“Roger!” has become a go-to expression to acknowledge a message, most often uttered over the phone or a radio transmitter when doing something vaguely important. However, the origin of this cool sign-off is less well-known. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with a guy named Roger.The term can be traced back to the early days of radio when crackly lines and muffled voices meant communications had to be short and sweet. Particularly in World War 2, when two-way radio communications had a big break, “Roger” was widely used by the British and Americans to acknowledge a command or statement. This is because “R” was represented by the word “Roger” in the old phonetic alphabet. To say “R” was shorthand for saying “received,” as in “message received.” Simply, “Roger” is much easier to hear in the heat of battle than “Received” or even just “R.” Additionally, as explained in a blog post by Jakub Marian, the tradition of using “R” as an abbreviation for “received” has some link to a time before World War 2 when Morse code was the most widely used form of communication. During the Second World War, the most common phonetic alphabet used by the British and American militaries was: “Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, Zebra.”Since the 1950s, however, the phonetic alphabet has changed. The standard one used by NATO operators goes as follows: “Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.”It’s not crystal clear why “Roger” stuck around and wasn’t replaced with “Romeo,” but it perhaps has something to do with the way the Second World War had a profound and lasting influence on culture. It was also used prolifically in the transcripts of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, an event that was beamed across every corner of planet Earth. It's estimated that around 650 million people watched the first Moon landing, approximately a fifth of the world’s population at the time. Countless humans must have sat around their television screens or radio sets and heard the phrase, embedding it in their brains as a symbol of cool, calm, and collected communication. With that level of exposure, it's no wonder the expression didn't sink into obscurity. 

Engineers at Northwestern University have found a new concrete manufacturing process that stores carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere by using a carbonated solution. The concrete is just as strong and durable as traditional versions and is easy to make.When it comes to types of water – still or carbonated – you probably think about the options offered by a waiter in a restaurant. However, these two options also play a role in the construction industry.Traditionally, concrete is made through a mix of cement and water, which makes a paste. This paste is then mixed with aggregates in the form of sand and gravel. As these ingredients mix, they harden and bind with the aggregate to create the solid mass that we use in construction.However, this is not a green industry. The ordinary production of Portland cement, the most common type, is a massive contributor to CO2 emissions. In fact, the global production of cement is the third-largest source of anthropogenic carbon emissions (8 percent), only behind fossil fuels and land-use change.But there are alternative options. In fact, carbonated concrete has a high potential to store CO2 because of its inherent alkalinity, which can turn the greenhouse gas into solid crystals consisting of mostly calcium carbonate (CaCO3). These crystals have a longer lifespan than structures made of cement, so they represent an ideal way to store CO2.  The idea of using this solution was first posited in the 1970s but received limited attention until recent years.The process of storing CO2 in such a way comes in two forms: hardened concrete carbonation or fresh concrete carbonation. In the former, solid concrete blocks are injected with CO2 gas at high pressures, and in the latter process, the gas is injected into the mixture when water, cement, and aggregates are combined.However, the techniques for achieving these processes have their limitations. They have both had low carbon capture efficiency despite how often they are used, and the process also weakens the concrete. That is, until now.In laboratory experiments, Northwestern University engineers achieved a CO2 sequestration efficiency of up to 45 percent. This means that nearly half of the CO2 injected into the concrete during manufacturing was both captured and stored.“The cement and concrete industries significantly contribute to human-caused CO2 emissions,” said Northwestern’s Alessandro Rotta Loria, who led the study detailing the solution, in a statement.“We are trying to develop approaches that lower CO2 emissions associated with those industries and, eventually, could turn cement and concrete into massive ‘carbon sinks.’ We are not there yet, but we now have a new method to reuse some of the CO2 emitted as a result of concrete manufacturing in this very same material. And our solution is so simple technologically that it should be relatively easy for industry to implement.”So how did they do it? In their approach, the engineers used the fresh concrete process but, rather than injecting the gas into the mix at the same time, they injected it into the water alone with a small amount of powder. By adding this carbonated suspension to the rest of the ingredients, they had created a concrete that absorbed CO2 during its manufacturing.“The cement suspension carbonated in our approach is a much lower viscosity fluid compared to the mix of water, cement and aggregates that is customarily employed in present approaches to carbonate fresh concrete,” Rotta Loria added.“So, we can mix it very quickly and leverage a very fast kinetics of the chemical reactions that result in calcium carbonate minerals. The result is a concrete product with a significant concentration of calcium carbonate minerals compared to when CO2 is injected into the fresh concrete mix.”If this wasn’t an achievement in itself, further analysis showed that the new concrete could rival the strength and durability of regular concrete.“A typical limitation of carbonation approaches is that strength is often affected by the chemical reactions,” said Rotta Loria. “But, based on our experiments, we show the strength might actually be even higher. We still need to test this further, but, at the very least, we can say that it’s uncompromised. Because the strength is unchanged, the applications also don’t change. It could be used in beams, slabs, columns, foundations — everything we currently use concrete for.”“The findings of this research underline that although carbonation of cement-based materials is a well-known reaction, there is still room to further optimize the CO2 uptake through better understanding of the mechanisms tied to materials processing,” study co-author Davide Zampini concluded.The study is published in Nature.

Unless someone happens to have had an unusually extreme early bedtime for the entirety of their life, we’ve all seen plenty of sunsets in our time. Given the wealth of them that end up on Instagram stories, they look pretty great too – but have you ever wondered what they look like from space?It’s not like most of us can pop up there and find out (although you never know) but thankfully, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) like to snap a few pictures whilst they’re there, giving us a brand-new perspective on a regular part of day-to-day life on the planet.One of the most spectacular images of a sunset from space was captured by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and geophysicist Alexander Gerst, during his second stint on the ISS as part of the Horizons mission.Sunset from space is as dreamy as it comes.Image credit: ESA-A.Gerst via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)In the image, taken on October 18, 2018, clouds in Earth’s atmosphere can be seen illuminated in that classic sunset pink-ish orange, though the dark night sky is also visible creeping up close behind them.But that’s not the only view possible – an image snapped by a member of NASA’s Expedition 49 crew back in 2016 also shows a fiery perspective of the layers of Earth’s atmosphere during sunset over South Atlantic.Aboard the ISS, sunset can also be viewed sideways.Image credit: ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space CenterThe bright orange-red line is within the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere and home to clouds, smoke, and dust particles. It’s the latter two that give sunsets their distinctive color, which explains why the red seen in this image is quite so vivid.Though the ISS was halfway between South America and South Africa at the time, from the station’s altitude astronauts are able to see over 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) to the horizon. Easy enough, then, to capture the influence of Patagonian Desert dust, which is blown out towards the ocean by strong winds.Since the ISS orbits the planet once every 90 minutes, that means those onboard can witness 16 such striking sunsets a day – and the same goes for sunrises, though most of the time they’re missed by astronauts because of sleep or work.Thankfully, Gerst’s photography steps up to the plate once again to show what others can’t see. During the Horizons mission, the astronaut captured a timelapse of a sunrise, with two photos taken every second.The result is somewhat reminiscent of an eclipse at first (at least, the view we have of one on Earth), with a faint line of light growing across the screen until a big burst of light (aka the Sun) comes into view and begins to light up the land below. And there you have it, now you know what a sunset and sunrise look like from space. Everybody say “thank you astronauts!”

In a world first, scientists have grown 3D brain organoids using cells from more than one person. Called “Chimeroids”, the intricate systems contain cells from up to five people; but future versions could push this into the hundreds, allowing scientists to create models that capture the wealth of human genetic diversity.Organoids, often referred to as mini versions of an organ, are cell clusters created to mimic a 3D organ as closely as possible. Brain organoids have previously been grown from human stem cells and, in a recent advance, from fetal brain tissue. In the past, 2D “cell villages” have been cultured using cells from 44 different human donors. But translating these chimeric cell clusters into a 3D organoid has proven a challenge – until now.The reason organoids are so useful for research is that they mimic all the complex conditions inside a living organ in a way that simply can’t be achieved by looking at a flat sheet of cells grown in a dish. There’s even been a suggestion that they could be used to replace animal testing for vaccine research.This becomes even more clear when we’re talking about the brain. As Aparna Bhaduri explains in a News and Views piece to accompany the new study, the human cortex – the outermost layer of brain tissue – is very different from that of animals, so even our best model species can’t really help us understand its nuances.A Chimeroid, created using donor cells from multiple people, not only brings all the benefits of an organoid, but captures more of the diversity that exists within the human species. In the case of the brain Chimeroids, the authors suggest that an important use could be in researching how different people react to a particular drug.“This is a really good advance,” Robert Vries, who was not involved in the work, commented to Nature News. Vries heads up HUB Organoids, a Utrecht-based company that performs organoid research.The team behind the new study had to take a novel approach to culturing the organoids. Adding lots of different donor stem cells together at the same time, as was done for the 2D cell villages, doesn’t work here – you end up with one cell line overpowering the rest. Instead, they learned that the key was to create separate organoids from each stem cell line first, then at a certain growth stage break them up and recombine them into a Chimeroid.After around 3 months of growth, the Chimeroids had reached a size of around 3-5 millimeters (0.1 to 0.2 inches) and contained the same cell types that would be present in a developing fetal brain.To explore their idea about testing drugs on the Chimeroids, the team used ethanol and valproic acid, both of which can negatively impact brain development. Ethanol was selected to model fetal alcohol syndrome, which presents very differently in different children. Valproic acid is a medicine used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, but it is not recommended for use in pregnancy due to its effects on the developing brain.When the Chimeroids were exposed to these two drugs, the researchers found that cells from different donors responded in different ways. Further work is now needed to ensure that these differential effects are down to the diverse genetic makeup of the cells, but some other scientists have already started their own experiments using these methods.“It’s a really powerful technology, and a powerful approach,” biologist Tomasz Nowakowski, who was not on the study team but is now testing out their methods, commented to Nature News. “It’s a technical tour de force.”Meanwhile, senior author Paola Arlotta from Harvard University explained what the next steps could be: “What if one day we could use Chimeroids as avatars to predict individual responses to new therapeutics before testing these in a trial? I like to imagine that future.”The study is published in Nature.

Trilobites that date back 508 million years have been found preserved in volcanic matter, revealing never-before-seen details in 3D form. Their fossilization was so rapid that tiny shells have been preserved in situ, and soft tissues including mouthparts and internal organs can still be seen.The trilobites were entombed in pyroclastic flow, which is the hot, dense material that comes hurtling out of volcanoes sometimes reaching speeds as high as 200 meters (656 feet) per second. Typically, it burns up any life in its path, but that can change in a marine setting.“The surface of the sea on which the ash flowed would have been lethally hot and, yes, would have incinerated animals at the shallowest depths,” study co-author Dr Greg Edgecombe of the Natural History Museum, London, told IFLScience. “The ash would have mixed with seawater as it picked up and entrained the trilobites, which were living on the sea bottom. This mixing through a column of seawater must have cooled the ash sufficiently.”Collected in the High Atlas of Morocco, the ancient wonders have been nicknamed “Pompeii” trilobites due to their remarkable preservation in the ash. They’re incredibly old, but they aren’t the oldest trilobites ever found.     At around 508 million years old, they’re younger than the oldest trilobites, which date back to about 521 million years old. There are also older trace fossils in the form of burrows, called Rusophycus, that are thought to be the work of trilobites and exceed 528 million years in age.However, the comparative whipper snappers are still remarkable for the degree of preservation they exhibit.“What makes our specimens unique, and indeed especially pristine, is three-dimensional preservation of their appendages,” continued Edgecombe. “The appendages are not flattened or reoriented or broken. They were preserved in close to life orientations. And because they are preserved as void space in the rock matrix, we can image them tomographically to see them in 3D.”Microtomographic reconstruction of the trilobite Gigoutella mauretanica in ventral view.Image credit: © Arnaud MAZURIER, IC2MP, Univ. Poitiers“Appendages preserved in shale can beautifully preserve their setae but the fossils are compacted to the point of almost being 2D and we have to use destructive sampling to mechanically excavate upper parts of an appendage in order to see lower parts. Our specimens are as perfect after study as they were before.”This never-before-seen detail means we are now seeing trilobites closer to real life than we have ever seen them before, complete with a slit-like mouth, and unique cephalic feeding appendages. Ain’t she a beauty?The study is published in the journal Science.

Choko José Luis Matos is a familiar face on the streets of Bucaramanga, Colombia, but his story is far from ordinary. Living homeless, Choko has found companionship and love in his two dogs, Shaggy and Nena. These loyal dogs are more than just pets to him—they are his family. Choko’s dedication to his furry friends... The post Homeless man throws a birthday party for his dogs unaware that doing so will change his life appeared first on Animal Channel.

Et tu, Elon? X restricted one of former President Donald Trump’s campaign accounts during the CNN 2024 presidential debate Thursday. X users reported finding warning labels when they attempted to view the “Trump War Room” account within 20 minutes of the first 2024 presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden. In response to this, Dan Schneider, the vice president of MRC Free Speech America, went so far as to say that “the radicals embedded within X fumbled worse than Joe Biden last night.” He added, “It is outrageous that a social media company would censor a political candidate, especially in the middle of one of the most important moments for voters to decide who they want to vote for.” Users who attempted to view the Trump War Room account were met with a warning label: "Caution: This account is temporarily restricted[.] You're seeing this warning because there has been some unusual activity from this account. Do you still want to view it?" It’s unclear exactly why the issue occurred, but it was reportedly resolved within an hour. Outrageous that Big Tech is censoring a presidential account in the middle of the debate!https://t.co/3FulImx6aH will take action for all candidates who are silenced by the tech thugs https://t.co/iZ59NhloiM — Dan Schneider (@Schneider_DC) June 28, 2024 Trump communications aid Bobby Levy posted a screenshot of the same notice appearing on his own account, asking: “Hey @elonmusk, what was this about literally the second the debate started?” Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

Friday’s CNN This Morning attempted to make sense of President Biden’s porous performance in the network’s presidential debate on Thursday night with varying doses of cope, excuses, and even conceding reality. Even one White House reporter on-set blasted the administration’s years of denying reality about Biden losing a grip on reality. Axios’s Alex Thompson — who’s been one of the few in the regime’s press corps to repeatedly write about Biden’s age — lambasted Team Biden just after the top of both hours of the show (click “expand”): Well, listen, I've covered the Biden White House now for three-and-a-half years. And as someone that's reported on his age quite a few times, I can tell you that the White House’s response every single time has come up for three-and-a-half years has been to deflect, to gaslight, to not tell the truth, not just to reporters, not just other Democrats, but even at times to themselves about the President's limitations at his age. There's a reason why he has not done as many interviews and press conferences as any president in decades. There's a reason he does not do events almost ever before 10:00 a.m. and is rarely on camera after six p.m. And the reason is because he has limitations. He is 81-years-old, but the problem was they were not forthright with other Democrats. They weren’t forthright with themselves. (....) There is one good piece for Democrats is that there are still tens of millions of people in this country that would take Joe Biden at 110-years-old, then vote for Donald Trump. The problem is there's probably not enough of those millions of people. And part of the problem is someone that's covered, Joe Biden's age for the last 3.5 years is they deflect, they gaslight at times they have not told the truth about the limitations of his age, that he gets up late in the morning, that he does not appear on camera, usually late at night, that does not do interviews — more than — he's done less interviews than any president in decades. There are limitations on this present because he is old and he is not been forthright and addressing those in a way that Jamal was saying. And so that's why you have this collective freak out because now it's four months to election day. And you realize that maybe he does have some bad moments.     