#Michael J. Fox Speech

[hypelens]

Michael J. Fox Honored with Presidential Medal of Freedom: A Legacy of Advocacy and Inspiration

Michael J. Fox, the beloved actor and advocate, has added another monumental accolade to his storied career: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Joe Biden presented the award to Fox during a White House ceremony on January 4, 2025, recognizing his tireless work for Parkinson’s disease research and his profound impact on public awareness of the condition.

This prestigious honor highlights Fox’s journey from a celebrated actor to a beacon of hope for millions. Let’s explore his remarkable contributions, the significance of the award, and reactions from the public and political figures alike.

Michael J. Fox: From Hollywood Icon to Health Advocate

Fox first captured the world’s attention with his roles in iconic films and TV shows such as Back to the Future and Family Ties. However, in 1991, at the age of 29, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease—a progressive neurological disorder. Despite the diagnosis, Fox remained active in his career and publicly disclosed his condition in 1998.

His announcement marked a turning point, as he shifted focus from acting to advocacy, founding the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in 2000. The foundation has since raised over $1 billion, funding groundbreaking research and advancing treatments for Parkinson’s patients worldwide.

Presidential Medal of Freedom: The Nation’s Highest Civilian Honor

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the United States’ security, world peace, or cultural and public endeavors. Fox joins an illustrious group of recipients, including civil rights leaders, scientists, artists, and humanitarians.

During the ceremony, President Biden praised Fox for his resilience and dedication, stating: "Michael J. Fox embodies the spirit of perseverance. He turned his personal challenges into a mission that has transformed countless lives. Today, we honor a true hero."

A Ceremony of Significance

The White House ceremony was attended by notable figures from various fields, including healthcare, entertainment, and politics. Other recipients included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, further underscoring the event’s focus on leadership and service.

Fox delivered an emotional acceptance speech, thanking his family, supporters, and the millions of Parkinson’s patients who inspire his work. His words resonated deeply with attendees: "This honor isn’t just for me—it’s for everyone living with Parkinson’s and their families. Together, we’re proving that hope is a powerful force."

Public and Media Reactions

The announcement and ceremony sparked widespread acclaim. Social media platforms were flooded with tributes, with fans and public figures alike celebrating Fox’s achievements.

Fans: Many shared personal stories of how Fox’s work has inspired them, highlighting his unyielding optimism.

Parkinson’s Community: Advocacy groups expressed gratitude for Fox’s dedication to their cause, calling his recognition a victory for all those affected by the disease.

Media Outlets: Coverage emphasized Fox’s dual legacy as a cultural icon and a health advocate, with headlines lauding his transformative impact.

Challenges and Criticism

While the ceremony was largely celebrated, it wasn’t without controversy. Some commentators criticized the selection process for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, arguing that recent recipients have been chosen based on political considerations rather than merit.

Fox’s inclusion, however, was widely seen as a unifying choice. Even critics of the current administration acknowledged that his contributions transcend political divides, reflecting values of courage and compassion.

Michael J. Fox Foundation: A Legacy of Hope

The Michael J. Fox Foundation continues to be a driving force in Parkinson’s research. Its initiatives focus on:

Funding Research: Supporting innovative studies to uncover new treatments.

Patient Resources: Providing tools and information to improve quality of life for Parkinson’s patients.

Advocacy: Working with policymakers to advance healthcare legislation and funding.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Fox’s Advocacy

As he celebrates this milestone, Fox remains committed to his mission. The foundation is launching new programs in 2025, including a global awareness campaign and expanded research partnerships.

In a recent interview, Fox shared his outlook on the future: "We’ve made incredible progress, but there’s so much more to do. I’m optimistic that a cure is within reach, and I’ll keep fighting until we get there."

Conclusion

Michael J. Fox’s recognition with the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a testament to his extraordinary contributions as an actor, advocate, and humanitarian. His journey from Hollywood to the White House symbolizes the power of resilience and the impact of turning personal challenges into a force for good.

As Fox continues his advocacy, his story inspires millions to believe in the possibility of a brighter future. His legacy is not just one of success but of hope, determination, and an unwavering commitment to making the world a better place.

[afewproblems]

Difficult Days Part Five (Psych AU)

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Read on AO3

By some kind of miracle, Shawn ends up getting sentenced with community service and probation. 

If you can call Mrs. Guster talking to their neighbor and somehow convincing Mr. Clarence not to press charges a miracle, which Shawn is definitely leaning towards.

But it isn’t quite enough to get Shawn off scott free.

He still confessed to taking the car to a cop, the fact that said cop was his off-duty dad seemed to be a moot point. 

By another miracle, Mrs. Guster is also beyond hesitant to let Shawn go home after overhearing the conversation between him and  her son. 

So, Shawn moves in with the Gusters that night. 

Just for a little bit, Shawn insists, just until he figures out what to do.

With Joy away at university there’s a vacant room available just across the hall from Gus upstairs. It’s slightly larger than his old bedroom, painted a fair sky blue and covered in posters of Mario Lopez and Michael J. Fox. There are also several awards and trophies on a shelf above the bed with a fine layer of dust on them, a few for speech and debate, one or two for volleyball. Shawn remembers when Joy would have tore a verbal strip off him for so much as stepping a toe past the doorline, he snorts at the thought of her seeing him not only sleeping in her bed but snooping through her accomplishments.

Mrs. Guster tells him to ‘make himself at home’, apparently unphased by Shawn’s insistence that this is temporary. It doesn’t help that he doesn’t have much to make himself home with, having gone back to his dad’s house only once to grab some extra clothes and the shoebox of money he’s managed to save up over the last few years. Money he had been saving to buy Anthony one of the last books he was missing from his encyclopedia set, not that Shawn really had to worry about that now. 

It is, however; just enough money to start seriously considering where exactly he is going to go.

They don't talk about the arrest, or the days that Shawn spends picking up trash on the side of the highway. But, without fail, Mr. Guster or Mrs. Guster are always there by the time his shift is done to pick him up.

They don't talk about Henry either.

The one time the senior Spencer called the Guster residence, it was Shawn who answered and at the sound of his dad’s voice, Shawn left the receiver off the hook and closed himself off in Gus’s room for the rest of the night. 

So they don't talk about it. 

Not that The Gusters as a group don't want to, based on the looks Mrs.Guster shoots him when she thinks he's not looking, or the way Mr.Guster holds his breath on his days to pick Shawn up from his community service.

Gus seems to be the only one who doesn't get the tactful memo from his parents.

“I think you should call your dad,” Gus tells him one night after Shawn's fourth week at the Gusters. 

Shawn stills where he is sitting at Gus's desk, and spins one of the sides of the unsolved rubik's cube in his hands to hide the slight tremor.

“And break my new streak?” Shawn manages as lightly as he can, he keeps his eyes focused on the puzzle in his hands rather than his friends face, ”I think this is the longest I've managed to go without a classic Henry lecture so I don't think so Gus”.

“Besides,” Shawn scoffs, tossing the cube suddenly up in the air and catching it deftly, “I'm sure he's ecstatic about not having to deal with me anymore, he got exactly what he wanted, who am I to ruin that for him?”

“Shawn--”

“Gus,” Shawn attempts to match Gus's tone but there’s a tightness to Shawn’s voice that he can’t hide.

Gus sighs and drops flat against his bed, the springs squeak loudly as he shifts to bring his arms up to fold them behind his head. 

He stares up at the ceiling for a beat, almost long enough for Shawn to hope his friend will drop it.

 “It's just--”

God Dammit. 

“He's your dad”.

Shawn chews on the inside of his cheek and says nothing, tossing the puzzle into the air again.

The silence in the room feels suffocating. In his periphery he can see Gus open and close his mouth again and again as though trying to find the right words to change Shawn’s mind about this. 

“Look,” Gus says eventually, “I know your mom left and that was rough”.

Oh Hell to the no. 

Because it has been nearly a year since he’s heard from his mother. Since she packed up and left Santa Barbara, left Henry.

Left Shawn.

He swallows heavily as Henry's words from the station echo again and again in his mind.

This is going to kill your mother.

Said so matter of factly, like Henry knows anything. And no, Shawn certainly doesn’t want to talk about Henry or the fact that he’s felt more at home with Gus and his parents than he has in the last decade.

“Gus,” Shawn says sharply as he puts the cube back on the desk with a little more force than necessary, “drop it”. 

Gus sits up then, his face pinched in a frown as he looks at Shawn now, “dude, you have to talk about this”.

Shawn swallows a curse and tries for a smirk, “that’s where you’re wrong Gus,” he says with a laugh, “I don’t have to talk about anything”.

“Come on--”

Shawn laughs again, cutting Gus off; this time the sound is tinged with something slightly hysterical.

“Do you know what he said to me that night,” Shawn spits out as he stands up from the desk chair, “just before he left me at the station?”

Gus sits up straighter now with wide eyes, but Shawn can’t stop now as the words just keep building in his throat.

“Henry, said that me being with Anthony was going to kill my mother, like I'm some disease, like he knows anything about what mom does or doesn't hate, he's the reason she left us, not--not…”

Shawn snaps his mouth shut, locking the words behind his teeth but he doesn't need to finish the sentence for Gus to hear the rest. 

Shawn winces at the stricken expression on his friend's face and stands up from the desk chair. 

Everything had been fine, well, it had been manageable. Hadn't it? 

If he didnt think about Henry and the look of disappointment on his face that night, about Anthony and the hole his absence had left in Shawn, about his dreams of being a detective going up in smoke. 

It was manageable, at least until Gus felt the need to poke and prod and pull at the fragile status quo that had been established.

God, he can't be in here anymore. It feels as though the oxygen has begun to slowly drain out of the small bedroom and Shawn can't breathe. 

He takes a step towards the barely shut door and wrenches it open before launching himself down the hallway and towards the stairs. 

Gus calls his name but Shawn doesn't stop, he can't. 

He only manages to come to a halt as he collides with a tall body at the bottom of the stairs. The body huffs out a startled ‘ooof’ as he bounces off, knocking a basket of folded linens to the floor.

Shawn looks up to see Mrs.Guster staring at Shawn, her brow pinched into a concerned frown. 

“Shawn honey what's wrong? You're all flushed--”

Shawn's mouth opens and closes but he can't find the words, his breath comes in short sharp gasps that leave his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. It feels like he’s about to crawl out of his skin and fly apart.

“Shawn, you have to slow your breathing down or you're going to pass out,” Mrs. Guster says as she places a gentle hand on his chest, “slow, come on, Burton you just stay upstairs for a bit okay?” 

Shawn lets his gaze rise to the landing, to where Gus watches with wide worried eyes. 

He hasn't had many panic attacks in his life and only knows what they’re called after his mother painstakingly explained what had happened to him after finally being released from the trunk of his dads car when he was nine --an incident that left Shawn out of sorts for hours afterwards. 

He had passed out that time, his breaths coming far too quickly and shallowly for the oxygen to properly travel to his brain --Henry's explanation that time. It was hard to look at his dad the same way after that. 

“That's it, a little slower now,” Mrs. Guster soothes again, she has the exact same pinched expression that Gus had earlier and Shawn can't help the shame that curls in his gut for putting it there, for overreacting to nothing--

“Burton,” Mrs. Guster calls up the stairs, interrupting Shawn’s thought as his breathing slowly begins to calm, “come put away this last load and then join us in the kitchen, I think this might call for a tea”. 

Mrs. Guster moves her hand from Shawn's chest to his shoulder and pushes him gently towards the hallway leading to the kitchen.

It's clear that the kitchen is the heart of the Guster home. Whereas the Spencer kitchen has always been a utilitarian room where most dinners were made and eaten in separate rooms; the Guster’s kitchen feels alive, even when empty. 

The Gusters move in and out of the kitchen, coming together before departing like the tide every day, but always coming back to this shared spot. With a large bay window overlooking a sunny backyard, a well loved dining table with six mismatched chairs, and a huge, but well organized, dry erase calendar on the fridge filled to the brim with events and deadlines, the presence of everyone in the house lingers. 

Shawn pauses at the calendar and smiles briefly at the list of names in Mrs. Guster’s careful cursive lettering. Each Guster family member seems to have their own marker colour to differentiate their schedules and Shawn’s eyes widen as he sees his own name written in a bright orange just below Gus. 

He feels his chest begin to tighten again and quickly looks away from the calendar before the urge to bolt takes over once more. 

Mrs. Guster bustles around the cabinets, taking out a wood box from a higher shelf in the corner and a blue teapot next to it.

She sets them down on the counter and then steps towards the stove, “here, take this,” Mrs Guster says as she hands him a silver kettle, something Shawn has only ever seen on the set of a Murder she Wrote episode, “fill it up to the line inside and then put it to boil”. 

“Mrs. Guster,” Shawn says slowly, looking from the kettle to the stove, “it's like, 91 out today…” 

She turns from the counter, her eyebrow raised just enough for Shawn to immediately dash to the sink to fill up the kettle. 

Mrs. Guster laughs quietly as she turns back to the counter, “I know not many people around here prefer tea that isn't iced and sweet to the point of indigestion”.

She takes two tea bags out of the wooden box and places them in the teapot before reaching up to another cupboard to select three mugs for them. Shawn brings the kettle to the stove and gently places it on the front left burner before cranking the heat to the highest setting. 

“But sometimes,” Mrs. Guster says, stepping past Shawn to flip the whistle down on the kettle spout, “difficult days like these need something that forces you to stop and focus on doing something for yourself”.

She guides him over to the dining table, gesturing for him to sit with one hand while she pulls out a chair for herself with the other. A throat clears at the entryway and both Shawn and Mrs. Guster turn to see Gus scuffing his foot against the baseboard. Mrs. Guster wordlessly gestures towards the mugs she left on the counter before taking a seat at the table next to Shawn. 

“That pause is important, even if it's for something as small as making a proper cup of tea,” she continues as Gus brings the mugs over and takes his own seat on the other side of Shawn. 

He looks worriedly between Shawn and his mom and the kettle on the stove which has begun to simmer. 

“I’ve taught both my kids to do this when they are having a hard time, I think it’s your turn now, okay?”

Shawn looks down at the table, picking at a hangnail on his left thumb, his blinks against the sharp sting and pressure behind his eyes, the second time this woman has tried to make him cry in the span of a month. Shawn chews the inside of his cheek and takes a deep breath through his nose, releasing it slowly until he’s sure that he’s got a handle on his emotions once more. 

“Even if I can’t stay?” Shawn whispers eventually, the words slightly strangled as he clears his throat.

Mrs. Guster is quiet for a moment that seems to stretch on for ages, he can feel Gus and his mother both watching him and raises his eyes to meet their gaze. The water in the kettle has started to boil, the steam and bubbles force the air out of the whistle in small bursts that cut through the quiet kitchen. 

No one speaks until Gus stands up abruptly to stomp over to the stove and wrench the kettle off the burner before turning off the stove top with a vicious twist of the knob. 

“Burton,” Mrs Guster says warningly as Gus pours the hot water into the teapot with his back to the table. He silently finishes adding the water before walking the kettle back to the stove to place it on one of the unused burners at the back. His movements are less sharp than they were a moment ago but his expression is pinched into a grimace as he grabs the tea pot and places it on the lazy susan in the middle of the table. 

Gus stands there for a moment, his gaze pivots between Shawn and the kitchen entrance where he emerged from just a moment ago and Shawn feels his breath stutter the longer that Gus stands there. 

“Burton,” Mrs. Guster finally snaps, pointing at the chair beside her with finality, “stop hovering and sit your ass down”.

For a second, Shawn worries that Gus might not listen, that he might simply walk away and face his mother’s ire later rather than be in the same room with him for another second, but eventually Gus sits.

Mrs. Guster nods at her son once before taking a deep breath and turning back to Shawn.

“You can stay here as long as you need, and if you don’t need to then we aren’t forcing you, just like we aren’t forcing you to do anything else you clearly aren’t ready for, right Burton?” 

Gus says nothing, crossing his arms over his chest tightly as he glares at the table. 

Mrs. Guster’s lips purse slightly but she shakes her head and continues, “we will be here when you are ready, we aren’t going anywhere, okay?”

Shawn nods as Mrs. Guster reaches out to pull his hands apart, saving his hangnail from another vicious pull, she gives it a pat and then moves to stand up. 

“I think I heard the dryer go,” she says with a pointed look at Gus, “I’ll be right back, you boys just let that tea steep a minute”.

Mrs. Guster reaches out to pat Gus’ cheek with the same gentle touch she gave Shawn’s hand as she moved past him. Gus just scowls harder and remains silent, the arms across his chest tighten even more as Mrs. Guster sighs and leaves the kitchen. 

It wasn’t supposed to go like this, Shawn was going to introduce the idea of him leaving slowly. Hell, even he hadn’t really thought the idea through until this moment. Sure, he’d been eyeing his stash of cash the last few days, but that didn’t mean he had a real plan thought out. 

And even if he had, there was only a twenty percent chance he’d bother following it. 

“Gus,” Shawn tries softly, scooching forward on his chair until he’s barely perched on the edge of it. 

Gus doesn’t look at him, lifting his eyes instead to stare at the wall. 

“Gus, come on,” Shawn says, a pleading note in his voice, “I can’t stay here, I--too much shit has happened--”

Gus scoffs, his eyes finally landing on Shawn,”no, you come on, we were helping though, you being here was helping”. 

He breathes out sharply and scrubs a hand over his face before dropping it on the table, “you have us now, mom and dad, you don’t have to leave!”

Shawn opens his mouth again to argue but Gus cuts him off by pushing away from the table, the legs scrape against the linoleum and both boys wince at the sound. 

Neither move for a beat, the only sound in the kitchen is the soft ticking of the Kit Cat clock on the far wall, the cat's eyes seem to flick between Gus and Shawn as though trying to suss out the outcome of this terrible conversation. 

Join the club buddy, Shawn thinks miserably. 

“I don’t get this at all,” Gus breathes out, shaking his head, his fingers tap a nervous beat on the table.

“I know,” Shawn says in a pained voice, his seemingly endless ability to pull words out of his ass to fill up a strange or awkward space has abandoned him.

Gus glares quietly, his body tense as though ready to jump out of his chair and leave the room at any time but eventually he sits forward, his expression serious.

“How are you even gonna get out of here,” Gus asks matter of factly, “you don’t have a car”.

Shawn nods at that, it was a good point --one that gave him the smallest sliver of hope.

“I have some money saved--”

“And you still have like twenty hours of community service left,” Gus speaks over him, holding his hand out while the other counts on his index and middle finger. 

Shawn feels the barest hint of a grin beginning to pull at his lips at the reasons. Of course Gus would have a list of contingencies ready for Shawn to worry about in a mere thirty seconds of thinking about this --more than Shawn had even considered in the last few days. 

He huffs out a laugh, “I wasn’t planning on walking out the door today you know?”

“You weren’t?” Gus says in a small soft voice, and Shawn feels himself shaking his head.

“No,” he insists fiercely, “of course not”.

Gus looks at Shawn for another beat, his eyes searching his face as though trying to find even a touch of doubt there, before he stands abruptly and tugs Shawn into a firm hug.

“You better call like, every week, so we know you’re okay,” his best friend whispers into his shoulder as Shawns arms come up to return the hug. He feels another laugh bubble up out of his chest as he nods frantically. 

“Or write,” Gus continues, “or something, just, so we know you’re good…and you have to make sure you come back”.

Oh.

Shawn hadn’t thought about what would happen after, after this trip, this solo adventure, if there would even be somewhere for him to come back to. 

Of course he could count on Gus.

“I promise,” Shawn says, his voice thick as he tightens his arms around Gus even more.

“Don’t, don’t you dare,” Gus warns, his own voice wavering, “when you cry, I cry Shawn, jesus”.

Shawn barks out a wet laugh into Gus’ shoulder and presses his eyes into the collar of his best friend's shirt, “you started it,” he says, the words muffled by fabric and a bony shoulder. 

They let go, turning away from one another to discreetly wipe their faces as Mrs. Guster comes back into the kitchen with a wide smile. She looks between her boys fondly and steps past them towards the pantry where she takes out a bottle of honey. 

“That tea’s got to be well steeped by now,” she says sagely as she takes a seat at the table once more, “but I think it needed it”.

Tag List: @adaed5 @drakkywolf @newgrangespirals @riverofrainbows @steddierthings @eriquin

(If you want to be removed or added to the tag list please let me know!)

Part Six

[naggingatlas]

most beautiful songs ever made imo

movies by weyes blood

otra noche by proyecto uno (that entire album tbh)

only skin by joanna newsom

this is how it sounds by skee-lo

icebreaker trance part 4 by michael gordon

when i was done dying by dan deacon

skeleton by bloc party

change machine by attic abasement

the 1976 montreux performance of i wish i knew by nina simone

the loneliest of creatures with prelude by klaatu

clash the truth by beach fossils

a new kind of love by imogen heap

earth bridge by mount shrine

without you by low roar

stonemilker by bjork

the leanover and sorrow by life without buildings

that one audio recording of someone playing piano that i found on vkontakte audios that was titled д by д

quiver a little by benjamin clementine

you love me by kimya dawson

all i need by radiohead

class of 2013 audiotree performance

are you lost II and welcome to the city (snow squall warning) by cristata & hywell

braindrops by tropical fuck storm

o superman by laurie anderson

a song for all seas, all ships by ralph vaughan williams

careless soul by daniel jonston

sorrow is my name by connie converse

birdwatching by thank you scientist

dramamine by modest mouse

lotus by jalan jalan

wanna be a baller by lil troy

the last true knight by phemiec

instar emergence

is it cold in the water? by sophie

scientist salarian by 8-bit big band

never fallen in love by uncle outrage and gonna get got

made for each other by chipmunks on 16 speed

worlds to run by busdriver

ignus nilsen waltz by sea power

vomit by microwave

brandon from the cry of fear ost

the ambient shit that plays on h-047c in me: andromeda

kid rock love song by elli

teplo by acytota

kara kara kara no kara by kikuo

hole in the ground by alex g

speech! speech! speech! by martin halldin

as you are by dean martin

duvet by bôa

welcome to night vale by elise keston-smith

freefall and mission to mars by rainbow kitten surprise

world revolving and your best nightmare by toby fox

sleep patterns by merchant ships

taro by alt-j

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson Editorial Cartoons Page

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 31, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 01, 2024

Today felt as if there was a collective inward breath as people tried to figure out what yesterday’s jury verdict means for the upcoming 2024 election. The jury decided that former president Trump created fraudulent business records in order to illegally influence the 2016 election. As of yesterday, the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States of America is a convicted felon. 

Since the verdict, Trump and his supporters have worked very hard to spin the conviction as a good thing for his campaign, but those arguments sound like a desperate attempt to shape a narrative that is spinning out of their control. Newspapers all over the country bore the word “GUILTY” in their headlines today.

At stake for Trump is the Republican presidential nomination. Getting it would pave his way to the presidency, which offers him financial gain and the ability to short-circuit the federal prosecutions that observers say are even tighter cases than the state case in which a jury quickly and unanimously found him guilty yesterday. Not getting it leaves Trump and the MAGA supporters who helped him try to steal the 2020 presidential election at the mercy of the American justice system.  

After last night’s verdict, Trump went to the cameras and tried to establish that the nomination remains his, asserting that voters would vindicate him on November 5. But this morning, as he followed up last night’s comments, he did himself no favors. He billed the event as a “press conference,” but delivered what Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times described as “a rambling and misleading speech,” so full of grievance and unhinged that the networks except the Fox News Channel cut away from it as he attacked trial witnesses, called Judge Merchan “the devil,” and falsely accused President Joe Biden of pushing his prosecution. He took no questions from the press.

Today the Trump campaign told reporters it raised $34.8 million from small-dollar donors in the hours after the guilty verdict, but observers pointed out there was no reason to believe those numbers based on statements from Trump’s campaign. Meanwhile, Trump advisor Stephen Miller shouted on the Fox News Channel that every Republican secretary of state, state attorney general, donor, member of Congress must use their power “RIGHT NOW” to “beat these Communists!” 

The attempt of MAGA lawmakers to shape events in their favor seemed just as panicked. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) posted on social media that “New York is a liberal sh*t hole,” and Jim Jordan (R-OH) today asked Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, to testify before the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about “politically motivated prosecutions of…President Donald Trump.” Representative Dan Goldman (D-NY) noted that Trump is a private citizen and Congress has no jurisdiction over the case, but that Jordan is using his congressional authority illegally to defend Trump. 

MAGA senators were even more strident. Republican senator Mike Lee of Utah melted down on X last night over the verdict, and today he led nine other Republican senators in a revolt against the federal government. Lee, J. D. Vance of Ohio, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin issued a public letter saying they would no longer pass legislation, fund the government, or vote to confirm the administration’s appointees because, they said, “[t]he White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways. As a Senate Republican conference,” they said, although there were only 10 of them, “we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart.” 

It was an odd statement seemingly designed to use disinformation to convince voters to stick with them. Ten senators said they would not do the federal jobs they were elected to do because private citizen Trump was convicted in a state court by a jury of 12 people in New York, a jury that Trump’s lawyers had agreed to. The senators attacked the rule of law and the operation of the federal government in a demonstration of support for Trump. A number of the senators involved were key players in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

Awkwardly, considering the day’s news, a video from 2016 circulated today in which Trump insisted that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who he falsely insisted had committed crimes even as he was the one actually committing them, “shouldn’t be allowed to run.” If she were to win, Trump then said, “it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.” 

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it correctly: this is not an “outpouring of rage and anger,” so much as “an overwhelming effort to match and muffle the earthquake of what happened yesterday afternoon with enough noise and choreography to keep everyone in Trump’s campaign and on the margins of it in line and on side.”

Still, there is more behind the MAGA support for Trump than fearful political messaging. Trump has been hailed as a savior by his supporters because he promises to smash through the laws and norms of American democracy to put them into power. There, they can assert their will over the rest of us, achieving the social and religious control they cannot achieve through democratic means because they cannot win the popular vote in a free and fair election. With Trump’s conviction within the legal system, his supporters are more determined than ever to destroy the rules that block them from imposing their will on the rest of us. 

Today the Federalist Society, which is now aligned with Victor Orbán’s Hungary, flew an upside-down U.S. flag as a signal of national distress. Their actions were in keeping with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s statement that Trump is being persecuted “for political reasons” and that the cases show “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”

Ryan J. Reilly of NBC News reported today on a spike in violent rhetoric on social media targeting New York judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s Manhattan election interference trial, and District Attorney Bragg. Users of a fringe internet message board also shared what they claimed were the addresses of jurors. “Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote. Another wrote, “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to [W]ashington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution.”

This attack on our democracy was the central message of a crucially important story from yesterday that got buried under the news of Trump’s conviction. In The New Republic, Ken Silverstein reported on a private WhatsApp group started last December by military contractor Erik Prince—founder of Blackwater and brother of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos—and including about 650 wealthy and well-connected “right-wing government officials, intelligence operatives, arms traffickers, and journalists,” including Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who served as Trump’s secretary of the interior. 

Called “Off Leash,” the group discussed, as Silverstein wrote, “the shortcomings of democracy that invariably resulted from extending the franchise to ordinary citizens, who are easily manipulated by Marxists and populists,” collapsing Gaza into a “fiery hell pit,” wiping out Iran, how Africa was a “sh*thole of a continent,” and ways to dominate the globe. Mostly, though, they discussed the danger of letting everyone vote. “There is only one path forward,” Zinke wrote. “Elect Trump.” Another member answered, “It’s Trump or Revolution” “You mean Trump AND Revolution,” wrote another. 

And yet the frantic MAGA spin on the verdict reveals that there is another way to interpret it. Americans who had lost faith that the justice system could ever hold a powerful man accountable as Trump’s lawyers managed to put off his many indictments see the verdict as a welcome sign that the system still works. 

“The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Biden said today. “Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case. And it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you. Like millions of Americans who served on juries, this jury is chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump's attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence…. After careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts. Now he’ll be given the opportunity as he should to appeal that decision just like everyone else has that opportunity. That's how the American system of justice works. And it's reckless, it's dangerous, and it's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict. Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and it literally is the cornerstone of America…. The justice system should be respected, and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that. That's America. That's who we are. And that's who we will always be, God willing.”

Today the publisher of Dinesh D’Souza’s book and film 2000 Mules, which alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election, said it was pulling both the book and film from distribution and issued an apology to a Georgia man who sued for defamation after 2000 Mules accused him of voting illegally.  

MAGA Republicans confidently predicted yesterday that the stock market would crash if the jury found Trump guilty. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 600 points.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Black Roses (Fasano, 1988)

Decided to watch this for National Canadian Film Day, in part because my first pick, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, turned out to be a bit of a dud, but mostly because it was directed by John Fasano director of CanCon classic Rock’n’Roll Nightmare. That one is one of my favourite bad movies, and I remember seeing this on a list years ago when digging further into heavy metal horror movies. (That list also had Shock ‘Em Dead in the top spot, so perhaps its recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt.) This obviously offers some of the same pleasures as Nightmare, like wall to wall heavy metal music and cheesy monster effects. The most frequently played song here is “Me Against the World” by Lizzie Borden, a song I was first introduced to thanks to the sampler CD included with an ‘80s metal guide written by Martin Popoff that I once borrowed from the library. None of this will mean anything to anyone else, but I am painting a nostalgic portrait of my relationship with this music and this genre of horror.

But I didn’t find this as fun as Nightmare, in large part because it feels more like a real movie, so the goofiness doesn’t pop to the same extent. Nightmare is simultaneously a bit of a hangout piece and a vanity project, qualities that mix with the cheesy horror elements to give the movie its own distinct wavelength. Shower scenes that go on for hours, full throated speeches talking up the Toronto music industry, one-eyed monster puppets, and at the centre of it all, Jon Mikl Thor, the muscular hair metal god whose music we should be in awe of, but who is also a generous enough presence that he lets the whole cast of characters shine, including his bandmates and their spouses. He’s a very genial presence, and it’s a very genial movie.

This one is sort of genial as well, beginning initially as a gentle satire of the moral majority types afraid of the heavy metal band who has descended upon their town. These characters are adamant that heavy metal will prove a corrupting influence on the youth in their town, but after some common sense speeches by the mayor and a schoolteacher, and witnessing the opening of the act where the music and getups seem more new wave or pop rock than heavy metal, they decide their fears were unfounded. But the moment the adults leave the concert, the band instantly transforms into their hair metal leather getups and start blasting the Lizzie Borden and whatever else they have in their repertoire. Soon they have the children in their thrall and carrying out their evil bidding in black outfits and a lot more product in their hair. Despite the original feint in the opposite direction, the movie disappointingly ends up siding with the moral majority conservatism of the era.

That being said, there is something a little endearing about how much it commits to the nobility of the teaching profession as a motivation. The teacher ends up as the hero and seems genuinely concerned about his students, which adds to the afterschool special vibe of the whole thing. Even funnier is that all the students look to be at least thirty, and one of the students comes off like a Michael J. Fox impersonator but with terrible energy. It’s hard to explain, but you’ll get it when you watch him for even a few minutes. There’s also enough of the goofiness you’d want in things like this, especially in the climax where the hero very conspicuously attempts to set the stage on fire and then gets in a fist fight with a monster that seems to be shot to look an unimposing as possible.

So this does not live up to Rock’n’Roll Nightmare, one of the greatest Canadian movies ever made, but it has its charms.

[marcmarcmomarc]

When Ruby apologizes for how long it’s taken to reveal where they’ve been.

When Ruby reveals that The Girl Who Fell Through the World is real, everyone is confused.

When Ruby recites the story of Penny she told to the toy soldiers, the gang, especially Winter and Pietro, grows emotional.

When Ruby reveals that the Curious Cat saved them from being beheaded, everyone grows interested.

When Ruby mentions being drugged by the Herbalist and almost giving into her past self, the group ranges from confused to nervous.

When Ruby talks about Ascension, such a concept catches the interest of the gang.

When Ruby reveals that Neo fell into the Ever After with them, too, Ren, Nora, Oscar, and Emerald grow worried.

When Ruby reveals that a grown-up Jaune with long hair and a beard was the Rusted Knight, everyone jumps back in shock.

When Ruby talks about the “punderstorm” and reveals that Yang and Blake are now girlfriends, everyone’s hearts melt.

When Ruby reveals that Jaune had been unhealthily protecting the Paper Pleasers and named them after everyone there, not a word is spoken as everyone exchanges concerned and uncomfortable looks with each other.

When Ruby talks about the Paper Pleasers offing themselves by drowning in the koi pond dam, then her blowing up at the others, everyone leans in anxiously…

…while Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Jaune share looks of guilt.

When Ruby reveals that Neo made clone illusions of their dead allies and beat her up with them, then gave in and drank the poison tea, everyone regards Ruby sorrowfully.

When Ruby reveals that Summer lied to them and left with Raven before never returning, then Raven cracks about how she told Summer, “First time for everything,” the gang gives her a look.

When Ruby reveals that she decided to be herself, came back, and helped the girls beat the Cat, everyone cheers for them.

When Ruby reveals that Neo used the Jabberwalkers to eat the Cat, everyone is shocked again.

When Ruby shares the Brother Gods’ backstory, and Nora jokes that the Tree was their mom and kicked them out for misbehaving, the gang can’t resist growing hysterical.

When Ruby announces that she’s not giving up the fight to save the world anytime soon and gives her speech, the gang congratulates her.

Starring the voices of:

Lindsay Jones as Ruby Rose

Cristina Vee as Robyn Hill

Aaron Dismuke as Oscar Pine

Kara Eberle as Weiss Schnee

Katie Newville as Emerald Sustrai

Caiti Ward as Velvet Scarlatina

Barbara Dunkelman as Yang Xiao Long

Samantha Ireland as Nora Valkyrie

Neath Oum as Lie Ren

Burnie Burns as Taiyang Xiao Long

Jason Liebrecht as Qrow Branwen

Anna Hullum as Raven Branwen

Howard Wang as Whitley Schnee

Arryn Zech as Blake Belladonna

Miles Luna as Jaune Arc

Tara Platt as Kali Belladonna

Anairis Quiñones as Harriet Bree

Michael Jones as Sun Wukong

Dawn M. Bennett as Elm Ederne

Shannon McCormick as Professor Ozpin

Additional Voices (no individual lines, but can be heard chattering, sobbing, gasping, cheering, laughing, and exclaiming, “Ooh,” and, “Aww”):

Sena Bryer as May Marigold

Ashley Burns as Coco Adel

Tiana Camacho as Glynda Goodwitch

Dani Chambers as Iris Marilla

Cam Clarke as Bartholomew Oobleck

Michele Everheart as Fiona Thyme

Cassie Ewulu as Arslan Altan

Dave Fennoy as Dr. Pietro Polendina

Gavin Free as Scarlet David

Caitlin Glass as Willow Schnee

Mick Lauer as Marrow Amin

Cherami Leigh as Ilia Amitola

Marissa Lenti as Joanna Greenleaf

Joe MacDonald as Yatsuhashi Daichi

Aaron Marquis as Nolan Porfirio

Elizabeth Maxwell as Winter Schnee

Max Mittelman as Fox Alistair

Josh Ornelas as Sage Ayana

Jon Risinger as Bolin Hori

Zeno Robinson as Nadir Shiko

Anthony Sardinha as Peter Port

Kerry Shawcross as Neptune Vasilias

Keith Silverstein as Professor Theodore

Melissa Sternenberg as Maria Calavera

J. Michael Tatum as Klein Sieben

Kent Williams as Ghira Belladonna

Erin Winn as Reese Chloris

Anne Yatco as Xanthe Rumpole

This is the only way anyone will believe them let’s be fr

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

Dialing In to Fox News, Trump Offers a Rambling Rebuttal to Harris’s Speech

The network ended the live interview after 10 minutes. Beeps could be heard as the former president seemed to accidentally press the buttons on the keypad of his phone.

NY Times: By Michael M. Grynbaum and Michael Gold

Michael Grynbaum reported from Chicago. Michael Gold reported from Tucson, Ariz.

Aug. 23, 2024

Former President Donald J. Trump was watching television on Thursday night and he did not like what he saw.

His Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her allies were accusing him of groveling to dictators, imperiling democracy, and betraying American values.

So Mr. Trump picked up the telephone and called Fox News. The network patched him in to its live coverage of the Democratic convention — moments after Ms. Harris had deemed him, in her speech, “an unserious man” — and the former president proceeded to issue a meandering, stream-of-consciousness rebuttal.

Several times, the Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum tried to interject to ask a question. Several times, Mr. Trump ignored them. “Mr. President, let me interrupt,” Mr. Baier pleaded at one point. Mr. Trump kept talking.

The call-in — which lasted for 10 minutes, until Fox News informed Mr. Trump that the network had run out of time — was hastily arranged. Network producers confirmed the interview less than a half-hour before Ms. Harris began her prime-time remarks.

Still, Mr. Trump did not want to wait until after the speech to weigh in. While Ms. Harris was speaking, he took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to provide real-time commentary.

His posts there, capitalized in a haphazard manner, were less directed at her specific remarks than at broader complaints about issues that Mr. Trump wants to keep the focus on: crime, immigration and the economy.

At times, he digressed.

“WHERE’S HUNTER?” Mr. Trump asked as Ms. Harris came onstage, reviving one of his favorite slogans about the son of President Biden, who withdrew his candidacy weeks ago.

At one point, referring to Ms. Harris, Mr. Trump asked, in all capital letters, “Is she talking about me?” (She was, often.)

Mr. Trump also accused Ms. Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, of puffing up his résumé as a leader of a high school football team. “Walz was an ASSISTANT Coach, not a COACH,” he wrote.

A few minutes later, on Fox News, Mr. Trump argued that Ms. Harris had not accomplished much during her tenure as vice president.

“All of these things that she talked about — ‘We are going to do this, we are going to do that, we are going to do everything’ — but she didn’t do any of it!” Mr. Trump said on the air, complaining that “she didn’t talk about China, she didn’t talk about fracking, she didn’t talk about crime.”

His one concession? The Democrats’ convention hall. “It was a nice-looking room,” he said.

When Ms. MacCallum observed, accurately, that Ms. Harris was “having some success” with women, Hispanic and Black voters, Mr. Trump objected. “She’s not having success; I’m having success,” he said. “I’m doing great with the Hispanic voters, doing great with Black men, I’m doing great with women.”

“It’s only in your eyes that they have that, Martha,” he added. “We are doing very well.”

At several points during the call, a familiar beeping sound interrupted Mr. Trump’s remarks. It appeared that the former president was accidentally pressing buttons on the keypad of his phone.

Finally, while Mr. Trump was still midsentence, Mr. Baier moved to end the interview and thanked his guest for his time: “We appreciate that live feedback.”

The network immediately shifted to an episode of its late-night comedy program, “Gutfeld!”

The host, Greg Gutfeld, looked bemused. “That wasn’t my fault, Donald Trump,” he said, speaking to the president through the TV.

“He’s still talking, by the way,” Mr. Gutfeld joked.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/us/politics/trump-reaction-harris-dnc.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20240824&instance_id=132538&nl=today%27s-headlines®i_id=50236408&segment_id=175968&te=1&user_id=ba361fc7a8dda50e0479e7104bfa0b16

[bllsbailey]

Which social media platforms have banned Trump and why? An overview

Former President Donald Trump has been blocked from five of the top social media platforms over the years, and all except one have returned his accounts as he runs for re-election in 2024. 

During his presidency, Trump saw his Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts all suspended in 2021 following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

"Since President Trump first ran for office, liberals in big tech have allowed terrorists and dictators to spout hate speech on their platforms while banning President Trump in a shameless attempt to help Democrats win elections," RNC Spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital in a statement. "It won’t work – President Trump’s message is resonating with voters across the country, which is why he had the most successful TikTok launch in history, and he will continue to speak directly to the American people about his agenda to Make America Great Again."

Trump's Snapchat account was suspended in 2021 after the outlet claimed he was responsible for "multiple policy violations." It has not been restored since. 

Former President Trump during a campaign event at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami, Florida, on July 9, 2024. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Asked why the profile could not be restored several years later, a spokesperson for Snapchat told Trump's team their terms of service prevented them from reinstating his account.

Trump War Room, an account working on behalf of the former president's 2024 re-election campaign, blasted Snapchat in a post on X.

"Snapchat REFUSES to reinstate President Trump’s account — but then shamelessly asks the Trump campaign to advertise with Snapchat Big Tech is all in for Kamala!" Trump War Room wrote, alongside a screenshot of their communication with Snapchat.

Snapchat's terms of service reportedly don't allow for a terminated user to create a new account or be reinstated to their old one. 

2024 SHOWDOWN: TRUMP CAMPAIGN REJOICES AFTER HARRIS LEANS IN ON KEY ISSUE HAUNTING HER VICE PRESIDENCY

The Instagram logo is seen on a cell phone in Boston, Oct. 14, 2022.  (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

Meta suspended Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2021, but it reinstated them two years later.

"Two years ago, we took action in what were extreme and highly unusual circumstances. We indefinitely suspended then-US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021," Meta said in a statement. 

"We then referred that decision to the Oversight Board — an expert body established to be an independent check and balance on our decision-making. The Board upheld the decision but criticized the open-ended nature of the suspension and the lack of clear criteria for when and whether suspended accounts will be restored, directing us to review the matter to determine a more proportionate response." 

Trump was also suspended from Twitter in 2021, but was given his account back after Elon Musk bought the company.

Truth Social has posted big losses. A logo displayed on a smartphone with Donald J. Trump seen in the background, in this photo illustration.  (Photo illustration by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto)

Musk recently suggested that Google's autocomplete search feature was omitting results for the assassination attempt against Trump.

"Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump," Musk wrote. "Election interference?" A Google spokesperson told FOX Business that there was no "manual action taken on these predictions."

After being blocked from several of the top social media companies in the U.S., Trump launched his own platform, Truth Social, which he frequently uses to make public statements regarding his 2024 presidential campaign.

Fox News' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Aubrie Spady is a Writer for Fox News Digital.

[marcmarcmomarc]

When Ruby apologizes for how long it’s taken to reveal where they’ve been.

When Ruby reveals that The Girl Who Fell Through the World is real, everyone is confused.

When Ruby recites the story of Penny she told to the toy soldiers, the gang, especially Winter and Pietro, grows emotional.

When Ruby reveals that the Curious Cat saved them from being beheaded, everyone grows interested.

When Ruby mentions being drugged by the Herbalist and almost giving into her past self, the group ranges from confused to nervous.

When Ruby talks about Ascension, such a concept catches the interest of the gang.

When Ruby reveals that Neo fell into the Ever After with them, too, Ren, Nora, Oscar, and Emerald grow worried.

When Ruby reveals that a grown-up Jaune with long hair and a beard was the Rusted Knight, everyone jumps back in shock.

When Ruby talks about the “punderstorm” and reveals that Yang and Blake are now girlfriends, everyone’s hearts melt.

When Ruby reveals that Jaune named the Paper Pleasers after them all, not a word is spoken as everyone exchanges concerned and uncomfortable looks with each other.

When Ruby talks about the Paper Pleasers offing themselves by drowning in the koi pond dam, then her blowing up at the others, everyone leans in anxiously…

…while Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Jaune share looks of guilt.

When Ruby reveals that Neo made clone illusions of their dead allies and beat her up with them, then gave in and drank the poison tea, everyone regards Ruby sorrowfully.

When Ruby reveals that Summer lied to them and left with Raven before never returning, then Raven cracks about how she told Summer, “First time for everything,” the gang gives her a look.

When Ruby reveals that she decided to be herself, came back, and helped the girls beat the Cat, everyone cheers for them.

When Ruby reveals that Neo used the Jabberwalkers to eat the Cat, everyone is shocked again.

When Ruby shares the Brother Gods’ backstory, and Nora jokes that the Tree was their mom and kicked them out for misbehaving, the gang can’t resist growing hysterical.

When Ruby announces that she’s not giving up the fight to save the world anytime soon and gives her speech, the gang congratulates her.

Starring the voices of:

Lindsay Jones as Ruby Rose

Cristina Vee as Robyn Hill

Aaron Dismuke as Oscar Pine

Kara Eberle as Weiss Schnee

Katie Newville as Emerald Sustrai

Caiti Ward as Velvet Scarlatina

Barbara Dunkelman as Yang Xiao Long

Samantha Ireland as Nora Valkyrie

Neath Oum as Lie Ren

Burnie Burns as Taiyang Xiao Long

Jason Liebrecht as Qrow Branwen

Anna Hullum as Raven Branwen

Howard Wang as Whitley Schnee

Arryn Zech as Blake Belladonna

Miles Luna as Jaune Arc

Tara Platt as Kali Belladonna

Anairis Quiñones as Harriet Bree

Michael Jones as Sun Wukong

Dawn M. Bennett as Elm Ederne

Shannon McCormick as Professor Ozpin

Additional Voices (no individual lines, but can be heard chattering, sobbing, gasping, cheering, laughing, and exclaiming, “Ooh,” and “Aww”):

Sena Bryer as May Marigold

Ashley Burns as Coco Adel

Dani Chambers as Iris Marilla

Tiana Camacho as Glynda Goodwitch

Cam Clarke as Bartholomew Oobleck

Michele Everheart as Fiona Thyme

Cassie Ewulu as Arslan Altan

Dave Fennoy as Dr. Pietro Polendina

Gavin Free as Scarlet David

Caitlin Glass as Willow Schnee

Mick Lauer as Marrow Amin

Cherami Leigh as Ilia Amitola

Marissa Lenti as Joanna Greenleaf

Joe MacDonald as Yatsuhashi Daichi

Aaron Marquis as Nolan Porfirio

Elizabeth Maxwell as Winter Schnee

Max Mittelman as Fox Alistair

Josh Ornelas as Sage Ayana

Jon Risinger as Bolin Hori

Zeno Robinson as Nadir Shiko

Anthony Sardinha as Peter Port

Kerry Shawcross as Neptune Vasilias

Keith Silverstein as Professor Theodore

Melissa Sternenberg as Maria Calavera

J. Michael Tatum as Klein Sieben

Kent Williams as Ghira Belladonna

Erin Winn as Reese Chloris

Anne Yatco as Xanthe Rumpole

[notheroic]

Seeing Michael J. Fox get wheeled out in a wheelchair to present Best Film at the BAFTAs tugged at my heartstrings more than any of the speeches. Still my hero after all this time.

[curiousmastermindz]

Michael J. Fox Gets Standing Ovation & Gives Touching Speech

[d0nutzgg]

Update: Plans for Speechy: the First Neurological Speech Disorder Identifier

Hey everyone, I have been hard at work on Speechy and I am happy to say I made a lot of progress last night! I now have a fully functional Youtube "Speech Disorder" audio clip scraper for the dataset.

It also now labels the videos into the right folder for me which is making the data scraping easier. It allows input of your own API key, and the ability to name the folder yourself.

Despite the roadblock on publishing the dataset itself (sorry to hype y'all up for nothing I really wanted to make the data publicly available but I also don't have lawyers like OpenAI to defend my ass lol).

For those who don't know OpenAI uses a dataset that was scraped from Google Searches. Not the most ethical but they haven't really made their stuff available and it's all currently proprietary which is saving their ass with lawsuits too.

Good news though, I also got the first very Alpha version of an NLP speech pattern recognition program to recognize the first of the disorders I am focused on - Ataxic Dysarthria which is what I have from my ongoing battle with Huntington's Disease.

This is very basic and I really need to train another neural network just for this but it'll pull out the *definite* matches and then only save those to another folder which cleans things up a bit then I can go back over some of it and add more to the files. It makes my life easier.

Also I want to note that this software is completely open source so anyone can fork it from my github and use it themselves! In fact I encourage you to do so!!

Here is the actual full code for the Youtube Scraper too

It's a bit hard to see but you can find it on my Github here:

Anyways, I got quite a bit done, now onto making the rest of the ID scripts (I would put them together but realized this would not be effective tbh. Here is the current state of the Github repo right now:

I also plan to make some visualization programs and do some of my own scientific research (ah.. reminiscing over my academic researching days with Michael J Fox Foundation data..) and I will probably even submit my own findings to be peer reviewed later on.

Thank you for your continued support and I will continue to post my "Dev log" of sorts every day (if I can remember, sorry I have Early Onset FTD).

Cheers!

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

By Michael M. Grynbaum and David McCabe

Threatening the news media is nothing new for former President Donald J. Trump. He has accused major news outlets of defamation, blocked journalists from rallies and White House events, goaded followers into profane chants about CNN and popularized the term “fake news,” now embraced by autocrats around the world.

Even by those standards, though, his latest anti-media obsession — stripping television networks of their ability to broadcast the news because of coverage he doesn’t like — stands out.

“CBS should lose its license,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform last week. “60 Minutes should be immediately taken off the air.” He has repeated his demands in speeches and in interviews, echoing his earlier calls for ABC’s license to be “terminated” because of his displeasure with how the network handled his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump ratcheted up his threats against CBS. “We’re going to subpoena their records,” he told Fox News in an interview, repeating his claim that the network’s edit of Ms. Harris’s recent appearance on “60 Minutes” was misleading. Asked if revoking a broadcast license was a “drastic punishment,” Mr. Trump did not answer directly, instead lobbing a string of insults at Ms. Harris, whom he called “incompetent” and “a Marxist.”

During the “60 Minutes” interview, which aired on Oct. 7, Ms. Harris was asked about the war in the Middle East. In an early excerpt released by CBS a day before, Ms. Harris gave one lengthy answer; in the episode itself, Ms. Harris appeared to give a different, pithier reply.

Mr. Trump — who got into a tiff with CBS ahead of the “60 Minutes” episode, and declined to sit for an interview of his own — quickly seized on the editing as evidence of pro-Harris bias. “60 Minutes” said on Sunday that the “two” answers were merely taken from different sections of Ms. Harris’s full response to the question, and that Mr. Trump’s accusation of deceitful editing “is false.”

CBS’s editing was perceived by rival executives as clumsy, but still well within standard journalistic practice for TV news, and media experts have dismissed Mr. Trump’s claim as preposterous. But one member of the Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory agency that oversees broadcasters, has already expressed receptivity to the notion that CBS’s handling of the interview may have breached federal rules.

“Interesting. 🤔 Big if true,” the commissioner, Nathan Simington, wrote on X. Mr. Trump later shared a screenshot of Mr. Simington’s post on Truth Social.

Broadcast networks like ABC, CBS and NBC do not actually need a license to produce or publish news content. But the local affiliate stations that carry their broadcasts do require licenses. Those licenses are overseen by the F.C.C., which is independent from the White House.

A president cannot unilaterally revoke a license, but the president appoints members to the five-person commission. Mr. Simington is one of two current Republican members of the F.C.C. appointed by Mr. Trump. The other is Brendan Carr, who has shown a fondnessfor Elon Musk, one of Mr. Trump’s loudest champions and the owner of X, which happens to be the one major social media platform that the former president has not denigrated in recent weeks.

Mr. Simington and Mr. Carr, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday, could remain in their roles if Mr. Trump takes office. If the U.S. Senate returns to Republican control, the body would probably approve whomever Mr. Trump chooses for the F.C.C. And with a 3-2 majority, Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. appointees could theoretically vote to revoke whichever licenses they please.

Such a scenario requires several variables to fall Mr. Trump’s way, foremost of which would be securing victory over Ms. Harris in November. It would also require the commission to ignore decades of precedent and effectively reject longstanding norms that guarantee protections for media organizations.

Still, the fact that a feasible, if narrow, path exists for Mr. Trump’s proposed crackdown speaks to the permeability of federal protections for the news media — and the obscure levers in the byzantine regulatory machine that an emboldened president may reach for in a moment of pique.

“These threats against free speech are serious and should not be ignored,” Jessica Rosenworcel, the current chairwoman of the F.C.C., said in a statement. “The F.C.C. does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”

Tom Wheeler, the Democratic chairman of the F.C.C. from 2013 to 2017, said in an interview that Mr. Trump’s threats could create a “chilling effect” on how news organizations make editorial calls.

“It is hard to yank a license; it is particularly hard to yank a license on the instruction of the president of the United States,” Mr. Wheeler said. “But it is not hard to have an impact on decision making.”

“I don’t envy the role of a Trump chairman of the F.C.C.,” Mr. Wheeler added.

If Mr. Trump were elected again, his Justice Department would also have oversight of significant corporate media transactions.

On the campaign trail in 2016, Mr. Trump pledged to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, the owner of CNN, a network whose coverage he frequently railed against. When he was president, the antitrust division of the Justice Department sued to block the deal, although the government ultimately lost the case at trial.

In recent years, Mr. Trump has frequently criticized Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal and MSNBC, and called out its chief executive, Brian Roberts, over NBC’s news coverage. Comcast has long been rumored to be considering a merger or spinoff of NBCUniversal, although nothing has been announced.

Because of his penchant to exaggerate, and his history of employing rhetoric that does not always line up with his actions, it is difficult to parse exactly how Mr. Trump would handle these issues if he retook the White House.

For all Mr. Trump’s bark, American networks and news organizations emerged relatively intact from his presidency. The news outlet that arguably suffered the steepest consequence was Fox News, which paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation suitstemming from Mr. Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election.

Last week, Mr. Trump extended his media criticism to Fox News, which is home to several of his most loyal pundits. He attacked the network for airing too many “Radical Left Lunatics,” and said he planned to meet with Fox’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, to demand that Fox News stop running “negative commercials” about his campaign.

None of that prevented Mr. Trump from sitting for an interview that aired on Sunday with the Fox News host Howard Kurtz. In that conversation, Mr. Trump called The New York Times “corrupt” and suggested, in vague language, that he was “probably going to sue them at some point very soon.” He did not provide an example of the coverage that bothered him.

Even Mr. Trump’s threats about broadcast licenses are not new. In 2017, he floated the idea of stripping NBC of its licenses after its news division reported a story about nuclear weapons that displeased him.

At the time, Mr. Trump was rebuked by the then-chairman of the F.C.C., Ajit V. Pai, who said the agency “does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast,” adding, “The F.C.C., under my leadership, will stand for the First Amendment.”

In that instance, Mr. Trump took no further action. Mr. Pai, a Republican first appointed to the commission by Barack Obama, served for the remainder of Mr. Trump’s term.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/21/business/media/trump-media-broadcast-licenses.html

[supersleuth24]

Oh my God op you're so right Steven Grant has the milo thatch energy/cuteness going on

when he’s a handsome, sweet, smart, kinda socially awkward museum worker whose intelligence in a specific subject isn’t being used to it’s full extent in his line of work: