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News Grendel The Jim Henson Company’s Live-Action Grendel Cast Includes Jeff Bridges, Dave Bautista, & Bryan Cranston The project is based on John Gardner’s 1971 novel that tells the story of Beowulf through the monster’s eyes. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on May 13, 2024 Credit: Byron Cohen/FX Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Byron Cohen/FX The Jim Henson Company is working on a live-action feature film of John Gardner’s 1971 novel, Grendel, which is a reimagining of Beowulf, the Old English poem you likely read in school, told from the perspective of the monster in that story, Grendel. According to Variety, the cast of Grendel is shaping out nicely, with Tron and R.I.P.D. alum Jeff Bridges (pictured above in the 2022 FX series, The Old Man) playing the titular Grendel(!), Dave Bautista playing Beowulf, and Bryan Cranston taking on the role of King Hrothgar. Additional cast members include Thomasin McKenzie as Queen Wealhtheow, Aidan Turner as Unferth and T Bone Burnett as the Shaper. Burnett will also provide original songs for the film. Unsurprisingly, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop will create the feature’s practical creatures. The movie will be directed by Robert D. Krzykowski (The Man Who Killed Hitler), who also penned the script adaptation. This project is completely separate from the Grendel series, which was in development at Netflix but has since been shut down. “Grendel represents everything I love about the movies,” Krzykowski in a statement to Variety. “John Gardner’s mad masterpiece cleverly tackles what it is to be human through the wild-eyed lens of a monster. It’s an honor to work with such a remarkable group of storytellers, all of whom seek to bring something wonderful and unexpected to audiences now.” Brian Henson, producer and Chair of the Board of The Jim Henson Company said in the same statement, “The Jim Henson Company is internationally known for our world creation and character creation. And we are most inspired when a character has a richly authentic personality, and can be sophisticated, thought-provoking, and believable. Grendel is the ultimate character, and will be brought to life using our Creature Shop’s cutting-edge practical techniques in combination with Dennis Berardi’s amazing digital effects.” Production on Grendel is set to begin in Europe later this year. [end-mark] The post The Jim Henson Company’s Live-Action <i>Grendel</i> Cast Includes Jeff Bridges, Dave Bautista, & Bryan Cranston appeared first on Reactor.

In just nine years, the oldest Gen-Xers will reach Social Security’s normal retirement age of 67. But they will have a rude awakening when they learn that the program’s trust fund is empty, leaving it able to pay out only as much in benefits as it takes from the paychecks of those then working. That’s straight from the Social Security trustees 2024 report. It also notes that without congressional action, benefits will have to be cut by 21% across the board—including for those already retired—beginning in 2033. Cuts or Taxes For the average beneficiary, who receives about $22,000 a year from Social Security, that 21% cut will translate into a loss of $4,600 per year. As Social Security benefits will grow faster than payroll taxes for the foreseeable future, benefit cuts will reach 31% at the end of the trustees’ 75-year projections. Simply maintaining currently scheduled Social Security benefits would require large tax increases. The program’s trustees estimate that payroll taxes would have to rise immediately from 12.4% to 15.7%, adding $2,500 to the median household’s annual Social Security taxes. Even that projected hike may be too conservative. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a 17.5% tax, or an extra $3,800 per year for the median family, is necessary to maintain current Social Security benefits. Such high tax rates are a far cry from Social Security’s original intent. The program started out as a 2% tax, and its founders promised it would never take more than 6% of workers’ paychecks. And for a program that currently replaces about 40% of workers’ earnings during retirement (and will decline to 32% beginning in 2033), the current 12.4% tax is a hefty price to pay. If workers invested that amount in a conservative mix of stocks and bonds, they should have enough at retirement to replace at least 75% of their earnings. Even as Social Security was never intended to be the sole source of income in retirement, its rising taxes have made it increasingly difficult, particularly for lower- and middle-income workers, to save for retirement. In fact, Social Security’s growing size and scope could be exacerbating wealth inequality because the hard truth is that Social Security is not a savings program, and workers have no ownership of the Social Security taxes they pay. Despite Social Security’s original intent to be a predominantly prefunded and effectively a forced-savings program, it now functions as a pure intergenerational transfer program. That happened because Social Security’s benefits increased more than its tax hikes. A Bad Deal In every year since 2011, Social Security has paid out more in benefits than it has received in tax revenues. This means that workers’ payroll tax “contributions” aren’t saved and don’t earn a positive rate of return over time. Although the formula that determines retirees’ benefits is based on what they paid in Social Security taxes, their actual benefits come directly from younger workers’ paychecks. After 2033, retirees’ benefits will be entirely dependent on how much future lawmakers are willing to extract from workers’ paychecks. The fact that Social Security taxes aren’t saved makes the program a bad deal for most Americans. It can also exacerbate wealth inequality among low-income and minority Americans who have lower life expectancies. One out of every four black men dies between the ages of 45 and 64, having paid tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in Social Security taxes. But because they have no ownership of their contributions, they and their family members receive little or nothing in return.  