Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Jessica Warman’s Repeat After Me Palm Springs meets 50 First Dates with a whole new twist when a teen relives the day she lost her virginity over and over again. By Jessica Warman | Published on July 18, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Repeat After Me by Jessica Warman, a new YA paranormal fantasy romance publishing with Entangled: Teen on September 3rd. In retrospect, I probably should have passed on the ceviche.It was already a weird Friday. My class is stuck on this bizarre remote island for our senior trip, I’m pretty sure Mr. D (“call me Max”) is hiding something from us, my ex-best friend turned biggest tormentor keeps stealing my candy, and tonight’s plan to finally ”do the deed” with my boyfriend is not going exactly as planned.I mean, ceviche is delicious, don’t get me wrong. But a dish made from a supposedly immortal octopus should really come with a warning label… Emma Friday I ran into Gus while I was walking back from the beach alone. “Emily!” he greeted me. There’s something about my name that confuses the hell out of old people. “It’s Emma.” “Oh, I’m sorry—so close! You must forgive me. I’m elderly, you see.” I almost said something like, Yes, I can clearly fucking see that, but I was polite and just nodded. “Emma, I’ve been looking for you. Today is your lucky day. Do you have some time to spare? I have something very, very special to show you.” I looked at him warily. “Why me?” He gave me an even smile. “Because you, my dear, look like you could use a treat!” I watch a lot of Netflix, and I love true crime. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you never, ever let a stranger take you to a secondary location. Gus isn’t a stranger per se, but he’s definitely got a significant creep factor. I told him I was busy looking for my boyfriend, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Auggie will find you! Please, follow me. Greta is waiting for me. She has something very special to show you. She asked for you specifically…” Even if he was telling the truth, I still didn’t want to go. Why would Greta want to see me? This is how so many girls and women get kidnapped or assaulted, or worse: we don’t want to be rude, but social conditioning is hard to overcome. I followed him. It’s not like I thought he was actually going to hurt me. (And he obviously didn’t.) But still—what a weirdo. The back of Gus’s left hand is covered with tattoos of tentacles that wrap all the way around his fingers. Each of his three middle fingers has two tentacles, one on either side of the digit, so there are an anatomically correct eight in total. They wind like inky ribbons up the length of his arm. The rest of the tattoo is hidden by his shirt. Greta has the same tattoo on her left hand. (See what I mean? Weird.) Spoiler alert: I’m glad I went; it was kind of the coolest weird thing I’ve ever seen. I followed Gus to the big yellow building where all the aquariums are set up. There’s a big red door on the far end of the room that I’d figured must lead to a closet or something. Boy, was I wrong. It leads to another huge room. Instead of rows and rows of tanks cluttered with oysters, there is one huge tank in the middle of the room. The tank itself is the size of a small room: it’s at least eight feet tall and ten feet wide. It’s a gigantic tank that houses a big, beautiful, terrifying, adorable octopus. Her name is Sibyl. I’ve never seen an octopus up close before today. I didn’t know anything about them. Unless Gus and Greta were both messing with me—which isn’t out of the question—what I learned today has left me profoundly changed. First of all, they might literally be aliens. Their DNA is so different from the DNA of every other living creature on the planet that scientists aren’t sure what the hell is up. And octopuses (octopi?) are really, really, really smart. Buy the Book Repeat After Me Jessica Warman Buy Book Repeat After Me Jessica Warman Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Examples: (I watched all of this with my own eyes, or I wouldn’t have believed it.) They can change color and appearance depending on their surroundings. Gus dropped a crab into the tank for Sibyl to eat. Sibyl moved to a bottom corner of the aquarium and curled herself up beside a rock and then CAMOUFLAGED HERSELF TO LOOK LIKE THE ROCK to lure the crab into a false sense of safety. She caught and ate it right away. Poor little crab never stood a chance. I guess that’s nature for ya. They can solve puzzles and use tools! Greta showed me a cube that looked like one of those toys for babies where each side has a different-shaped hole—a star, a circle, etc.