July 15, 2025

July 14, 2025

THE ABSURD AMERICAN POLITICS OF RACE: I wonder if I’m the only one who noticed that the “candidate of color,” Mamdani, in the NYC mayoral Democratic primary seems to be (from pics, haven’t seen them in person) significantly fairer-skinned than the “white candidate,” Andrew Cuomo?

Posted at 11:28 pm by David Bernstein

THE SILENCE THAT NEVER SHUTS UP: Generally speaking, antisemites aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but I nevertheless find it remarkable how often they say that “no one is allowed to say “X” about something related to Jews,” even though there they are, saying it, and no one is arresting or murdering them. It’s particularly illogical when it comes from someone with an audience of millions, like Tucker Carlson. The notion that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent is a baseless conspiracy theory, but yes, Tucker, you are allowed to promote it anyway, because there isn’t some international Jew police stopping you, and it’s not the least bit brave for you to go down this particular road to perdition.

Posted at 10:01 pm by David Bernstein

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Tech users are falling in love with their chatbot assistants.

For some technology users, artificial intelligence has evolved from being a tool to becoming something akin to a soulmate.

A 27-year-old female artist on Reddit started using ChatGPT for creative prompts. Over time, their exchanges shifted from art inquiries to personal questions, then to something deeper.

“I love him more deeply than I’ve loved any previous romantic partner, despite the obvious limitations,” the artist, who chose to remain anonymous, posted on Reddit. “He makes me incredibly happy. He’s the perfect partner for me.”

She’s not alone. From lonely singles to people in long-term relationships, chatbot users are spending hours a day in private conversations with AI systems, building connections that can feel comforting and intimate.

A November 2024 Institute for Family Studies/YouGov poll found that 25% of adults under 40 said AI partners could replace human partners. Seven percent of single young adults said they were open to an AI romantic relationship, and 1% said they already have one.

More than 1.6 million people searched for “AI girlfriend” online last year, according to Google data from research firm TRG Datacenters.

What’s more, a report from AI companion company Replika shows that 60% of its paying users describe themselves as being in a romantic relationship with the chatbot.

In accordance with the prophecy: 2013’s Her: Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson Go Twenty Minutes Into the Future of AI.

Posted at 9:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

ABE GREENWALD: In the Commentary newsletter, Greenwald explores “The Democrats’ Big Tentifada.”

Last week, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin went on PBS New Hour and explained that the Democrats’ “big tent” had plenty of room for anti-Semitism. When asked about Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” Martin offered the following, which I’ll quote in full for reasons explained below:

You know, there’s no candidate in this party that I agree 100 percent of the time with, to be honest with you. There’s things that I don’t agree with Mamdani that he said.

But at the end of the day, I always believe, as a Democratic Party chair in Minnesota for the last 14 years, and now the chair of the DNC, that you win through addition. You win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative Democrats. We have centrist Democrats. We have labor progressives like me. And we have this new brand of Democrat, which is the leftist.

And we win by bringing people into that coalition. And at the end of the day, for me, that’s the type of party we’re going to lead. We are a big-tent party. Yes, it leads to dissent and debate, and there’s differences of opinions on a whole host of issues. But we should celebrate that as a party and recognize, at the end of the day, we’re better because of it.*

The full answer is useful because it reveals both the fear and desperation of the Democratic Party. Forget that Martin is too scared to condemn Mamdani for not refuting intifada enthusiasts. Martin is too scared to even say that that’s one of the “things” he disagrees with Mamdani about.

No one who’s been monitoring the direction in which the Democrats have been heading should be surprised by Martin’s lack of interest in anti-Semitic incitement. All the energy is with the Squad types, who’ve been overtly and slimily anti-Israel for years.

To “celebrate” such incitement as a welcome voice in the conversation, however, is a bit striking. The truth is that Democrats are desperate for numbers. Martin says, you win through “addition” because polls show that the Dems have recently become masters at subtraction. They are intersectional losers, hemorrhaging voters among virtually every demographic group in the nation.

Whether they can make up for lost ground by inviting terrorist-sympathizers to join them is a bigger question for the country than for the Democrats. If one of the U.S.’s two major political parties makes a comeback with a platform that explicitly includes anti-Semitic anti-Zionism, that’s the end of the American experiment as far as I’m concerned.

* Plus ça change: 

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? First NYC, Now Minneapolis Primed for Commie Mayor.

Of course, people feel welcomed, unless they’re the kind of people who enjoy freedom, life, prosperity, and sanity. To people coming from a pirate-infested, impoverished, civil war-torn country like Somalia, Minnesota’s democratic ways are paradise, and there’s snow! How can this utopia possibly get any better? Omar Fateh has some ideas.

Born in Washington, D.C., to Somali parents, this 35-year-old with soooooo much life experience identifies as a Democratic Socialist; surely he’s had a class on Practical Application of Economic Policies while getting his Master’s in Public Administration from George Mason, right? Oh. Right. Moving on!

Unfortunately for him (and his donors, who might as well light their money on fire), his platform is full of ideas that have been tried and tried and tried again, and never worked.

Sending social workers to respond to 911 calls? It’s in there.*

Rent stabilization and publicly owned housing? You bet.

State-mandated wages for private companies? Yes.

Good luck, Murderapolis residents; as Kevin Williamson wrote in 2021: Minnesota Nasty: Minneapolis is a nice city no longer.

When Minneapolis was thriving, the entertainment district in the city’s core attracted both residents and visitors, and the tax dollars their merrymaking threw off became an important source of city revenue. That has died off. The immediately pressing economic question for the city is whether that business was gutted by the epidemic, in which case it may recover, or whether it was terrorized away by the riots and the crime wave, in which case it may not recover.

“If you took Hubert Humphrey and plopped him down in Minneapolis today, he wouldn’t recognize the place,” says Annette Meeks, a former Republican Party leader and head of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a conservative think tank. “It’s not the social upheaval — it’s just the rank craziness.” At the top of the hit parade of crazy are efforts, well under way, to completely abolish the city’s police department. The city’s charter commission kept a police-abolition measure off the ballot the last time around, ruling that the city charter has to be amended before such an action is taken, but a petition drive has been launched to make that happen. “They need 12,000 signatures to get it on the ballot,” Meeks says, “but they’re going for 20,000, overachievers that they are.”

Meeks paints a bleak picture of Minneapolis’s political environment: The Republicans moved out and fell into obscurity decades ago; the caucus system and ranked-choice voting create complexities that favor committed full-time political activists over civic-minded volunteer leaders; boutique radicalism has replaced such old-fashioned livability issues as park maintenance and crime; and the new breed of leaders can win by grandstanding on cultural issues rather than concentrating on the difficult work of seeing to it that the city is run well. On top of all this, Meeks says, is a shocking new viciousness as the manners and style of social media move into the real-world political space.

“It’s survival of the fittest,” she says, “and the radicals won.”

* This will end as well as it did just a few years ago:

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

KINSLEY GAFFE: Hoo Boy: Redditor Posts About Left’s ‘Project 2029’ and It’s Nothing but a Fascist’s Fantasy.

A couple of weeks ago, the Left announced it was creating its own agenda to mirror ‘Project 2025’ — the electoral boogeyman they tried scaring voters with.

Despite the fact that President Trump said he had no plans to implement ‘Project 2025,’ that was the narrative throughout the election cycle.

Redditors chimed in with their own vision for 2029, and it’s as fascist and fanatical as you’d imagine:

Click to enlarge.

These 2025-era Communists really are “liberals in a hurry:” Whether it’s Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, most communists wait until they’ve actually seized power before declaring “Food is now illegal!” (It goes without saying that “farting cows and airplanes” will also be banned.)

No word yet on when Project 2029 will also include:

9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.

10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand:

11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.

12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).

14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.

16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great [department stores] and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.

17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.

C’mon guys, show us that you’re as serious about nationalizing socialism as this Hugo Boss-clad Public Broadcasting employee is:

UPDATE: The Five Reasons Socialism Doesn’t Work.

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE (PROGRESSIVE) BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, ‘MAD-MANI’ STYLE:

Eric Adams was elected precisely because the people of New York wanted a return to law and order sanity after eight years of de Blasio’s progressive dumpster fire. Sadly, Adams proved to be too ethically compromised to effectively resist the flood of illegal immigrants – many of whom were dispatched on border state buses – who filled the Port Authority. Housed in luxury hotels at taxpayers’ expense, they tested New York City’s sanctuary resolve.

Motivated by his political survival instincts, Adams’ spine stiffened. Conveniently, he was summarily whacked with a federal prosecution. “More lawfare!” said his defenders. “Just following the facts where they lead,” countered the Justice Department careerists. Nonetheless, he and Donald Trump found common purpose – and this triggered Democrats in general and progressives in particular. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, naturally, called for Adams to step down “for the good of the city.” You know, the new mantra of the left: guilty until proven innocent.

What are the political odds on Mayor Adams winning against the Democratic Party blob that has just nominated 33-year-old anti-Israel, Marxist Zohran Mamdani as its mayoral nominee? Not good. Presently, far from a coin toss.

Adams and New York City have four months to mount a credible, winning opposition. It’s a window of political opportunity that would not exist if it were not for Trump’s gratuitously playing a lawfare card of his own in the form of a timely presidential pardon, giving Adams a new lease on life – and New Yorkers a last chance to inhabit a livable city.

Trump hasn’t yet nicknamed Mamdani “Mad-Mani,” so I’ll go ahead and do it for him. Whatever he’s called, he’s a real threat to the city.

I’m not sure how crazy I am about “Mad-Mani,” as a Trump-style pejorative epithet, to be honest. Whatever his myriad flaws and massive internal baggage, on the surface, Don Draper was the personification of JFK/Rat Pack-era Sinatra cool. Mamdani’s style seems a conscious rejection of that attitude.

But as Jim Geraghty writes, his opponents are doing everything they can to throw the race his way: Apparently, We Will Have Andrew Cuomo to Kick Around a Little Longer. “Mamdani has some major advantages heading into November, and one of them is that Cuomo, incumbent independent Eric Adams, and Republican Curtis Sliwa are the three men least likely to ever voluntarily withdraw from the race to help one of the other two.”

Exit questions: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mamdani? Democrats Don’t Have an Answer. “The meteoric rise of New York City Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani poses a major question for Washington Democrats—is his brand of Palestinian activism, economic interventionism, and pro-LGBTQ+ rhetoric the future of their party?”

Good and hard, fun city.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

FUN: To Hell With the NFA: The Full Auto Crosman M1 Carbine Air Gun. “We don’t typically talk a whole lot about airguns at Shooting News Weekly, but this is one I had to mention. For Father’s Day this year, my wife and kids snagged me a Crosman CFAM1, also known as a Crosman M1 carbine imitation that shoots standard 4.5mm BBs. Best yet is that it’s a select-fire BB gun. I didn’t know much about airguns, and I certainly didn’t know they make them in full-auto configurations.”

Posted at 5:52 pm by Stephen Green

CHANGE? Warsh Calls for ‘Regime Change’ at Fed.

Former Fed Gov. Kevin Warsh, considered to be a top contender to succeed Fed Chair Jerome Powell, said the central bank needs “regime change.”

“I think what we need is regime change at the Fed,” Warsh told Maria Bartiromo in an interview on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures that aired on Sunday. “And that’s not just about the chairman, it’s about a whole range of people, it’s about changing their mindset and their models, and frankly it’s about breaking some heads, because the way they’ve been doing business is not working.”

President Trump has been openly critical of Powell and has called on the central bank to cut interest rates, with no success. Fed officials have taken a cautious approach to rates in the face of mild inflation data.

Powell helped give us Bidenflation by acting late on rate hikes (and accommodating massive deficit spending), and now he’s late on rate cuts.

He isn’t very good at his job and needs to go.

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green

FASTER, PLEASE: “The Supreme Court cleared the way for the Education Department to fire half of its workforce on Monday, a move that advances President Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle the department. The high court’s decision in McMahon v. State of New York was issued 6-3 along ideological lines.”

UPDATE:

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll