July 13, 2025

OPEN THREAD: It’s fancy.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

TODAY SESAME STREET, TOMORROW THE WORLD! Elmo’s X account hacked? Sesame Street character trolls Trump, demands Epstein files in viral rant.

The official X account of popular Sesame Street character Elmo appeared to be hacked on Sunday, with some new posts urging President Donald Trump to release the Epstein files and calling him Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘puppet’. The account was restored after the brief hack, and all derogatory posts were deleted.

One tweet from the Elmo account read: “Elmo says ALL JEWS SHOULD DIE. F**K JEWS. DONALD TRUMP IS NETANYAHU’S PUPPET BECAUSE HE IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES. JEWS CONTROL THE WORLD AND NEED TO BE EXTERMINATED.”

“RELEASE THE FILES @realDonaldTrump CHILD F****R,” another post on X, platform formerly known as Twitter, read.

The account has not confirmed the alleged hack yet. We do not know who was behind these tweets.

We do know the hacker isn’t familiar with Elmo’s backstory: Elmo puppeteer cleared of under-age sex claim.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time that Elmo has let his antisemitic freak flag fly; it happened before in 2013: ‘Anti-Semitic Elmo’ goes to jail.

A man who gained notoriety for going on anti-Semitic rants while dressed in an Elmo muppet suit in New York was sentenced to a year in jail for trying to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts, where he worked briefly on a computer project.

Dan Sandler, who has used the name Adam Sandler as well, showed no remorse for his crimes and said as much to Judge Robert Stolz as he was sentenced at the Manhattan Criminal Court, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

“This is not the case of someone in the back room of the office trying to embezzle money — this is more of a protest, like laying down in the intersection,” Sandler said. “I am in no way sorry to the Girl Scouts organization, because I think they are a corrupt organization.”

No word yet if Elmo is joining the Mamdani campaign, or if Grok has suddenly decided to become Sesame Street’s community organizer.

UPDATE: Or when Tucker will be “just asking questions” to Elmo:

Posted at 9:25 pm by Ed Driscoll

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Hegseth tears up red tape, orders Pentagon to begin drone surge at Trump’s command.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued sweeping new orders to fast-track drone production and deployment, allowing commanders to procure and test them independently and requiring drone combat simulations across every branch of the military.

As part of an aggressive push to outpace Russia and China in unmanned warfare, “the Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off,” Hegseth wrote. “Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions… Our major risk is risk-avoidance.”

In a pair of memos first obtained by Fox News Digital, Hegseth rescinded legacy policies that he believes restricted innovation. For the first time, commanders with the rank of colonel or captain can independently procure and test drones, including 3D-printed prototypes and commercial-off-the-shelf systems, as long as they meet national security criteria.

They can also operate and train with drones immediately, bypassing traditional approval bottlenecks, and are even authorized to test non-lethal autonomous UAS in controlled environments.

Drones could radically alter the battlefield including the use of armor: Ukraine teaches us how to build a tank which can survive and win on a drone battlefield.

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU JOE BIDEN’S POTUS ACCOUNT:

Posted at 7:06 pm by Stephen Green

IS THE NEW YORK TIMES A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER? OF COURSE IT IS: Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family? The column was written by David Litt, a former Obama speechwriter whose smugness is almost as overwhelming as his boss:

Not too long ago, I felt a civic duty to be rude to my wife’s younger brother.

I met Matt Kappler in 2012, and it was immediately clear we had nothing in common. He lifted weights to death metal; I jogged to Sondheim. I was one of President Barack Obama’s speechwriters and had an Ivy League degree; he was a huge Joe Rogan fan and went on to get his electrician’s license. My early memories of Matt are hazy — I was mostly trying to impress his parents. Still we got along, chatting amiably on holidays and at family events.

Then the pandemic hit, and our preferences began to feel like more than differences in taste. We were on opposite sides of a cultural civil war. The deepest divide was vaccination. I wasn’t shocked when Matt didn’t get the Covid shot. But I was baffled. Turning down a vaccine during a pandemic seemed like a rejection of science and self-preservation. It felt like he was tearing up the social contract that, until that point, I’d imagined we shared.

Had Matt been a friend rather than a family member, I probably would have cut off contact completely. As it was, on the rare and always outdoor occasions when we saw each other, I spoke in disapproving snippets.

“Work’s been good?”

“Mhrmm.”

My frostiness wasn’t personal. It was strategic. Being unfriendly to people who turned down the vaccine felt like the right thing to do. How else could we motivate them to mend their ways?