Host Kasie Hunt — yes, that CNN host — tried to suggest this was coming, wondering if there’s been a “level of angst and hand-wringing behind the scenes” that’s only “started to bubble up really aggressively in the last couple of months”. Thompson wasn’t having it and stated the simple truth that “Father time” remains undefeated and Democrats refused to grapple with Biden’s cognitive abilities after the 2022 midterms because it wasn’t far better for them than expected. CNN data guru Harry Enten tried to seem critical of Biden, but it was more genuine sadness (and despite his insistence of being “a nonpartisan analyst). He argued this “was like watching a great ball player in decline” compared to past debate performances. Later, faux Republican and former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan arrived to comically go through some on-air therapy about backing Biden despite what happened (click “expand”): HUNT: Look, you have been out front as someone who has been arguing in no small part because of what we saw there — the January 6 issue — but, of course, also the 11,000 votes he was hunting for here in Georgia — about the dangers of another Trump presidency. You have said that you are supporting Joe Biden. Are you still supporting him after the performance we saw last night? DUNCAN: You know, I'm one of those folks that I'm against Donald Trump because of — because of facts and details. You just mentioned them — him trying to bully his way here and lie, and conspiracy theories. My family has received death threats. My wife and kids have received death threats. I've watched him operate. I've watched him stoke the fires of January 6.We cannot afford Donald Trump to be back in the White House. And last night was — was difficult to watch, right? Joe Biden did not show up ready to go. Mentally and physically, he needed to cross a bar that was relatively low, and he didn't do it. I think he picks up additional headwinds from his own party and I think the folks in the middle, like me, that want anybody other than Donald Trump to be in charge of our country — I think the couch caucus got a little bit bigger last night. I think we're still trying to figure out how can we justify not voting for a Republican and figure out how we can vote for a Democrat. Joe Biden's got work to do. To start the second hour, even Hunt acknowledged the blatant issue in Biden’s competency that’s “sent his party scrambling” after having seen his “halting” “cadence” and “voice nearly inaudible at times as he struggled to finish some of his thoughts.” Yet after all of these critiques the conversation was capped off with even greater disillusionment thanks to chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny, who floated the idea Biden flopped because he was “overprepared”: So look, today's a new day, the President has to address this when he speaks to North Carolina today, it's — it would be unthinkable for him not to, but going forward from that, I think we need a few days to settle in to what is he personally, what is his family personally thinking about this. To me, he was over — he looked overprepared, completely tired, and he may have had a cold. That's probably the most charitable thing. But, Biden advisers know how to reach everyone, why didn't they alert people to his cold at say, 5:00 as opposed to 9:45 during the debate? (....) What about the stare? It wasn't just the cold, though. Let's be honest if you watched the debate, it was more than just his voice. It was how he carried himself and it was almost like he wasn't sure which camera luck through. But again, he was so prepared. Was he over-prepared? just look at that. And, you know, this is not the first time this has happened necessarily. We have covered many events with him this is actually the Joe Biden we see on most days, the State of the Union address was the outlier here, at least according to last night.   The transcript is below, click “expand” to read: CNN This Morning  06/28/2024 05:03 a.m. Eastern ALEX THOMPSON: Well, listen, I've covered the Biden White House now for three-and-a-half years. And as someone that's reported on his age quite a few times, I can tell you that the White House’s response every single time has come up for three-and-a-half years has been to deflect, to gaslight, to not tell the truth, not just to reporters, not just other Democrats, but even at times to themselves about the President's limitations at his age. There's a reason why he has not done as many interviews and press conferences as any president in decades. There's a reason he does not do events almost ever before 10:00 a.m. and is rarely on camera after six p.m. And the reason is because he has limitations. He is 81-years-old, but the problem was they were not forthright with other Democrats. They weren't, at times, forthright with themselves. KASIE HUNT: Mmhmm. THOMPSON: And that is why Democrats sorry, I'm full freak out mode because what they saw is finally what they have been obscuring HUNT: Alex, how much of this is relatively recent because it does seem like there has been a – the level of angst and hand-wringing behind the scenes has started to bubble up really aggressively in the last couple of months — THOMPSON: Yes. HUNT: — in particular, is there something that happened? Was — was there a turning point — THOMPSON: I mean, its Father time– HUNT: – that crossed? THOMPSON: — I mean, it's father time. I think the thing is you have to remember, take us back to 2022 and it was supposed to be a red wave. There wasn't, and sort of the exuberance of victory, or at least not doing as, you know, proceed victory, not doing his bad they hoped there was this — there was a sense that, hey, we can do this. And thing is that when Joe Biden, you look at Joe Biden even like late 2022, the fact is that he has — you know, his public performance has slipped considerably over the last year, and that's why you saw basically a lot of Democrats get angsty. Now, Joe Biden was able to put off some that angst in the State of the Union address, but he was on a teleprompter there and now he wasn't a teleprompter. It was 90 minutes. And this is what happened. (....) 05:06 a.m. Eastern HARRY ANTON: As a nonpartisan analyst, it was tough to watch. It was like watching a great ball player in decline. I went back and watched his debate performances during the 2008 Democratic primary season or in the vice presidential debate in 2008. And the market difference between the man that I saw back in 2008 and the one that I saw on that stage last night, it was almost as if I was looking  at two completely different human beings. (....) 05:34 a.m. Eastern HUNT: Look, you have been out front as someone who has been arguing in no small part because of what we saw there — the January 6 issue — but, of course, also the 11,000 votes he was hunting for here in Georgia — about the dangers of another Trump presidency. You have said that you are supporting Joe Biden. Are you still supporting him after the performance we saw last night? GEOFF DUNCAN: You know, I'm one of those folks that I'm against Donald Trump because of — because of facts and details. You just mentioned them — him trying to bully his way here and lie, and conspiracy theories. My family has received death threats. My wife and kids have received death threats. I've watched him operate. I've watched him stoke the fires of January 6.We cannot afford Donald Trump to be back in the White House. And last night was — was difficult to watch, right? Joe Biden did not show up ready to go. Mentally and physically, he needed to cross a bar that was relatively low, and he didn't do it. I think he picks up additional headwinds from his own party and I think the folks in the middle, like me, that want anybody other than Donald Trump to be in charge of our country — I think the couch caucus got a little bit bigger last night. I think we're still trying to figure out how can we justify not voting for a Republican and figure out how we can vote for a Democrat. Joe Biden's got work to do. (....) 6:01 a.m. Eastern HUNT: [L]ast night, one candidates performance sent his party scrambling. Good morning, everyone. CNN This Morning is live here in Atlanta, where it is 6:00 a.m. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us this morning. “We are f***ed”. That reaction from a Democratic source after watching president Biden's performance in last night's CNN debate, other Democratic insiders telling me Biden looks and sounds terrible that he was simply “horrific”. All those comments coming from party operatives who found moments like this incredibly difficult to watch. (....) 6:02 a.m. Eastern HUNT: With so much on the line last night, the president's performance was alarming to many who support him. His cadence was halting, his voice nearly inaudible at times as he struggled to finish some of his thoughts. (....) 06:08 a.m. JEFF ZELENY: This goes beyond Democratic bedwetting. This is a very different thing and it was more a sense of concern, alarm, pain. I was in the spin room last night after the debate sort of looking around and boy, talk about not a single Biden person could be found for quite awhile. Finally, Governor Gavin Newsom came in. Senator Rafael Warnock came in and yes, they did, you know, talk about the policy, but very little talk about the performance. So look, today's a new day, the President has to address this when he speaks to North Carolina today, it's — it would be unthinkable for him not to, but going forward from that, I think we need a few days to settle in to what is he personally, what is his family personally thinking about this. To me, he was over — he looked overprepared, completely tired, and he may have had a cold. That's probably the most charitable thing. But, Biden advisers know how to reach everyone, why didn't they alert people to his cold at say, 5:00 as opposed to 9:45 during the debate? HUNT: I told — I had — I got a text from someone that said, “They should have lied and said he had COVID, if this — if they knew this was the guy that was gonna show up.” (....)   6:10 a.m. Eastern THOMPSON: There is one good piece for Democrats is that there are still tens of millions of people in this country that would take Joe Biden at 110-years-old, then vote for Donald Trump. The problem is there's probably not enough of those millions of people. And part of the problem is someone that's covered, Joe Biden's age for the last 3.5 years is they deflect, they gaslight at times they have not told the truth about the limitations of his age, that he gets up late in the morning, that he does not appear on camera, usually late at night, that does not do interviews — more than — he's done less interviews than any president in decades. There are limitations on this present because he is old and he is not been forthright and addressing those in a way that Jamal was saying. And so that's why you have this collective freak out because now it's four months to election day. And you realize that maybe he does have some bad moments. JAMAL SIMMONS: Yeah and it raises the question, why do you go to Europe twice, right? You seem like there's sort of over-working him to show this mode, this movement, and what you're talking about that somebody is at home, I mean, it's working, but he is 81-years-old. Let him them stay home on one of those trips. Let the vice president go on one of those trips, so that he could be focused on his job. And it does raise questions about staffing. If he had a cold, I would've liked to have known as somebody who's been out talking on behalf for Democrats because at least that way when we heard the raspy voice at the beginning of the beginning of the debate, we would have had a moment and say, oh, he's got a coal, let's give them a chance — like, gain his footing, but that's not what happened. ZELENY: What about the stare? It wasn't just the cold, though. Let's be honest if you watched the debate, it was more than just his voice. It was how he carried himself and it was almost like he wasn't sure which camera luck through. But again, he was so prepared. Was he over-prepared? just look at that. And, you know, this is not the first time this has happened necessarily. We have covered many events with him this is actually the Joe Biden we see on most days, the State of the Union address was the outlier here, at least according to last night.

Unlike Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Martin Short did not react to Thursday’s Trump-Biden debate live, and from the perspective of ABC’s liberal audience, maybe that was a good thing because Short’s previously recorded rendition of Cranky Doodle, mocking Trump, would help them cope with Biden’s bad performance. Short hosted as his character Jiminy Glick and mocked some Trump supporters’ priorities, “Why does Jimmy Kimmel have to be so one-sided? Why not talk about the issues that really matter? Like Hillary's emails, Benghazi, deep state Pizzagate. And where is Hunter? I'll tell you where! Having a threesome with Antifa and Taylor Swift.”     Keeping with the sarcasm, Short pretended to lament, “Jimmy's always punching down on Mr. Trump. But tonight, I want to lift him up—with a musical salute to a man whose only crime is trying to make America great again, again.” Short then launched into a parody of Yankee Doodle complete with an Uncle Sam hat, on screen lyrics, and related images: Cranky Doodle went to town to call the news a phony. Stuck white letters on red hats and called it MAGA-roni. Cranky Doodle you're so tan, Cranky Doodle Dandy. Stop the steal and lock her up and with the girls be handsy. Cranky Doodle won't concede ´cause they rigged the election so they stormed the Capitol ´twas hardly insurrection. Cranky Doodle you're so smart, windmills do cause cancer, you're a stable genius and a very sexy dancer. Cranky Doodle went to court to fight a crooked system, is it really Donald's fault that Stormy can't resist him. Cranky Doodle drained the swamp, got rid of all the leakers, built a mighty border wall in glitzy golden sneakers. Cranky Doodle make us great, be the one who frees us, you're our bigly Burger King, our sweet Orange baby Jesus.  Cranky Doodle has our vote, by your side we're standin' go and take the White House back and we'll shout let's go Brandon. Go and take the White House back and we'll shout let's go Brandon.  As Short concluded, Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, joined him on stage waving an American flag in a bald eagle costume while confetti streamers fell from the ceiling. Unfortunately for Short and his viewers, voters are more likely to make their decisions based on the debate than a parody song, and the sugar high of such a song will quickly wear off. Here is a transcript for the June 27 show: ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! 6/27/2024 11:41 PM ET MARTIN SHORT [AS JIMINY GLICK]: Why does Jimmy Kimmel have to be so one-sided? Why not talk about the issues that really matter? Like Hillary's emails, Benghazi, deep state Pizzagate. And where is Hunter? I'll tell you where! Having a threesome with Antifa and Taylor Swift.  And Jimmy's always punching down on Mr. Trump. But tonight, I want to lift him up —with a musical salute to a man whose only crime is trying to make America great again, again.  