A Lincolnshire witness describes a strange encounter with two individuals as he was walking home. The pale-skinned man had long greasy hair and black eyes. The witness was freaked out!I received the following account:"Back in the summer of 1997 I had a terrifying experience with what I now know to be the phenomenon known as the black eyed people. At the time I had never heard of these beings and have been bothered by the experience for many years. It’s only just occurred to me to scour the internet to see if anyone else has ever witnessed anything like it as I knew that I couldn’t possibly be the only one that this has happened to.My encounter differs from any that I have now discovered so far as they were not trying to communicate with me but was rather trying to keep away from me! Which believe me I now know that that is a good thing. Also it differs in the fact that my experience happened in broad daylight rather than late at night like the others I have read.It was a hot sunny summer day in 1997. I was about 15 at the time and was out with my friends. I live in a small town called Grantham in Lincolnshire in the UK. While out with my friends I was not far from my home and decided to go home to grab a quick drink and my two friends accompanied me down to my house and waited outside whilst I went in to have a drink of water. I was quite thirsty so quickly drank 2 pints of water then went back outside. My friends had gone so I decided I would walk back to my friends house which was round the other side of of the block.As I walked up the path to the street I happened to look about 5 houses down where my mum's friend lived. At the front of her garden she had a wooden fence at the time and a driveway on the furthest side of the garden there was also a wooden fence and just behind it there were two very large conifer trees that overhung the fence.So looking down the street I saw two people backed up to the fence and the top of them was pushed back into the overhanging conifers so I only saw the 2 pairs of legs. Thinking that these were my friends messing around with me I started walking down towards them. As I got closer to them I shouted out “come on you two, I can see you hiding there”. Thinking that they would come out laughing, I smiled to myself. But instead of coming out they managed to jump up into the conifers, over the fence and come out in my mum's friends garden! (at this point I was thinking how they could of done this because the foliage on the trees was pretty thick).They didn’t stop there. They turned around towards the next garden and managed to climb over the 5 foot fence panel. As I watched them weirdly go over the panel I shouted again to stop messing around. I said that it was weird the way they got over the fence because it wasn’t a hop or a jump. I can only describe it as lizard like! That’s the only way that comes to my mind to describe it.So I kept walking down the road and watched as they went over a 6ft gate into the next door's back garden. So I thought to myself I know what to do. I would carry on walking and catch them when they come out of the next garden. I picked up my pace carried on and caught sight of them in the next garden and stopped dead in my tracks as I looked in horror at what I’d been chasing!They stood a few feet away from each other. One looked like a teenager. He was wearing the fashion of the time which was a blue puffa jacket which was zipped up. He was wearing the jogging bottoms that had studs up the legs which were called poppers. Trainers. And a baseball cap. I didn’t look at his face as the other one caught my attention nearly straight away.This one was much older. Very pale skin. The top of his head was completely bald but around the side of his head he had long greasy black hair down to the middle of his back. He was wearing a long trench coat which went down to his ankles. He was wearing boots. His hands had long fingers that ended with sharp looking dirty nails. He had a big hooked nose and his eyes were pure black. It looked so evil. As my eyes met his it felt like time had stood still. Nothing was moving. Not a leaf. No breeze. Nobody else in the street. Silence. I couldn’t move as I was paralyzed with fear and terror. I knew it was staring at me into my eyes - maybe into my soul. I stood rooted to the spot for what felt like hours but must of been maybe 5 minutes. I broke the eye contact turned and ran for what felt like my life back to my house.When I got indoors I sat down and cried like a big baby. I couldn’t console myself. It took me a while to compose myself and tell my parents what had happened. They didn’t know what to do. I sat down and drew what I had seen. I still have the drawing today. Not that I need it. That image is well and truly etched into my mind and I would probably draw the exact same one in another 30 years time.I don’t know what this thing is. It definitely was not human. Over the years it has played on my mind bringing many questions and no answers. I’ve thought it was either alien or demon or any monster in-between.Some of the questions it’s brought me apart from what is it. How did they climb the fence like they did? Why were they wearing large coats on a boiling hot day? After reading other accounts of them why were they out in the middle of the day on a normal street in a small town? Why did they run from me?I hope no one ever has the experience of these black eyed beings and if you see one run for it.P.S. It turned out that my friends went straight back home when they left me. I was quite angry with them for a while and told them what had happened for them to laugh at me and think I was joking.I’ve never been more serious about anything. This is no laughing matter and I dread to think what could of happened if I hadn’t run off. Please be aware of them and take care of yourself." DCNOTE: The witness did not send the image he drew, fearing the undesirable feelings that may surface again. LonThe Black Eyed ChildrenThe Black Eyed KidsThe Rise and Fall of the Nephilim: The Untold Story of Fallen Angels, Giants on the Earth, and Their Extraterrestrial OriginsDarkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us**********PHANTOMS & MONSTERS VIDEO LIBRARYPOLL: WHAT DO YOU THINK? Vote & comment on paranormal, cryptid & unexplained mysteries!HORRIFYING ENCOUNTERS! UNFORSEEN DIRE CONSEQUENCES | LIVE CHAT | Q & A (REAL EXPERIENCER REPORTS)LISTEN TO NARRATIONS OF PHANTOMS & MONSTERS REPORTS & CASES - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHAREPHANTOMS & MONSTERS RADIO Podcasts on SpotifyPHANTOMS & MONSTERS READING LISTCHICAGO MOTHMAN / O'HARE BATMAN YouTube PlaylistHave you had a sighting or encounter?Contact