Books Teen Horror Time Machine Game, Set, Match: Tennis Terror in When No One Was Looking and Win, Lose or Die  Cue the Challengers score… By Alissa Burger | Published on July 11, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share There are a handful of teen horror covers that I can still picture vividly decades later, the memory of which evoke a specific moment in time and in my life, grounding me once more in my middle school library or the local mall bookstore. Christopher Pike’s The Midnight Club. R.L. Stine’s The Babysitter. Richie Tankersley Cusick’s Trick or Treat. One of the covers that remains memorable from that time is When No One Was Looking by Rosemary Wells, with its ominously dented tennis racket beside a blue pool with a cluster of bubbles rising to the surface. It’s a clear, focused image and tells a seemingly straightforward story: someone got whacked with a tennis racket and has drowned (or is drowning—with the frozen state of the bubbles, it’s hard to tell. Are they still rising? Are these the last few?) And in case there was any uncertainty, the memorable tagline (“… somebody died”) clears that up with a cursory glance. So you can imagine my surprise when I picked this book up again after all these years and found that while it was republished by Scholastic in 1991, presumably to cash in on the early days of the teen paperback horror trend, it was originally published in 1980.  This realization presented a fascinating rabbit hole of exploration, including the novel’s different covers over the years, which range from a soft-focus teen problem-style illustration of a conflicted girl staring wistfully off into the middle distance to more shadowy, to brooding covers featuring some combination of pools, a tennis racket, and tennis balls, underscoring the mystery elements of the story with a cover note on the novel’s Edgar Allan Poe Special Award. When No One Was Looking offers a fascinating case study all its own, in considering the different marketing strategies and cover designs that indicate the range of ways in which the book appealed to readers with varying expectations in disparate cultural contexts. In considering it within the context of 1990s teen horror novels—a position which is complex and somewhat contentious—it also serves as an interesting parallel to Diane Hoh’s Nightmare Hall book Win, Lose or Die (1994).  Both books focus on young, competitive female tennis players and present some of the darker sides of competition and driven young athletes, but their approaches are very different and only Hoh’s is really at home in this ‘90s teen horror context. While the cover of When No One Was Looking was redesigned for its 1991 Scholastic republication to catch the eye—and disposable income—of teen horror readers and I’m sure that fans of Hoh, Stine, and Pike read it within that context, the story has a completely different style, more understated and internally-focused than those ‘90s books. While I could vividly recall the cover imagery all these years later, I soon realized that I had absolutely no memory of the story itself. It’s not necessarily better or worse than those other books, but it’s definitely a different kind of story, seemingly shoehorned into the Point Horror aesthetic to capitalize on the trend.  In When No One Was Looking, Kathy Bardy is a fourteen-year-old tennis phenom. She practices relentlessly, has a part-time job at the local country club to help offset the cost of her membership to access the courts, and has an award-winning coach named Marty, whose no-nonsense, tough love approach skirts right up to the line of abusive (and arguably sometimes crosses it). Kathy was “discovered” at a tennis clinic a couple of years prior, when she was just hitting the ball around for something fun to do, and now she seems on pace to win the Junior Championship and even potentially go pro in just a few short years. She’s got innate talent and the drive to work hard to hone her skills … and she’s also got a ferocious temper. She beats just about everybody, until she goes up against Ruth Gumm, a new girl in town, who is a bit clumsy, round-faced with a bad complexion, and impossible for Kathy to win against. When she plays Ruth, Kathy always makes mistakes and loses her cool, and her stress level spikes when she finds out she has to play Ruth in a tournament to secure her spot in the national competition. With everything on the line, Kathy’s not sure she can win, though she never has to find out, because just before the tournament, Ruth turns up dead in the club pool. Everyone tells Kathy it was a tragic accident, to keep her mind on tennis, and just keep winning, but Kathy can’t help wondering whether someone close to her murdered Ruth to clear her path to greatness, which then cascades into her questioning her own ability, the stakes of her success, and whether she even really likes tennis at all.  Everything is riding on Kathy’s success: her working-class family has put all of their resources into Kathy’s tennis, including drastic budget-cutting measures like moving Kathy’s grandma from a decent (though not exactly great) nursing home to a pretty terrible one. The whole family makes sacrifices and their lives all revolve around tennis, as they accompany Kathy to tournament after tournament, study her opponents so they can brief her between matches, and drag Kathy’s less tennis-enthused younger sister and brother along for the ride. (The Bardy family’s lack is cast in even starker relief by Kathy’s constant comparison of their lives with that of her best friend Julia Redmond and her family, who are incredibly wealthy, have servants, and jet off on European vacations.) Kathy’s hometown has similarly high expectations of her and people are willing to bend the rules to a horrifying degree to ensure she succeeds and makes them all look good: the superintendent of her school sets things up so that Kathy can cheat on her Algebra test and pass the class, while the chief of police overlooks any evidence that might point to foul play in Ruth’s death, in order to protect Kathy. There’s also Oliver, who claims to be a freshman at Yale University and takes a quasi-romantic interest in Kathy, though it’s never clear whether his intentions are friendly or predatory (or even who he really is, as there are conflicting rumors and speculation). Either way, a college freshman obsessively hanging around a fourteen year old girl is really unsettling, particularly as he insinuates himself into Kathy’s life and family. The Bardys, her coach, and Kathy’s community are all making a serious investment in Kathy, one that they expect she will someday repay by improving all of their lives when she makes it big and goes pro. It’s all riding on Kathy, so when she’s worried about her mental health, thinking about quitting tennis, and would rather be playing baseball, no one really cares. Their advice is simple and non-negotiable: get back out there, hit the practice courts, and win. No excuses, no exceptions. In Hoh’s Win, Lose or Die, Nicki Bedsoe is a freshman in college and has a bit more agency and control over her choices, though tennis is an overwhelming influence in her life as well. Like Kathy, Nicki spent her adolescence competing in tournament after tournament, and like Kathy, Nicki also had a temper she had some trouble controlling, throwing a racket after a particularly challenging loss when she was twelve years old. Despite these stresses, tennis was a lifeline throughout Nicki’s childhood: her father was in the military and her family moved around a lot when she was growing up, which made tennis an essential core part of her identity, and key to her acceptance in new places, as she could always find a social group with her fellow players, as long as she was good enough to bring something vital to the team and help them win. At the beginning of Win, Lose or Die, Nicki gets recruited by the Salem University tennis coach and transfers there from a larger state college, drawn by the full academic scholarship the coach offers her, which is an economic necessity that Nicki can’t turn down.  Competition among the Salem University tennis team is high and Nicki is not welcomed with open arms, especially by team superstar Libby DeVoe. While the tensions originally start as typical mean girl antics, things quickly become more dangerous and even deadly, when Barb, one of Nicki’s teammates, is electrocuted in a whirlpool “accident” intended for Nicki, and someone fills one of Nicki’s tennis balls with red paint and paint thinner, in an attempt to sabotage and blind her. Nicki can’t figure out why someone would want to hurt or kill her, until she finds out a dark secret about her own past: when she hurled that tennis racket in a fit of temper six years ago, a piece of flying gravel flew up and injured another kid, blinding him in one eye and ending his tennis career. Her parents paid for all of the child’s medical expenses but never told Nicki, and because their family moved right after the tournament, she never saw it on the news or heard about it from anyone else, until some of her teammates at Salem remember and talk about the tournament (though they don’t know she’s the one who threw the racket). While Nicki has been suspicious of and on guard against her tennis teammates since arriving at Salem, with this revelation, she now becomes leery of anyone who isn’t a tennis player, which means she can’t trust anyone at all.  In both When No One Was Looking and Win, Lose or Die, it seems like literally everyone is a suspect. While the public message is that Ruth Gumm’s death was a tragic accident, when Ruth’s parents insist on an investigation, the police (begrudgingly) work to figure out where Kathy, her parents, her coach, and even her little sister were at when Ruth died. The only potential clue is some clay that was tracked into the pool area, which seems to place the suspected murderer at the tennis tournament before they came to take Ruth out of the picture, and those in Kathy’s orbit seem to be the people with the strongest motives. Similarly, in Win, Lose or Die, the suspect list is long and complicated: some of Nicki’s tennis teammates could potentially want to hurt her, either out of jealousy or to gain a competitive edge by driving her off the team or eliminating her. The mystery child Nicki accidentally blinded has a clear motive for revenge. Outside of tennis, Nicki makes friends with Deacon and Mel, two fellow students known for getting into trouble, with misdeeds that range from spiking the sloppy joes at a fraternity party with a whole lot of hot sauce to shoplifting.  Kathy and Nicki are both left with no one they can trust and few people they can talk to, with the exception of an intimate inner circle of trusted friends—in Kathy’s case, this is her wealthy best friend Julia, while Nicki turns to Pat and Ginnie, the only two teammates at Salem who have welcomed her with kindness and open arms. Both girls’ lives shrink down to these insular safe spaces with just a trusted friend or two, which makes it even more devastating when they find out that these are the very people responsible for the horrors they have encountered. In When No One Was Looking, Kathy realizes that Julia is the culprit when the police chief tells her that they have officially ruled Ruth’s death an accident and eliminated all tennis-related suspects, because the material found at the pool wasn’t clay after all, but a special type of art plaster that only Kathy knows Julia had access to. There’s no clear motivation provided and Kathy never asks Julia about it, so readers don’t get to hear her side of the story. Instead, in the book’s