—and the goal is to insert the correct shape into the correct hole. Sibyl inserted each piece correctly with almost no hesitation. She is way smarter than any baby I’ve ever seen. They have personalities! Sibyl is a fancy girl who enjoys the finer things in life. Gus put a bracelet into a mason jar, sealed the lid, and dropped it into the aquarium. Sibyl opened the jar and then PUT THE FREAKING BRACELET ON ONE OF HER TENTACLES AND HELD IT UP TO HER FACE LIKE SHE WAS ADMIRING HOW PRETTY SHE LOOKED. Sibyl is as big as a healthy middle schooler. She has translucent red skin and bright white suction cups. There are hundreds of them in row upon row on her underside. They wiggle and contract like open, hungry mouths, seeking. She reminded me of a sentient portobello mushroom. Gus asked me if I wanted to touch her. If I’m being honest? I sort of didn’t want to. But by then I’d been hanging out for more than an hour, learning all kinds of cool octopus facts and generally having my mind blown, and I didn’t want to offend Sibyl. So I climbed up the ladder beside the tank and stuck my arm in the water. Almost right away, Sibyl drifted toward me and wrapped a single tentacle around my index finger. She did it so gently—like she could tell I was nervous. Her suction cups felt like a thousand tickly little kisses. I was so enthralled by the feeling of her touch—I know it will seem hard to believe, but I could feel it throughout my entire body. It was like there was a gentle current of electricity running through me. I blinked slowly, and for an instant while my eyes were fully closed I thought I saw the source code of the universe blooming like fireworks in the endless space within our shared mind. I might have been a passive observer for a fraction of a second or a thousand years. There was something maternal about her touch. I didn’t want to let go, not ever. I stayed like that, my arm hanging over the edge of the tank while Sibyl explored my finger and hand, until my arm started to go tingly and lose feeling. Before I had a chance to ask Gus or Greta how to free myself without disturbing Sibyl, it was like she heard my thoughts somehow. She released each suction cup individually, one after the next, and each time, I felt a deliberate release, an internal sigh of yearning (come back, Sibyl!) combined with the bittersweet understanding that our time together couldn’t last forever. Once each suction cup was free, she gave my hand and forearm a gentle caress with the smooth edge of her tentacle and drifted away. I was still bathing in the afterglow of the experience, barely aware of my surroundings. Then Gus climbed up the ladder, stuck his hand in the tank, and took hold of Sibyl near the top of a single tentacle, his arm gripping where it met the webbed ruching of flesh connecting her head and tentacles. She didn’t try to get away from him. She floated serenely as he tugged and tightened his grip—more roughly than I would have liked—trusting him. My body was still bursting from her touch. It was like a veil had been draped over my consciousness, only to be ripped away when Gus reached into his back pocket with his free hand, pulled out a pair of gardening shears, and chopped off the better part of Sibyl’s tentacle. What had been like a beautiful dream turned into a Black Mirror episode in an instant. I learned that octopus blood is blue. The water bloomed an inky shade of aqua. Sibyl shrank into a corner, her body blending itself with the surrounding rocks. She seemed to disappear. In my panic, I thought I heard her screaming, but it was me. I staggered backward and into Greta’s arms. She was ready for me. She was laughing, which terrified me more than I thought was possible. Everything had been so beautiful and now it was ugly. Never go with a stranger to a second location. In the midst of my freak-out, Gus dismounted wordlessly from the ladder and disappeared with the severed tentacle. A trail of blue blood made a staccato half-moon from the aquarium to the doorway. Greta couldn’t stop giggling while she reassured me everything was okay. She was not very convincing. I was shaking and crying, and she was giggling. A little tip on crisis management that I picked up from AP Psych 101: laughing at somebody when they’re crying is, generally speaking, a dick move. “You’re worried about Sibyl,” Greta observed. “He cut her arm off! Of course I’m worried!” “Don’t be. An octopus’s severed limb will regenerate. Besides, Sibyl is immortal.” It didn’t occur to me at the moment to point out the implausibility of the latter claim. I heard “regenerate” and remembered learning about the very real ability of some animals to regrow severed limbs. For a