me by email or call the hotline at 410-241-5974Thanks. LonOUR SOCIAL MEDIA LINKSBigfoot and Other Cryptid Videos on YouTubeLYCANS! - PENNSYLVANIA'S CRYPTID CANINES UPDATE'KILLER BIGFOOT' HUNTED BY U.S. SPECIAL FORCES / GLIMMER MAN / MANTIS HUMANOIDSCRAWLER HUMANOIDS - GRUESOME INVADERS! (REAL EYEWITNESS ENCOUNTERS!)WEREWOLVES: DO THEY EXIST?'DOGMAN IN OUR YARD!' - AN OHIO FAMILY'S 12-YEAR SAGA WITH CRYPTID CANINESHey, folks. Thanks for the congrats on 'The Mothman Revisited' episode on Unsolved Mysteries. As a result, we are receiving more sighting reports and are very excited and grateful for the new information!I sincerely thank the Unsolved Mysteries team and Netflix for allowing us to tell the world about this phenomenon.If you have information about this or any other cryptid or unexplained sighting or encounter, please feel free to contact me by email or at 410-241-5974. Thanks again! LonCHICAGO MOTHMAN / O'HARE BATMAN YouTube PlaylistChicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive MapHey, folks. Please feel free to share your thoughts & comments on the recently uploaded video of the CHICAGO MOTHMAN. I'm interested in what you have to say. Thanks. LonEXCLUSIVE VIDEO of CHICAGO MOTHMAN RECORDED----------Become a Phantoms & Monsters Radio member - just $2.99 monthly, and receive these perks. Thanks for your support!-Members-only live chats-Exclusive members-only videos-Priority reply to members' commentsHave perks suggestions? LMK-----YOUR SUPPORT IS APPRECIATED! THANKS

By Dr. Raymond A. Keller, author of The Real Resident Aliens is available on Amazon.com while supplies last.Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second PlanetFinal Countdown: Rockets to VenusCosmic Ray's Excellent Venus AdventureThe Gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene: Morning Star Edition of the Hierarchy of LightThe Real Resident AliensKnown as Pennsylvania’s “Mistress of the Macabre” and “Hostess with the Mostest Ghosts,” for two decades (1970-1990), Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey, supernatural investigator, and best-selling author, was considered the Keystone State’s preeminent authority on spectral phenomena.In the early 1970s, Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey (1916-1990), then a resident of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for over twenty years, was considered one of the nation’s premier paranormal investigators.  She first attained notoriety when she wrote a series of articles on the “Dark Side of the Delaware,” which appeared regularly in the pages of the Sunday Magazine of the Philadelphia Bulletin.  The notoriety that she gained from her writings on the paranormal in the Philadelphia press, led her onto the lecture circuit, presenting programs on such controversial topics as parapsychology and extra-sensory perception (ESP) to large and ever-expanding audiences across the United States.   She also conducted ghost tours throughout Pennsylvania and wrote several books on sundry mysterious phenomena one might encounter in the contemporary world, with her most famous and best-selling being The Bermuda Triangle (New York, New York:  Warner Books, 1975).   Her fascination with and research activities in various areas of the paranormal garnered her the title of Pennsylvania’s “Mistress of the Macabre.”For investigating hundreds of ghost reports in the Delaware Valley over the decades, Adi-Kent came to the realization that ghosts tended to haunt people, rather than the places where they lived.  This profound insight came upon her after she met a hospitable lady by the name of Hilda Chance.  It seems that in nearly every home where Hilda ever resided, specters have consistently been sighted.  While Hilda did not encounter any ghosts herself while growing up in the small town of Harrington, Delaware, she did report that her mother frequently reported seeing a spectral apparition walking through the rooms of their home in the early hours before sunrise.  Once Hilda was on her own, however, she got married and moved with her husband Joseph into a home that he had rented across the Delaware River in Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, in the Delaware Valley.  After a few years, Joseph and Hilda had several children.  But there was also one uninvited guest.  “We had one visitor there,” related Hilda to Adi-Kent, adding, “a little boy.”  This young boy would just appear to the Chance children at such times that they were sick.  Whenever the Chance family members were in good health, the little boy would never materialize.  “Then the moment one of them would feel ill,” noted Adi-Kent, “she (Hilda) would report a visit from this strange little boy.”  In her report to Adi-Kent, Hilda remarked, “He (the little boy) would talk to my children at such times and the message was always the same: ‘Leave this house with me!  Come on!  Run away!  Follow me, and I will show you a nice place, a much nicer place than this!’”  Hilda didn’t believe that the appearance of the little boy was frightening to her children, although it did serve to arouse their curiosity.  Hilda said that her children became preoccupied with questions about who the boy was, in addition to wondering where this “nicer place” was that the ghost was prodding them to seek refuge in.  At first, Hilda thought that maybe the young visitor was a spirit who once had lived and died in their very house.  The little visitor did seem to revel in being in the company of her children, as the young boy appeared to be about the same age as her children.  But why did the ghost boy only show up when her children were sick, and moreover, why was he trying to persuade them to leave with him and go into the spirit world?  Once Hilda provided all of the details she could remember to Adi-Kent, the paranormal investigator went right to work on the case.  After a brief week or so, she looked into the past of the Boothwyn home and discovered that some years back a young boy had died on the property from meningitis.  The physical description of the ghost boy provided in the documents uncovered showed a match with the descriptions of the apparition provided by the children.  Joseph was concerned about this phenomenon and how it was impacting his family.  Therefore, he decided to buy a home of his own to move his wife and kids out of the growing controversy surrounding the haunted property in Boothwyn.  The new home was a large, old-stone mansion surrounded by beautifully planted grounds, located in nearby Upper Chichester Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  The manse was once owned by a locally prominent family, one that also owned most of the real estate (residential, commercial, and undeveloped) in the environs.  