Cranky Doodle went to town to call the news a phony. Stuck white letters on red hats and called it MAGA-roni. Cranky Doodle you're so tan, Cranky Doodle Dandy Stop the steal and lock her up and with the girls be handsy. Cranky Doodle won't concede ´cause they rigged the election so they stormed the Capitol ´twas hardly insurrection. Cranky Doodle you're so smart, windmills do cause cancer, you're a stable genius and a very sexy dancer. Cranky Doodle went to court to fight a crooked system, is it really Donald's fault that Stormy can't resist him. Cranky Doodle drained the swamp, got rid of all the leakers, built a mighty border wall in glitzy golden sneakers. Cranky Doodle make us great, be the one who frees us, you're our bigly Burger King, our sweet Orange baby Jesus.  Cranky Doodle has our vote, by your side we're standin' go and take the White House back and we'll shout let's go Brandon. Go and take the White House back and we'll shout let's go Brandon. 

Matt Taibbi, independent journalist and Twitter Files author, revealed the origins of the expansive government censorship enterprise working with social media to censor Americans. Taibbi recounted his findings from the Twitter Files in a new interview with Tucker Carlson released Thursday. During the 2-hour long interview, Taibbi revealed the origins of the Global Engagement Center, a State Department initiative first implemented overseas to combat jihadist terrorists that is now being used to target US citizens. Taibbi described the scope of his findings revealing that the US government was working hand in glove with social media companies to violate the Bill of Rights. “There was a group of us and for about three months, we got to look through the internal correspondence of one of the world’s biggest communications companies, and the big thing that we found was that there was this nexus of communication between government enforcement and intelligence agencies and the internet platforms,” Taibbi said. “And they had a very sophisticated and organized bureaucracy that was involved with controlling content in a variety of different ways.” Taibbi’s team was shocked at what they uncovered and were very curious as to how such a sophisticated apparatus could be implemented at home seemingly under the nose of the American public.  “First of all, this was shocking to us seeing all these documents that said, ‘Flagged by FBI,’ ‘Flagged by DHS’ … But we had to figure out, ‘Where did this come from? Like, ‘How did this start’” Taibbi told Carlson. “And when we started asking questions, it turned out that a lot of the programs that were now targeting domestic speech began as overseas, counter-terrorism sort of messaging programs, right?” Eventually, Taibbi discovered that this vast censorship enterprise had been originally started as an effort by the State Department and other agencies to combat international Islamic terrorism. “So, the State Department, for instance, has a thing called the Global Engagement Center, which is now very much interested in speech both abroad and at home. But they were once exclusively a sort of counter-ISIS platform.” Taibbi concluded by talking to industry insiders that after the surge of global populism around the world culminating in the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the foreign policy elite decided that populism was a grave danger to the established world order and must be dealt with. “One phrase really stuck out,” said Taibbi of his discussions with industry insiders. “It was ‘CT to CP,’ so that’s ‘counter terrorism to counter populism.’ And the idea was the whole mission abroad of countering ISIS or countering AL-Qaeda, contracting-wise, it was kind of drying up, right? Because those threats had been somewhat neutralized.”  The foreign policy establishment needed fresh prey, and populism was the perfect target. “But populism was now… was viewed as a very serious threat after Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party…then there was Brexit and then I think Trump was the last, you know, the last stand for a lot of these folks. ” Taibbi’s comments come in the wake of dramatic developments that could determine the future of free speech in the United States.  This Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Murthy v Missouri that the federal government could continue to collude with social media companies to censor online content. In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito described the Court’s decision as setting a precedent allowing the federal government to circumvent the First Amendment. “Officials who read today’s decision together with Vullo will get the message,” Alito wrote. “If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by. That is not the message this Court should send.”  Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.