quick minute, I felt better (oh, Sibyl is only temporarily maimed, she’ll regenerate). Then I felt ridiculous (the maiming is not an exclusively cosmetic problem! She’s been tortured!). “But she’s in pain!” “I don’t think so.” “How the hell do you know? It’s not like we can ask her! And what about blood loss? What if she bleeds to death?” “I already told you, Sibyl can’t die. She’s immortal,” Greta repeated. She smiled a serene smile. What would have been a sweet and innocent expression five minutes earlier was suddenly unnerving. “Um. You know that immortal means ‘to live forever,’ right?” “I do.” “So what you mean is that Sibyl will live for a long time.” “No.” That smile again. I started getting a reeeealll culty vibe. The father/daughter octopus tattoos were already weird; now they were downright the-power-of-Sibyl-compels-you weird. “What I mean, Emma, is that Sibyl is immortal.” So at this point I was no longer enjoying myself at all. In the span of an afternoon, I’d befriended and grown to love an octopus (Do you want to be my mother, Sibyl? Maybe you could adopt me?) only to watch her get maimed with zero warning. Now I was being gaslit by the maimer’s daughter. Immortal my ass. Obviously, I assumed Greta was messing with me. Actually, that isn’t true: I hoped Greta was messing with me. There is no such thing as an immortal octopus. And yet, as I stood there with Greta, we both turned to look into the tank. The threads of blue blood, which had been so pronounced just a moment earlier, had dissipated. The water was tinged a slight blue, but there was no obvious bleeding wound that I could see. My gaze met Sibyl’s black, unblinking eyes through the thick glass and hazy water. Her eyes peered into my soul. As her tentacles rummaged through my memories, I heard her voice in my mind saying: Remember your miracle. And I thought of the poop moth. My eyes were still locked with Sibyl’s when Gus came prancing through the doorway. He was light on his toes, and there was a glee to his step that reminded me of Rumpelstiltskin. He held a small plastic bowl pinned between his arm and his body. “I have something very special here, Emily,” he said, “something very, very special…” “My name is Emma.” “I’m so sorry about that. Excuse me. Emma.” But he didn’t actually seem sorry at all. Greta’s hand was on my arm again. I didn’t want her to touch me, but it seemed rude to push her away. I can’t emphasize this enough: the whole thing was incredibly disorienting. More often than not, I was half convinced I was dreaming, like maybe it was one of those dreams that feels incredibly realistic. Yeah, that’s what it was. A dream. It must have been. “Dad, let me do this,” Greta said. She looked at me. She was not giggling anymore, but I could tell she wanted to. Like she was only being serious for my benefit, and this was all more or less a big game to her. “I have a serious question to ask you, Emma. I want you to really think about it before you answer me, okay?” Just a bad dream. But Sibyl’s touch felt so real…and I felt so awake… “Do you want to live forever?” Greta asked me. Just like that! Like it was a perfectly normal question! “Sure!” I said. I didn’t think it through at all. Because A, I was dreaming. And B, what are the chances of two miracles in a lifetime? “Then you should eat this,” she said. She took the bowl from Gus and handed it to me. It took a minute for me to realize that what I was seeing could even be considered food. “What is it?” “It’s ceviche,” Greta said. But it didn’t look like any ceviche I’d ever had. I peered closer into the bowl. Then I gasped. You probably know where this is going, but I can assure you, I was not prepared for the reveal. It was ceviche, all right. It was Sibyl ceviche. Fleshy discs of pink and white looking robust and alive. I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming. Yet I knew, deep down, it was no dream. I felt like I was in a fairy tale because this was certainly not real food; real non-fairy-tale food does not glisten, nor does it originate from an immortal octopus. There is no such thing as an immortal octopus. I know. And yet… “See, look at her. She’s fine.” Greta was pointing at Sibyl. And okay, I know this is impossible, I know nobody will believe me, but I looked and saw the octopus floating in her tank. All eight of her legs were fully intact, all grown to more or less equal lengths. I counted them three times. Then I took a bite of the ceviche. It was the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. Excerpted from Repeat After Me, copyright © 2024 by Jessica Warman. The post Read an Excerpt From Jessica Warman’s <i>Repeat After Me</i> appeared first on Reactor.

There's something undeniably captivating about old photos. Maybe they capture attention because they harken back to a time long before we were born. Sometimes, they bring on a sense of nostalgia for a simpler time in life. In any event, we're in a privileged position in this modern age because we have nearly two centuries of photography to look back on, and it's all at our fingertips. Source

The Daily Caller News Foundation—California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Monday banning schools from implementing policies that require parents be notified if their child requests to be identified as a different gender. AB 1955, also known as the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act, strikes down policies that some California schools have already implemented protecting parents’ rights to be made aware of issues and make decisions regarding their children. In August 2023, the state’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against a California school district after it implemented a policy that required school officials to notify parents if their child requested to change their pronouns or gender, prompting the ban. “By signing AB1955, Governor Newsom has signaled he’s no longer running for president. This law enshrines the ability of teachers to keep secrets from parents and is inconsistent with our long-standing jurisprudence that parents have a right to raise their children without government interference,” California Assemblyman Bill Essayli said. “We will take this fight to court because our children are worth fighting for.” Essayli has openly opposed the bill since its conception and issued a press release shortly after its passing, calling it dangerous and saying it defied parents’ rights. “Governor Newsom signing AB 1955 is both immoral and unconstitutional and we will challenge it in court to stop the government from keeping secrets fro Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Gov. Newsom, said that the law is meant to protect children and parents. “[The law] protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when, and how families have deeply personal conversations.” California is the first state ban such parental notification policies. Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The post California Bans Policies Requiring Parents Be Notified Of Child’s Pronoun Changes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—As Republicans and Democrats meet at the conventions and propose policies for the next four years, the contrast between Republican and Democrat energy policies could not be greater. Republicans would speed up oil and natural gas production; eliminate mandates to purchase electric vehicles; get rid of subsidies for renewables; and end dependence on China. Democrats propose to electrify the energy supply, ridding the economy of gasoline-powered vehicles and natural-gas appliances and substituting solar and wind for legacy fuels. Through a series of executive orders and regulations, President Joe Biden has reduced federal oil and gas leases. America has 373.1 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude oil resources, and 2,973 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas resources—an 85-year supply. Expect the next Republican administration to encourage production and use these resources to lower energy prices at home and around the world. A Republican president would be able to reverse Biden’s executive orders and regulations. Increasing energy production is fourth out of 20 promises in the 2024 Republican Platform, “We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy Independent, and even Dominant again. The United States has more liquid gold under our feet than any other Nation, and it’s not even close. The Republican Party will harness that potential to power our future.” A Republican administration would allow a choice in cars. The Republican Party Platform calls for cancelling the mandate for EVs. The Biden administration is subsidizing electric vehicles through the Inflation Reduction Act. Companies are paid to manufacture these EVs and consumers get tax credits to buy them. The Environmental Protection Agency’s final tailpipe rule would require 70% of new cars sold and 25% or new trucks sold to be battery powered electric or plug-in hybrid by 2032. The Biden administration has focused on providing wind and solar power through billions in tax credits in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Either directly or through access to banks and Wall Street investors, it is deciding who is suitable to receive funding for energy projects. But government control of energy is control of people and the economy. This is one reason why the trend toward nationalization of our energy industry through government mandates, bans on the production and use of oil and natural gas, and reorganization of the electric grid is so dangerous. Under a new Republican administration, rather than slowing down pipeline approval, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would focus on speeding it up. The Bureau of Land Management would prioritize approving both onshore and offshore drilling permits. The Security and Exchange Commission would no longer look at climate effects of companies’ investments, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would not look at the climate effects of bank loans. Democrat energy policies increase dependence on China because China makes nearly 80% of the world’s batteries and is home to 7 out of 10 of the world’s largest solar panel manufacturers, and 7 out of 10 of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers. China dominates the critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt required for EVs through its own mines and by purchasing mines in Africa and Latin America. Trade with China is not free or fair. China can produce lower-cost goods because it subsidizes labor, capital, and energy. It uses forced labor from Xinjiang; gives low-interest rate loans to favored companies; and is not bound by the clean energy regulations of the West. The next administration should use America’s domestic resources and provide tools to assist our allies and deter our adversaries. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post Democrats Are on a Different Planet appeared first on The Daily Signal.

WaPo: Obama Tells Allies Biden Needs to 'Seriously Consider His Viability'

A debate broke out on Tuesday night between PBS's resident political analyst and forecaster Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report and die-hard Democrat and columnist Jonathan Capehart. At the 10:13 p.m. (ET) juncture, after Walter had shared data showing Biden in a shaky position, and noted the Democratic party's lack of confidence with him at the top of the ticket, Walter walked into a spat with a prickly Capehart, who fiercely defended, in an aggrieved tone, the Democratic president from critics. Amy Walter: So, this gets back to the other issue we have sort of touched on, but we will be spending a lot more time in the next week about, which is what’s going on, on the Democratic side. And the fact that it is the president who should be able to make this case about the dissonance, the president who should be talking about what a Donald Trump second term would look like, who would be pointing to these as examples of the differences between the two parties, he's unable to do that, because even within his own party he is seen as not able to go forward. We still don’t have an answer for whether he will be on the top of the ticket!  And that is, at its very core, we can’t even begin to have a conversation about what does November look like when we don’t have a presidential candidate. The royal "We" is a little much for involuntary PBS funders. Capehart launched into defending Biden's vitality -- personal and political: Jonathan Capehart: Okay, wait a minute. We do have a presidential candidate. I don't know how many times President Biden has to say “I am running, I am running, I am running,” and the message is "Y'all stop asking me to get out, I'm not getting out."  This moment reminds me of the 2020 campaign, when Joe Biden's campaign was basically like the Hindenburg; lost Iowa, lost New Hampshire, lost Nevada, lost one other state that’s in there, and I kept saying, gotta wait ‘til black voters have their say. And miraculously, the Hindenburg sealed up and became president of the United States. And I think that the president is looking back on 2020, he said, “My candidacy was almost finito then, here we are now.”  We’re in July, people! People are losing their minds over polls that are snapshots in time. And I still contend that if that debate was so disastrous on June 27th, and it was, his poll numbers should be in the toilet -- beyond the toilet. And yet the PBS-NPR-Marist poll, Washington Post-ABC poll, NBC News poll, all done after the debate, no change, no change. It is still a dead heat and within the margin of error. I know I am arguing with a polling expert….[unintelligible crosstalk] arguing with a pollster! Walter said she's not a pollster, but went on to more politely explain to Capehart how Biden is polling poorly in swing states, causing doom about the Electoral College. 

Vivek Ramaswamy may have dropped out of the running to be the Republican nominee for president — but that’s not stopping him from sending a unifying message to the entire country. At the RNC, Ramaswamy gave a speech that did exactly that. “I’d like to deliver a message that the media doesn’t want you to hear from the Republican Party,” Vivek told the crowd.“Our message to black Americans is this: The media has tried to convince you for decades that Republicans don’t care about your communities, but we do. We want for you what we want for every American: safe neighborhoods, clean streets, good jobs, a better life for your children, and a justice system that treats everyone equally regardless of your skin color and regardless of your political beliefs.” “Our message to every legal immigrant in this country is this: You’re like my parents. You deserve the opportunity to secure a better life for your children in America,” he continued, before addressing the illegal immigrants. “We will return you to your country of origin, not because you’re all bad people, but because you broke the law. And the United States of America was founded on the rule of law.” “Our message to millennials, speaking as one myself, yes, it’s true our government sold us a false bill of goods with the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis. Loading up our national debt that falls on our generation’s shoulders, telling us that if we took out college loans we’d somehow get a head start on the American dream, when it hasn’t worked out that way.” “But, we can’t just be cynical about our country, because the United States of America is still the last best hope that we have, and we deserve a better class of politician, one who actually tells us the truth even if it comes with some mean tweets from time to time.” “And our message to Gen Z is this: You’re going to be the generation that actually saves this country. You want to be a rebel, you want to be a hippie, you want to stick it to the man? Show up on your college campus and try calling yourself conservative. Say you want to get married, have kids, teach them to believe in God and pledge allegiance to their country,” he said. As the speech went on, the crowd’s cheers escalated, and people rose to their feet. The crowd wasn’t alone in its response, as Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” is also incredibly impressed with Vivek. “An absolutely spectacular speech,” Rubin says.