Hilda Chance recalled that “When I would be alone in that house, working or reading or writing downstairs, I would hear what sounded like footsteps of a little old lady padding about on the second floor.  I would hear much opening and closing of doors and closets and the creaking and slamming of dresser drawers as though they were being opened and closed one after another.  I would stop and listen attentively.  It was always easy to picture the little old lady cleaning the house and putting things away.  I could hear the hustling of hr busy feet for hours at a time.  One day I decided to try to meet this friendly spirit whom I felt undoubtedly was the former mistress of that house.  I went to the foot of the stairs (Oh, those beautiful, old curved banisters!); and called up, ‘Welcome to my home now!  Come on down and let’s have a friendly visit!’  Abruptly, the sounds ceased and I never heard them again.”Hilda does note, however, that after this incident her family was “badgered with other strange occurrences.”  There were loud knocks that banged incessantly on different doors when no one was close to them.  Some thumps would trounce against the window panes, but these were always close to where Chance's family members were sitting.  Every time that Joseph and Hilda tried to check out the situation, nobody could be seen and no apparent cause was detected for these unusual events.  “But oddest of all such annoying manifestations,” reported Hilda, “was the disappearance of various articles.  Things actually vanished from sight, right alongside where we would be sitting!  Just there one minute and gone the next!  Sometimes, never to be found again.”  Having put up with these haunting experiences for many years, the Chances packed it all in and moved out of Upper Chichester.  Joseph purchased an old farmhouse in northern Pennsylvania, where he was thinking that he, Hilda, and the children could enjoy some peace and quiet in his retirement.  Boy, did he get that wrong!“One night,” Hilda informed Adi-Kent, “I was sitting alone in the kitchen of the farmhouse, quietly writing letters when there came the sound of contented humming from one corner of the kitchen.  I looked up, startled, and listened.  Soon I could detect interspersed with the humming, the creaking of a rocking chair.  I realized that someone was sitting and rocking in a chair by a far corner window.  But it is interesting to note that the kitchen had been redesigned by the former occupants, and there was now no room for a chair in that spot.  The window was blocked out by modern cabinets.  The next day, I set out to discover if what I suspected had been true.  I talked to a neighbor who had known the residents of previous years in that house.  Sure enough, I heard that at one time before the cabinets had been put in, the farmwife had kept a rocker by that window and used to sit there frequently.  “Not long after, I heard the sounds again.  This time I put down my pen and listened carefully.  I was able to pick out the tune.  It was an old lullaby.  I have heard it from that corner many times now.  I just sit quietly and enjoy it.  It is so ‘homey’ and charming.  It makes me smile to myself with contentment as I sit listening.  One time I got up and walked as near to the spot as I could get.  The tune stopped abruptly and an old air swept around me like an icy draught from a door opened suddenly.  I realized with some remorse what I had done.  She didn’t care to be interrupted or spied upon.  ‘Whoopie!’ I said; ‘I’m sorry!  Carry on!’  I returned to my chair and the humming started sweetly up again.”  Hilda’s account above attests to the many manifestations that have taken place while she was in the house, albeit it does not recount all of them.  There is one particular haunting that really stood out in Hilda’s mind.  She declared to Adi-Kent, “We found after buying the farmhouse that we needed more spare bedroom space as we have children and grandchildren with us often.  So, we transformed a storage room on the second floor into a finished and lovely guest room.  My husband built a closet in one corner as the room utterly lacked any cabinet space.  In that corner, a bed had formerly stood, but to make room for the closet, we turned the bed and backed it against the other wall.  The night my son arrived we were all sitting in the kitchen having coffee when suddenly we heard the bed above being pushed over the bare floor!  My son looked at me, wonder in his face.  Without thinking, I said, ‘She doesn’t like the way we placed the bed!’  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.  I explained what I meant and told him all about the humming and rocking of the former farmwife.”Hilda wrapped up her story: “Quickly he arose and we followed him up to the room.  The bed had been turned.  My son moved it back again against the far wall.  I found myself looking upwards and carefully explaining, ‘Now you see; it must stay this way.  There’s a closet in the corner now and there is no room for the bed there!  It must stay here.  Do you understand?’  The bed stayed there.  It has never moved since.”  Hilda then testified to Adi-Kent that other things still move around in the farmhouse, and most likely always would, as long as she was living there.  Hilda even opined that no matter where she moved to, the ghosts would follow her there.  Fortunately for Hilda, she has managed to adjust, adapting herself to the hauntings.  In writing about Hilda’s accommodations with the unknown, Adi-Kent notes that “She (Hilda) enjoys these ‘spirit visits;’ and so why shouldn’t supernatural guests continue coming to that lady who is probably the ‘Hostess with the Mostest Ghosts’ in all the Delaware Valley?”**********PHANTOMS & MONSTERS VIDEO LIBRARYPOLL: WHAT DO YOU THINK? Vote & comment on paranormal, cryptid & unexplained mysteries!HORRIFYING ENCOUNTERS! UNFORSEEN DIRE CONSEQUENCES | LIVE CHAT | Q & A (REAL EXPERIENCER REPORTS)LISTEN TO NARRATIONS OF PHANTOMS & MONSTERS REPORTS & CASES - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHAREPHANTOMS & MONSTERS RADIO Podcasts on SpotifyPHANTOMS & MONSTERS READING LISTCHICAGO MOTHMAN / O'HARE BATMAN YouTube PlaylistHave you had a sighting or encounter?Contact me by email or call the hotline at 410-241-5974Thanks. LonOUR SOCIAL MEDIA LINKSBigfoot and Other Cryptid Videos on YouTubeLYCANS! - PENNSYLVANIA'S CRYPTID CANINES UPDATE'KILLER BIGFOOT' HUNTED BY U.S. SPECIAL FORCES / GLIMMER MAN / MANTIS HUMANOIDSCRAWLER HUMANOIDS - GRUESOME INVADERS! (REAL EYEWITNESS ENCOUNTERS!)WEREWOLVES: DO THEY EXIST?'DOGMAN IN OUR YARD!' - AN OHIO FAMILY'S 12-YEAR SAGA WITH CRYPTID CANINESHey, folks. Thanks for the congrats on 'The Mothman Revisited' episode on Unsolved Mysteries. As a result, we are receiving more sighting reports and are very excited and grateful for the new information!I sincerely thank the Unsolved Mysteries team and Netflix for allowing us to tell the world about this phenomenon.If you have information about this or any other cryptid or unexplained sighting or encounter, please feel free to contact me by email or at 410-241-5974. Thanks again! LonCHICAGO MOTHMAN / O'HARE BATMAN YouTube PlaylistChicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive MapHey, folks. Please feel free to share your thoughts & comments on the recently uploaded video of the CHICAGO MOTHMAN. I'm interested in what you have to say. Thanks. LonEXCLUSIVE VIDEO of CHICAGO MOTHMAN RECORDED----------Become a Phantoms & Monsters Radio member - just $2.99 monthly, and receive these perks. Thanks for your support!-Members-only live chats-Exclusive members-only videos-Priority reply to members' commentsHave perks suggestions? LMK-----YOUR SUPPORT IS APPRECIATED! THANKS

I have been holding off on publishing this list for years simply because I could never find the words to express how stunningly beautiful these songs are. I have started this list multiple times and written about so many of her songs as descriptively as possible, but, as always, in every attempt, I felt I could not do justice to the material. Justice is a funny word to use, as anyone who knows Maria McKee’s history would understand. I first discovered the wonder of Maria McKee when I heard her singing in a band called Lone Justice. After hearing just The post 10 Maria McKee Songs That Will Leave You Mesmerized appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Books book review Breaking Free of Queer Tragedy: Chuck Tingle’s Bury Your Gays A review of Chuck Tingle’s new horror novel By Sasha Bonkowsky | Published on September 10, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share If you’ve spent too much time on TVTropes—like I have—then you’ve probably heard the term bury your gays. The term refers to the disproportionate killing of LGBTQ+ characters in media, and a broader sense that queer characters are seen as inherently more expendable or more tragic than their straight counterparts. While this trope is as old as negative opinions of queerness, it was codified (at least in American media) by the Hays Code, a set of guidelines created by the Catholic Legion of Decency meant to prevent “sinful” behavior from being portrayed on screen. Its more lenient version, updated in the 1950s, still required that any character depicted as queer paid for their crimes, usually via death. And it’s not limited to older media: Fifty years after the end of the Hays Code, a full 10% of all character deaths in TV were queer women, far higher than the mortality rate among straight characters. Bury Your Gays is also the name of the newest Chuck Tingle novel, a book that actively explores how queer characters are treated—and mistreated—onscreen. Misha Byrne is a screenwriter for Harold Brothers studio in Los Angeles. His most famous project is the television show Travelers, featuring two female leads with a whole laboratory’s worth of chemistry between them, but nothing confirmed—at least, not yet. Misha plans to reveal their love for one another in the season finale, but then he’s called into a meeting where he’s told that, if he confirms his leads’ lesbian relationship, he has to kill them off. Harold Brothers, riding high on its AI-generated portrayal of a dead actor, have run the numbers and concluded that burying their gays is most profitable. “Go fuck yourself,” is Misha’s response to that. Buy the Book Bury Your Gays Chuck Tingle Buy Book Bury Your Gays Chuck Tingle Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Despite his bravado, however, Misha isn’t sure how he’s going to write himself out of this one—or if he can write himself out. He’s gay, and a significant amount of his film- and television-making is inspired by his queerness or his experiences surrounding it, but he’s never confirmed it publicly, letting viewers choose to read between the lines but retaining plausible deniability. Nor is he out to his family and childhood friends back in Montana, even though he has a longterm boyfriend, Zeke, who he’s certain he’ll ask to marry someday. A series of strange and bloody events also do nothing to help his writer’s block. Just after leaving his writers’ meeting with Harold Brothers, a falling piano messily crushes one of its longterm cartoonists facing a sexual-harassment lawsuit. A few weeks after that, just as Misha is beginning to recover from the trauma, his own horror-movie villains begin to stalk him. First is The Smoker, a pale ghost with haunting, expressionless eyes who’s never without a cigarette, and who kills you in five days if you don’t give him a light. Next is a black lamb that appears innocent but harbors an eldritch parasite inside it. And appearing on his plane ride from Montana is Mrs. Why, an unnerving figure from the far future—and antagonist from Travelers—who floods her victim’s minds with visions of the end of the universe. In trying to kill Misha, they threaten to turn him into a queer tragedy himself: a closeted gay man killed before he dares to make his relationship or sexuality public. The core of Bury Your Gays is this fascinating layering: Misha and his friends at Harold Brothers are both creating queer narratives, however they can fit them in under the corporate eye of Harold Brothers, and part of a narrative in which their lives are at stake. Bury Your Gays doesn’t quite break the fourth wall, but it nods at it—almost de rigueur for a book about storytelling. Misha is a wonderfully realized character, especially in the book’s flashbacks to his childhood. Growing up, Misha was ostracized and punished for being gay, and still holds the memories of his chain-smoking uncle blackmailing him for it, or getting beaten up by his crush Richie after Richie’s older brother caught them together. Tingle is very good at drawing the through line from those experiences to Misha’s screenwriting, the villains and the stories he creates, but despite how real Misha feels, there’s also a sense throughout the book that he’s just a character, and so we should rather think of him in terms of character arc and narrative beats. It’s a strange, fascinating balance, asking readers to think about what it might feel like, to be locked into a predetermined path, especially one of tragedy or death, with seemingly no way out. The secondary plot of the novel builds on this, dealing with Harold Brothers’ AI-created rendition of actor Chris Oak, and their rights to create artificial versions of any of their employees, actors, or IPs. (This is based on the recent negotiations between film companies and the actors and writers guilds, where one of the unions’ major demands was preventing studios from creating unauthorized AI replicas of performers.) It’s an illustration of everything Bury Your Gays is about, a company being able to exploit tailored queer narratives to pad its profit margins, without benefiting a single real person. Of course, Bury Your Gays is also a Chuck Tingle novel. Accompanying its tense, gripping horror and metatextual commentary is plenty of celebratory queerness—a brilliant, rainbow-colored world so long as we dare to break out of the narratives prescribed to us.[end-mark] Bury Your Gays is published by Nightfire. The post Breaking Free of Queer Tragedy: Chuck Tingle’s <i>Bury Your Gays</i> appeared first on Reactor.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The attorney helping Vice President Kamala Harris with debate preparation is also defending Google from the antitrust lawsuit brought by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice, which government transparency advocates say presents a conflict of interest. Karen Dunn, who is helping Harris prepare for today’s debate against former President Donald Trump, gave the opening statement Monday during Google’s trial. While there is nothing explicitly preventing Dunn from taking on both roles, experts say the campaign’s decision to work with her should raise concern. “Somebody in the Harris Campaign should google ‘conflict of interest,’” Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Imagine being a DOJ attorney, working on this case in good faith. Your potential future boss is entrusting her campaign to someone who is working for one of DOJ’s most formidable opponent litigants—against you. That’s disheartening.” Chamberlain noted there is “tremendous potential for abuse with the overlap of the Vice President’s political world and an executive branch agency.” “Relationships like these ignite howls of outrage when they involve other campaigns,” he said. The DOJ’s lawsuit threatens to break up the tech giant. Last month, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, held in a 277-page ruling that Google has an illegal monopoly on its search engine. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the ruling a “victory for the American people.” Biden-Harris Cabinet Secretary Claims 'Punishing Schedule' Makes It Impossible For Kamala To Answer Questions pic.twitter.com/CvOExXOsg8— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 9, 2024 “If this is a preview of how a future Harris Administration would handle potential conflicts of interest, it could be great news for progressive special interests,” Pete McGinnis, communications director for the Functional Government Initiative, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The big losers would be the American public who expect their government to act objectively and without bias from conflicted decision-makers.” Dunn has helped Democratic candidates in every presidential election since 2008 prepare for debates, according to The New York Times. Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, told The New York Times that “you can’t serve both sides.” “If these were legal cases, she would be ethically barred from doing what she’s doing,” Stoller said. Stoller told the Daily Caller News Foundation that there’s no formal ethics rule restricting Dunn because “the Harris campaign is a political campaign, not a lawsuit.” While Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, told the Daily Caller News Foundation he sees the “theoretical conflict,” he also explained that “helping with debate prep is a way of volunteering for a campaign.” “Lots of people and organizations both volunteer for campaigns and provide financial backing to campaigns that have business before the federal government,” Painter said. The Trump campaign called Harris out over the potential conflict in August. “Kamala Harris will never stand up to Big Tech because she’s being coached on what to say in the debates by Google’s top lawyer,” Trump campaign senior adviser Tim Murtaugh told Fox News. “Think about how outrageous it is—their administration is suing Google, but Harris is taking political advice from the defendant’s lawyer.” The debate between Harris and Trump, which will take place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is scheduled for 9 p.m. tonight on ABC News. The Harris campaign and Dunn did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post ‘Potential for Abuse’: Kamala’s Debate Prep With Lead Google Attorney Sets Off Alarm Bells appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Former United States President Donald Trump’s pledge to safeguard the First Amendment was a highlight of his recent campaign rally in Wisconsin. Standing against the Big Tech censorship attempts by the ruling Biden-Harris administration, Trump stated his commitment to protecting the free speech of Americans, “I will sign an executive order banning any federal employee from colluding to limit speech, and we will fire every federal bureaucrat who is engaged in domestic censorship under the Harris regime.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/trump-government-censorship-ban-9842.mp4 His remarks come in the wake of heightened debate around safeguarding free speech rights. The First Amendment, recognized as the bedrock of American values and rites, guarantees every citizen the right to voice their opinion, peacefully protest, and practice their religion without intrusion from the government. However, these liberties have come under fire in the online world, with government pressuring social media platforms to censor speech. Under the Biden-Harris governance, the administration has been accused of muzzling so-called “misinformation.” Congressional investigations like those conducted by the Select Subcommittee Government Committee on Weaponization and lawsuits against the administration have brought many incidents of censorship pressure to light. This suppression undermines public trust in institutions by concealing inconvenient information. In 2022, the administration introduced the short-lived Disinformation Governance Board. The board was shut down following pushback over First Amendment concerns. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Trump Pledges to Fire Federal Employees Engaged in Censorship Pressure appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

'I'm Getting Arrested': Tyreek Hill Arrest Video Released, And ...

It's general election season, and the presumably more centrist voices on CNN and MSNBC were anything but this morning. On Morning Joe, Willie Geist has traditionally been a relatively temperate voice, a counterweight to the rabid liberal partisanship of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. And Mark McKinnon, a co-founder of No Labels, is at least in theory the embodiment of bipartisanship. But on today's Morning Joe and CNN This Morning, Geist and McKinnon  tilted strongly in favor of Harris and the Democrats. Discussing the disastrous Biden-Harris withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which 13 US servicemen were killed by a suicide bomber at Abbey Gate, McKinnon rose to the Democrats' defense, and even shifted blame to Donald Trump. McKinnon began by contradicting host Kasie Hunt, suggesting that the withdrawal will not be a big campaign issue: "I don't get a sense that American voters are sitting here today going, oh, we really screwed up in Afghanistan and it's Biden's fault." McKinnon went on to explain away Biden-Harris' failure. Declaring "wars are hell," McKinnon said, "Trump's the one who planned the exit, and Biden got it done, which is an incredibly hard thing to do." It's one thing to negotiate an exit. It's another to actually exit. You can't blame Trump for this incompetent outcome, which could hardly have been worse. Within days, Afghanistan's government collapsed and the Taliban, which had given shelter to al Qaeda terrorists behind 9/11, returned to power. Billions of dollars of US military equipment were left behind in Taliban hands. And above all, 13 American servicemen's lives were lost in a tragic and humiliating event. Meanwhile, on Morning Joe, Geist suggested that down-ballot races in Arizona and North Carolina could hurt Trump at the top of the ticket. When he searched for the "polite" word to describe Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, Jonathan Lemire offered, "controversial." But Geist countered: "Crazy. I was going to take it one step further." Geist's description of Republican Arizona senatorial candidate Kari Lake was arguably even more insulting. Geist called Lake "the residue of Donald Trump." That's tantamount to describing Lake as a lingering stain! So what got into Geist and McKinnon this morning? With the campaign entering its final, decisive, phase, are the two showing their true color -- blue? Here are the transcripts. MSNBC Morning Joe 9/9/24 6:13 am EDT WILLIE GEIST: Let's remember, yes, these are all within the margin of error. But where this race was before Kamala Harris came on board, which is to say, and we all talk to many of the same people around the campaign, who privately conceded that North Carolina, probably Nevada, Arizona, and maybe even Georgia, they were going to let those go, effectively. They were going to fight for them, but they were not counting on them. They just had to win the three blue wall states. Well now, those are in play. And John, we should also point out that, place like Arizona, on those tickets, there's still the residue of Donald Trump in a candidate for Senate in Kari Lake, who's not doing well. She's connected to Donald Trump, helping Ruben Gallego take a lead in that race, potentially helping Kamala Harris there as well. The gubernatorial candidate inn North Carolina is, uh, what's the polite way of saying it? JONATHAN LEMIRE: Controversial. GEIST: Controversial? Crazy. I was going to go one step further, but we'll leave it with those two. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Weird. GEIST: Weird, okay. That obviously could help Kamala Harris, as well, in North Carolina. ------------------------- CNN This Morning 9/9/24 6:15 am EDT JOE BIDEN: Now, some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner, and couldn't this have been done in a more orderly manner? I respectfully disagree. I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit. KASIE HUNT:  Thirteen American servicemen lost their lives during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 30, 2021. House Republicans and Democrats releasing dueling reports on Monday, casting blame for the botched exit on each other. The Republican report highly critical of the Biden administration, claiming the President and Vice President Harris lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal. . . .  Mark Mckinnon, this was obviously a really, really difficult moment in American history, period. What happened at Abbey Gate, obviously it's become a major political focal point of this campaign.  And it also speaks to the bigger issue that the Trump campaign is dealing with, as they try to tie Kamala Harris to President Biden. Because one of the things this report did was talk more about Harris' role than it likely would have were she not at the top of the ticket. How should she be addressing this this issue? It's obviously become an issue as well with what happened at Arlington cemetery. MARK MCKINNON: Well, I mean, wars are hell. I mean, we, how long were  we in Afghanistan? Decades. And have we ever withdrawn from a war easily or casually, or without casualties? I don't think so. Loss of any American life is, is never acceptable and it should certainly be a worthy of an investigation to find out what went wrong and what could have been done better. But I don't think, I don't get a sense that American voters are sitting here today going, oh, we really screwed up in Afghanistan and it's Biden's fault. I mean, Trump's the one that planned the exit and Biden got it done, which was incredibly hard thing to do.