What could have been a $350,000 retirement account that a low-income worker would have to pass on to his family is often just a $255 death payment instead. With less than a decade left before Social Security runs out of money and automatic 21% benefit cuts ensue, lawmakers must act now to prevent insolvency and to improve the program for future generations.  Some commonsense solutions include gradually shifting to a universal benefit based on years of work instead of total earnings, automatically updating the program’s eligibility age to align with changes in life expectancy, and using more accurate statistics to adjust benefits. Not much time These reforms would translate into bigger paychecks for all Americans by allowing Social Security’s tax rate to decline over time. Moreover, if coupled with a personal ownership option, Social Security reform could help more Americans build wealth that could increase their retirement incomes and provide a leg up to help their children and grandchildren pursue goals like education, homeownership, or starting a small business. Whatever lawmakers do, they must act soon. Time isn’t on our side. Distributed by Tribune News Service The post Someone’s Going to Have to Pay a Lot for Your Social Security appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: Actor Steve Buscemi was the victim of an assault on Wednesday, according to his publicist. “Steve Buscemi was assaulted in Mid-Town Manhattan, another victim of a random act of violence in the city. He is ok and appreciates everyone’s well wishes, though incredibly sad for everyone that this has happened to while also walking the streets of NY,” Buscemi’s publicist said, according to Fox News Digital. This assault is part of an increasing trend of violent assaults taking place in New York City, many seemingly at random. Jarrett Stepman explained what’s driving this phenomenon in a commentary piece published on April 2. Here is the piece, republished below. “How many more police officers and how many families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them?” Stephanie Diller asked in a moving eulogy to her slain NYPD officer husband. This past weekend a funeral was held for Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Far Rockaway, Queens, in March. The event was attended by hundreds of police officers and a few politicians. Some of those politicians, among them New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, weren’t exactly warmly welcomed. That shouldn’t be a surprise, as the top officials in New York seem more consumed by their ideological, banana republic-style crusades against former President Donald Trump and his supporters than in dealing with escalating chaos in the city. One of Diller’s alleged assailants, Lindy Jones, a man who goes by the street name “Killa,” according to the New York Post—yes, really—had at least 14 prior arrests and was out on bail on a gun-possession charge last year. The man who police say fired the gun, Guy Rivera, had more than 20 prior arrests, according to Mayor Eric Adams. That highlights a perverse problem that increasingly plagues New York and other big, Democrat-run cities: repeat offenders being released from jail, committing more crimes, and creating more victims. It’s no accident that Daniel Penny, who inadvertently killed a homeless man while trying to protect subway passengers, faces prosecution but countless, repeat criminals end up back on the streets.  That is leftist “social justice” in action. Oh, but our media gatekeepers of left-wing narratives say that the surge in crime is all fake news, a right-wing conspiracy. People with two eyes and common sense aren’t buying it. “New York City is in the midst of a surge of violent behavior,” wrote City Journal editor Seth Barron on Wednesday. “An NYPD officer was murdered this week on the same day that a man was pushed to his death in front of a subway car. The same day saw multiple, unrelated stabbings in the subway system.” You have to be willfully blind not to notice that more brazen, violent incidents are taking place, often in broad daylight. Barron explained how New York, which became one of America’s safest big cities thanks to the adoption of anti-crime policies a few decades ago under then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is now sliding backward. The city is now seeing the “steady and methodical decomposition of the machinery of public order,” Barron wrote. It’s worth quoting Barron at length on how New York is slowly disavowing the policies that allow it to maintain order: The City Council has passed legislation effectively legalizing public drinking, littering, graffiti, and urination. The Council has interposed itself between police and the public with a host of reporting requirements, the intent of which is to dissuade cops from interacting with people in the first place.  Stop-and-frisk, a constitutionally permitted practice, has been virtually eliminated, and the NYPD has been placed under federal monitorship. That’s not all. The city also has passed so-called bail reform and reduced penalties for shoplifting.  How is that working out? New York has had the largest increase in shoplifting of any city since 2019. And most of those crimes are being committed by the same small group of people. “According to NYC Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, nearly one-third of the city’s shoplifting arrests last year involved just 327 people,” Outkick reported last April. “Collectively, those same 327 people were arrested, released and rearrested more than 6,000 times. That’s more than 18 arrests per person. In a single year.” The problem is not just that crime is increasing in the aggregate sense. It’s the general feeling of anarchy and lawlessness that people now feel because of wrongheaded policies. The crime that perhaps most symbolizes the rapid disintegration of public safety is women getting randomly punched in the face, often while they’re looking down at their cellphones. “I was literally just walking, and a man came up and punched me in the face. Oh, my god, it hurts so bad, I can’t even talk,” said 23-year-old Halley Kate in recent video that went viral. She had a massive lump on her head. Now, I must admit that I secretly harbor fantasies of shoving young people slowly ambling along the sidewalk, looking down at their phones in a state of obliviousness. But as a civilized man, I keep my heart of darkness under control. Not so with a growing number of men who have decided to just unleash haymakers on defenseless, unsuspecting women. Incredibly, it seems that some of the men who have committed these violent assaults have been released without bail, despite prior arrests for violent assault. New York City is becoming sucker punch city, where illegal aliens and criminals come first, and law-abiding citizens and police officers come last. This issue isn’t going to be fixed by having National Guardsmen rifle through women’s purses in the subway system. It gets solved when the people committing crimes are seriously punished for committing crimes. It gets solved when the district attorney holds people responsible for their actions. Unless and until that change happens, New York and plenty of other cities that have been at the forefront of the “progressive” justice movement will suffer increasing anarchy, fear, and violence. The post Actor Steve Buscemi Assaulted in New York. Here’s How the Big Apple Became Sucker Punch City. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A foreign national named Paul registered to vote at a local office of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles and records show that he voted, although he says his American wife voted after being accidentally checked in under his name.  Another noncitizen, Najib, also was registered to vote at a motor vehicles office, and his name was discovered on the voter rolls after a year, but he hadn’t voted in that time.  In these and other cases, the city of Boston flagged the noncitizens and removed them from voter registration lists.  In fact, the largest city in New England—although commonly viewed as a liberal bastion—could serve as a national model on this aspect of election integrity, according to new findings by Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative watchdog group. “In Boston, voter registration records disclosed to PILF demonstrate that Boston and other Massachusetts municipal systems—although not perfect—are a good example for how other states could tackle the noncitizen voting question,” says the report, first provided to The Daily Signal. Public Interest Legal Foundation’s findings come as Congress considers requiring proof of citizenship for voting in federal elections and another bill to restore a citizenship question to the U.S. census form.  “We are not looking at this through an ideological lens so much as a data lens,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “This illustrates how this population data can be used by states to help in election administration.” Adams noted that Massachusetts is among a few states that conduct their own census, or population tally, outside the census conducted by the U.S. government every 10 years.  The proof-of-citizenship legislation is not likely to pass the Democrat-led Senate, but at least in this narrow area, Massachusetts provides an example for other states on the issue of foreign citizens listed on U.S. voter registration rolls, Adams said.  “Rather than reimagining the future, states should take this data tool that Massachusetts uses and apply it,” he said.  Although every Democrat in the House recently voted against restoring a citizenship question to the census, Massachusetts law requires an annual census, or “annual resident listing,” that includes questions about citizenship status and voter registration and is used by local governments. “Any registered voter who fails to complete the annual survey is warned that their voting status will be changed to INACTIVE until they comply,” says the report by Public Interest Legal Foundation, which is narrowly focused on tracking citizenship. Overall, The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard ranks Massachusetts as 45th out of 50 states. (The Heritage Foundation launched The Daily Signal in 2014.) The study by Public Interest Legal Foundation concludes that Boston’s voter registration system manages to “catch and cancel foreign nationals listed throughout the roll on a roughly two-year churn.” “Unfortunately, a significant percentage of these disclosed records show that votes are still cast and counted within those years before discovery,” the report says.  The Boston city government this year provided information to Public Interest Legal Foundation that showed the city canceled voter registrations of 70 noncitizens. Most canceled registrations occurred in 2016 and 2017, with 13 in each year.  On average, foreign citizens were registered to vote for two years before being discovered and dropped from the rolls. But the longest known period was 24 years, and the earliest known year it occurred was 1995.  “Roughly 18% of Boston registrants were mailed confirmation notices prior to a reclassification to inactive status during the period,” the foundation’s report says. “Also, during this time, about 13% of Boston registrants were shed from the voter roll for reasons such as relocation, inactivity, and death.”  The report also points to other specific examples, such as a noncitizen named Hai who was registered to vote for a year and a half before Boston removed him, and Fred, who was registered for two years before being removed. Neither voted and both were registered at a local motor vehicles office.  A pattern of ineligible voters being registered at motor vehicle offices is a national problem that can be traced back to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, popularly known as the “motor voter law,” which allows someone to register to vote while getting a driver’s license. “Foreign nationals are reflexively offered applications to vote and they unwittingly accept,” Public Interest Legal Foundation’s report says, adding:  The 24 states plus D.C. that have automatic motor voter [registration], meaning they are not giving the immigrant a chance to decline registration, exacerbate the problem. States giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants increase traffic to DMVs. States with higher amounts of legal immigration mean even more driver’s licenses or state IDs are needed for daily life (and increases the risk of screening immigrants for voter registration).  The post EXCLUSIVE: Here’s Where This Blue State Could Be a National Model for Election Integrity appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NYT/Siena Battleground Poll: Voters Want Change -- Again

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