Last night, Sen. JD Vance officially accepted the Republican nomination for vice president at the 2024 Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sending optimism to Silicon Valley and the tech community.A right-wing populist, Vance has been critical of the old right’s market fundamentalism in favor of the new right’s pro-worker economic nationalism — one that calls for antitrust crackdowns on Big Tech. A New York Times article described Vance as “pro-labor, a fan of crypto and the F.T.C.'s Lina Khan, and says Big Tech is too powerful.”Without tough antitrust legislation against Big Tech monopolies and pro-innovation regulatory reform, Big Tech will continue to enjoy its “wall of laws and regulations that protect and entrench their positions and that new startups cannot possibly scale.” Breaking up Big Tech, on the other hand, will empower startups and foster an innovative environment.Last February, Vance called for government action against Google, tweeting, “It’s time to break Google up,” since Google is “an explicitly progressive technology company“ and “a threat to democracy.”“In October and November, as millions of undecided voters consider their choice for president, they will go to Google and ask 'Did Donald Trump say X?' 'Is Biden too old to be president?' The results they see will be explicitly biased towards Democrats,” Vance tweeted.A conservative trustbuster?Vance has drawn criticism from the libertarian right for bucking the GOP’s free-market orthodoxy and praising Biden-appointed Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s aggressive trust-busting revolution against Silicon Valley and private equity. As FTC chair, Khan has battled various big multinational businesses by cracking down on corporations who make bogus “Made in America” claims, going after a private equity firm’s plan to “drive up the price of anesthesia services provided to Texas patients,” and suing Kochava for selling geolocation data and violating Americans’ privacy. At RemedyFest, an antitrust conference organized by Y Combinator and Bloomberg, Vance told conference attendees that he “look[s] at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration who ... is doing a pretty good job.”Following Vance’s VP announcement, Reason, a libertarian publication, put out a story attacking Vance’s “love” for Khan’s “anti-free markets” and “anti-innovation, anti-tech, anti-big business, and anti-consumer agenda.”“A second Trump administration may mirror some of the tactics of Khan and the Biden administration but turn them against policies and companies that left-leaning types support. No matter who wins the election this November, we're looking at four more years of aggressively anti-free market policies coming from the FTC,” Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote.Some, like libertarian journalist Brad Polumbo, have also likened him to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), claiming Vance “has more in common with [her] on economic policy than Ronald Reagan” due to his open willingness to go after large corporations, raise their taxes, and “do whatever else is necessary to fight these goons.” Others, however, are pleased with the GOP’s populist trajectory. Oren Cass, chief economist at American Compass, tweeted, “Exceptional VP pick. @jdvance1's conservative economics and dedication to American workers captures perfectly the Republican Party’s transformation over the past eight years.”Little Tech vs. Big Tech’s agenda Marc AndreesenJustin Sullivan/Getty Vance’s support for aggressive trust-busting and regulations creates an interesting dynamic within the GOP. With the exception of being pro-crypto, Vance holds many ostensibly anti-tech stances, putting him at odds with some of his biggest supporters — tech billionaires and venture capitalists. It was reported that Elon Musk and tech investor David Sacks helped push Vance over the line for Trump’s VP selection. Furthermore, Vance first got into politics through his exploration into venture capital. He initially worked at Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital after briefly working in corporate law. And a couple of years later, he started his own venture capital firm, Narya Capital, where he raised $93 million from several tech billionaires, including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. After his spell in venture capital, Vance shifted his eyes to holding public office. Vance went on to win an Ohio Senate seat even after a hotly contested GOP primary in large part due to Peter Thiel’s record-breaking $15 million donation. Thiel also helped garner large donations from wealthy individuals, including David Sacks. Considering the tech sector’s increasing support for Trump and Vance’s ties to tech billionaires and venture capitalists, some are starting to think the 47th administration might go soft on Big Tech and “switch on Lina Khan now.”Fortunately, Vance is not likely to. After all, Big Tech’s agenda isn’t always in the interest of America’s tech sector because “their interests are often at odds with a positive technological future as they are more interested in regulatory capture and preserving their monopolies. As a result, technology startups need a voice,” venture capitalist Ben Horowitz wrote in a blog post. Startups, also referred to as “Little Tech,” are at the heart of the American tech sector and could turn the 21st century into the American century. In Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz’s Little Tech Agenda, they highlight Little Tech’s role as "the vanguard of American technology supremacy." They say, “From Edison and Ford to Hughes and Lockheed to SpaceX and Tesla, the path to greatness starts in a garage.”Vance’s endorsement of Khan’s antitrust revolution serves as a net positive for America’s tech industry since Little Tech faces huge disadvantages by having to “go up against incumbent companies that have overwhelmingly superior brands, market positions, customer bases, and financial strength — incumbents that are out to strangle startup competition in the cradle.”The Little Tech agenda could be the catalyst that recaptures American supremacy. The Trump/Vance ticket must not back down from Big Tech. Andreessen and Horowitz don’t explicitly endorse Khan’s trust-busting, but without tough antitrust legislation against Big Tech monopolies and pro-innovation regulatory reform, Big Tech will continue to enjoy its “wall of laws and regulations that protect and entrench their positions and that new startups cannot possibly scale.” Breaking up Big Tech, on the other hand, will empower startups and foster an innovative environment.As Andreessen and Ben Horowitz write, “The glory of a second American Century is within our reach. Let’s grasp it.”