final pages, Kathy is nearly incapacitated by this realization, thinking to herself “Ruth is dead, in part because of you … Julia has to live with what happened, and as much as your connection to it is as thin as a spider’s thread, it is part of your life now too” (217). Kathy contemplates quitting tennis altogether, but finds herself thinking even more about Julia and how “Giving her up would be infinitely trickier than throwing a racket into the sea” (218). In Win, Lose or Die, Nicki finds the mystery kid she accidentally blinded, though he turns out to be a fellow student and all around nice guy named Jon, who harbors her no ill will. Tennis is still at the heart of the conflict, however, as Nicki finds out that the full scholarship the coach offered her was taken away from someone else: Nicki’s friend Pat, who is willing to kill Nicki to make her pay for what Pat has lost.   There are some resonant themes between When No One Was Looking and Win, Lose or Die, including cutthroat competition, economic inequity, and the pressure put on high-achieving young athletes. But they also each clearly reflect their specific moment and genre context. When No One Was Looking is just as invested in the conflicts and desires of the adult characters as it is in Kathy’s, while in true teen horror fashion, the students of Salem University are a world unto themselves in Win, Lose or Die. When No One Was Looking is a mystery rather than a horror story, and the mystery is bifurcated between who killed Ruth Gumm and how Kathy will choose to define herself. It’s a coming-of-age story that is ultimately unresolved. Kathy has been transformed by her experience of and proximity to Ruth’s death, even doubting herself and how others see her. She could keep playing tennis or quit. She could stay friends with Julia or cut her out of her life completely. Any of these choices seem possible, though none of them will change what happened or give Kathy back the life or innocence she had before. In contrast, Win, Lose or Die is much more action-oriented: terrifying things happen, while Nicki tries to figure out why they’re happening, who’s doing it, and how to stay alive. There is definitely some internal growth and self-reflection, particularly when she learns about the child she blinded, but the main focus of the story and its conflict is much more externally-focused that that of When No One Was Looking. And unlike Kathy, in the end, Nicki’s life pretty much goes back to normal, as in the book’s final pages, Nicki realizes that she and her friends had “put the whole horrible business behind them … Exactly where it belonged” (209).  There is an insularity and repetition in ‘90s teen horror paperbacks, where everything is set relatively right at the story’s end, reset so it can go horrifically wrong all over again in the next installment, a nightmare of Sisyphean proportions. But in the end, that still might be easier than the existential crisis Kathy’s left holding at the end of When No One Was Looking, where nothing can go back to the way it once was and some of the horrors still wait around the next corner.[end-mark] The post Game, Set, Match: Tennis Terror in <em>When No One Was Looking</em> and <em>Win, Lose or Die</em>  appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Canada’s government has decided to spend some $146.6 million (CAD 200 million) and employ, full-time, 330 more people to be able to implement the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63). That is the monetary cost of bureaucratic red tape necessary to make this bill, which has moved for a second reading in Canada’s House of Commons, eventually happen. At the same time, the cost to the country’s democracy could be immeasurable – given some of this sweeping censorship legislation’s more draconian provisions, primarily focused on what the authorities choose to consider to be “hate speech.” Some of those provisions could land people under house arrest, and have their internet access cut simply for “fear” they could, going forward, commit “hate crime” or “hate propaganda.” If these are found to be committed in conjunction with other crimes, the envisaged punishment could be life in prison. Meanwhile, money fines go up to $51,080. And, to make matters even more controversial, the proposed law appears to apply to statements retroactively, namely, those made before Bill C-63’s possible passage and enactment as law. The new body, the Digital Safety Commission, Ombudsperson, and Office will be in charge, and this is where the money will go and where the staff amount to 330 people. The spending estimate that has recently come to light covers the five years until 2029. The office’s task – if the bill passes – will be to monitor, regulate, and censor online platforms, as per the Online Harms Act. Critics of the law are making a point of the distorted sense of priorities among Canada’s currently ruling regime, where a large amount of money is to be spent here, while vital sectors – such as combating actual, real-life serious crimes face funding restrictions. Some of the purely pragmatic opposition to the bill has to do with the belief that it will – while violating citizens’ freedoms and rights – actually, prove to be unable to tackle what it is supposedly designed to do – various forms of online harassment. And that’s not all. “Canadian taxpayers will likely be stuck footing the bill for a massive bureaucracy that will allow Big Tech companies to negotiate favorable terms with non-elected regulators behind closed doors,” is how MP Michelle Rempel Garner articulated it. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Canada Allocates $146.6M for New Censorship Commission to Enforce Online Harms Act appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

#Bidenomics Update: What EV Slump? Throw Me the Money!!!

Ancient DNA can reveal all sorts of things about the past – from the mysteries of human evolution to the secrets of Earth’s prehistoric climate. We’ve found some pretty old examples of it – but what is the oldest DNA ever recovered?What is ancient DNA?DNA is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic information for the development, functioning, growth, and reproduction of that organism. Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient sources.Molecules of DNA are fairly fragile and degrade over time, which means that finding really old examples is incredibly rare – but not impossible…Oldest DNA ever discoveredThe world’s oldest DNA was discovered in 2022 – and it’s an astonishing 2 million years old.Unearthed in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland, the genetic material had been locked in permafrost since the Pliocene. Once sequenced, the DNA opened up a window into the past, shedding light on the array of animals and plants that once inhabited the area.These included reindeer, geese, hares, rodents, crabs, and mastodon, as well as poplar, birch, and thuja trees, and a variety of Arctic and boreal shrubs and herbs.Prior to this discovery, the oldest DNA ever recovered came from 1.2-million-year-old mammoth teeth unearthed in Siberian permafrost. It marked the first time that DNA exceeding 1 million years old had been retrieved from an ancient organism. Although only around half as old as the Greenland samples, this DNA was recovered directly from biological material, making it the oldest to be sequenced from physical specimens.Another noteworthy example of some really old DNA hailed from a horse found preserved in Canadian permafrost in 2013, which was dated to between 780,000 and 560,000 years old. It held the record for oldest DNA until it was bested by the mammoth molar.What is the oldest human DNA?But enough about ancient animals – what about human DNA?Things get a little trickier when it comes to ancient humans. Our ancestors first evolved in Africa, where it gets pretty hot – and, as you may have noticed, all of the examples mentioned above are from much colder climes.DNA degrades quicker in warmer climates, so finding ancient examples of it that are not in permafrost is no mean feat. That said, it has been done.The oldest hominin DNA on record comes from a 430,000-year-old genome, which was found in a cave in Spain. Known as “Sima de los Huesos” (“Pit of Bones”), the underground pit housed the remains of 28 hominins who were early members of the Neanderthal lineage.If we look beyond DNA, to other forms of genetic data, we can find some even older examples. Last year, researchers discovered the oldest human genetic data yet in 2-million-year-old hominid fossils in South Africa. Protein sequences extracted from the teeth of the primate Paranthropus robustus are by far the oldest genetic information ever recovered from any hominid. The oldest-ever proteins, meanwhile, were obtained from ostrich eggshells in Tanzania back in 2016. They are up to 3.8 million years old.

If there’s one thing that the internet has made clear, it’s that scientists should not be allowed anywhere near your food. They’ll snip the middle out of your birthday cake; divide your pizza into weird, curvilinear tessellations – and now, they’re coming after your sandwiches.Now, we all have a favored way to slice a sarny: there’s the diagonal cut, which results in a pair of delicious triangles; the horizontal cut if you’re in more of a rectangular kind of mood; if you’re really devil-may-care, you can forego the slicing altogether, and just cram the whole thing into your mouth in one go.But on May 1, 2024, a new challenger appeared: the Y cut. IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.“It seems genius, even though it is just mildly clever,” ruled Claire Lower, digital editor at instructional food preparation organization Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, in Popular Science earlier this month.“I don’t see myself taking the time to do this,” she said, “but I’m a big fan of anything that gets people to eat more sandwiches.”So, what’s the story behind the complex cut? Obviously, there’s no way of knowing who was the first to split their samwag into the union of a triangle and two trapezoids, but its current fame appears to stretch back only a matter of weeks – to a tweet by one Ryan Duff. Now seen more than 19 million times, he published a photo of a ham and cheese sandwich cut in the now infamous pattern, commenting (correctly) that “practice makes perfect.” And the crowd went wild.“I didn’t know it was legal to cut a sandwich this way,” one commenter replied. “You made twice as much sandwich out of sandwich.”“I cut my sandwich like this today and I'll be honest you really did something here,” another wrote. IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.But is the Y cut really all it’s, well, cut out to be? According to Lower, there is at least some logic behind it: it “lets the eater start with three bites that they know are going to be ‘good,’” she explained, “as in they will have the even distribution of fillings and condiments you get at the center of the sandwich.”In that respect, it’s kind of a level-up of the diagonal cut – reportedly the favored way to slice a sandwich in the US. “Some proponents of this method believe that cutting the long way extends the amount of crust-free surface area, somehow allowing for more filling-heavy bites,” noted food writer Brynna Standen in an article for Mashed. “While that isn't actually possible, the diagonal cut does allow you to see more of the inside of your sandwich, which can create the illusion that you're getting more filling, thus making it taste better based on perception alone.” “If this is true, then it's safe to assume that the Y-cut method shown in Ryan Duff's X post only amplifies that effect,” she added, “as it puts even more of the sandwich's filling on display.”Equally, the Y cut may have some genuine advantages for a sandwich-hungry consumer. By creating three corners in the center, it gives the prospective eater three nice, crustless bites to start with – and while Lower may believe that “crust avoiders […] need to grow up,” she also noted that the Y cut would likely reduce mess, while maintaining the original filling construction for longer.That said, not everyone is such a fan. Three cuts is three times as much work as a standard diagonal or horizontal cut, which only extends the waiting time until you get your delicious snack. Plus, as one commenter pointed out, employing the diagonal cut twice, to make four triangles, is less work and gives even more central corners.Nevertheless, it’s clear that the Y cut seems to be a hit with many people, so why not give it a go? Oh – and we know what you’re thinking, and yes: we can confirm that the top part gets eaten last.

The government in Alberta, Canada has announced an end to the 18-year ban on hunting grizzly bears in the province, drawing criticism from wildlife conservationists. Hunting grizzly bears – which are a subspecies of the brown bear Ursus arctos – was first brought to a close in Alberta back in 2006 due to low numbers and four years later, the species was classified as threatened under the province’s Wildlife Act. The western population of grizzlies was also – and remains – listed as a group of “special concern” under Canada’s Species At Risk Act.But on June 17, Alberta’s government amended the Wildlife Act to partially lift the ban, once again allowing the bears to be hunted in particular circumstances.Under the new rules, grizzly bears may be hunted if a wildlife officer determines them to present an “imminent public safety risk, or the bear has killed livestock, damaged private property or made contact with a human resulting in injury or death.”One of a pool of “wildlife management responders” will be selected to track the bear in such instances and as long as they are within a designated area and using allowed methods and equipment, they may be permitted to kill the bear."A hunt normally would allow the hunter to choose what, where and when they hunt," the Minister for Forestry and Parks, Todd Loewen, told CBC. "But the … problem wildlife responder will not have any choice of what, where and when they hunt. They'll be told exactly the details of all those."The government says its reasoning behind the change of tack is an uptick in “problematic” interactions between grizzlies and humans, and with other animals, as the bear population has increased. According to the authorities, there were nine recorded attacks by black or grizzly bears in Alberta in 2021, and over 100 livestock animals killed in 2023 and 2024.“This is not a bear hunt; this is a measure to ensure the safety of humans and livestock,” reads the announcement from authorities.“The loss of even one human life because of a grizzly bear attack is one too many,” added Loewen in the statement. “We are taking a proactive approach to help Albertans co-exist with wildlife through our new wildlife management program. These changes demonstrate our commitment to ensuring Albertans can safely work and recreate throughout the province.”However, the decision hasn’t gone down well with conservation groups and grizzly experts.“Hunting is not an acceptable management approach for a threatened species,” said Devon Earl, a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association, in a statement. “Grizzly bears have a very slow reproductive rate, and trophy hunting could undo all the recovery of the last decade.”The ban’s reversal has also been criticized by Alberta’s Opposition Critic for Environment and Tourism and bear biologist Sarah Elmeligi.“Killing grizzly bears does not reduce human-bear conflict. It does not solve the problem,” said Elmeligi in a statement.The solution? According to the biologist and politician: “Work with people to better coexist with grizzly bears.”"Human use management on the landscape like the livestock compensation program, subsidies for electric fencing, attractant management on public and private land, and better education, are the things that actually reduce conflict.""These programs should be amplified across the province to reduce conflict at its source."

Before the liberal media had to publicly admit President Biden’s cognitively impaired, they were relentlessly consumed with a years-long campaign (that now exists in the background) to delegitimize the Supreme Court and turn the American public against it because of rulings they refuse to accept. An examination of headlines from The Washington Post revealed a comical double standard in coverage of these two supposed national scandals — the two flag-flying flaps by Justice Alito and who Justice Clarence Thomas’s choice of who he spends free time with — compared to when Donald Trump laid into the now-late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020 for having trashed him years earlier. Using “recusal” and “Trump” then each of the justice’s names, a search of The Post’s archives revealed an even more stunning double standard with over 1,100 results for the manufactured Alito hubbub, roughly 3,000 for Thomas, but only 234 for Ginsburg. In May 2024 when the Alito hubbub was still at a fever pitch, the walking parody Philip Bump had a whiny May 29 piece with the headline “Samuel Alito Has Decided That Samuel Alito Is Sufficiently Impartial”. The Post also ran an AP story (since removed from their site, as evidenced by this dead link) with this header: “To recuse or refuse? A look at Supreme Court justices’ decisions on whether to step aside in cases”. In it, reporter Mark Sherman whined (click “expand”): In declining to step aside from two high-profile Supreme Court cases, Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday provided a rare window on the opaque process by which justices decide to step aside from cases. Alito faced calls from Democrats to recuse from two cases involving former President Donald Trump and Jan. 6 defendants because of the controversy over flags that flew over his homes. (....) Revelations about the flags came as the court is considering cases related to the Jan. 6 riot, including charges faced by the rioters and whether Trump has immunity from prosecution on election interference charges. In letters to members of Congress, Alito said he had no involvement in flying an upside-down flag over his home in 2021 and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his New Jersey beach house last year. He said his wife, Martha-Ann, was responsible for both flags. His impartiality, he said, could not reasonably be questioned. (....) Supreme Court justices decide for themselves whether and when to recuse from a case. On rare occasions, a party to a case will ask a justice to recuse. (....) Alito pointed to the Supreme Court’s ethics code to explain that justices have an obligation to take part in a case unless their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In this instance, he said, anyone “not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases” would see that recusal is not required. Longtime leftist court observer and columnist Ruth Marcus similarly bemoaned that day of the justice and his wife Martha-Ann having “one weird marriage” with there also being “reasons to question Alito’s candor and judgment here” since he “wrapped himself in an unconvincing blend of faux feminism and free speech, with an Alito-esque helping of victimhood.” The tone of the Thomas coverage has been similar, as well, painting Justice Thomas as being in a bizarre, creepy marriage. Post Courts reporter Tobi Raji giddily proclaimed on February 6 that “Thomas is facing calls from Democrats and court transparency advocates to recuse himself from a case examining whether former president Donald Trump can appear on 2024 primary election ballots nationwide”, adding (click “expand”): Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about Thomas’s ability to remain impartial in this and several other Jan. 6-related cases given the involvement of his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, in the movement to overturn the 2020 election results. The ballot disqualification case, which is likely to be decided quickly, is a test of the court’s recently released code of conduct and recusal guidelines. (....) The Supreme Court’s newly adopted ethics code asks the justices to disqualify themselves if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.” The code suggests recusal if a justice or their spouse has “an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding” or is “likely to be a material witness in the proceeding.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who previously served on Harvard University’s Board of Overseers, notably recused herself from one of two cases examining the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions practices in 2022 because Harvard was the defendant. However, the decision to recuse is up to the individual justice — a point of contention among critics including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who is sponsoring legislation to impose an enforceable ethics code on the justices. Flashing back to an earlier chapter in this manufactured hubbub, The Post breathlessly boasted on March 27, 2022: “Democrats urge Clarence Thomas to recuse himself after wife’s texts; Republicans continue to defend the justice’s integrity”. Many of The Post articles spoke glowingly of ProPublica’s sham reporting, which of course resulted in a Pulitzer for the liberal non-profit. One particular column from March 30, 2022 by none other than walking meme Jennifer Rubin was egregious: “The Thomas scandal exemplifies the rot spoiling our democracy.” Rubin huffed that “[w]e lack institutional mechanisms to restrain and punish public figures who don’t ethically police themselves” and argued that Thomas’s existence was proof of “the slow deterioration of our democracy.” Five days earlier, the editorial board called Thomas’s wife Ginni “a political extremist” and thus “a problem for the court” and the justice needed to recuse himself from politically sensitive cases or there would be “further erosion of public faith” in the third coequal branch of government. Well, the liberal media seem to have achieved their objective as evidenced by a May 24, 2023 piece by staff writer Aaron Blake with this boast as a headline: “Clarence Thomas’s image takes a hit”. Finally, there’s Ginsburg. Here was a brief summary from a March 2020 column in The Wall Street Journal by Emory University law professor Michael J. Broyde: In public interviews in 2016 she called Candidate Trump a “faker” and said: “I can’t imagine what this place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Donald Trump as our president.” She even mused about fleeing the country: “‘Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand.” She apologized—kind of: “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.” She admitted her remarks were “ill advised,” and that “in the future I will be more circumspect.” The controversy died down, in part because hardly anyone expected Mr. Trump to become president. Now that he’s raised the matter again, is he right? The answer seems to be yes. Litigants—including Mr. Trump—have a right to appear before judges who have not prejudged the case or the person. Sure, there were some tough pieces in 2016 and 2017, such as “Justice Ginsburg has come explaining to do” and “In bashing Donald Trump, some say Ruth Bader Ginsburg just crossed a very important line”, but again, they were in short supply versus Alito and Thomas. But when Trump sounded off on this, they rushed to Ginsburg’s defense when, on February 24, 2020, Trump tweeted about how Ginsburg should recuse herself “on all Trump, or Trump related, matters” in order to preserve “fairness”. Instead of diving into the merits, the liberal media pitched a hissy fit. At The Post, they made Trump’s reaction out to be unhinged, not Ginsburg’s words. This was a news story from February 25, 2020: “Trump slams Sotomayor and Ginsburg, says they should recuse themselves from ‘Trump-related’ cases”. Here was the lede from Meagan Flynn and Brittany Shammas (click “expand”): President Trump went after Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a pair of tweets and at a news conference in India on Tuesday, days after Sotomayor issued a dissent critical of the Trump administration’s legal strategy and the court’s majority for enabling it. Tweeting just before appearing at a welcome ceremony at the Indian president’s ceremonial residence in New Delhi, Trump cited a Laura Ingraham segment on Fox News titled, “Sotomayor accuses GOP-appointed justices of being biased in favor of Trump.” He then called on Sotomayor and Ginsburg to recuse themselves in all Trump-related matters. “Trying to ‘shame’ some into voting her way?” Trump said of Sotomayor. “She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called me a ‘faker'. Both should recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related matters! While ‘elections have consequences’, I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court!" The article cited a tweet from liberal court observer and now-CNN legal contributor Steve Vladeck, who defended Sotomayor as “right” for claiming GOP-appointed justices are biased. That same day, then-lead Court reporter Robert Barnes and political reporter Ashley Parker kvetched that Trump “escalat[ed] an unorthodox battle” with a “broadside” against “the judiciary from which even his own lawyers have advised retreat” and went astray from “what normally is an arm’s-length distance between the White House and the high court, and cast the disagreements into starkly personal terms.” If Trump tweets are “personal” attacks, then what has Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) entire bit been against Thomas?

The Salt Lake Tribune is throwing a fit over the U.S. Supreme Court stripping the ungodly regulatory power of unelected bureaucrats while picking a fight with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) for daring to support the move.  “Utah politicians are wrong to say the end of Chevron is a boost for liberty,” The Tribune editorial board complained in a whiny July 7 screed targeting Lee and other Utah Republicans who celebrated the Court’s ruling. Under the so-called “Chevron Doctrine,” deference was given to federal agencies' subjective interpretations of ambiguous laws to enforce burdensome regulations on American businesses, which was upended by the Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2023). The Tribune was livid and took a swipe at Lee by likening him to a notorious Star Wars villain: “Sen. Mike Lee chortled that, without Chevron allowing regulators to make decisions, ‘It’s time for Congress to re-learn how to make real laws.’ That is, to make laws that say what the rules are and aren’t left open to bureaucratic interpretation. That’s rich coming from a guy whose entire obstructive legislative career was so well summed up by Star Wars villain Darth Sidious: ‘I have the Senate bogged down in procedure.’” Has anyone ever thought of Sidious as being gung-ho about stripping power away from dictatorial-like federal agencies? Perhaps The Tribune forgot to watch The Empire Strikes Back. Lee clapped back at The Tribune for mixing up its Star Wars metaphors in an exclusive interview with MRC Business: The real problem with The Salt Lake Tribune is that they think unelected bureaucrats should have the power of a Sith Lord, regulating and controlling the masses by force choke. The Supreme Court has given renewed hope for the future of our Republic. Lee hit the nail on the head.The Tribune cried crocodile tears in its first paragraph how the Court’s ruling was gutting “a long-standing legal guideline” that the supposedly benevolent government overlords “used to protect us from foul air, polluted water, adulterated food and ineffective drugs.”  The National Review editorial board stated that the left's “alarms about crippling administrative power are overstated.” The Raimondo ruling did not prevent “the agencies from exercising powers explicitly granted by Congress, or from pursuing cases that could stand up in court.” However, as National Review stated, if Raimondo “provokes in Congress the habit of writing laws, and in agencies the habit of obeying them, all the better. Agencies are but creatures of law, and law is but a creature of the sovereign people’s right to self-government — a government of laws, and not of men.” But The Tribune couldn’t be stopped, and proceeded to fear-monger about power shifting away from tyrannical unelected government bureaucrats over-regulating the free market on a whim to alleged robber barons who are out to just poison people: There is such a thing as federal overreach. But power taken away from the federal government does not magically diffuse through to the people. Power collects, as power always does, in the hands of the already powerful. In this case the corporations that will now enjoy more freedom to poison our planet, your children and you. What a joke. Conservatives are under attack. Contact Salt Lake Tribune at (801) 237-2900 and tell it to stop acting like a shill for the federal bureaucracy.   

United States Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced Wednesday the Risky Research Review Act, which would establish an independent security board to review and approve "high-risk life sciences research" projects seeking federal funding.The first-of-its-kind proposal would create a Life Sciences Research Security Board within the executive branch responsible for conducting "oversight over life sciences research funding across the federal government to protect public health, safety, and national security."'If we had this bill in place ten years ago, we could have prevented the COVID pandemic.'The act defines "high-risk life sciences research" as any research that has a potential dual-use nature or could pose a threat to public health, including "gain of function research, research involving genetic modification or synthetic creation of a potential pandemic pathogen, and activities involving the collection or surveillance of potential pandemic pathogens."Grant applicants seeking to conduct research projects that fall into this category would only be able to receive federal funding with approval from the majority of the security board members.The nine-member board, appointed by the president with Senate approval, would include one executive director, five non-governmental scientists, and two national security experts. The members would serve up to two four-year terms and must not be, or have been within the past three years, a federal employee. Under the proposed act, the security board would be expected to submit annual reports to Congress and online.On Thursday morning, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held an oversight hearing on "taxpayer funded high-risk virus research."Senators listened to testimony from Dr. Gerald Parker, the associate dean for Global One Health at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Dr. Carrie Wolinetz, the senior principal and chair at Lewis-Burke Associates health and bioscience innovation practice group and a former senior adviser with the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert Redfield, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Kevin Esvelt, associate professor at MIT Media Lab.During opening statements at Thursday morning's hearing, Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.) seemed to express that he may not be opposed to legislation similar to the bill proposed by Paul."Our expert witnesses raised to the need for robust oversight over a wide range of high-risk life sciences research both here in the United States and abroad," Peters stated. "Life science research can be critical to protecting public health and our national security. It helps up develop vaccines and improve our diagnostic tests and sharpen our understanding of potential biological threats.""This research can be incredibly dangerous. It puts scientists in contact with harmful pathogens, and they sometimes do not get the necessary training on how to handle them properly," Peters added. "If equipment fails or researchers make an innocent mistake, it can carry serious health risks for the broader public."During his opening remarks, Paul stated, "Over the last four years, compelling evidence has emerged supporting the lab origin of the pandemic and unraveling a web of deception: the vast COVID cover-up.""So what has been done since the discovery that our government is funding dangerous virus research overseas with little or no oversight? The answer is stark and chilling: virtually nothing," Paul remarked. "In this dystopian universe we find ourselves in, it is our duty to challenge the status quo — to shine a light on the darkest corners of government operations, and to protect the freedoms and lives of the people we serve."Wolinetz defended the federal government's oversight of risky pathogen research."Collectively, while this policy framework may be imperfect and should continue to evolve with the science and current threat landscape, it arguably represents the most rigorous oversight of pathogen research in the world," Wolinetz claimed. "If we make it too hard for scientists to conduct and communicate the findings of experiments that expand our knowledge of pathogens, we will be less prepared for the next emerging biological threat."The committee issued a press release announcing the Risky Research Review Act, noting that the funding of such research currently "lack[s] sufficient government oversight, allowing American taxpayer dollars to be spent without appropriate checks."Redfield called the proposed act "a very important bill" that would "ensure national security is prioritized when making U.S. life science funding decisions." He called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research."If we had this bill in place ten years ago, we could have prevented the COVID pandemic," Redfield added.Richard Ebright, the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and laboratory director at the university's Waksman Institute of Microbiology, also voiced support for the proposed legislation."The gaps in current U.S. oversight of research on potential pandemic pathogens place the U.S. at risk of research-related pandemics, with medical, economic, and national security impacts as disruptive and damaging as, or even more disruptive and damaging than, those of the COVID-19 pandemic," Ebright stated. "Addressing the gaps in oversight is essential and urgent."Ebright wrote in a post on X Thursday, "The US has no--zero--regulations with force of law for biosafety or biorisk management of research with any pathogen other than smallpox virus, apart from a requirement to have a biosafety plan, the content of which is left to the discretion of the institution."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Stephen A. Smith is apparently in negotiations with ESPN to become the highest-paid sports commentator — with a $25 million per year contract on the table. After news of the possible deal broke, Patrick Bet-David sat down with Stephen A. Smith on Smith’s podcast. And he may have fanboyed a little too close to the sun. “Talk to me about what your vision is of what America should be,” Smith says to PBD. “What America should be,” PBD repeats, before completely ignoring the question. “You’re the greatest guy in sports commentating ever, right? You’re the GOAT. Everybody calls you the GOAT.” Jason Whitlock is understandably confused by the praise. “Is this a worthy classification? Is he the Michael Jordan of sports commentary?” Whitlock asks Steve Kim. “I’ve never actually heard anyone outside of Patrick Bet-David actually say ‘You’re the greatest of all time in that field,’” Kim says. “Is he going to be the most well paid? Is he the most exposed or overexposed? Is he the one that’s out there the most? Is he the most ubiquitous? Yes.” “But does that necessarily make him the greatest commentator of all time?” he asks, adding, “I never thought of him as the greatest. I don’t think he knows enough, to be honest with you.” Whitlock agrees. “When you start saying that someone is the greatest sports commentator of all time, and he’s worth $25 million a year, this is where my brain goes,” Whitlock begins. “This is all a rigged simulation. This is all a Matrix. And these are people that are supporting the Matrix, who are just like Patrick Bet-David.” “Is he represented by the same agents as Stephen A. Smith? Because it’s such a nonsensical statement. It’s like, you know, ‘Jason Whitlock is the greatest bodybuilder of all time.’ That’s what it’s the equivalent of,” he adds.Want more from Jason Whitlock?To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.