'This was step one in the transition of government'

'in America, speech is no longer free'

'Improvidently granted'

'They are not smart'

'Doesn't pass the cost-benefit test'

News Batman: Caped Crusader Things Take a Noir Turn in Batman: Caped Crusader Trailer A noir tone? For Batman? Groundbreaking. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on June 26, 2024 Credit: Prime Video Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Prime Video We finally have a trailer for the upcoming animated series Batman: Caped Crusader, a show from J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Bruce Timm that features a star-studded cast. The trailer sets a noir tone for the upcoming show and gives us a first listen to the voice cast, including Hamish Linklater as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Jamie Chung as Harley Quinn/Dr. Harleen Quinzel. We also find out that Batman is in his early days of exacting vengeance in the night. The start of the clip has the police talking about how he’s beating up street thugs, and also sees him going after bigger foes, including Two-Face (voiced by Diedrich Bader) and a man with an affinity for infernos. Batman is cold as ice when we see him on screen, and he’s described as “something more and less than human.” It’s dark. It’s grim. It’s animated. The cast is also large and impressive. In addition to Linklater, Chung, and Bader, the show features the voice talents of Christina Ricci, Minnie Driver, Mckenna Grace, Eric Morgan Stuart, Michelle C. Bonilla, Krystal Joy Brown, John DiMaggio, Paul Scheer, Reid Scott, Tom Kenny, Jason Watkins, Gary Anthony Williams, Dan Donohue, David Krumholtz, Haley Joel Osment, and Toby Stephens. All ten episodes of Batman: Caped Crusader premiere on Prime Video on August 1, 2024. Check out the trailer below. [end-mark] The post Things Take a Noir Turn in <i>Batman: Caped Crusader</i> Trailer appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Star Wars: The Acolyte The Acolyte Hits a Few Major Reveals in “Night” Did you guess who the mysterious Sith would be? By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on June 26, 2024 Image: Disney+ Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Disney+ Okay, but they really do need to explain the lightsaber shortage issue. Recap Image: Disney+ Osha wakes to find Mae’s master fighting all the Jedi in the forest. They are all dropping like flies, and Yord gets injured. He tells Osha to run and she listens, with the Sith following. Sol finds them, asks who the Sith is, and admits that he finds him familiar. They begin to fight as Yord takes Osha back to the ship. Mae runs into Jecki; they begin to duel as Jecki tries to arrest her. Yord talks to Osha about how the Sith can get in your head, something that Osha admits her mother could do to Jedi. Jecki finally defeats Mae, but the Sith appears and they duel. Mae runs way and the Sith follows. When he accuses her of being weak and nearly strikes her down, Sol intervenes and Jecki arrives as well. The two of them fight the Sith as Osha gets contact from Mae and knows that they need to go back. She turns on her light to attract the moth creatures and heads back with Yord. Jecki manages to get the Sith’s helmet off right as he stabs her multiple times in turn. Jecki falls and reveals the Sith to be none other than Qimir. Qimir grabs Mae by the throat and taunts Sol for attempting to attack when his back is turned. Sol discards his saber and asks what he wants. Qimir insists that he wants freedom to use his power how he likes, and to have a pupil, but Mae betrayed him. Yord goes to attack Qimir and recognizes him when he sees his face. Qimir kills Yord. Sol and Qimir begin a hand-to-hand fight, but when Sol gets the upper hand and nearly executes Qimir with his lightsaber, Osha stops him. She attaches part of PIP to Qimir so that its bright light will call the moth creatures. They carry him away. Osha asks Sol why Qimir said she shouldn’t trust him. He promises to explain, but Mae comes back and stuns him. She takes Osha away to have a talk, but the two argue about what happened and what they’ve each done. Mae begs Osha to choose her this time, thinking Osha has been brainwashed by the Jedi. Osha tells Mae that she’s a criminal, so Mae knocks her out, cuts her own hair, and takes Osha’s clothes, pretending to be her. She finds Sol, who asks where her sister is. She claims that her sister is gone. They leave together. Qimir finds Osha, healing her wound and covering her with a blanket. Commentary Image: Disney+ Called it. The bare arms made it even more obvious, which is genuinely funny. If you enjoy shouting “Those are Jason Mendoza’s arms!” at the TV, anyway. And for my next trick: I don’t think any of this quite played out the way we saw it. If the point is to channel Rashomon, and we’ve clearly got combating points of view all over the place, I think the confusion in this episode is a piece of that. And I think that red dust all over the ground has something to do with it. Qimir is great at poisons and alchemy, right? The choice to showcase that dust—which seems to come from nowhere—and also depict it following that path he used to shove everyone out of the way? (Which he also didn’t need to do, since his whole plan was clearly to run into the woods to make the ground harder for a large group to fight on?) That’s sus. The sudden death matches are also pretty suspect, given that we’ve got three episodes left, and so was Sol’s anger: He’s the Jedi Master of Feelings, as we’ve already seen, but the fact that Osha had to remind him to back down in that situation feels like more than just emotional manipulation on Qimir’s part. I think everyone was under the influence of something for the majority of this episode. Whether it affected their moods, their abilities, or their perception, I couldn’t say, but I’m not trusting anything that just happened as the full story. Also, Sol absolutely knows that Mae swapped places with her sister. Osha used to be his Padawan; he knows her more deeply through the Force and would be able to recognize her. He pointedly asked “Where is your sister?” instead of “Where is Mae?” You can’t just cut your hair and fool this man. Please. The fight choreography continues to be a high point for this show, and I was so happy to see someone finally use terrain when fighting a group to their advantage. Heading into a densely forested area to prevent being easily surrounding on all sides! Using the trees as their own forms of shielding because no one wants to accidentally cut one down in the midst of a duel! (Also, they gave Jecki an Ahsoka moment with her double green blades—I shrieked.) I’m still curious as to what exactly was happening to the lightsabers when they shorted, though. A lot of things can cause that outage. It was unclear if it was environmental, perceptual, or if use of the Force was interfering. This was another half-episode, and I really wish they glued it together into one. It took us way too long to reach that reveal; not having a week between the parts would have helped. (Though I stand by my previous complaint that the most preferable way to unfold this would have taken much longer over seasons of television.) But the thing that tweaks at me the most is continuing to mess with the relationship between Osha and Mae due to both characters never once bothering to say “Wait, this is what I thought happened—what do you think happened?” There is enough time in this scene that I just don’t buy it never coming up. It’s a very common television problem, but you can write things in such a way that it’s easier to believe no one is arriving at the obvious. Even if I still wish folks would stop doing it altogether. Also, why do people keep using arguments like “You’re a criminal!” in dialogue like this? Osha’s upset because she thinks her sister murdered their whole family and then a few more Jedi—I don’t think crime is the primary issue here. On Qimir’s end we’ve got some good stuff, though. How often has a Sith popped up with “Look, I’m pissed that you won’t let me practice my dark arts over in the corner, and that’s the reason you’ve all got to die”? He’s presenting it as a philosophy issue, or even a form of religious persecution. This doesn’t mean we should give the dark side a shot, but it’s fun to see a different form of narrative manipulation from the Sith. You’re just being so unfair to him, y’all. He made his own helmet and everything. How is the sister-swap going to pay off? Hopefully we’ll get a longer episode next week to find out. Spanners and Sabers Image: Disney+ Qimir doesn’t want to take off his helmet so Sol can read his thoughts? Are we… are we literally Magneto-ing all Sith now? They use the helmets because it makes them less susceptible to Jedi mind stuff? That’s ridiculous, and I will laugh frequently about it if this is a thing they commit to. The way Yord says “You” and Qimir says “Surprise”—they’re about to launch an entire ship on a two-word exchange, and I am here for it. I know this was not the point, but when Mae cut her locs with the lightsaber, all I could think about was how she’d probably smell like burning hair for a while, and that would be a pretty big giveaway. Also funny to probably only me: When this show started and I realized Stenberg was playing twins, I thought “Oh, it’s the Star Wars version of The Parent Trap.” And then Mae proceeds to cut her hair to look like her sister… just like in The Parent Trap. Bazil saved PIP! Lil guys gotta stick together in this great big universe. We’ll tune back in to Galactic Parent Trap next week! [end-mark] The post <i>The Acolyte</i> Hits a Few Major Reveals in “Night” appeared first on Reactor.

Rep. John Curtis won the Republican Senate primary in Utah on Tuesday against Trump-endorsed Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs and former Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, The Associated Press projected. Curtis, who has served in Congress since 2017, won against Staggs and Wilson, according the AP projection. Curtis is now favored to win former Republican presidential nominee and Sen. Mitt Romney’s seat following his retirement. Curtis, who was favored to win in many polls, was briefly registered as a Democrat and ran an unsuccessful campaign against Republican candidate Curt Bramble in 2000 for state Senate, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. He returned to the Republican Party in 2007 and has remained in the GOP since then. Despite polling significantly behind Curtis, Staggs was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and other influential Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump praised Staggs for being “MAGA all the way” and said Staggs “is all about America First” in a video endorsement. I'm honored to have the endorsement of Donald Trump! pic.twitter.com/Ry2n1mS9rE— Mayor Trent Staggs (@MayorStaggs) April 27, 2024 Staggs was also endorsed by the Utah Republican Party, winning the most votes at the state convention just hours after earning Trump’s endorsement, according to Politico. Ahead of the voting, Curtis led Staggs by 20 points according to a Noble Predictive Insights poll from June, and was leading Wilson by 23 points according to a June HarrisX poll. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post GOP Rep Wins Primary Against Trump-Backed Candidate in Race to Replace Mitt Romney appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you want to know why prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion in medical schools is a bad idea, consider your priorities in a medical emergency. Early this month, my youngest son came howling and holding his left arm. My wife thought it was broken. When he turned it, his forearm flopped and rolled like it was made of rubber. Not great. My wife used a spatula to stabilize his arm and wrap it up. Off we went to the urgent care. His arm was indeed broken, but they didn’t feel comfortable setting it. My wife took him to a pediatric ER. They set it but wanted an orthopedic doctor to check it before putting on a cast. The next day, the orthopedic doctor saw him. He now has a big blue cast and a summer filled with regret that he jumped off the fort his brothers made in the living room. Throughout the whole ordeal, my wife and I’s only priority was finding someone who could help our son. You know what we didn’t care about? The skin color or sex of the doctors or nurses. Now, that sounds basic. A decade ago, it would have been so obvious that it wouldn’t have been worth mentioning. My son’s broken bone wasn’t going to throw itself back into alignment if someone with the right skin color or sex walked into the room. What mattered was a doctor’s knowledge and skill. That’s why medical schools should be looking for the best and brightest. Medicine is hard and the stakes are high. Unfortunately, the medical training field is awash with schools and groups prioritizing how doctors look, not their ability to heal. Consider the Association of American Medical Colleges. It’s a major player in medical education. It runs the MCAT exam, which helps determine which applicants will make it into medical school. Along with the American Medical Association, it sponsors the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which provides “accreditation of medical education programs.” The Association of American Medical Colleges has fully embraced leftist dogma. It “works to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles across the continuum of medical education,” it states on its website.  That includes advising medical schools on how to get around the 2023 Supreme Court decision that banned racial preferences in higher education admissions. One recommendation is a “holistic review in admissions.” That “allows admissions committees to consider the whole applicant, rather than disproportionately focusing on any one factor.” Translated: Don’t put too much focus on test scores. Look at applicants’ skin color. One medical school that’s been doing that is at UCLA. As The Washington Free Beacon reported last month, the school has been prioritizing race over merit in recent years. The result? In some cohorts, “more than 50 percent of students failed standardized tests on emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics,” The Washington Free Beacon reported. The national failure rate is 5%. DEI turned a once-elite medical school into a failure factory. The implications are terrifying. My son received care from a top-notch doctor. If DEI continues to fester in medical schools, doctors with that level of skill will become harder and harder to find. 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 Emergency Exposes Folly of DEI in Medicine appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. AU10TIX, an identity verification company operating out of Israel and serving prominent clients like TikTok and more recently Elon Musk’s X, was found to have inadvertently left sensitive user information vulnerable after administrative credentials were exposed online, according to a report from 404 Media. The company, known for processing photos and drivers’ licenses to verify identities, allegedly had this security lapse exposed by cybersecurity firm spiderSilk, revealing a potential goldmine for hackers. The exposed data, accessible for over a year, included not only basic identity details such as names, birth dates, and nationalities but also images of the identity documents themselves, such as drivers’ licenses. This breach underscores a growing concern as more platforms, including social networks and adult content sites, demand real identity verification from users, increasing the risk of personal data exposure. Further complicating the issue, AU10TIX’s services involve sophisticated processes like “liveness detection” and age estimation through photo analysis, indicating the depth of data potentially compromised. The breach was first detected when credentials stolen by malware were found on a Telegram channel. This channel had posted these credentials in March 2023, despite them being harvested back in December 2022. These included passwords and tokens for various services, which 404 Media suggests deepens concerns. In a statement, AU10TIX said “While PII data was potentially accessible, based on our current findings, we see no evidence that such data has been exploited. Our customers’ security is of the utmost importance, and they have been notified.” X, formerly known as Twitter, has recently introduced a new policy requiring users who earn through its platform—via advertising or paid subscriptions—to verify their accounts using government-issued IDs. This move, facilitated through a partnership with Au10tix was designed to reduce impersonation and fraud. But starting immediately for new creators and by July 1, 2024, for existing ones, the policy aims to enhance authenticity and secure user transactions. However, it also sparks significant privacy and free speech concerns, as the platform is recognized for championing free expression—a principle often supported by the ability to remain anonymous. The implementation of mandatory government ID verification by X is part of a wider trend towards digital ID verification in the online and political arenas, raising questions about the impact on free speech and anonymity. While the intent behind such policies is to improve security and authenticity, they risk infringing on the fundamental rights to privacy and anonymous speech, essential for activists, whistleblowers, and those critical of their governments. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post ID Verification Company Partnered With X Suffered Data Leak, Report Claims appeared first on Reclaim The Net.