President Joe Biden suffered yet another gaffe in a recent interview. During a sit-down interview with Black Entertainment Television that aired on Wednesday, Biden seemingly forgot the name of his secretary of defense and called him "the black man." The 81-year-old president made the remark while speaking about his record of appointing black individuals in his administration during a BET segment called "Black America Votes." “And so ... it’s all about, it's all about treating people with dignity. And it's about making sure that, look. For example, look at the heat I’m getting because I named a, uh, the secretary of defense, the black man,” Biden began.“I named Ketanji Brown, I mean, because of the people I’ve named,” Biden said, making a reference to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.The video clip of Biden appearing to forget the name of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin quickly went viral online. The verbal miscue comes at a time when his critics are questioning his cognitive abilities, and top leadership in his own party is calling on him to drop out of the presidential race with only 109 days until the 2024 election. Also in the BET interview, Biden conceded that he would abandon his re-election campaign if he had a "medical condition." Biden told BET News' Ed Gordon, "If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody — if doctors came to me and said you got this problem, that problem."In an interview with ABC News a week after the disastrous debate, Biden declared that only the "Lord Almighty" could persuade him to discontinue his presidential campaign. Last week, Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" during a NATO event regarding U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. "And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden said.Biden started to walk away from the podium until he suddenly realized his faux pas.He corrected himself by saying, "President Putin? We're going to beat President Putin."Also last week, Biden wrongly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." On Wednesday, the White House announced that Biden had tested positive for COVID-19, and he would isolate at his beach house in Delaware. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Democratic operative Van Jones delivered a brutal takedown of President Joe Biden's re-election campaign on Wednesday using just one sentence.Earlier in the day, the White House announced that Biden — despite being vaccinated and boosted — tested positive for COVID-19 once again. Because of illness, the president canceled campaign plans and returned home to Delaware.'The Democrats are coming apart. The Republicans are coming together.'Reacting to the news later on CNN, Jones contrasted Trump's show of strength after his assassination attempt with the optics of Biden's weakness in the face of COVID-19."Today is a terrible day," Jones said. "If you pull back and look at this thing, strength versus weakness," he continued, before delivering a brutal assessment of the situation, "a bullet couldn't stop Trump — a virus just stopped Biden.""You've got the nominees of this party getting their butts kissed. Biden is getting his butt kicked by own party," Vance went on to say. "The Democrats are coming apart. The Republicans are coming together. That is what's happening. And at some point, this party has to look at the reality of that and move."The candid observation reflects the growing discord within the Democratic Party.In the weeks since Biden's disastrous debate performance, the chorus of Democrats calling on their leader to step aside has become deafening. Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — the two most influential congressional Democrats — see the writing on the wall. Up to this point, however, Biden has resisted calls to stand down as his party's presidential nominee. But the first cracks are beginning to appear in Biden's resolve.The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Biden is becoming "more receptive" to the idea of stepping aside. Then on Thursday, Axios reported that Biden could drop out of the presidential race as soon as this weekend.The Biden-Harris campaign, however, denied that the campaign is preparing for any scenario that doesn't include Biden at the top of the Democratic Party ticket.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!