February 26, 2026

ROD DREHER: Jesse Jackson: Godfather of the Great Awokening.

In a sense, Jackson never fully recovered from his love child scandal. With Democrats out of the White House through most of the 2000s, he had much less influence. The next Democrat to take the presidency was Barack Obama, who, as the first black president, de facto diminished Jackson’s unique role.

Then again, it could be argued that in the Obama era and beyond there was no need for Jesse Jackson, because his worldview—one based on leveraging identity politics for political and corporate power—had broadly triumphed in elite culture.

In 1987, Jackson joined a student protest at Stanford University, demanding an end to its mandatory “Western Culture” humanities course. “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go!” protesters chanted. The students won. In the next academic year, Stanford introduced a multicultural replacement, including non-Western perspectives and those from women and people of color.

That protest, and Jackson’s role in nationalizing its anti-Western goals, drew considerable comment at the time. Within 30 years, though, what was then seen as a radical demand had become the establishment position within all academia, and remains so today.

And:

Though Jesse Jackson was only a shadow of his former activist self at the time of his passing, his significance should not be overlooked. Though the Great Awokening had many sources, the canny and entrepreneurial Reverend Jackson was its godfather. If you seek his monument, look to every corporate HR department and major media institution, and to university programming, and patterns of foundation grant-making over the last 20 years or so.

And, more darkly, look to the rise of identity politics in the younger generation of whites, who are not intimidated by Jackson-style moralizing. A growing number of them openly embrace pro-white racism, violating a taboo on which Jackson’s moral power depended. What was good, financially and politically, for Jesse Jackson, his allies, and his activist descendants may yet prove disastrous for American democracy.

Regarding the “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go!” protest at Stanford, in his obit for Jackson at NRO, Dan McLaughlin wrote:

Charity toward the departed suggests leaving off further discussion of Jackson’s public career here, but not without noting the man’s abundant gifts as a public speaker in his prime. As P. J. O’Rourke described Jackson’s convention speech in 1988: “I did, however, want to hear Jesse Jackson speak. He is the only living American politician with a mastery of classical rhetoric. Assonance, alliteration, litotes, pleonasm, parallelism, exclamation, climax and epigram — to listen to Jesse Jackson is to hear everything mankind has learned about public speaking since Demosthenes. Thus Jackson, the advocate for people who believe themselves to be excluded from Western culture, was the only 1988 presidential candidate to exhibit any of it.”

Concurrent with Jackson as Patient Zero in the Great Awokening, from Newt Gingrich to Dubya and Jeb Bush to Trump, Jackson never saw a Republican he couldn’t compare to Hitler, despite wishing to see socialism to go national himself, endorsing Bernie Sanders in 2020.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE FIX IS IN:

Posted at 2:02 pm by Stephen Green

BOEING: F-47 Still ‘Doing Exceptionally Well,’ on Track for 2028 Flight.

Then-Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin first articulated the 2028 goal for the F-47’s first flight in September 2025

Now, roughly half a year closer to that target, White said that the timeline remains on track. He also praised Boeing’s work to invest in the F-47; despite a rocky period in recent years with its commercial aviation business and KC-46 Pegasus refueler, Boeing so far appeared to stay ahead of problems with the F-47.

“Boeing has done a really good job of ramping up the personnel piece,” White said. “In the early phases of these programs … you typically watch the personnel ramp against the timeline and activities you have to have to get done. They’ve done very well with that.”

Keep it up, fellas.

Posted at 1:47 pm by Stephen Green

JOY REID’S TIME TRAVELING HACKERS NOW EMPLOYED BY JIMMY KIMMEL:

Will Kimmel be editing Harper’s or the New York Times after his show goes off the air?

 

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

DAVID HARSANYI: Yes, Democrats are crazy.

Anyone with a functioning moral compass is horrified by the thought of the government seizing confused children from parents and allowing strangers to mutilate their bodies via “gender-affirming care,” a perverse euphemism for plying children with puberty blockers or hormones, or worse.

During the State of the Union, President Donald Trump proposed that “no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will. Who can believe that we’re even talking about it?” Republicans then stood and clapped when the president introduced Sage Blair, a teenager who the state of Virginia allowed to “transition” while hiding it from her parents. Democrats sat, as they would for most of the president’s speech. “Look, nobody stands up,” Trump said, pointing to the minority party. “These people are crazy.”

Yes, they are. I’m positive most of the politicians sitting on the Democrats’ side of the congressional divide during the State of the Union recognize that children don’t have the maturity, much less the magical ability to choose a gender. I’m sure most of them would be distressed if one of their own demanded to be identified by the wrong sex and asked to be mutilated. But they’re all members of a political party that’s been captured by fringe social science quackery and militant factions of unhinged activists. Democratic Party candidates who fail to embrace gender pseudoscience probably aren’t going to win primaries. And that’s crazy.

Exit quote:

QED:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THIS DANGER: What to know about the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning after college student’s death. “First responders found 21-year-old Salve Regina University student Joseph Boutros unresponsive in his car on Monday in Newport, Rhode Island, where he was parked outside of a university building. Police said the vehicle’s exhaust pipe was obstructed by snow and that his death from carbon monoxide poisoning was accidental. The area didn’t have power at the time and Boutros told a fellow student that he was using his car to charge his phone, Newport Police Captain Joseph Carroll said.”

A common risk. Also people running gas generators in carports or garages with an open door, thinking that they’re well enough ventilated. They are not.

Posted at 1:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

CDR SALAMANDER: China’s Goal: Control & Take.

Issue-1: The People’s Republic of China (PRC), having drained as much as she can from nearby seas, has decided to strip-mine life from the most remote corners of our shared oceans. All I can think about is how reckless and unsustainable this is. It all comes from a mix of greed and worries about internal security from a poor and malnourished population—a not uncommon historical Chinese problem

Issue-2: China, even as she has grown powerful, remains an incredibly insecure nation against the rest of the world. Creating land around your sea lines of communication so you can claim waters that used to belong to everyone? Not all that subtle.

Let’s go back to Issue-1.

So scared of your own population and your inability to keep them fed and employed ashore—today—that you will knowingly strip mine life from the world’s oceans, regardless of its impact on everyone—tomorrow.

Once an ecosystem is ripped out from its foundation, there is no guarantee it can recover. They don’t care. That will be someone else’s problem. No one will do anything, as they either lack the will, or they have been bought off.

“China is asshoe,” sure — but read the whole thing for more.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Stephen Green

#HIMTOO? World Economic Forum boss quits after review of Epstein links.

The president and CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Borge Brende, has resigned after a review into his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The forum ordered an independent review into Brende over his ties to the disgraced financier following the release of Epstein files by the US Department of Justice.

Brende has acknowledged he dined with Epstein three times between 2018 and 2019 and communicated with him by email and text, but said he was “completely unaware” of his past criminal activity.

2018, huh? Katie Couric, Woody Allen, and George Stephanopoulos Attended Party With Epstein After 2008 Conviction.

Top media figures dined with Jeffrey Epstein after he served 13 months in jail following a plea in which he pleaded guilty to two counts of prostitution in 2008. He had been accused of molesting dozens of girls.

Epstein was arrested on July 6 and charged with sex trafficking; authorities said nude photographs of underage girls were found in his New York mansion after he was arrested.

Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos, Woody Allen, and Chelsea Handler were among the media and Hollywood figures who dined with Epstein at his house in New York City in 2010, reported the Daily Beast in 2011. The event? A party for Epstein’s friend Prince Andrew, at the time the fourth in line for the throne in Britain.

And once again:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

I HAD BEEN ASSURED BY THE VERY BEST PEOPLE THAT THEY WERE MERELY DREAMERS:

From the replies: “The D in DACA is Deferred. The action has been deferred for 14 years. That’s long enough.”

Posted at 12:06 pm by Stephen Green

DON’T BE A GLASSHOLE: Mark Zuckerberg’s Court Appearance Proves Smart Glasses are Problematic.

Arriving at a social media addiction trial in Los Angeles last week, Mark Zuckerberg and his legal team were donning stylish Meta Ray-Bans. The one problem? You’re not allowed to wear smart glasses in court.

The judge “upbraided the Meta team”, according to tech journalist Jacob Ward, who was in the courtroom at the time. He called it “an extraordinary misstep”.

But not everyone was convinced it was a mistake: SFGate called it “supremely odd product placement” while Gizmodo reckons Zuckerberg figured there’s “no such thing as bad press”.

Judge Carolyn Kuhl warned the Los Angeles Superior Court last week that anyone recording proceedings will be held in contempt of court. “If you have done that, you must delete that, or you will be held in contempt of the court,” the judge said. “This is very serious.”

Photography is generally banned in L.A. County’s Superior Court. “Judicial officers have the discretion to place limitations on video recording and photography in their courtroom,” a court spokesperson tells CBS News.

In June of 2019, Christine Rosen of Commentary wrote a lengthy article titled “What Is To Be Done About Facebook?”, in which she noted that “From the company’s earliest days, Facebook’s leaders have adopted a remarkably consistent approach to the exposure of problems and missteps: a mercenary variation of the ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ strategy.” Wearing smart glasses in court is entirely consistent with that worldview.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

CRIMINALS ARE STUPID, EXHIBIT #1,000,006: Pro-Tip: Don’t Rob People Who Are Leaving Gun Ranges.

A trio of rocket surgeons apparently wanted to audition as the Three Stooges of Crime, watching for a guy to leave a gun store and live-fire range in Houston. They actually laid in wait outside a gun range looking for someone to rob. In Texas. Where “howdy” might as well as mean, “I’m packing, you packing too?”

What could possibly go wrong?

The unsuspecting good guy—fresh off of honing his marksmanship skills — maybe even practicing some precision headshots for fun — hopped in his ride, maybe oblivious (or maybe not) to the idiot mobile that was tailing him.

Less than a mile down the road, the Stooges decided to execute their incredibly well-thought-out plan as the good guy parked his ride. Because robbing people who you know have guns at 4 p.m. in broad daylight is a surefire formula for success.

Hilarity ensues.

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green

YES:

Talking filibusters — which I believe used to be the only filibusters — require real commitment.

Posted at 11:27 am by Stephen Green

OH, CANADA! What If Carney Were Maduro-ed? “Trump is shrewd, but he is also unpredictable. He will do whatever he regards as essential to safeguard America’s prosperity, autonomy, security, and overall health in a drug-infested and perilous world. Do not put anything past him, not even the presumably inconceivable. He could just as easily pluck Carney like a weed in his North American garden as allow Canada to subsist of its own accord into terminal decay. Which, in any event, seems to be its current policy under a prime minister hellbent on economic devastation.”

Posted at 11:12 am by Stephen Green

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT:

“Definitely not a communist with a Nazi tattoo who thinks political violence is cool.”

Posted at 10:56 am by Stephen Green