'I welcome any additional information'

'The potential that there was an alternative source requires us to have a radical rethink'

'There are no two sides to treason'

'Where is he?'

News ignyte awards Here is the Shortlist for the 2024 Ignyte Awards! Congratulations to everyone on the shortlist! By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on July 22, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share The Ignyte Awards Committee has released the finalists for the 2024 Ignyte Awards! The nominees were selected by twenty BIPOC+ voters who selected works that “seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscape of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts towards inclusivity within the genre.” The young adult and middle grade categories also included five judges from the age demographics those groups target. Here are the finalists: Outstanding Novel: Adult Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon – Wole Talabi (DAW Books) The Water Outlaws – S.L. Huang (Tordotcom) The Saint of Bright Doors – Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom) To Shape a Dragon’s Breath – Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey) We are the Crisis – Cadwell Turnbull (Blackstone Publishing) Outstanding Novel: Young Adult I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me – Jamison Shae (Henry Holt & Co.) That Self-Same Metal – Brittany N. Williams (Harry N. Abrams) Funeral Songs for Dying Girls – Cherie Dimaline (Tundra Books) Beholder – Ryan La Sala (PUSH) Sing Me to Sleep – Gabi Burton (Bloomsbury YA) Outstanding Middle Grade Abeni’s Song – P. Djèlí Clark (Starscape) Just a Pinch of Magic – Alechia Dow ‎(Feiwel & Friends) Keynan Masters and the Peerless Magic Crew – DaVaun Sanders (Inkyard Press) Lei and the Fire Goddess – Malia Maunakea (Penguin Workshop) The Sun and the Star – Mark Oshiro, Rick Riordan (Disney Hyperion) Outstanding Novella Off-Time Jive – A.Z. Louise (Neon Hemlock Press) Green Fuse Burning – Tiffany Morris (Stelliform Press) The Lies of the Ajungo – Moses Ose Utomi (Tordotcom) The Mimicking of Known Successes – Malka Older (Tordotcom) Sordidez – E.G. Condé (Stelliform Press) Outstanding Novelette “A Short Biography of a Conscious Chair” – Renan Bernardo (Samovar) “Ivy, Angelica, Bay” – C L Polk (Reactor) “Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down the Moon” – Angela Liu (Clarkesworld) “Spell for Grief and Longing” – Eboni J. Dunbar (FIYAH) “Zhuangzi’s Dream” – Cao Baiyu, translated by Stella Jiayue Zhu (Clarkesworld) Outstanding Short Story “Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200” – R.S.A. Garcia (Uncanny) “Window Boy” – Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld) “A Witch’s Transition In The City Of Ghosts” – Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) “Lips Like Sugar” – Cynthia Gómez (Luna Station Quarterly) “Thin Ice” – Kemi Ashing-Giwa (Clarkesworld) Oustanding Speculative Poetry “Helen after Helen” – Rasha Abdulhadi (Apparition Lit Magazine) “Imported Entry Into An Android Cosmos” – Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan (FIYAH) “Aborteras del Viejo Mundo | Aborting the Old World” – Claudia Vaca, translated by Brittany Hause (Samovar) “Alternate Rooms” – Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan (Nightmare) “My Mother, she ate me” – Akua Lezli Hope (FIYAH) Critics Award Aigner Loren Wilson Alex Brown Archita Mittra Bookbaddiebri The Blerd Library Outstanding Fiction Podcast PodCastle – The Podcastle Team Old Gods of Appalachia – Steve Shell and Cam Collins Cast of Wonders – The CoW Team Simultaneous Times Podcast (Space Cowboy Books) Levar Burton Reads Outstanding Artist Rovina Cai Cathy Kwan Paul Lewin Godwin Akpan Dante Luiz Outstanding Comics Team Whisper of the Woods – Ennun Ana Iurov (Mad Cave) Brooms – Jasmine Walls, Teo DuVall, Bex Glendining, Ariana Maher (Levine Querido) Mage and the Endless Unknown – S.J. Miller (Iron Circus Comics) Kill Your Darlings – Ethan S. Parker, Griffin Sheridan, Bob Quinn (Image Comics) Suee and the Strange White Light – Ginger Ly and Molly Park (Abrams Fanfare) Outstanding Anthology/Collected Works Never Whistle at Night – Shane Hawk, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (Vintage) Night of the Living Queers – Shelly Page and Alex Brown (Wednesday Books) No One Will Come Back for Us – Premee Mohamed (Undertow Publications) Out There Screaming – Jordan Peele, John Joseph Adams (Random House) Who Lost, I Found – Eden Royce (Broken Eye Books) Outstanding Creative  Non-Fiction The H Word: The Fear Horror of Change – L. Marie Wood (Nightmare Magazine) The Magic is in the Roots: Cultural Reconnection Through Magical Realism – Lysz Flo (FIYAH) Symmetry, Horror, and Identity -Tania Chen (Apparition Lit) To Every Other Jobu Tupaki After Jamie Lee Curtis’s Oscar Win – Maya Gittelman (Reactor) The Substitute – Yi Izzy Yu (Unquiet Spirits) The Ember Award for Unsung Contributions to Genre Sheree Renée Thomas DaVaun Sanders Kate Elliott Kwame Mbalia A.C. Wise The Community Award for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre Khōréō – The Khōréō Team Voodoonauts Summer Fellowship – Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, LP Kindred, Hugh “H.D” Hunter Stone Soup: Personal Canons Cookbook – Sarah Gailey Samovar Magazine – Laura Friis, Sarah Dodd and Greg West Awesome Black – Awesome Black Team Voting for the 2024 Ignyte Awards will close on August 31, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. ET and is open to the public. You can cast your vote by following the link here. Winners will be announced on November 6, 2024. Congratulations to all those on the shortlist! [end-mark] The post Here is the Shortlist for the 2024 Ignyte Awards! appeared first on Reactor.

The horrid attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Bulter, Pennsylvania, has the entire nation justifiably outraged and demanding answers to fundamental questions about the colossal security failure that nearly ended the life of the 45th president of the United States. Few actions rise to the level of a clear and present danger to our nation’s democracy like an attempt to kill the former leader of the free world and the current front-runner to assume that role once again.  While we mourn the death of Corey Comperatore and stand grateful that Trump and others who were injured survived the attack, Americans need answers and transparency now. As the government continues to withhold critical information from the American people about how such a lapse in security could have happened, we must resist the temptation to fill in the blanks with speculation, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. Now more than ever, we must remain relentlessly focused on the truth.   During my 35-year law enforcement career, I have worked with the men and woman of the Secret Service countless times and found them to be some of the most dedicated public servants I know.   The day of the attack, we saw those professionals instinctively and without hesitation throw their bodies on top of the former president to shield him from additional gunfire, willing to sacrifice their own lives to protect his. It was also their sniper team that ended the life of the attacker. So, let’s harness our outrage and acknowledge that seemingly contradictory actions can both be true concerning that fateful day—unimaginable failure and incredible heroism.  So, how can we seek the truth in a way that the nation will trust and accept?    The best way forward is for Congress to immediately appoint an independent commission consisting of subject matter experts from outside the current administration, free from political influence.    Why?   Because no existing entity in the federal government is both trusted to produce honest results and capable of doing so in a timely manner.   Take the attorney general and the FBI, for example. Both have vowed to vigorously investigate the assassination attempt. But unfortunately—and as a retired FBI special agent, it’s painful for me to acknowledge this—the Justice Department and the Bureau long ago lost the confidence of the American people. According to an NBC poll published earlier this month, just 37% of registered voters said they had a positive view of the FBI. This perception is now our country’s reality.    The American people have even less faith in the ability of the impeached Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejando Mayorkas, to provide a truthful and objective analysis of the attack free from political influence and self-serving protectionism.   Mayorkas has overtly politized the Department of Homeland Security’s mission, repeatedly lied to the American people, and eroded our nation’s trust in the system of justice. Americans have lost trust in his leadership. Moreover, the Secret Service director has clearly shown her intentions to deflect any personal accountability through a litany of nonsensical self-serving statements in the aftermath of the attack.     Finally, Congress, just as the FBI and DHS, lacks the trust among a majority of Americans to conduct an inquiry free from the political biases and theatrics we’ve become accustomed to. Additionally, Congress simply doesn’t possess the basic authorities or capacity to conduct a full and complete investigation.    This was on full display nearly nine years ago, when then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, oversaw a bipartisan committee to investigate a series of high-profile security failures during the Obama administration. The committee produced a series of meaningful recommendations for the Secret Service, but history still repeated itself, and enforcement of the report was blocked by political maneuvering and lack of interest, resulting in it being largely ignored.     For all these reasons, Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., has already called for the creation of an independent commission.  The commission would be charged with preparing a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the assassination attempt, including preparedness for—and the immediate response to—the attack as well as the associated investigation. The commission would also be directed to provide recommendations designed to guard against future acts of violence directed at current and former presidents and/or presidential candidates.  The House of Representatives has pledged to form a bipartisan “task force” to investigate the assassination attempt. But we’ve been down this road before, and calling it by a different name won’t change the implicit perception and inherit distrust of the American people in what is still a political process. If we are going to have a fighting chance to achieve the required confidence in the final reporting, including recommendations and accountability, we cannot rely on business as usual.     The death of Comperatore and near killing of Trump demands a transparent and trustworthy process people can have confidence in. An independent commission is the only way to deliver that for the American people.   The post Here’s Why Congress and the Administration Can’t Be Trusted to Conduct Investigation Into Trump Assassination appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Two of America’s biggest banks just warned of incoming disaster. Even poker-face Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is starting to crack, sprinkling his usual sweet nothings with warnings that the Fed’s close to being forced to restart the money printers despite galloping inflation. The warnings come from JP Morgan, whose CEO Jamie Dimon warns that inflation will stay higher for longer than markets think, driven by massive federal deficits. He warns this higher inflation would also keep interest rates high, which could crash smaller companies who are running out of cash. It would also keep mortgages and credit cards at rates slightly higher than the mafia charges. Incidentally, Dimon is the front-runner for Treasury secretary in a prospective second term for former President Donald Trump, so he’ll have Trump’s ear. The second warning comes from Citigroup, which put out a new report predicting what Zerohedge calls a “rate-cut bomb”—a near-panicked series of 10 interest-rate cuts starting in a few months and running all the way to next July. That’s something that only happens when the economy careens into recession, when the Fed desperately pumps rescue meds—that is, rate cuts—to an economy that’s flat-lined. Put them together, and Dimon thinks inflation will keep running. Citi thinks the economy will collapse. We have a name for that—stagflation. Now, normally, when the economy crashes, the Fed lowers interest rates to pump up spending. But all that new money also drives up inflation, so it’s always a trade-off between growth and inflation. The problem is when both crash and inflation come at once. The Fed’s standard tools aren’t built to handle that, because it’s not supposed to happen. That means the Fed is winging it—or as Powell famously put it last year, “navigating by the stars under cloudy skies.” Put differently, they have no idea what they’re doing. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images) Stagflation’s been on our radar for a few years now, ever since the money-printing orgy of the 2020 lockdowns set off the worst inflation in 50 years, followed by the most savage rate hikes in 50 years. The biggest surprise has been how long it’s taken, apparently postponed by trillion-dollar deficits and yet more trillions in private debt from credit cards to car loans. Of course, that put it off, but it actually made it worse, now posing stagflation on an American public that’s basically drowning in debt. While all this looks pretty gloomy, there are two big factors that could head off stagflation: geopolitics and Donald Trump. Geopolitics, meaning if the wars end tomorrow, we could see crashing oil prices along with a reduction in systemic risk that would boost investment. This would take the edge off inflation, and it could at least slow job losses. The bigger factor is Trump. A few days ago, I outlined his pro-growth agenda for a second term, from regulation to taxes to ending those wars. That would definitely boost growth, which reduces inflation. And even if Trump is at least six months away, markets are already reacting, with Trump-sensitive sectors like energy rising as a Trump win becomes more likely on the betting markets. Still, even if help is on the way, it’s almost certainly too late to avoid the stagflation altogether: Economies move on a long lag, and even without bank warnings, mass layoffs and faltering consumers tell us the stagflation is already on our doorstep. The post Are We on Verge of Stagflation? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It's Hoaxes All the Way Down

The liberal ladies of ABC’s The View tried to put on a brave face during Monday’s episode as they had to react to President Biden dropping out of the presidential race and giving the nod to Vice President Kamala Harris. While they all rallied to Harris’s banner for political purposes, moderator Whoopi Goldberg vented her frustrations with the whole situation and demanded others thinking of challenging Harris’s ascension “don’t even think about it!” Mischaracterizing her emotions about it as boredom, which it would become clear she was angry, Goldberg raged: I'm bored by it. I’m telling you. I’m bored by it. Yeah, I’m bored it and I'm going to tell you why. You know, the messaging that we have put out to people over a certain age is horrific. We have basically said, ‘Hey, you know what? We kind of think if you're over a certain age, you don't really have what it takes to do what you're doing.’ That’s the messaging that we’ve put out, so I'm bored by hearing that. Goldberg admitted she would have preferred that Democrats had kept their infighting behind closed door and hidden it from the American people. Her issue was that public conversation meant The View had to talk about it: I would have preferred my Democrats to do this not publicly and in everybody's face. Because what it did was it had us sitting, having to talk about this endlessly and not being able to say, because we couldn't have two-way conversations about this kind of thing, with just sort of being left. So I'm bored by the, ‘oh my god. What's going to happen?’     In their second segment, which was dedicated to rallying support for Harris, Goldberg lashed out Independent West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who was reportedly mulling over changing his party again in order to make a run for president. “Mr. Manchin, don't even think about it!” she glared at the camera. “down! We don't want you! We don't want you! We saw what you did. Go on and stay wherever you are.” The View’s fake conservatives were also sure to share their praise for Biden while being sure to prop up Harris. “So, I was sad, you know, as I've said here many times, I love Joe Biden, and I'm full of gratitude to Joe Biden today,” proclaimed Ana Navarro. “So I was sad, you know, in the way that when you see a champion athlete retire, leave it all on the field and walk away into the sunset, that made me sad. It gave me nostalgia.” “I was also mad because he's been dragged relentlessly for three weeks by people who are supposedly his friends,” she huffed. Alyssa Farah Griffin tried to suggest – without evidence – that the Trump campaign was having a “meltdown” over Harris taking over. “They don't know what to do with themselves. They planned a whole campaign against Joe Biden, not against a female former prosecutor, attorney general, senator, somebody who while she's the vice president, there are unknowns there. All their data, all their strategy was built around this man,” she insisted. “It's a moment that I feel like people are energized. I'm feeling something…I'll be honest. I'm just excited,” she announced. Navarro went on to rant about how it was their duty to support the Democratic Party nominee, meanwhile, Farah Griffin touted Harris embracing celebrity endorsements.   Ignoring the fact that Kamala had to drop out the 2020 Democratic primary long before Iowa because not even Democrats likes her, Alyssa touts that she was "vetted on a national stage." "She's going to lean into celebrity endorsements," she touts. pic.twitter.com/DaLO0tBHZt — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 22, 2024   Staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners), chimed in and suggested that Biden staying in through Democratic primary process play out and waiting until weeks before the Democratic National Convention to drop out showed just how much of “a statesman he is. I think it show what is a patriot he is.” “I think it shows he can put his country before his ego…I think that history will note him as one of the greatest presidents that we have had,” she declared. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View July 22, 2024 11:02:41 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: This is what everybody was asking for, and this was the decision that he made, and is everybody okay? SUNNY HOSTIN: Yeah. I think so. I mean, he's the first president since 1968 to -- GOLDBERG: Lydon Johnson. HOSTIN: -- to step down. I think it shows what a statesman he is. I think it show what is a patriot he is. I think it shows he can put his country before his ego, because he had such a great record as president. GOLDBERG: Has. HOSTIN: Has. I think that history will note him as one of the greatest presidents that we have had. (…) 11:03:54 a.m. Eastern ANA NAVARRO: So, I was sad, you know, as I've said here many times, I love Joe Biden, and I'm full of gratitude to Joe Biden today. So Joe Biden, thank you for everything. Over 54 years of career. So I was sad, you know, in the way that when you see a champion athlete retire, leave it all on the field and walk away into the sunset, that made me sad. It gave me nostalgia. I was also mad because he's been dragged relentlessly for three weeks by people who are supposedly his friends. (…) 11:06:53 a.m. Eastern ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: The reality was it was going to be a really big uphill battle for him if he stayed in the race, and I would look no further than the absolute meltdown that's happening on the trump campaign right now. The messaging since has been pretty clear. Vice president Harris is now the democratic nominee or soon-to-be. They don't know what to do with themselves. They planned a whole campaign against Joe Biden, not against a female former prosecutor, attorney general, senator, somebody who while she's the vice president, there are unknowns there. All their data, all their strategy was built around this man. It's a moment that I feel like people are energized. I'm feeling something. I feel like a lot of folks didn't want that rematch. We lived through 2020. That was a hellish year, and now is something different, and I'll be honest. I'm just excited. (…) 11:07:38 a.m. Eastern GOLDBERG: I'm bored by it. I’m telling you. I’m bored by it. Yeah, I’m bored it and I'm going to tell you why. You know, the messaging that we have put out to people over a certain age is horrific. We have basically said, ‘Hey, you know what? We kind of think if you're over a certain age, you don't really have what it takes to do what you're doing.’ That’s the messaging that we’ve put out, so I'm bored by hearing that. I'm also bore by saying well, it's the next generation. It's still an unknown. We can believe what we like to believe, and I love Kamala and have defended her from day one. I know she can do the job. I would have preferred my Democrats to do this not publicly – HOSTIN: Yes. GODLEBRG: -- and in everybody's face. Because what it did was it had us sitting, having to talk about this endlessly and not being able to say, because we couldn't have two-way conversations about this kind of thing, with just sort of being left. So I'm bored by the, ‘oh my god. What's going to happen?’ (…) 11:15:23 a.m. Eastern GOLDBERG: And I anticipate that every Democrat who was kvetching is going to stand behind her. I am trusting that we're not going to have a problem here, because this is what everybody said they wanted to happen. Mr. Manchin, don't even think about it! HOSTIN: Sit down! Take a seat! GOLDBERG: Sit down! We don't want you! We don't want you! We saw what you did. Go on and stay wherever you are. You are not – Look, I should not -- I started to speak as if I was a speaking head for the Democrats. I'm a speaking head for Whoopi. Sit down! (…)

To address the sudden withdrawal of President Biden from the 2024 race, MRC founder and president Brent Bozell appeared on the Fox Business program Varney & Co. on Monday. He said "The media made Biden, the media broke Biden, and the media got rid of Biden." Why? Because "he was toast." "Look who's here! Brent Bozell," said Varney. "You said, 'The media made Biden.' So, why did they abandon him?" Bozell said it wasn't about Biden's dwindling abilities to do the job. It was all about the dwindling prospects of a Biden-Harris victory.  BOZELL:You know, think about this -- this is kind of interesting, Stuart. Joe Biden was the first Democratic nominee or incumbent who the media didn’t support, going back to Lyndon Johnson [in 1968]. If you do your history, in every single campaign that the Democrats have run, they’ve had the full-throated support of the media. This was the first time that the media chucked the Democratic candidate over the side.  So it was guaranteed – and I said it on your show a few weeks ago, when you asked me. I told you he was done the moment the media turned on him. Why’d they turn on him? Because they didn’t have any use for him, because they saw the reality that the guy is falling apart. And by the way, Stuart, they saw that reality months and months ago, so–to the degree that there–there is this attitude, now, that, “Oh, he can’t run, he can’t run.” What hypocrites! They knew it months ago and they were supporting him months ago. But when the whole world saw it and they couldn’t hide it, that's when they said, “It's time to go.” Varney agreed that when the polls "started to go all in Trump's favor, especially in the swing states, that's when they turned and said, “Hey, we’ve gotta change.” Bozell agreed that he couldn't improve from there.  BOZELL: There’s no way! He couldn’t win a debate #2. He couldn’t pick up where he was losing in states. The paths for victory were getting ever-wider for Donald Trump. He was toast! And they knew it. So, they threw him aside. It's really gonna be interesting now, because how in the world–what is there to support in Cackling Kamala? I don't know how they’re gonna get behind her because she is gonna–she’s gonna be terrible on the–on the national stage.  Varney then pointed out "as soon as Biden dropped out, Obama praised him as a great president. Now, that’s an about-face but somewhat hypocritical, isn’t it? ‘Cause they're not exactly close friends, these guys." Bozell replied:  BOZELL: No, you know, but call it guilt, on the part of the media, for having thrown him overboard. Now, they're suddenly – they’re all praising him about what a wonderful president he was, and how consequential he was. Look, he’s gonna go – Joe Biden was never in charge of his administration. This was Obama 3.0 that was running the shot. He never amounted to anything. I think he’s gonna go down as–his administration will go down as a complete failure. But I think he's gonna go down as, perhaps, one of the most inconsequential presidents in American history. VARNEY: Ouch! That’s a harsh judgment. Thanks for joining us, Brent. We always like to see you on the show and today was an important day. Brent Bozell, everyone.