On his Sunday HBO show, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver mused about the sex lives of Donald Trump and JD Vance, all while insisting that they are the “weird” ones. After playing a clip of Trump defending himself and Vance from the “weird” accusation, Oliver began his descent into Freudian non-sequiturs by recalling the fake news story about Vance having sex with a couch, “But that is the weirdest possible way to address that accusation. ‘He's a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock.’ What are you talking about? I'm not sure I'd describe any part of JD Vance as ‘Rock solid.’ Unless, of course, he was in a West Elm showroom.”     Oliver was just getting started, “Though Trump's half right! He and Vance are lots of things: they're misogynists, narcissists, men who cum dead silent, plausible Masked Singer contestants. But they are also deeply weird. And each day seems to bring new evidence of Vance failing to connect with ordinary Americans from being booed by firefighters, whom he referred to as ‘haters,’ to the viral clip of him utterly failing to make small talk in a donut shop.” Meanwhile, Kamala Harris will not be booed at a speech because restricts herself to friendly venues. Additionally, the late night comedians love the Democratic talking point that Republicans are weird, but they also enjoy the sex lives of various GOP politicians, so who are the weird ones again? As it was, Oliver was not done with the sex talk. Later, after a clip of Trump’s address to the Economic Club of New York, he mocked, “What was that? That applause isn't satisfaction with the answer, it's relief that it's finally over. That is the public-speaking equivalent of an audience faking an orgasm. ‘You did it, you did it, you can stop now, please.’" Oliver then declared, “Look, the bad news is, for the next two months we're going to be subjected to an excruciating amount of nonsense like that. The good news is, come November, there's a chance for America to reject that bullshit once and possibly forever. And if that happens, it's hard to put into words how liberating that might feel.” Later in the show, Oliver switched gears to attacking Republicans past and present for not being supporters of free universal school lunches, referring to Rep. Virginia Foxx as “heartless” and one Minnesota lawmaker as an “asshole.” Here is a transcript for the September 8 show: HBO Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 9/9/2024 11:05 PM ET JOHN OLIVER: But that is the weirdest possible way to address that accusation. "He's a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock." What are you talking about? I'm not sure I'd describe any part of JD Vance as "Rock solid." Unless, of course, he was in a West Elm showroom.  Though Trump's half right! He and Vance are lots of things: they're misogynists, narcissists, men who cum dead silent, plausible Masked Singer contestants. But they are also deeply weird. And each day seems to bring new evidence of Vance failing to connect with ordinary Americans from being booed by firefighters, whom he referred to as “haters,” to the viral clip of him utterly failing to make small talk in a donut shop, with the low being this. … 11:10 PM ET OLIVER: What was that? That applause isn't satisfaction with the answer, it's relief that it's finally over. That is the public-speaking equivalent of an audience faking an orgasm. "You did it, you did it, you can stop now, please."  But look at his answer. This is the full text. It's like ChatGPT having a mental breakdown. A bunch of incoherent rambling around nonspecific implications that tariffs will fix everything, which of course, they won't.  Look, the bad news is, for the next two months we're going to be subjected to an excruciating amount of nonsense like that. The good news is, come November, there's a chance for America to reject that bullshit once and possibly forever. And if that happens, it's hard to put into words how liberating that might feel. Luckily, I know of one particular sticker that gets that feeling across pretty fucking well. 

Monday’s White House press briefing led off with national security spokesman and frequent Karine Jean-Pierre crutch John Kirby defending the Biden-Harris administration’s deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan in light of a House Foreign Affairs Committee report, arguing they’ve done plenty of soul-searching, but feel proud of what happened and want to move on. Thankfully, a few reporters had some questions about that, including CBS’s Ed O’Keefe. Unfortunately, his bosses didn’t think they were that important as his exchange with Kirby and the wider topic were both ignored from Monday’s CBS Evening News and Tuesday’s CBS Mornings.     After starting off easy by asking whether the administration would cooperate in any future congressional investigations (to which Kirby said he was unaware of any future probes), Kirby moved to this: “Has anyone from the White House or the broader administration been invited to tomorrow’s gold medal ceremony for the families of the 13 service members?” Kirby admitted no one from the White House would, but instead the Pentagon would be representative of the regime: “There will be — there will be quite a few from the Department of Defense, both in terms of active duty, admirals and generals and civilian political appointees and high leadership positions that’ll be there.” This segued in O’Keefe’s simple but biting question about real accountability. “[G]oing back to sort of accountability and — and after action, was anyone ever held accountable by the President directly for what happened with the withdrawal in Afghanistan, and if not, remind the audience why not,” he asked. Kirby gave a remarkable answer, twice insisting “[w]have all held ourselves accountable”, adding the first time that they’re particularly proud of “the progress of the withdrawal across the administration and it was a true interagency effort to get those 120,000 people out and to — uh — make sure we removed our diplomats and our military personnel safely.” “[N]ot everything went according to plan. Nothing ever does. Um — and we mourn the loss of — of those 13 lives at Abbey Gate every single day here. Um — their sacrifice doesn’t — doesn’t — uh — is not forgotten,” Kirby added in quite the understatement. AFP’s Danny Kemp also brought up Afghanistan and the basic question of whether the withdrawal was a failure: AFP’s @DannyCTKemp: “[O]n Afghanistan, so are you — would you argue that the withdrawal is a success, or do you admit that there were failings involved in that?” WH’s John Kirby: “We have — I’d point you to the after action report where I think we've been very clear about the… pic.twitter.com/XnI46FyIl3 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 9, 2024 Voice of America’s Anita Powell brought up the concern that the collapse of Afghanistan has made America less safe (click “expand”): POWELL: Well, let’s talk about Afghanistan then. Chairman McCaul drew a direct line and countered something you just said, which is you said they helped make us a safer nation. He believes that the withdrawal from Afghanistan — [TO HEINRICH] do you need a minute? He argues that the withdrawal from Afghanistan has in fact made the United States more susceptible to terrorism because of those prisoners released from Bagram. What can you say to the American people to assure them that this administration is trying to keep them safe and how safe are they? KIRBY: Well, just go on CENTCOM’s website. Look at the press releases that they send every time they take out a leader of ISIS or an al-Qaeda leader. We have proven the case about over the horizon counterterrorism capability to a fairly well. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re sitting back resting fat, dumb, and happy. That’s a kind of capability you have to keep working at and keep trying to improve and we are. Um, I think it’s also important to look at what else is going around the world. You know who — who would have loved for us to be stuck in Afghanistan for another 20 years — is President Putin, President Xi, they would have loved that. But now because we’re not in a ground war in Afghanistan, a ground war for which the original mission had long since been accomplished, we’re able to focus on those more — those more modern and relevant threats to our national security posed by nation states and non-nation states around the world. But as for counterterrorism capability, again, we have proven time and time again that we are able to monitor the threat and deal with the threat sometimes in near real time if need be, not taking it for granted, not saying we don’t always have to keep sharpening it, but believe me, we’re focused on it. Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich finally got her turn once Jean-Pierre took to the podium and had this bullseye on Harris’s campaign strategy: JACQUI TIME: “31 percent of registered voters said in a New York Times/Sienna poll that they still need to learn more about Vice President Harris. So, why is she spending so much time trying to define Trump and link him to Project 2025 rather than define herself?” KJP: “I mean,… pic.twitter.com/HV4DTiatKV — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 9, 2024 When Jean-Pierre shrugged at these questions since she’s not on the Harris campaign, Heinrich replied she asked since “the campaign is not holding regular briefings” or “a Q&A forum like we have here and you’re the spokeswoman for the Biden-Harris administration.” Heinrich’s last question was even more simple than the ones on Afghanistan: “Does President Biden define Vice President Harris as a progressive Democrat?” Behold this world salad from Jean-Pierre as she avoided giving Harris any ideological label (and then Heinrich’s follow-up) (click “expand”): JEAN-PIERRE: Look, the Vice President has been a critical partner — a critical partner to this President. All you got to do is look at the record and what we have been able to do in the past three and a half years — the Biden-Harris administration has been able to do. You think about the economy, you think about healthcare, and you think about these really important — uh — generation changing legislation that are now laws, obviously. I just talked about beating Big Farmer [sic]. That’s important. That was the Inflation Reduction Act that only Democrats voted for now, Republicans want to repeal. They want to take that away — take that away — taking away lowering costs for the American people. And so — uh — to be clear, lowering costs on — on medical care and — and pharmaceutical drugs and also energy bills — right — that’s two really big parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. The President — the President is not going to be labeling the Vice President. She has her policies that she is — obviously, that he’s in line with that they — that she has put forth in the past week or so. He supports her. Uh — he believes in her leadership, and that’s what I can share with you. HEINRICH: So, we allowing for a contrast with Trump, but not a contrast with other Democrats? Because Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance — JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. HEINRICH: — said that he still views her as a progressive Democrat and said that she’s, in fact, not abandoning her ideals but making a pragmatic play toward the center to win the election and that sends a chill down the spine of some people who might be in the middle or to the center right — JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. HEINRICH: — considering her and when she’s been trying to position herself as — JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. HEINRICH: — a more moderate figure now than she was in 2020. Where — where does she stand exactly? JEAN-PIERRE: So, first of all, the senator is going to speak for himself. That’s for him to speak to. I’m not gonna get into a I agree or disagree with him. What I can tell you is this President believes in her leadership and believes in her bold policy agenda. That is something that the President is in line with her on, right? And we’re talking about strength in the middle class. That’s what we believe her — her bold policy agenda continues to do, and that’s important. You hear the President talking about building a — building an economy from the bottom up but allow and strengthening the middle class. We’re in line. More economic opportunity. The President wants to see that. And we’re thinking — we’re talking about the tax cuts for working people, fighting corporate pricing guz — gouging, lowering costs, having the wealthy pay their fair share. We’re in line. We’re in line with — uh — with what the Vice President is putting forth — her bold policy agenda to make sure that we do not leave people behind. I’m not going to stand here and label the Vice President. The senator has every right to say whatever he wants to say. What I can say is the President agrees with her bold policy agenda and — and her leadership. Fox Business Network’s Edward Lawrence closed things out with the decline in manufacturing jobs: FBN’s @EdwardLawrence: “[T]he Biden-Harris administration has been touting manufacturing jobs for the —” KJP: “Yeah, yeah.” Lawrence: “— for the past year, but the last jobs report showed that manufacturing lost —” KJP: “Yeah.” Lawrence: “— 24,000 jobs, and the trend over the… pic.twitter.com/5cdeKVYIBm — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 9, 2024 To see the relevant transcript from the September 10 briefing (including one from NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell about the White House’s pivot from saying “Biden administration” when talking about itself to “Biden-Harris administration”), click here.