to appeal to a broader audience underserved by the incumbents and Hollywood. The development of a proprietary content delivery network (CDN) by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) for their new streaming service, Truth+, marks a significant move towards technological independence. Owning their CDN allows TMTG to control distribution, ensuring that Truth+ can operate without interference from larger tech companies, crucial for maintaining access despite external pressures or policy conflicts. This autonomy enhances the platform’s resilience, making it virtually “uncancellable” and capable of delivering a steady, responsive user experience, crucial for streaming services that demand high bandwidth and low latency. This strategic infrastructure not only ensures operational stability and scalability but also supports TMTG’s broader aim of positioning Truth+ as a bastion for free expression. It potentially attracts users and creators who feel marginalized by mainstream platforms, while facilitating rapid implementation of innovative features to stay competitive. By building its CDN, TMTG not only optimizes content delivery but also aligns closely with its branding as an unrestrictive, ideologically consistent platform, underscoring its appeal in a crowded market. The Truth+ interface on mobile. TMTG has big plans for Truth+, with a slew of features intended to enrich user experience. These include a 14-day interactive show guide, replay capabilities for recent programs, video on demand, subscription video on demand, and even a marketplace for content creators. Such enhancements are geared towards not just matching but exceeding the current offerings of other streaming giants. As the platform evolves, it will be intriguing to see how it resonates with an audience that craves diversity in programming and freedom from the editorial constraints of Big Tech. With its innovative technology and strategic content expansion, Truth+ may well become a formidable player in the streaming game. Nunes spoke last month to Breitbart News, emphasizing a commitment to maintain worldwide open lines of communication. He underscored the fact that Truth Social’s expansion was designed to keep those communication channels open for residents from America and beyond its borders. “We’ve tried to take the best of all the platforms, whether it be – everybody knows Trump for mean tweets and all that,” Nunes said. “But, I tell people, Truth Social is not a replacement for Twitter. Truth Social is taking the best of Twitter, the best of Facebook, the best of Instagram, the best of Reddit, the best of all the platforms. And, we try to make it simple and easy to use.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Trump Media Defies The Mainstream with Truth+ Streaming Platform appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Biden-Harris White House looks determined to justify and normalize the practice of the government colluding with private companies, in this instance Big Tech, to censor speech. After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, admitting that his company came under pressure from the current administration to conduct censorship and that he “believes” that was wrong – the White House doubled down on the controversial, and quite possibly, unconstitutional, policy. In his letter, Zuckerberg chose to focus on Meta censoring content related to COVID-19, and in response, a White House spokesman revealed the government does not share Zuckerberg’s stance that the policy of pressure was wrong. “Encouragement” is how that’s phrased. “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” stated the White House spokesman to media requests. He further justified the actions described by Zuckerberg as needed because the White House believes private companies, including those from the tech industry, “should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people.” And with the stage set in this way – the spokesman concluded that these companies are then free to make “independent choices about the information they present.” But Zuckerberg’s letter to the Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan does a pretty good job of explaining how these “independent choices” get made. Senior figures from the Biden administration, Zuckerberg stated, in 2021 “repeatedly pressured our (Facebook, Instagram) teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.” The decision on content removal, and introduction of new rules into platform policies to facilitate censorship, Zuckerberg concedes, was “ultimately ours” –  but made under pressure. If Meta tried to defy these “suggestions” – the administration showed “a lot of frustration.” “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” the letter, sent in response to the Committee’s subpoena first issued in early 2023, reads. The Committee has been investigating how the government may have colluded with private companies to suppress speech it disapproves of, and whether those actions constitute First Amendment violations. Even before the current Biden-Harris administration came to power, Facebook was being steered in a desired direction, one example being the notorious case of the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop news story, the Zuckerberg letter reveals. The FBI contacted the social media giant with a “warning” that there could be an anti-Biden family “Russian disinformation” campaign – and Facebook heeded it by “fact-checking and temporarily demoting (links to the article).” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Biden-Harris Administration Defends Big Tech Censorship Pressure Following Zuckerberg’s Admission appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Did Israel's Pre-Emptive Attack on Hezbollah Stop a Wider War?

NYT Wonders If 'Former Prosecutor' Two Tier Keir Starmer Can 'Show' Kamala 'the Way'

On Wednesday morning, CNN News Central (and MSNBC’s Morning Joe and shows on both networks since) went to the mat for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration by excusing their lack of public appearances on Monday’s third-anniversary of the deadly Islamic terror attack on Abbey Gate in Kabul, Afghanistan and instead attacked former President Trump for going to Arlington National Cemetery with some of the families of the 13 American soldiers killed. No, instead of calling out the President or Vice President for refusing to say their names or call the grieving families, they disgustingly touted anonymous sources from Arlington National Cemetery that Trump desecrated and maimed the hallowed ground by going with his campaign staff.     The first hour of the show had not one, but four teases of something already reported at NPR! Here was co-host John Berman announcing the first: An altercation at Arlington National Cemetery! New details about a clash between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and a cemetery official during a visit this week. Was the Trump team taking pictures where it should not be? In the second, he reminded viewers of it being “hallowed ground” that Trump interferred with. Co-host Sara Sidner opened the report, huffing about “new details” of “an incident that turned physical at Arlington National Cemetery during Donald Trump’s visit there on Monday”. Trump-bashing correspondent Alayna Treene lamented the “back-and-forth from both sides...but what we know is that some people who worked at the cemetery had blocked members of Donald Trump’s team — members of his campaign on Monday from attending and participating in some of the wreath ceremony when Donald Trump was laying some of the wreaths on Monday to honor the 13 fallen U.S. servicemembers who were at Kabul’s Abbey Gate during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Treene noted that Team Trump has defended the former President’s presence there by pointing to support “from the families who said that they had supported this effort” and quoted them as saying they gave “approval for President Trump’s official videographer and photographer to attend the event, ensuring these sacred moments of remembrance were respectfully captured and so we can cherish these memories forever.” In contrast, she cited those with Arlington National Cemetery as being uneasy and even one official attempting to prevent some sort of documentation from taking place. Treene, of course, put the onus on Trump for making this partisan: I do think the big takeaway is that this was a moment that, of course, Donald Trump’s — they recognize was a solemn moment. This was something to honor the family members of the fallen soldiers and has been a bit tainted now by this dispute over whether or not Donald Trump had violated federal law by making this a political event — Sara. In the second hour, CNN Vice President of Political & Special Events Mark Preston also whining about Trump being there (as opposed to verbal silence from Biden and Harris): “[w]e are seeing the campaign now play out in just about every corner of the nation.: “Now what happened is that some of his campaign team showed up with cameras video equipment, and that is not allowed in Arlington National Cemetery. It is — it is part of the rules of decorum in those cemeteries, there appeared to be some kind of altercation. Now we’re still trying to find out the details of what exactly happened,” he added. The third hour brought about Treene dismissing the Abbey Gate families, arguing their approval “doesn’t matter” compared to the liberal media’s anonymous sources at Arlington National Cemetery (click “expand”, emphasis mine) But what is clear on both sides agree on is that there was some sort of incident and you can see that — when you saw that video of Donald Trump laying flowers at the burial site for some of these recent fallen soldiers. That’s known as section 6C. That is really where some of this incident, we’re told, has taken place. Now, we had heard the Trump campaign had said that someone who had worked at the cemetery had blocked members of Donald Trump’s campaign from joining him in that moment where he was laying those flowers and part of this, Donald Trump had argued, stemmed from the use of photography. Now, Trump’s campaign and Donald Trump himself have been circulating a statement from some of the family members of some of the soldiers who were killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly those who were killed at Kabul’s Abbey Hate and that incident. They said that they had given permission to the Trump campaign to film some of this. However, the Arlington National Cemetery, in a statement to CNN, said that that doesn’t matter, that their rules are that you are not allowed to have any sort of political event or have any sort of partisan campaigning taking place within Army National Military Cemetery. So, a lot of back-and-forth here and I think, you know — what — I think the bottom line is that even in a moment like this, everything becomes political and that they are, you know, different opinions on both sides of this. I think we will learn more. We are told that the Arlington National Cemetery has filed a report on this, but the Trump campaign has really been a pretty harsh in pushing back and saying that it was inappropriate for members of the cemetery staff to try and prevent them from moving forward with their plans. And so, for now, I think we — we have to wait and see how this gets resolved. Berman then pivoted to Harris-Walz spokesman Michael Tyler and a classroom globe-sized softball inviting him to attack Trump with predictable smears, including the dubious “suckers and losers” tall tale.     Nothing about how his boss Kamala Harris and former boss Joe Biden resorted to paper statements through spokespeople and not, say, reach out to the families or, heck, join Trump at Arlington (click “expand”): BERMAN: [I]f I can, I want to ask you about this incident at Arlington National Cemetery, Donald Trump was invited there, he says, by the families of fallen service members killed two years ago during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But there was some kind of incident that took place. What kind of questions do you who have? TYLER: Yeah, listen, thank you so much for having me frankly, I think this episode is pretty sad when it’s all said and done. Listen, this is what we’ve come to expect from Donald Trump and his team. Donald Trump is a person who wants to make everything all about Donald Trump. He’s also somebody who has a history of defeating and degrading military service members, those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We know he’s referred to them as suckers and losers. We know that he belittles the Medal of Honor. And so, frankly, this is, while sad, it’s not surprising coming from the Trump team. I think it’s part of what the American people have come to reject when it comes to Donald Trump, they’re sick of the toxic brand of politics are sick of the MAGA extreme — Extremism and they’re sick of a person who, no matter what the issue is, is frankly just trying to serve himself rather than doing what one should be doing as a leader, which is fighting for the American people. And that’s exactly what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are going to be doing for the remainder of this campaign. And once they get back into the Oval Office for the next four years,  BERMAN: Donald Trump has denied he said suckers and losers. though retired General John Kelly — that is a story that has stemmed from comments that he has made. Herein lies the issue with anonymous sources. We have no idea what their motivations were to coming forward to CNN and the outlet that originally broke this story, NPR. Worse yet, no interview with even one family member from one of the 13 killed to explain their side of the story or talk about their loved one. With liberal journalists, their anonymous sources are pure, government servants, not fellow liberal partisans seeking a particular outcome. To see the relevant CNN News Central transcript from August 28, click here.

Law is imposed and upheld by force. When formalized, it is then used to dominate anyone who challenges its legal and political origins. During the 19th century, this lawmaking process occurred throughout the American West — especially with the charting of its geography. Costner provides one of the great gunfight scenes in the history of the Western: loud, sloppy, feverish, brutal, vicious — a shoot-out so good that an otherwise PG movie earned an R rating. Unclaimed territory presented a unique opportunity, where anyone crafty enough — regardless of their social status — could assert themselves as new American gentry. All they had to do was conquer a wilderness full of hostiles of every type and species. This journey across virgin terrain signified both total freedom and total potential for power. The open range was a world without boundaries, only endless hills and verdant pastures. But slowly, these wildlands accommodated wanderers, then settlements, then towns. Just as borders follow war, the regulation of the open range arrived in the form of barbed wire. The metallic domination of the earth was simple. "Open Range" screenwriter Craig Storper has said he aimed to craft a movie about "the evolution of violence in the West." Our two heroes — cattleman Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) and his second in command, Charley Waite — occupy a pivotal time in that evolution, the moment when a few men channeled violence to assert their claim to vast amounts of land. "These characters don't seek violence,” Storper says, but it turns out the be the only path to resolution.Free grazers “Open Range” begins with Spearman and Waite wandering a heavenly frontier. They have spent the past decade guiding free-range cattle through the West. Now, their endless meadow is being domesticated. The open range has been crowned with coils of razor fence. They may be roughnecks, but they take their hierarchy seriously, especially in view of the subordinate cattle hands, Button and Mose, who both have a childlike glow, a playfulness. By the time the credits finish, the Eden-like day collapses into dark, as the four cowpokes find themselves trapped in the plains by a torrential downpour. The storm forces them to wait out the rain with card games and banter as they squander their supplies. Mose treks to the nearby town of Harmonville to replenish their stores. Mose is played by “ER” mainstay Abraham Benrubi, who, at 6’7” and 300 pounds, typifies honest strength, a sort of Andre the Giant figure too imposing for most hoodlums to bother. When Mose doesn’t return, Spearman and Waite ride into the town. Nastiness and corruption await them. They learn that Mose was ambushed, beaten to the point of broken ribs, and tossed into a jail cell. Our two open-range heroes are then rebuffed by Irish-born rancher Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon), who tells them: “Folks in Fort Harmon country don’t take to free-grazers, or free grazing. They hate them — more than they used to hate the Indians.” (Note that there are no Indians in the movie, a deliberate choice by Costner to highlight the hostility of the town’s gatekeepers.) At the time, 1882, free grazing was still legal. But the gatekeepers of Harmonville are ready to put an end to the practice by any means necessary, legal or not. On one side of this crisis, there is total openness, the libertarian drive to be left alone. On the other, total confinement and demarcation, authoritarian in nature. Baxter serves the devil well, a pitiless, blood-starved maniac with a passion for Machiavellian schemes. 'Cows is one thing' This of course leads to a rivalry between the mysterious lawful outsiders and the criminal dignitaries in charge of local justice. The politics of the dynamic immediately start to boil. Good-bad versus bad-good, like an army surrounding a pocket of accidental rebels. It’s the exact sort of situation known to shake a gunslinger right back into action. And in the heat of this battle, the dormant hero will rise, overcoming past failures and past shame. But first they have to prepare for total violence. What started as a desire to be left alone has now become an altogether more direct mission: to eradicate Denton Baxter and his horde of unkempt goons. “Open Range” captures this scramble with the pause and dignity of a genuine openness, every confrontation miniaturized by the landscape. As tensions escalate, Baxter’s thugs leer down at the cattlemen's camp in bloodied masks. In the middle of prairie green, facing death shoulder to shoulder with Spearman, Waite asks, “You reckon them cows are worth getting killed over?” “Cows is one thing,” Spearman replies, “but one man tellin’ another man where he can go in this country's somethin' else.” The oldest genre The audacity of the villains sticks in Spearman’s craw. And now there’s no doubt that peace will first require warfare. It’s a sparse and jarring realization, as Michael Kamen's orchestral score tiptoes along. (Kamen also composed the soundtracks for “Die Hard,” "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," and “Lethal Weapon.") Amid it all, there’s the local physician's assistant, Sue Barlow (Annette Bening), who has beautiful eyelashes and the courage to stand up for what's right. Like her fellow townspeople, she roots for outsiders to upend the community's corrupt ruling class. It's obvious that Costner loved making “Open Range,” describing it as "a privilege and a thrill." He said, "I think if I never made another movie, I'd always be happy this was my last one." He began his directing career with twelve Oscar nominations and seven wins for “Dances with Wolves” (1990), a film that ushered in a new era for the Western. “Open Range” marked Costner’s third directorial performance, following 1997’s “The Postman,” a strange post-apocalyptic drama. It was also a return home. Costner is at his best in the realm of the Western, which he describes as our "oldest genre.” All the better if it sells tickets — “Open Range” justified its $22 million budget by grossing $68 million at the box office. And while it didn’t stir the Motion Picture Association, It earned a Bronze Wrangler at the 2004 Western Heritage Awards. “Open Range” takes a literary approach to the screen that we return to throughout the Wednesday Western series. It's based on the novel “The Open Range Men” (1990) by Lauran Paine, whose 900 books include Westerns that Costner fell in love with, shaping his bare approach to storytelling. Robert Duvall, appearing in his first Western role since “Lonesome Dove” nearly a decade and a half earlier, affirmed this sentiment: "The English have Dickens, the Russians have Tolstoy, we have Westerns." Authenticity above all The word “authenticity” recurs in analyses of “Open Range.” Partly, this refers to Costner’s devotion to accuracy, from the atomic level to the universal. Costner’s process made every part of the film deeply personal and studious, even fine-tuning the knob-tweaking on lighting and sound. He extended this highly choreographed approach to the entire movie. He demanded from the start that nothing, no matter how small or plain, be superficial. Even the most unnoticed props — utensils, tools, candy — were custom-made in order to be historically accurate. Particular attention went to the quality of the saddles, and even more for weaponry. The guns had to look, sound, feel, and even smell like the firearms of the 1880s. Costner kept all his revolvers after the film. Next, the authenticity of apparel. He was pleased with the plainness and accuracy of the costumes. The crew took pains to ensure that actors’ outfits were sullied and rumpled. To match these optics, Costner enrolled the cast in an immersive cowboy boot camp. Costner and Duvall spent additional time with hardened sherpas of the forgotten West. Beyond his decades in Hollywood, Robert Duvall has ranching experience. In his Texas-crafted leather boots, he brought Boss Spearman to life. Likewise, Bening spent the nearly two-month filming roped into a corset. You’d almost forget that the “American Beauty” actress is married to Warren Beatty in the way she dignified the role of Sue, whom Bening described as "a woman of real substance and simplicity." Costner chose Bening specifically for the role, giving her carte blanche in developing the character. He’s called her performance "timeless," adding, “This is how I'll always see her." Strong, silent type Then there’s the authenticity of the bond between Spearman, who pines for his days as a family man, and Waite, whom Costner described as "a good man who thinks he's bad.” To cement this dynamic, Costner gave top billing to Duvall, whose casting was a prerequisite for the movie to be made. Throughout “Open Range,” the two actors improvise lines with the mastery of Western legends. In these moments, you can see the influence of Gary Cooper on Kevin Costner’s acting. Over the course of long takes, Costner offers drama that unfolds organically. But the scenes had to be perfect. And they often were. Most were choreographed so well that many of them were shot in one take. To build the setting around our heroes, Costner conscripted 225 head of cattle. Many others were digitized or mechanical in order to pepper the landscape with animals. Then, zooming out wider still, Costner’s vision of the entire world they inhabit: “Open Range” is designed to feel wide open, engulfing the viewer. Costner scouted the sweeping landscape of that first scene by helicopter. From that first glimpse, “Open Range” is a classy, gorgeous, cinematic whirlwind. The visual power of its imagery transports you to this bygone paradise, captured by the cinematography of James Muro, who also worked with Costner on “Dances with Wolves."Building Harmonville As for the town of Harmonville and the surrounding area, Costner would only settle for a completely isolated location. He rejected several full-scale iterations of the town. Then, one day while riding his horse Crisco through the quiet nowhere of the Calgary hills, he found his hunk of marble, gently haloed by the Rocky Mountains. The construction of Harmonville cost the studio over $1 million, including a $40,000 project to build a road to the build site. Then, when Costner had sculpted his perfect world, the laws of nature played their part. Much of the film’s authenticity was a result of weather hardships that Costner and the crew endured. Repeatedly, the set was berated by torrential rain. But these disruptions thickened the skin of the film, deepened its unpredictability. It’s hard to tell which scenes were real and which were fabricated — the flood down Main Street, crafted by technical crew, cost the studio $300,000. Zoom out farther. Costner’s vision expands even broader than this, with thematic and historic intricacy beneath the flow of the action and dialogue. What does it all mean, in the commotion of existence? What does it reveal or liberate? Then there’s the drift of the film, its tenor and pace. In the editing room, Costner reintroduced scenes he had intended to cut, resulting in the nearly 2.5 hour run time. He said later that he deliberated a sense of lingering and slowness: “I really wanted people to settle down with this movie, with this place, and let them absorb our rhythms, the rhythms of the time.” In the audio commentary for the movie, as our heroes prepare for battle, Costner says, “We're headed now where all Westerns need to go: the shoot-out. It would be a mistake not to end a Western with a gunfight. It's the tradition.” He in turn provides one of the great gunfight scenes in the history of the Western: loud, sloppy, feverish, brutal, vicious — a shoot-out so good that an otherwise PG movie earned an R rating. Painstakingly choreographed, including several digital renderings, the scene lacks all the usual superhero grace and smoothness of a set piece shoot-out. Costner avoided the use of slow motion, so that the slowness feels natural and the haste perfectly dangerous and realistic. Pleased, he later referred to the scene as "a ballet." The aftermath of the killings brings division among our heroes. With bodies layered into the mud, Waite reloads, so that he can execute one of Baxter’s thugs. The man is badly injured and defenseless. Spearman stands between Waite and the man. “We come for justice, not vengeance. Now them is two different things,” says Spearman. Without pause: “Not today they ain’t.” "Open Range" is available on the usual streaming sites, including Tubi, where you can watch it for free.

The Biden-Harris Department of Justice got what it wanted last week when a federal jury all but guaranteed that concentration camp survivor 89-year-old Eva Edl would do prison time for peacefully protesting a variant of the dehumanization she thought she escaped when immigrating to America after World War II. Edl told nationally syndicated radio host and co-founder of Blaze Media Glenn Beck Wednesday that she is ready to die in prison for daring to do what many proved reluctant to do early in the 20th century: stand up for vulnerable human beings deemed unfit for life. "As a child, when I was pushed in that cattle car and nearly choked to death because we were so tightly put together — well, I wish that somebody in my country would have loved Jesus enough to risk their own freedom or even their lives and gathered in front of that train, stood on those railroad tracks to keep us from being shipped in there," said Edl. "Well, this is basically what I'm doing," continued Edl. "When I stand in front of those clinic doors, I'm just buying time for our sidewalk counselors to reach women in a calm and quiet way and touch their hearts." 'This was the land of the free and the brave.' Blaze News previously reported that at age 9, Edl was thrown into one of communist dictator Josip "Tito" Broz's concentration camps in Yugoslavia along with thousands of other Danube Swabians who had been collectively branded as Nazi collaborators by Tito's communist Partisans and targeted for their German ethnic backgrounds. "At the end of the war, the communists came in," Edl told Beck. "They decided to just say, 'Because you are of an ethnic background of a certain evil group, ... your blood is already evil. So even if you're a newborn baby, you are evil in itself and have to be exterminated.' And that was their excuse." Edl suggested that the motivation behind such bloodletting both then and now is really greed. However, it is often masked by ideology and pseudoscience. "Our natural mind can justify anything our evil hearts want to do," said Edl. She suffered the consequences of such twisted justifications, losing all of the skin on her legs in camp Gakowa, where she was also hobbled by sores. "People gagged when they came near me," she said. "The flies and the fleas and the lice and the bed bugs just loved this festering body." Edl and her remaining family members managed to escape to Austria, then bounced around various European refugee camps before moving to the United States. When asked by Beck whether she ever envisioned facing prison in America, Edl answered, "No, no. When I came here, I was so idealistic. This was the land of the free and the brave." "I thought if I ever ended up in court, all I would have to do is explain my situation," continued Edl. "I found out very differently." A federal judge found Edl guilty of a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act earlier this year for staging a peaceful protest inside the Carafem abortion clinic in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, on March 5, 2021. The protest involved songs and prayer in support of those persons who had been and would be slain deep inside the slaughterhouse. Edl explained to Beck the strategy anti-abortion activists have settled upon, despite its obvious legal risks: I was a sidewalk counselor for many years and a rescuer, but when you're so far away from the women as they jump out of the car, you only have a few seconds, but you have to shout in order to be heard, which sounds like you're screaming at them. But by standing in front of the door and buying time for our sidewalk counselors to approach women, it's much more effective, I believe, and women get help, and there are many that are just grateful afterwards that we were there and kept them from murdering their own babies. On Aug. 20, Edl was convicted in a separate case for supposedly obstructing access to an abortion clinic in Saginaw, Michigan, on April 16, 2021. According to the Biden-Harris DOJ, "The evidence proved that Edl and Idoni violated the FACE Act by using physical obstruction to interfere with the clinic's employees and patients because the clinic was providing, and patients were seeking, reproductive health services." 'Have mercy on this nation.' The DOJ, which has its own pro-abortion task force, deemed the result a "victory" and assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division went further, thanking the jury and vowing to "continue to hold accountable those that oppress the free exercise" of the supposed right to obtain an abortion. "These defendants orchestrated an unlawful clinic blockade and physically obstructed patients seeking access to their doctors, without regard to the serious medical needs of the women they blocked from accessing reproductive health care," Clarke said in a statement. "We thank the jury for the [sic] time, attention, and careful consideration of the facts of this case." U.S. attorney Dawn N. Ison for the Eastern District of Michigan stated, "This case is about the rule of law, and today's verdict is a victory for that principle." Facing jail time for playing her part in the implementation of this strategy, Edl told Beck, "I'm prepared to die in there, and I'm not afraid, really." "I believe in the Lord Jesus. I have eternal life now in him," continued Edl. "So why would I be afraid? The main reason I'm doing what I'm doing is simply in obedience to him. He said in John 14, he said: 'He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.' And I love him and therefore I keep his commandments.'" Beck, visibly moved by Edl remarks, asked that she lead the show and its audience in prayer. Edl obliged him saying, "Lord, we humbly come in the name of Jesus. Lord, our nation is in dire trouble. Lord God, we are ripe for judgment, Lord, and if we don't change, you have to judge us because the blood of these innocents that have been murdered throughout the years — not just 60 million [but] many more — Lord, innocent blood cries out for justice, and Lord, there is still no repentance in our nation." "Father, I just pray: in your mercy, give us a spirit of humility and repentance before you. Let your church arise and love you, Jesus, by obeying you, Lord," continued the concentration camp survivor. "Lord, we ask you, in Jesus' name, Father, that you will shake our consciences and bring us into obedience before you, Lord, and have mercy on this nation." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Joe Rogan slammed MSNBC for “deceptively editing” a video clip that made it appear that the massively popular podcaster was praising Vice President Kamala Harris.As Blaze News previously reported earlier this month, Rogan predicted that Harris would defeat former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election — not necessarily on her merits but rather by the overwhelming propaganda supporting Kamala.'I think someone that’s willing to do something like that — that’s a real offense.' During an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast with guest Michael Malice that aired on July 30, Rogan torched the Democratic Party for not embracing Tulsi Gabbard as a presidential candidate because it had an agenda. Rogan touted Gabbard as "a strong woman.""She is a person who served overseas twice in a medical unit," he added. "So she got to see people blown up by the war. She was a congresswoman for eight years."MSNBC posted the clip from the "The Joe Rogan Experience" on its TikTok social media page and edited it to make it appear that Rogan was referring to Harris during those remarks instead of Gabbard. Gabbard posted the MSNBC clip on her X social media account with the caption: "MSNBC is again EXPOSED as a propaganda machine for the Democrat Elite, and how they will brazenly try to deceive the American people."On Aug. 2, Gabbard described the MSNBC clip as "completely false."She added, "Furthermore, it’s another violation of the FEC law by failing to report their propaganda as a contribution to Kamala’s campaign."MSNBC has since replaced the questionable clip and issued a correction."We have removed an earlier version of this post that incorrectly implied Joe Rogan was talking more about Vice President Kamala Harris. He was referring to Tulsi Gabbard," MSNBC stated in a note added to the new version of the videoRogan commented on the edited MSNBC clip on a recent episode of his incredibly popular podcast. Rogan also addressed the unfounded rumors on social media that he was going to sue MSNBC for $30 million regarding the edited video clip. Rogan noted that his stepfather recently called him to tell him that he is "happy" that he is suing MSNBC. Rogan responded, "I'm not suing MSNBC."The prolific podcaster explained, "But this is what MSNBC did: They took a clip of me talking about Tulsi Gabbard, and they edited it up and made it look like I was saying great things about Kamala Harris."Guest Andrew Huberman — podcaster and neuroscientist — responded in shock, "Wait, what?"Rogan responded, "They just deceptively edited the things I was saying. They took it completely out of context what I was talking about. First of all, I was talking about Tulsi Gabbard, and then I was talking about the media behind Kamala Harris, all this surge and all these people deciding that she can win, and they put the two of those together and made it seem like I was praising Kamala Harris."Rogan noted that he was absolutely talking about Gabbard's accomplishments, such as serving overseas as part of two deployments in the military. "That’s not something Kamala Harris did," he stressed. "That’s something Tulsi Gabbard did."Rogan blasted MSNBC, "They don’t care about the truth; they just want a narrative to get out there amongst enough people because most people are just surface readers."“We’re in a very weird time with media, and I think truth is super important," he continued. "I think someone that’s willing to do something like that — that’s a real offense. It's a real offense. It's not a small thing. It's a real lie, and it’s a lie that changes other people's opinions."Rogan said "gross" lies like that are "dangerous." Rogan has not officially endorsed Harris or Trump but did heap praise on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before he ended his presidential campaign earlier this month. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!