Archive for 2025

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

MARK JUDGE: Ezra Klein and ‘The Demon in Democracy.’ “Recently on Hot Air, John Sexton explored a recent discussion that took place between Ross Douthat of the New York Times and liberal buzzkill Ezra Klein. Douthat asked a very fundamental question: How does the left define happiness? How do they think we should live, aside from a utopian idea of flying cars and perfect racial harmony? Klein badly booted the answer. . . . It has been an advantage on the right for people to say it’s good to be a father, or that it’s good to devote yourself to one person, or that it’s good to love God, or to go skateboarding, or to listen to A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. There are in fact times in our lives when we feel satiated, when we feel loved by our spouse or by God, when we look at children with joy and love or are stunned by a world of art. When life is good and we don’t need an arc to ‘bend towards’ anything. The demon in democracy says these feelings are a fraud. It is a demon whose war against happiness and push towards communism may cause the collapse of the United States.”

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: ‘Hollywood is desperate to hire my AI actress.’

If her supporters are to be believed, actress Tilly Norwood is on the verge of Hollywood superstardom. The London-based girl-next-door starlet, they say, is preparing to sign with a major talent agency.

But Tilly is not a success story from the UK theatre schools or a feel-good tale of a working-class actor with a latent skill for acting, like Owen Cooper, 15, who starred in hit Netflix drama Adolescence and became the youngest male actor to win an Emmy.

Instead, she is manufactured by artificial intelligence, and so is completely fake. She, or it, is poised to be the first AI actress to be signed by a real-life talent agency that normally works with humans, according to Tilly’s creator.

Whether that ambition comes true or not, Tilly’s creation is a sign of the challenge for the film industry as it grapples with whether AI talent can replace much more expensive real-life stars.

To paraphrase Mia Farrow in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, she’s not real, but you can’t have everything.

In any case, digital thespians have come a long way since 2015’s Star Wars: Rogue One.

CLUELESS COCONUT: Kamala Harris Has No Idea Why She Lost.

In Harris’s view, these extraordinary circumstances—voters prioritizing the economy—were uniquely unfair to her. “Part of the challenge with this very short campaign was that we had to focus on needs that felt more immediate, like how to deal with the grocery bill or the cost of childcare,” Harris explains with baffling earnestness, as if revealing the secrets of the universe to a room full of child actors.

The failed candidate is most relatable when blaming Joe Biden and the “recklessness” of his decision to run for reelection. Harris is not entirely wrong that Biden, who made her his running mate in 2020 because he was pressured into picking a black woman, set her up to fail. It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Harris when she recalls her maddening interactions with Joe, Dr. Jill, and their cabal of sycophants. For example, she describes her exasperated reaction when, moments after Biden had finished humiliating himself at the CNN debate, she was handed a sheet of talking points instructing her to declare victory and proclaim that Biden had “fought through his cold as he is fighting for the American people.” Girl, we feel you.

On the other hand, Harris was an awful candidate with horrible instincts and a unique capacity for incoherence. She thought picking Pete Buttigieg, a boring gay man, as a running mate was too risky, but not as risky as disavowing her infamous endorsement of taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal immigrants. That was a noble display of “character” that “voters respect.” She thinks Biden could only have picked her as vice president because she was the “most qualified and ready,” then admits she chose Tim Walz because of his loyalty and lack of ambition. If she’s still the most qualified, and the stakes for the country are so high, how will she explain her inevitable decision to leave politics for some comfy corporate board gig?

That sort of thing already happened in November, after Kamala spent the fall vacillating between calling Trump Hitler, seeking the endorsements of several earlier Hitlers, and then conceded to the current Hitler as if her earlier superheated language suddenly didn’t matter anymore:

IT WOULD TAKE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH:

“SCREW YOUR FREEDOM,” SLIGHT RETURN? Only One Man Can Save California.

There is always the essential man — the great man of history who heeds the call and knows his moment — whether that man be George Washington at our nation’s founding or Donald Trump at our nation’s rescue. Only one man can save the Golden State, only one man has the strength to bring down the tyranny of the California Democrat Party.

That man is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The task of cleaning out the state’s Augean Stables will require a Hercules — a part Schwarzenegger has played before, both on-screen and in Sacramento as a two-term governor of California, elected during a previous state crisis.

There is, however, a problem with this obvious solution. In 1990, the people of California passed Proposition 140, which prohibits candidates from serving more than two terms as governor. So, just as it was a gubernatorial recall election in 2003 that propelled Schwarzenegger into office, it seems that it would require another proposition undoing the failed reform of term limits to return him to the governorship.

Or would it?

What if Schwarzenegger ran for lieutenant governor and acted as the éminence grise of a Bianco or Hilton administration, campaigning on the slogan, “If you want me, vote for him!” Perhaps the brave Bianco or the clever Hilton could suggest this winning idea. No Republican has served as California’s governor since Schwarzenegger’s departure. But perhaps Schwarzenegger himself could change that.

If Californians are fortunate — if America is fortunate — Schwarzenegger will return to Sacramento, ably advising a conservative ally; and all who wish the Golden State well will rejoice to see him crush his Democrat enemies, drive them before him, and hear the lamentations of the Democrat women and their girly men. For the sake of all that is good, let it be so.

No thanks. I loved Arnold’s charismatic screen persona during his action movie heyday in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but he was the quintessential RINO during his time in office…

…And arguably worse after he left: Schwarzenegger to anti-maskers: ‘Screw your freedom.’

Something he was already tacitly saying two years earlier:

Or as Jim Treacher wrote in a now-paywalled Substack in 2021, “An Austrian loudmouth who scoffs at freedom and demands compliance with the government’s dictates… Why do I feel like I’ve heard this story before?”

FOR THOSE WHO NEVER HEARD: Dr. Voddie Baucham’s passing last week went mostly unnoticed in the secular Right media, but, even for those who don’t share his faith, his was a hugely significant life.

One need not be a Jesus follower on the Right to appreciate the immense significance of  Baucham’s incisive analysis, for example, of the cultural and political impact of the Left’s debilitating shift to personal identity (i.e. group, sexual preference, etc.) as the basis of one’s persuasiveness rather than reasoned logic and verifiable fact in public policy discussion. That begins at the 32:45 mark.

HillFaith normally doesn’t post videos stretching to 55 minutes, but Baucham’s last lecture, delivered September 17 at New Saint Andrews College, is both typical of his scholarship and persona, and worth remembering for years to come,

ERIC ADAMS DROPS OUT OF NYC MAYORAL RACE AMID INCREASING PRESSURE: ‘I know I cannot continue my campaign.’

Mayor Eric Adams is dropping out of New York City’s mayoral race amid escalating pressure to clear the crowded field in a last-ditch attempt to stop socialist Zohran Mamdani’s election to City Hall.

The bombshell move comes after weeks of back-and-forth over whether Adams would bow out of the race, in which he is polling fourth, far behind frontrunner Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and also, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

“It’s been an honor to be your mayor,” Adams said in a video announcement, according to a transcript obtained by The Post, touting his victories over his first term.

“Although our successes… I know I cannot continue my campaign,” he said.

“I strongly encourage who ever takes over City Hall to continue what we’ve done.”

Adams did not endorse any of the other candidates, and even took subtle swipes at Mamdani and Cuomo — issuing a warning about local government being used to launder radical ideals and urging voters not to elect a mayor who’s flip-flopped on the issues.

So what’s next for Fun City should Mamdani win in November? “They’re Going To Florida” — How Mamdani Will Change NYC.