April 11, 2026

FENWAY PARK VIDEO SHOWS THE AMERICA WE LOST: “After receiving almost 10 million views, the video was so flooded with pointed comments that Fenway had to lock it. The message was clear: The America in the video exposed the unmistakable decline of our current nation. Millions of viewers saw it and immediately understood why.”

Predictably, the first instinct of critics on the left was to cry racism over these heartfelt reactions to a lost America. It is true that the crowds in the footage were overwhelmingly white. Therefore, the argument goes, any longing that scene stirs in people must be rooted in racism and xenophobia, rather than a recognition of the defects of our current cultural reality.

This is a lazy, intellectually dishonest dodge. Race is not the point; assimilation is. The people in that 1950s footage were, in many cases, themselves first- or second-generation Americans—Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish, among others. They were people whose parents or grandparents had arrived here through Ellis Island. They did not come to recreate the old country on American soil, transforming it. They came to become American—to transform themselves. They learned the language, embraced the civic norms, cheered on the same teams as their neighbors, and played by the same unwritten rules that made public spaces safe and orderly. Baseball was not merely entertainment. It was a sacrament of a shared American identity.

That unifying force is precisely what is missing today. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu—who was booed loudly along with Governor Maura Healey on the field at Opening Day—recently declared that “you cannot talk about any achievement that the city of Boston has had … without talking about the Somali community that has lifted our city up.” The Fenway video is a devastating rebuttal to her. There are no Somalis visible in those 1950s stands—nor could there have been, given the timeline.

Boston was already a thriving, safe city then—long before the mass migration waves of recent decades. Wu’s historically inaccurate boast is not just pandering, but a symptom of our so-called elites’ refusal to acknowledge that America’s greatness was built by those who bought into its culture, not by those who were imported to transform it.

Make America this again:

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

AN INCONVENIENT SHARKNADO: Why Adam McKay’s Thrash Drowns in Climate Fearmongering.

There are two distinct signs that Climate Change fearmonger Adam McKay produced the shark thriller “Thrash.”

The creative team gave him a shout-out with a McKay-themed tanker that spills its cargo early in the film. And the story never stops reminding us that we helped make the movie’s signature storm a reality.

Where’s that Al Gore cameo when you need it?

“Thrash” is still an unabashed B-movie, and it works best by leaning into those genre tics. The story simply doesn’t know whether to let loose or keep reminding us why we need to reduce our carbon footprint, and stat.

(Except China can do what it pleases…)

In the last decade, I’d ask when will Hollywood lower its own carbon footprint by cutting its output? Fortunately for all concerned, 2020 and Gavin Newsom has forced them to do just that. If it saves just one person from the eco-apocalypse…

Posted at 1:44 pm by Ed Driscoll

COMCAST-APPROVED: ‘That Ain’t My Party:’ Al Sharpton Says It Would Be ‘Crazy’ for Black People To Celebrate America’s 250th as 2028 Dem Hopefuls Pay Homage to Him.

“They’re going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country July 4, but that’s not our celebration. We was—we were slaves then, and they celebrate signing the Declaration of Independence 1776,” said Sharpton.

“It seems crazy for me to have on the birthday hat at your birthday party. That ain’t my party,” said Sharpton, who later claimed that “white kids” have not been taught the history of slavery in schools.

“So when white kids hear us talking about reparations or affirmative action,” he went on, “they think it’s an attack ’cause they don’t know what their granddaddy did to us.”

Racial issues were front and center at the convention, in which Sharpton held “fireside chats” with nine Democrats considering presidential bids in 2028. In addition to Harris, Moore, and Pritzker, Sharpton interviewed Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, California congressman Ro Khanna, Arizona senator Ruben Gallego, and others. Sharpton in those interviews focused largely on issues like DEI and investment in black businesses, avoiding hot-button topics like the United States’ 250th birthday celebration and reparations for slavery.

Harris gave the strongest indication of any in the group that she will run in 2028.

“I might,” she told Sharpton on Friday when asked whether she will launch a third presidential bid. “I’m thinking about it.”

The Democrats who appeared at the convention did so in spite of Sharpton’s lengthy record of inflammatory anti-white and anti-Semitic remarks. The activist gained notoriety in the 1980s for representing Tawana Brawley, a black woman who falsely accused white NYPD officers of raping her. In 1991, shortly after forming the National Action Network, Sharpton helped stoke the Crown Heights riots, in which rioters in Brooklyn targeted Jewish businesses and murdered an Orthodox Jew. After the riots ended, Sharpton derogatorily referred to the neighborhood’s Hasidic Jewish population as “the diamond merchants in Crown Heights.”

Last week, Democratic Party house organ Axios claimed, “Dems weighing 2028 campaigns run from 2020 positions.” The Democratic presidential candidate who has a Sister Souljah-style break from Al Sharpton’s decades of toxic politics would go far in signaling that the he or she has moved past the 2020 woke-era.

In the meantime, though:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

“CHINA IS SMILING WATCHING AMERICA’S PUNDIT IMBECILES:”

UPDATE:

“Supreme leader dead, Iranian air force destroyed, nuclear sites attacked again. The Navy of Iranian Revolutionary government at the bottom of the ocean. These are not small things. It’s not the case that the Iranian Revolutionary government has come out of this well.”

Posted at 12:55 pm by Ed Driscoll

HOW WILL THE EU HANDLE A TWO-FRONT WAR? VERY BADLY:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE FIX IS IN, PART II:

Previously:

Posted at 10:36 am by Stephen Green

THE FIX IS IN:

You get less of what you punish, and it looks like war heroes are no longer wanted in Australia.

Posted at 9:52 am by Stephen Green

AN INGRATE WITH THE MEMORY OF A GOLDFISH. HEH.

Posted at 9:16 am by Glenn Reynolds

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: MONEY LAUNDRY AND INDOCTRINATION FACTORY FOR DEMOCRATS. Texas Democratic Senate Hopeful James Talarico Sought To Create ‘New Generation of Climate Activists’ by Mandating Climate Change Lessons in Texas Schools: The Democratic Senate hopeful, who says he supports Texas’s oil and gas industry, also joined a Greta Thunberg-inspired school walkout to ‘save our planet’ and introduced a Green New Deal-style bill mandating carbon emission reductions.

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

PLEASE HELP ME DEFEAT THE NEW ACA7:  In February, I wrote about the California’s latest effort to gut ACA7:

THEY’RE BAAAACK!! AND NOW THEY WANT TO DISCRIMINATE BY RACE IN STUDENT FINANCIAL AID!!:  Legislators in the California Assembly are at it again—trying to gut Proposition 209, the history-making ballot initiative that amended the state constitution in 1996 to ban state-sponsored preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity.  And I literally mean “history-making.”  Paul Johnson’s History of the American People tells the story of America from the late 15th century to the end of the 20th.  Somehow (bless him) he found a wee bit of room to discuss Prop 209.  As the co-chair of that 1996 campaign, I’m darn proud of that.

This is the third time in six years that the Cal Legislature has moved to gut Prop 209’s ban on affirmative-action preferences.  In 2020, the Legislature put a referendum on the ballot to repeal Prop 209 entirely.  But it was THUMPINGLY defeated—over 57% of voters said NO—even though YES Campaign spent 14 times more than we did.  (I’m proud of having co-chaired that campaign too.)  In 2024, the Assembly approved a trickier version that would have empowered the governor to make an unlimited number of EXCEPTIONS to Prop 209.  But that version never made it past the Senate. Cooler heads prevailed there—largely because we descended on their offices, held rallies, and buried them in letters, emails, and tweets.

But they just can’t stop.  The newest effort would exempt public education from Prop 209’s coverage.  Given the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in the Harvard case, this bill does not try to exempt admissions in higher education.  But it exempts everything else.  The big-ticket items would be (1) discrimination in admission to programs for gifted and talented students at the Kindergarten-12th grade level; (2) discrimination funding of K-12 schools based on the racial composition of the students there; and (3) discrimination in financial aid in higher education.

The bill has now passed in the Assembly, but it just barely got the votes it needed.  (We never win in the Assembly.) It’s pending in the Rules Committee of the Senate, where I hope it will be slow-walked into oblivion.  We defeated the previous version of this bill in the Senate two years ago.  I am optimistic that we can do it again if we make enough noise.  Unlike last time, nobody is telling me that this version is going to pass no matter what I do.  In order to win, we only need to persuade four Democrats not to support the bill.  (Last time, we needed six, so this should be easier.)

If you have the time and the inclination, please help by emailing these senators and their chiefs of staff:

A short, simple, and polite message is what’s called for.  The optimal message is this:

Keep discrimination illegal.  Please vote NO on ACA7.

You can copy all the addresses into your email and send just one such message.

Yes, we have other ways that we’re trying to make noise—letters, telephone calls, X posts, op-eds, Zoom visits, in-person visits, and rallies.  But this week, emails (especially emails that include the chiefs of staff) may be what will work best.  (And no, you don’t have to be from California to send an email.)  Rallies and in-person visits will come next.

Posted at 7:46 am by Gail Heriot