Still though, could be worse:

In any case, if all your lefty cousins suddenly come out of the woodwork this week, blame the Gray Lady:

Flashback: The Smug Style in American Liberalism.

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

RIDE THE MAMDANI RECURSION!

Flashback: Cuomo should thank Mamdani for making him look like the safe, stable choice for NYC mayor.

Speaking of the former LovGuv, “Cuomo is expected to announce this week that he is staying in the race as an independent for the mayor of New York City, sources told NewsNation.”

Otherwise: Mamdani is the mayor New York Democrats deserve. As Ed Koch was quoted as saying when he lost his primary against David Dinkins, “The people have spoken, and now they must be punished.” (And boy, were they.)

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

OUT ON A LIMB: How Live Aid ruined music forever.

Forty years ago this month, Bob Geldof unleashed his “global jukebox”. With the help of Midge Ure and promoter Harvey Goldsmith, he staged a concert across two venues on either side of the Atlantic, starting at midday on Saturday July 13 1985 in London and ending at the John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia 16 hours later.

Around the world, 1.7 billion people tuned in, and it is seen as one of the great charity success stories of all time, raising $140 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.*

Live Aid was so big that it has its own folklore: Status Quo’s backstage antics, Bono’s messiah impression, Phil Collins hopping on Concorde to play both venues, Geldof swearing on TV and, of course, Queen’s show-stealing performance.

Yet Live Aid’s impact on music itself is often overlooked – perhaps because no-one wants to sound uncharitable. But the truth is that it was a disaster. In Britain, up until this point, we had enjoyed a long tradition of innovation and reinvention, but this brace of charity concerts changed all that, although few people noticed at the time. It resuscitated artists on life support, invented the idea of a concert as a greatest hits parade, strangled the “second British invasion” of great pop acts in America, and provided the model for a new consumerism, encouraging us to purchase (or repurchase on compact disc) the back catalogue of musicians who had been slipping out of public consciousness for a decade

Ultimately, Live Aid heralded an era of musical regurgitation and nostalgia, an era from which we have never escaped.

* It didn’t do very well in that department, either: The Terrible Truth About ‘Live Aid.’

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

LARRY ELDER: Ex-Dem Rep: The N-Word Causes Cancer.

Remember former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) who got censured for pulling the fire alarm in the Capitol Building as lawmakers prepared to vote to prevent a government shutdown? He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, paid a $1,000 fine and lost the next Democrat primary.

He’s back.

Bowman, appearing last week as a panelist on MSNBC, said, “The reason why heart disease and cancer and obesity and diabetes are bigger in the black community is because of the stress we carry from having to deal with being called the n-word directly or indirectly every day.”

* * * * * * * *

As for Bowman, where does one start? The stress of being called “the n-word directly or indirectly” makes heart disease, cancer and diabetes “bigger in the black community”?!

Other than in rap music or from black comedians, when was the last time a black person heard the n-word uttered directed at him or her? How is one subjected to the n-word “indirectly”? Is it like secondhand smoke? If someone says the n-word within a two-block radius, is it tantamount to being denied the front seat on a bus, prevented from voting or beaten by a racist cop? Where is the typical black person subjected to the n-word directly or indirectly? At work, at church, in a restaurant, on a bus or at Costco?

When does Bowman begin organizing the cleanup of rap music? If it saves just one life…

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND:

Exit question:

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

TREEHOUSE OF HORROR:

But don’t try to build a treehouse on your own property in L.A., as Adam Carolla mentioned in a podcast interview a few months ago. (Full disclosure, this is a YouTube transcript of the interview that was cleaned up and reformatted by ChatGPT and lightly edited by me):

Carolla: The city’s in the process of tearing down a beautiful treehouse that was in the front of a home—the Simpsons guy—in Sherman Oaks. And they’re tearing that down. Meanwhile, you go two blocks over and people are building homes—homeless people—out of plywood and yield signs and Visqueen [plastic sheeting], under the freeway, on the sidewalk, so moms pushing strollers have to walk in the street.

The city has no interest in these guys building illegal homes on the sidewalk, but they have a grand interest in people building treehouses for the neighborhood kids on their [own] property.

Interviewer 1: Did you see this story?

Interviewer 2: No, the treehouse story?

Interviewer 1: It is insane. This guy—like 30, 40 years ago—was one of the guys from The Simpsons. He made this beautiful treehouse in a tree, and it’s been there, I think, since the 1980s? ’70s?

Carolla: No, I think it’s about 20 years.

Interviewer 1: So it’s been there, but the city now says he needs to comply with zoning regulations for the treehouse. He has to pull permits, he needs to do ground structural testing of the treehouse. He’s spent $50,000 defending this in court, and it’s about to go to a jury.

And he says, “You know what? I give up. I don’t want to spend another $50,000 defending myself in a jury trial just to have a chance at keeping the treehouse.”

Interviewer 2: That’s incredible.

Interviewer 1: It’s a treehouse. There it is, right there.

Interviewer 2: Yeah, I see it. That’s beautiful.

It’s known as a landmark in the area. In fact, we could drive by it.

I would love to see it.

Yeah, we could film some. My friend has a house in a really nice part of Los Angeles. Right next to his house is a two-story tent. He’s lived in that house now for a couple of years. Every single time I drive to his house, you have this massive, like, tent mansion—which, don’t hate me—but it looks really nice.

And the person there is very aggressive. Every time I drive by—well, not every time, but quite a few times—they’ll come out of their tent and start yelling things. I’ve seen them yelling at pedestrians on the sidewalk—obscenities. It’s not a good situation. But this person—no one stops them from living there.

And it’s, like I said, a full-on massive house.

Carolla: Well, so what we just did is sort of illustrate—with the treehouse, which the city is very vigorous about and says needs to come down—versus the shanty house, which they have no interest in, because that guy’s an empty bag. He has no money to give them.

Now, my feeling is: you have to pick a lane as a city. Here’s optimal, and then unacceptable.

Optimal is: places where you take down the shanty town that’s built under the freeway overpass or built on the freeway or in the LA River. Optimal is that the city would enforce that and take down those dangerous structures where people deal drugs and insane people live.

All right, take those down. And their policy toward a guy who built a treehouse on his own property would be: the guy’s paying taxes, people seem to like it, and it looks good from here. He’s an American. Leave him alone. It’s his property. Okay? That’s optimal.

Middle ground is: look, we’re going to let that guy in his Visqueen plywood house build on a sidewalk. But if you want to build a treehouse, I guess that’s your business. At least we’re consistent. He’ll build something, you’ll build something—we won’t get involved.

L.A. is the worst, which is: not going to do anything about the plywood house on the sidewalk; full weight of the law on the homeowner and taxpayer.

That’s why people leave. And they don’t get it. And they somehow think it’s progress or something. But the blue-est cities are the toughest on taxpayers and the easiest on criminals.

Interviewer 1: So, if you were governor, what would you change?

Carolla: The first thing would be the regulatory system. You can’t make it impossible to build or start a business or whatever because of the regulations. It’s so overregulated that people just physically leave. That would be number one.

In the meantime, gooder and harder, California. (Discussion above starts at about the nine minute mark.)

Related:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Dolphins Got Giant Testicles. We Got a Chin. Only One Makes Sense.

They both make sense when you realize it’s all about sex. Dolphins mate a lot, and need a lot of sperm. Human chicks dig a manly chin, and are more likely to mate with men who have them.

You can put my Nobel in the mail.

Posted at 1:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

ANDREW FERGUSON: A Funny Thing About Dave Barry.

A long time ago, in a media environment far, far away, an editor walked into my office and dropped a pile of books by Dave Barry on my desk. “Here’s an idea,” he said. “Read these and figure out how he does it.”

At the time, Barry was a weekly humor columnist at the Miami Herald, which, at the time, was a newspaper. By tradition, humor columns in newspapers were pretty dreary. For one thing, labeling any piece of writing “humor” discourages discerning readers from finding it funny; discerning readers like to decide these things for themselves. Beyond this terrible handicap, newspaper humorists shared a problem with their employers: They had to satisfy, or at least not offend, a large enough audience to stay in business, which encouraged a timidity and blandness that made humor nearly impossible. Too much humor could get a humorist fired.

Dave Barry was different. Dave Barry was funny—and not just funny but consistently funny, line by line and paragraph to paragraph, week after week. Yet he was astonishingly popular. By the late 1980s, the Herald was syndicating his column to more than 500 newspapers. (Yes! The world once contained 500 newspapers!) A TV network created a situation comedy about him, Dave’s World, which ran for four seasons. Even more: He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. A Pulitzer itself is nearly meaningless as a measure of quality—Thomas L. Friedman has won three of them—but anyone who can get a laugh out of the self-important, humor-impaired stiffs who sit on Pulitzer committees deserves a prize. You might as well try to jolly up a board of oncologists or the docents at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER TERROR-FAMINE:

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll